The business disruption, economic uncertainty, and rapid acceleration of automation caused by pandemic have many unpleasant outcomes for the workforce to face. There has been a pertinent shift towards scaling up digital operations across verticals with a greater focus on Learning & Development (L&D). Today, the need is to understand that why L&D interventions require customisation and how positively will it impact internal mobility for an organisation?

The recent survey report reveals that 64 per cent of the Indian workforce are most likely to leave their jobs if their employers don’t invest in their skill development. Workers, managers, business leaders, and HR professionals are all feeling the pressure to upskill and reskill. Six out of ten say that pandemic and the resulting business disruption have accelerated their need to acquire new skills.

As L&D leaders across the industries agreed on one point that they are highly focused on rebuilding their learning and upskilling strategies. In this BW Businessworld’s exclusive report, L&D professionals talk about this monumental leap and echoes that skill-building and internal mobility will be the critical pillars for organizational growth in the year 2021.

Don’t Just Hire, Acquire The Best

The World Economic Forum’s report published in October last year claims that the pandemic will shift the division of labour between humans and machines, causing 85 million jobs to be displaced and 97 million new ones to be created by 2025. These numbers are signalling an enormous opportunity to transform learning and development (L&D) interventions and train employees to be the best-fit talent for an organisation.

“Post the pandemic, hybrid work culture is here to stay with independence and flexibility to work which will only prove to be a win-win situation for both the organisation and its employees,” anticipates Harshita Khanna, Chief People Officer, Home Credit India. “We believe in building leaders within the organization and we constantly invest in our employees to hone them to become leaders of our organization,” adds Khanna.

As they say, “Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react, and reinvent.” Living in the hybrid work model today, the workforce is experiencing numerous challenges but agility is one thing that can drive them through.

It is worrying to note that there is only 23 per cent of women participation in the workforce today as compared to 43 per cent two decades back. The pandemic also brought to light the challenges that women professionals face. At upGrad for Business, through the Women in Science, Data, Organisational Behaviour and Management (WISDOM) initiative, they wanted to champion this change and equip organisations to capitalise on the potential of women professionals, explains Minaxi Indra, President- upGrad for Business.

Internal Mobility: A Win-Win Scenario

According to a survey, nearly 73 per cent of the Indian workforce believe that their core job skill will become obsolete within the next 5 years. These figures are making employees feel more vulnerable as the skills are at risk in these highly volatile and changing times.

Internal mobility has ‘return on investment (ROI)’ that is easy to quantify, resulting in higher engagement and retention. L&D leaders are tirelessly working to introduce apt career ladder programs with the objective to develop prospective employees with desired skillsets and encourage them to seek various career opportunities within the company.

More than half (51%) of L&D leaders globally report internal mobility is even more of a priority since the pandemic struck. Experts are seeing a sizable rise in internal mobility and are happening all across the globe. “Every CHRO must focus on building efficiencies in internal processes so that everyone within the eco-system stands to gain, considering the times we are working in,” points out Santanu Banerjee, CHRO, Bajaj Allianz Life.

Considering the upsurge in focus on L&D, 64 per cent of L&D professionals globally agrees that L&D has shifted from ‘nice to have' to ‘need to have.' In a highly uncertain work culture today, in order to ‘future proof’ employees, arming them with skills needed in the new normal is again at the top of the list for people leaders.

“Learning and development interventions in new-age technology along with ensuring people getting upskilled and cross skilled has been one key driver for the teams. With the IT industry standing at a crucial juncture, it is imperative to upskill ourselves and be future-ready,” says Neeru Mehta, VP, People Function, HR Leadership, GlobalLogic

Moving Ahead

Around 49 per cent of the workforce in India have invested their time in learning to be able to perform a different function internally. In this way, skill-building and internal movement of employees to more strategic role make talent a renewable resource.

Learning and development leaders and HR professionals need to ace it all and make deliberate efforts to understand the challenges employees are facing while working in contrasting environments. This is an era of nurturing agility, building resilience and digital fluency. Upskilling and training for the right skill can take an employee efficiency from good to great which will further amplify organizational and business growth.