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Home / Resources / ​6 skills enhancement tips to unlock potential and…

​6 skills enhancement tips to unlock potential and…

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In today’s ultra-competitive business environment, employing people who are always on top of their game sets successful companies apart from the rest.

Continuously upskilling talent is also a core part of creating an agile business operating model that can respond quickly to changing market conditions.

Corporate learning – why it’s missing the mark

Whether your top business goal is to improve sales, boost customer service or increase output, skills enhancement has a crucial role to play. Providing learning that meets the needs of employees, and in doing so, the needs of the business, sounds obvious, doesn’t it?

However, evidence suggests there’s a disconnect between the training that’s required and the training that’s being offered.

49% of UK workers say their skills are mismatched with their job role (CIPD)

46% of workers don’t think their L&D department understands or can help with their performance needs (Towards Maturity)

30% of learners believe the workplace learning content isn’t relevant to them (Towards Maturity)

The result of all this? Employees don’t have the skills they need to perform at their best. People become demoralised; they feel frustrated; they experience lower job satisfaction and a crisis in confidence. The knock-on for businesses is reduced productivity and squeezed profits (CIPD).

Getting the right learning to your people is a necessity to help you get ahead.

Grow your employees, grow your business

Take a step back and consider your own experiences. Think how much happier you are when you know how to do a job; when you have confidence in your abilities; when you know you have the skills to stretch yourself and meet a new challenge.

Imagine if everyone in your business – from leadership to the frontline – feels like this, every day.  It needn’t be a fantasy if effective learning is in place, that targets employees’ needs and allows them to practice at their own pace.

Innovative digital learning that enhances employee skills can help organisations meet all the key priorities – including these six big hitters.

  • Leadership development: Interactive videos and real-life scenarios were used to help leaders at the UK’s Royal Mail to adopt new approaches to resolve challenging situations, giving them the skills to confidently turn difficult conversations with staff into positive ones.
  • Culture: An ethical culture, focused around every day decision-making, was embedded at global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, with a learner-centric digital learning programme that was built using the latest learning theories and design principles.
  • Compliance: The award-winning Learning Leap global compliance campaign we designed for Tesco made the learning experience fun, engaging and easy to understand for employees across 11 countries. The training had huge impact, with the retailer saying it “transformed” the way it safeguards its reputation and protects the interests of its customers.
  • Health & safety: Virtual reality added bite to dog safety awareness training for the UK’s postmen and women, bringing real stories to life and creating experiential scenarios. The training is an example of how latest technologies can be used cost-effectively, particularly for roles that are potentially hazardous.
  • Customer service: Sponge created a triple award-winning blended learning campaign for advisors at AXA Business Insurance’s UK contact centre. The training gave front-line staff the skills to have purposeful, meaningful interactions with customers, leading to positive comments more than doubling and official complaints being cut by a quarter.
  • Sales: Two-thirds (65%) of sales people increase sales with microlearning. Here’s why. Microlearning builds employee knowledge using proven scientific principles. Short bursts of knowledge, boosted by reinforcement, keeps sales teams up to speed and confident about new and changing products so then can seal the deal. Utilising technologies such as AI, microlearning also delivers personalised, adaptive learning based on the needs of each person.

Isn’t it time to unlock the potential of your people?

A well-designed skills enhancement programme that matches learning to employee’s needs brings out the best in your people. And aligned to goals, it maximises business potential, too. Everyone’s happy!