Strategic Human Capital Insights

This blog was co-authored by Joanne Flynn, Jim Bosserman and Debbie Gower.  This article brings together perspectives and research from three strategic performance and learning and development professionals.

What happens when you make learning a strategic investment in your people?  You “move the dial” on individual and organizational agility and, thus, the performance of the business.

In our series demonstrating why learning and development (L&D) is critical to an organization’s success, we offered points of view about:

• L&D’s “War to Develop Talent” to support organizational growth and change initiatives
• Leadership’s “Make or Break” role in L&D
• “Taking People with You” to develop a readied and enabled workforce
  
  

Discover more about the Learning Function itself and its true need to:

• Establish an active partnership with business operations to understand changing business and related workforce L&D needs
• Validate the results-driven connection between L&D investments and desired business outcomes
• Touch the “minds and hearts” of the workforce to reinforce the commitment to individual and collective organizational improvements
  

This blog was co-authored by Joanne Flynn, Jim Bosserman and Debbie Gower.  This article brings together perspectives and research from three strategic performance and learning and development professionals.

What happens when you make learning a strategic investment in your people?  Discover two real life stories showing how “taking people with you” achieves business performance objectives.  

This is the third post in our series demonstrating why learning and development (L&D) is critical to an organization’s success. We’ve previously set the stage for 1) why L&D needs to elevate its game to support organizational growth and change initiatives and  2) leadership’s “make or break” role in L&D.  Today we highlight the workforce … the “arm” of the organization that executes strategy and a key differential for success.

This blog was co-authored by Joanne Flynn, Jim Bosserman and Debbie Gower.  This article brings together perspectives and research from three strategic performance and learning and development professionals.

As we described in last week’s discussion, the first blog in our learning & development (L&D) series, L&D is critical to an organization’s success. It’s not surprising that CEO’s of organizations continue to assert that talent is their #1 or #2 concern, particularly as it relates to skill gaps. [1]

Significant business change typically requires:

1. Reassessment of business strategies, operating models, organization structures and competencies (i.e., knowledge, skills and behaviors) to address the very nature of work being performed
2. Answering the questions of our people: “How do I get my job done to my very best ability?” and “What is in it for me?”

For many organizations, the sales function is the front line of the marketplace. Keeping the sales function aligned with strategic goals can and does significantly impact growth. So, how could you ensure your current sales function is robust, ready, and up-skilled to accomplish the task? When is it appropriate to determine if it is time for learning and development to play a part in accelerating strategic growth goals?  

This blog was co-authored by Joanne Flynn, Jim Bosserman, and Debbie Gower. This article combines perspectives and research from three strategic performance and learning and development professionals.

What is the role of Learning & Development (L&D) in an organization’s growth and transformation?

What is the role of L&D in dealing with continuous change?

6 Key L&D Strategic Issues

Learning & Development is critical to an organization’s success. Although the “war for talent” focused attention and efforts on recruiting since the late 1990’s[1], the “war to develop talent”[2] recently emerged more prominently on CEO agendas. Why?  Concerns over talent shortages and skill gaps have created obvious obstacles to achieving business performance and transformation goals.

As a result, the investment and ROI to elevate organizational learning functions has become just as, if not more, important as “buying” talent through the recruiting function.

According to a recent Fortune article, “Why Startups Fail, According to Their Founders,” founders / CEOs feel pressure to “keep up the façade of success, even when things are actually falling apart behind the scenes.”  So, how do we avoid some of the most common traps and keep your start-up on course?

2 Leadership Milestones on The Upskilling Journey– A Personal Story

The background to this blog in Part I: I was off to a marketing conference to learn more about recent developments with our inbound marketing platform, new products and new functions.  This literal and figurative journey was overwhelming, to say the least.  Read Part I of this series for the full background.

Below are two issues that leaders must lead their people through on the individual upskilling journey. 

1. Knowledge Inadequacy and Emotional Angst

Leadership: Factor these feelings into the upskilling process.  To ignore this is unthinkable.  Proceed at your own risk!

Some people may look at all this new inbound marketing information and be excited. I face this new reality with trepidation.  I understand marketing, however, marketing technology is not as familiar to me.  I still classify myself as a beginner. These feelings do not inspire confidence. I have an admittedly low competence level with marketing technology tools.  I also recognize there is no denying or avoiding this new knowledge and skills reality. It’s here to stay.  To deny or avoid this new operating reality would create grave business consequences for my newly-launched business.  

What is Upskilling? 

Organizations face continuous change as the 'new normal'.’ To meet these changing business demands, every person in the organization must critically look at their current knowledge levels and skill sets and measure them against the current and anticipated required task benchmarks. The frustration for an individual and an organization is that as soon as you get the required knowledge and skill sets, it is very likely that the benchmark will shift once again. It is often reflected in the statements, "I'm dancing as fast as I can," or the famous treadmill analogy," I'm running faster and faster just to stay in place."

It’s never too early to start managing people, your most important asset.  Increase the ROI of your people investment.  Focus on improving financial results by unlocking human capital potential. 

We recently held a Lunch & Learn in partnership with the Arizona Technology Council on September 25, 2014.

Start-up and high-growth companies, by their very nature, are fast-paced and change continually.  Every person in every role will make a critical, strategic difference.  There is no room for error and no place to hide. During the Lunch & Learn with the Arizona Technology Council, attendees learned how to take a disciplined approach to strategic human capital planning focusing on business agility and unlocking the strength of your people.