HR Spotlight Series: Smarter ways of working, smarter ways of learning

Nurturing talent and simplifying the Learning & Development (L&D) process for all employees is vital to businesses today. Whether it's to drive organisational growth or maintain a competitive advantage, learning leads us into the future of work. In this session hosted in partnership with SAP SuccessFactors, People Matters caught up with Anung Anindita, Senior VP-Human Resources at PT. Pegadaian and Sujay Bhat, HR Technology Strategy Advisor at SAP SuccessFactors to, explore how leading firms create their learning journeys in a dynamic business landscape. Here are some exclusive insights from this conversation.

Cultural transformation to keep pace with L&D transformation:

As a result of the rapid changes in socio-economic conditions and accelerated digital transformation in the business landscape, there has been an exponential demand for upskilling employees in latest technologies and solutions. When asked how L&D strategies can keep pace with this transformation and level up their digital infrastructure, Anung advises leaders to keep three core elements of people practices: organisational context, workforce needs and office culture. 

To this, Sujay adds that cultural transformation is an essential ingredient in L&D transformation because it brings to the forefront that learning cannot take place in silos. Learning must be integrated into the people strategy and the overall employee lifecycle. Moreover, as we talk about L&D strategies, learning content is an equally important agenda for discussion. One needs to design this content based on the innate internal knowledge of your organisation’s subject matter experts. Only then will the strategy attest to the learning needs from a business and employee perspective.

Strengthen your learning community with the right learning solutions: 

There are four important criteria for selecting any learning solution at PT. Pegadaian: it must be in line with the business needs; linked to employee performance; offer coaching and support to the company’s SME subsidiaries, and finally,  have metrics for evaluating the learning system. 

Additionally, strategies inclusive of mentoring, fellowships, and job rotation, among others, must be initiated to create more opportunities for career development and, as a result, solidify employee engagement. Along with implementing learning solutions, leaders must also look into how the learning teams function from an administrative and operational standpoint in terms of content coverage, penetration across different functions and innovating diverse ways of disseminating content. L&D teams must address the learning needs of multiple stakeholders and repurpose content in different ways, for instance, fireside chats, peer-to-peer collaboration, hackathons, podcasts etc. 

To inspire learning and build a robust learning culture and community, the bottom line is to encourage your people to enhance their performance in line with the business needs. The organisation, its vision and mission and its business processes must be in sync to achieve this. 

Integrate L&D into the Employee Experience (EX) ecosystem in innovative ways:

As leaders encourage a growth mindset to emphasise the importance of learning in the workplace, what becomes pertinent is to link learning to the employee lifecycle. Learning in the flow of work and ensuring that your people have the time to learn is fundamental to the success of any L&D strategy. This is backed by technologies and solutions that make relevant information accessible and in line with the pressing business concerns. Flexible learning is also a key benefit of digital learning. 

Having talked about the importance of content and career mobility, managerial involvement and learner, manager and stakeholder feedback are vital. Learning has to be fun and consumer-oriented with clarity on the expected performance and business outcomes. 

As our expert speakers' highlighted, learning is a critical enabler in the success of any enterprise as we embrace the future of work. The evolution of L&D strategies is the face of the evolution of any organisation, which is why this conversation comes to us at an opportune time. To catch the complete conversation between our expert panelists  Sujay Bhat & Anung Anindita and get access to more actionable insights, you can follow the link here.