Learning and Development: what employees want versus what employers need

With the skills crisis - particularly in tech - stubbornly refusing to go away, the smartest companies are looking to plug the gaps by upskilling or reskilling their existing people, or growing their own talent. 

At the same time, employees are increasingly looking for much more than just a job; they want exciting work and the chance to grow and improve their skills and career.

A recent survey by Docebo found more than 8 in 10 people (83%) saw learning and development (L&D) as a vital factor in their choice of employer.

Certainly, whenever I am involved in interviews, arguably the most frequently asked question I hear from candidates is ‘what opportunities are there to develop myself at your company?’

And while Millennials and Gen Z undoubtedly view work a little differently from older generations, I am noticing staff of all ages taking greater interest in their own professional development. It’s a marked shift in attitude, rather than a genuine generational difference.

Addressing L&D from both a skills gap and staff development point of view requires businesses to invest in solid planning. But huge care needs to be taken to balance what your business needs its employees to know with what your people want to learn.

Balancing wants and needs

A top priority must be getting your senior management team on board and engaged with your L&D plan, so behaviour is modelled from the very top. If you succeed with this, a genuine thirst for learning will filter down through the organisation, creating an engaged workforce who want to develop their careers.

The topics people want to learn about can be hugely varied - but I am seeing a growing trend of employees wanting much more from their learning than just tuning into a webinar or sitting in a classroom watching someone present a PowerPoint.

It’s time to think wider than these traditional ways of learning. So ask yourself three overarching questions – is formal training what we really need?; what changes do we want to see?; and are there other ways to achieve all that?

Everyone has different preferences and styles when it comes to how they learn. Peer-to-peer learning, either through mentoring or shadowing a colleague, remains a favourite, but I am seeing more requests than ever for advice on how best to give and receive feedback, especially from managers.

So much more training is done online these days, allowing people to learn at their own pace, from wherever they happen to be.

This has its place - but there’s still great value in getting people into the same room for a brainstorm, working on a group project together, or attending a conference in person to hear from industry experts. The key is to provide a variety of different opportunities.

‘Mandatory training’ that employers need their people to complete for compliance reasons - such as security awareness – has often tended to strike fear into employees.

We always recommend L&D teams look at this through the eyes of their learners and make this type of training a more engaging experience. If mandatory training is uninspiring and boring, you risk tarnishing the reputation of all the L&D on offer, and turning your people off learning altogether.

So, ditch that dull e-learning module. If you can keep the ‘need to learn’ experience enjoyable and positive, it will encourage more people to sign up for non-mandatory learning.

Sometimes there is also the need for ‘regular training’ - management development, for example – to ensure consistency in knowledge across a group of staff. This can feel repetitive for those people who have already completed it, so finding a good balance here is key too.

We build a lot of our own L&D content internally, which allows us control over it; but we also offer everyone their own dedicated personal learning budgets, to spend how they choose with external training providers. This flexibility is very popular.

Growing your own talent to plug the gap

Growing your own talent, through graduate programmes or internships, also has significant business advantages. When you bring someone into your company at entry level, and you then find a position that is right for them once they complete their programme, the chances are they are already fully engaged with your business and culture, and committed and motivated to continue learning.

You can always train good people on the specific skills they need for their role, but a desire to learn is something you can’t teach.

It might not be realistic to fill every single vacancy this way, but I firmly believe it should be an important part of every corporate toolkit.

Nearly half of our own 'emerging careers’ intake has come to us through a ‘boot camp’ or other fast-track training programme, which have become some of the most popular routes into the tech sector, especially for career-changers.

I can’t praise these programmes enough. These young people might not be coming to us with all the technical skills they need, but their attitude to learning means they pick them up in no time.

L&D comes in many forms. But only by listening to and understanding your people, can something be built that really works both for them and your business.

And above all, resist the temptation to do what you’ve always done before.

By approaching everything with a high-quality learning experience in mind, you’ll soon have an L&D plan that gets your people and your senior management equally enthused.