Prepare Your People for the Future
By Jenny Hayes, Head of Ibec Academy
In 2023, organisations need people who can learn in new ways, innovate and demonstrate agility. Key to this, are the skills and leadership of all direct line managers, who very often have the most significant impact on how someone feels about the job they do. These critical leaders need to know how to get the best from their teams and the ability to build the strengths of every member of the team. As the world of work has changed so significantly in the past few years, the challenge now is to build on the positives learned in this time and to create a strong working relationship in every team, where growth, agility, performance and new ideas are central to every team’s way of working. Ibec’s 2023 CEO survey showed how 51% of those surveyed said retaining and attracting talent was still a concern, so keeping the right people and leading them in the best way possible, will give every organisation doing this, a competitive advantage.
Building on this, we believe that organisations that offer staff opportunities to grow and to acquire new skills and qualifications are best placed to attract top talent as well as to retain the talent they have. The 2023 Workplace Learning Report by Linkedin highlights that providing learning opportunities is the number one way organisations are working to improve retention. Therefore, building a learning culture is a central pillar that makes employees want to stay as well as ensuring the resilience of your business is enhanced, where your people can bounce back from setbacks and continually adapt to change.
What is the role of the Manager in building a learning culture?
Critical to the development of a culture of learning, is the role of managers in every organisation, and how they encourage and support their peoples’ growth. Developing the skills of this group is also one of the key recommendations in the Workplace Learning Report for the year ahead. These are the people that see the team performing day to day and are often best placed to help each person to identify what they do well and the areas they need to develop further. Ibec’s 2022 Learning and Development survey also highlighted, that when rating the types of learning those companies surveyed by importance, 95% outlined management skills as number one, with leadership skills at a close second, with managing performance and employee engagement ranked third and fourth. Therefore, developing inclusive leaders for our world of work today, with many people working from home or in a hybrid way, needs to challenge unconscious bias, develop emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, diversity and inclusion and the ability to be authentic when leading others. Leaders who stand out have developed many of these attributes and continue to challenge themselves and to grow their levels of self-awareness and openness to new ideas.
Other trends that we have seen in the last year in the Ibec Academy have been the significant increase in need for upskilling in the ESG area, where organisations that have the ESG agenda to the forefront of what they do, are more likely to attract and retain talent, as having a sense of purpose and meaning in the work that people do is now more relevant. A second trend that has been developing is the growth in demand for diversity and inclusion training, as the value and need for behaviours and values that support this culture are clear to all progressive organisations. Thirdly, we have seen an increased growth in the take up of accreditation as part of our programme offering, both customised courses as well as open courses in areas such as management, leadership, HRM, coaching employment law and others. By offering an accredited award as part of your peoples learning journeys, not only are the key skills developed, but the individual also receives a recognised qualification from their employer, thus meeting the needs of the person and the organisation.
Developing a thinking and learning culture needs to become a core element of every business as the world of work continues to change at a rapid pace. Organisations that recognise that all our people will need support and development for them to adapt and to grow, with vital support from their direct managers, are likely to attract and keep their top talent.
‘A central part of the work of the Ibec Academy is the development of customised programmes, many of which are accredited by our Strategic Partner, TU Dublin, focusing on the goals of the organisation, team and individual. Also, equipping your people to lead through change, with managers supporting their teams on this journey, is central to the work we do in the Ibec Academy this year in particular’.