Learning and skills at work

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented upheaval over the past year. As organisations went into survival mode during lockdown, learning and development (L&D) functions were presented with significant challenges. Many faced reduced budgets, changing demands, and not least the sudden switch to full digital delivery as face-to-face learning became restricted.

However, for some organisations and their learning teams, the crisis has proved to be an opportunity: to refresh their alignment with organisational needs, examine the enablers of collaboration and learning, to embrace digital technology and support employee reskilling and redeployment at a time of ongoing workforce disruption.

In this still uncertain climate, our research underscores the need for organisations to be curious, to step outside of their comfort zones and embrace new ways of delivering learning with impact for the digital age.

Explore the research findings

Download our survey report for full details of our findings and recommendations. Complementing the report is a set of case studies of seven high-profile organisations and their L&D journey through the pandemic. Their experiences will serve as helpful examples for those looking to steer their course through what may be a protracted and complex post-pandemic recovery.

Key findings

• Around a third of organisations report reductions in budgets, L&D headcount and use of external consultants. Organisations who had been more severely impacted by the pandemic have had to make greater cuts to learning budgets. 
  
  
• Only 18% of organisations think that their learning strategy, investment and resourcing will go back to what it was before the pandemic. 
  
  
• Despite the seismic shift to digital learning, take-up of technologies that have the potential to make learning more engaging and effective, remains low. The proportion using mobile apps, chatbots, VR and AR animations or games is largely unchanged from last year. 
  
  
• Organisations that adopt a more sophisticated approach to technology create a virtuous circle, generating an increased appetite for learning.  
  
  
• Compared with last year, a greater proportion say their learning strategy is aligned with business priorities and the vast majority report that they are clear about the way learning adds value in their organisation. 
  
  
• The switch from traditional forms of learning to digital has in some cases improved the way individuals support each other; there has been a significant upswing in the proportion of organisations saying they develop and maintain a climate of trust, as well as a rise in those that say employees are supporting each other to learn.  
  
  
• Since last year, a greater proportion of organisations say they have assessed the impact of automation and how to redeploy employees affected (51%) as well as how roles are changing and how to reskill to meet these needs (64%).  
  
  
• Organisations are more confident about their ability to address current skills gaps, with 72% reporting that they are able to effectively tackle skills gaps. 
  
  
• While more organisations had online facilitator roles in place, only a minority had design roles, such as learning technologist/product owner (11%), digital asset creator (7%) and instructional designers (11%).  
  
  
• Only a third of L&D professionals say they are proactive in identifying performance issues before recommending a solution, and only a quarter design and make recommendations using evidence-informed principles to address those issues. 

Recommendations

In light of the survey findings, and acknowledging the huge impact of the pandemic on organisations, we set out a number of calls to action for practitioners: