The world of work and learning has been disrupted – how will you react?
We are ready to reveal more insight from our study which has uncovered simple and effective ways learning Professionals can take advantage of the development challenges the workforce continues to face.
The insights have revealed 5 essential elements that leading learning Professionals integrate into their work and wellbeing to ‘supercharge’ their value and impact. The 5 elements act as guiding principles and are: Self-compassion, Personal impact, Professional impact, Evidence-based Learning and Adaptability.
We were delighted with the participation in our study. Members of the eLN, non-members and people outside of L&D all shared their views, giving us opportunity to analyse insights from multiple sources inside and outside of the Learning profession.
As well as participation, we also noticed the incredible spectrum of Professional expertise. L&D is rapidly transforming, and as it grows, the expertise is becoming more complex as you can see from the visual below. Participants in our study design and/or manage over 23 different types of Learning technology.
Both Confidence & Capability of Learning Professionals were revealed as areas of opportunity for the profession, with the ability to be evidence-based and quantity, value, and impact as the main areas of development. Only 11% of participants in our study are always evidence-informed and this is clearly holding Professionals back.
Although Learning Professionals are aware that they need development, many revealed that they are working longer hours and feel more anxious/tired, but they have not been able to prove their value and impact. One of the other main challenges Professionals face is knowing where to gain appropriate and effective accreditations/experiences, with only 6% of participants aware of how to easily develop what they need and only 28% saying they strongly agree/agree it is easy to progress their career.
Diversity, ethics, inclusion and belonging were also revealed as an area of significant opportunity for the Learning Profession. Only 8% strongly agree that the industry openly drives the right behaviours and only 7% strongly agree they industry openly drives equal opportunities for all.
Although the study highlighted many disruptions and challenges for the majority of Professionals who shared their insights, our study also revealed valuable correlations in high impact Learning Professionals. These common themes have allowed us to analyse deeper insights and share 5 elements that ‘Supercharge’ high impact Professionals. Learning Professionals who drive these 5 are managing to ride the waves and turn the disruptions to their advantage.
5 critical elements that Supercharge Learning Professionals
- Self-compassion – Fitting your own mask before helping others. Coaching self and others to manage energy, find balance and space to learn – innovating.
- Evidence-based learning – Integrating proven learning approaches and ‘testing’ new virtual/hybrid opportunities to drive a culture of learning that makes a measurable difference within your context.
- Personal impact – Business talk. Showcasing your story and influencing to drive advocation of the learning culture you are striving to embed.
- Professional Impact – Dynamic networking with a wide variety of people from both within your organisation, industry and outside, to add value to your practice.
- Adaptability – Distilling all the elements to track and trace that the levels of adaptability are aligned for today and for future generations.
Why not self-assess your value and impact against the 5 elements.
One area to work on is the area of providing proof so that you mitigate cognitive bias. You could also ask trusted colleagues to give you feedback. Let us know what you think about becoming Supercharged and how you get on in the comments below!
