Personalized learning journeys: Building a future-ready workforce

About a decade ago, most organizations relied on a one-size-fits-all approach to training. This meant conducting the same kind of training programs for all employees, regardless of their experience, designation, or role. While this can still be useful for compliance training and basic soft skills programs, it fails to meet the needs of today's workers, who expect personalized offerings that help them grow in their career. 

A number of factors—including tech growth, changing market conditions, and the constant need to upskill—make this kind of training even more crucial. To deliver a more meaningful learning experience, organizations should provide programs that are tailored to employees' individual strengths, weaknesses, goals, and career aspirations.
 

Why personalized training matters when developing a future-ready workforce

Here are some of the many benefits that personalized training journeys bring to an organization: 

Makes training relevant

Personalized training programs take into account an employee's interests, development plans, performance goals, and more to suggest the right training programs for employees. Rather than making employees sit through long lectures that are irrelevant to them, personalized training programs target how employees want to grow.

Drives engagement

Conducting continuous and relevant training programs makes employees feel valued and supported, which in turn improves their motivation. An organization that shows its commitment to employees' growth helps foster a more positive work culture.

Aligns individual and organizational goals

Personalized training programs give employees the skills they need to excel in their careers, and this growth directly aligns with the organization's goals. This helps employees feel fulfilled while also helping organizations stay competitive.

Builds an agile workforce

Personalized training programs focus on different skills that employees in various roles require to stay ahead of the curve, thus building an agile workforce.

5 key components of personalized training journeys

Focusing on the following building blocks will help your organization ace the personalized learning journey for employees:

1. Initial skill assessments

The first step is to conduct comprehensive skill assessments to understand where employees stand. You can make use of tests, interviews, self-assessments, manager analysis, surveys, demos, and simulations to analyze their skill profile, understand the areas in which employees perform well, and identify the skills needed to take their performance to the next level. This will go a long way towards creating tailored learning paths that address employees' challenges, needs, and interests, making training more impactful and focused.

2. Flexible learning paths

Instead of having one learning path for employees, start designing individual learning paths that take a step-by-step approach. Customized it to every individual's learning goals, pace, styles, and preferences. For instance, while an entry-level HR professional's learning pathway can start with the foundation of HR operations, communication, and other interpersonal skills, a CHRO's learning pathway can start with strategic workforce planning, HR analytics, and change management, and then progress into Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. This way, every employee, irrespective of where they stand in their career, receives training opportunities that are consistent with their aspirations and performance needs.

3. Varied training resources

Personalization should also focus on how employees achieve the expected learning outcomes. Some employees may prefer how-to videos, while others may require detailed documents. Some may like it when the resources are broken down into bite-sized topics, whereas others may require hands-on training. It's a good idea to support varied training resources—including videos, PDFs, and decks—as well as approaches, such as microlearning, blended learning, self-paced learning, mentoring, and discussion groups. This can make training much more engaging.

4. Intuitive learning technology

Technology is one of the core aspects in supporting personalized training programs. Most learning management systems come with adaptive technology that can suggest relevant training programs to employees based on their role and existing skills. For instance, when an employee in finance has to explore analytics for resource optimization, the system can automatically suggest courses based on their everyday work items. It can also provide real-time insights to managers about their team's training progress so that they can offer personalized and useful suggestions to improve. Plus, it can make training easy, intermediate, or advanced based on the employee's performance.

5. Continuous feedback

Personalized learning initiatives have to be refined regularly just so that they stay relevant and meaningful. That’s why it’s important to gather continuous feedback from employees and managers. Managers can provide feedback on how employees are progressing, how their performance has improved, and what they still need to work on. Learners can provide ratings for their courses and share their feedback on how they can be improved. Make use of these inputs to fine-tune your personalized learning journeys.

Wrapping up

Employees expect their organization to offer personalized training programs that are consistent with their personal growth and goals. Personalized training programs can go a long way towards building a future-ready workforce and keeping employees engaged.