Why leaders need to make learning a permanent part of culture (and 5 ways to do it)
You may have heard the statistics:
Global talent shortages reached a 16-year high in 2022.
75% of companies are experiencing talent shortages and difficulties in hiring.
More than 100 million workers may need to switch occupations by 2030.
More than 1 billion jobs will be transformed by technology within the next eight years.
All these research findings raise important questions:
How can we reskill up to one billion people by the end of the decade? And where should leaders start?
Educational content, methods of delivery, and promoting learning materials may immediately come to mind as important pieces of the puzzle.
Yet, there is more to consider. Influencing people to learn is no longer as simple as emailing a link to a module and then measuring employee participation.
Here is what I believe really deserves our attention right now: organizational culture. In my experience, culture is fundamental to inspiring people to proactively seek out new skills.
For us at SAP, and perhaps for other global tech companies, as well, getting this right is important to employees, to partners who help our customers implement SAP technology, and to our customers who rely on SAP technology to run sustainable businesses.
Here are five things we have learned about culture-building around reskilling and upskilling.
ENCOURAGE FROM THE TOP
A colleague recently asked me, “How do we motivate older workers to reskill when they may feel burned out after so many years on the job?”
It’s a good question, and one that deserves an inclusive mindset. To me, this is about leadership and culture just as much as it may be about burnout.
Career mature people may have been taught that trying something new is dangerous territory. Leaders need to communicate things are different now and it’s okay if new skills aren’t mastered right away. Share your own experiences and the advice you’ve received in your career. Encourage peer-to-peer learning. Reverse mentoring programs are another idea, where someone newer in their career partners with someone more senior, toward learning new things.
MAKE IT EASY
A recent study found that reskilling and upskilling can feel out of reach for people when company policies don’t support their learning aspirations. Therefore, policies and procedures may need to be reworded if they are perceived as roadblocks for people.
For example, policies need to communicate that the door is open to acquiring new skills. In practice, this means being visible, clear, consistent, and open in policy manuals, during annual reviews, and on intranet sites, for example, about what your company offers, why learning is encouraged, and how to access learning resources. Operational processes or paperwork that people must complete to be permitted to join learning opportunities should be simple and smooth.
CREATE INCENTIVES PEOPLE CARE ABOUT
For SAP, our research shows that when our employees spend at least 50 hours per year on learning, they move up through the ranks one year faster than others. So, our leaders encourage employees to spend at least this much time on learning annually.
But we also take incentives a step further while aligning with the causes our employees value.
For every employee who completes at least 50 hours of learning in a year, SAP donates one technical certification voucher to an underrepresented young person somewhere in the world. Additionally, for every 50,000 hours of internal learning in 2022, SAP will donate one scholarship to University of the People, earmarked to support Ukraine people in 2023, up to 50 scholarships.
REMOVE ROADBLOCKS
Global tech company business ecosystems are expansive. SAP’s ecosystem, for example, includes tens of thousands of integration partner companies and customer businesses. We must therefore open doors across the ecosystem for people to learn SAP technical skills.
However, we know, and research supports, that financial barriers can keep people away. That’s one reason SAP opened a website where anyone can learn SAP technical skills for free. More than 180,000 learners have joined us on this platform in 2022. We see this working and look forward to growing participation in 2023.
SEEK OUT PARTNERSHIPS
Global partnerships can amplify learning opportunities that people might not otherwise know about. One example is SAP’s “learning to earning” collaboration with UNICEF and Generation Unlimited. The goal of this partnership is to prepare 500,000+ young people in Nigeria, the Philippines, and South Africa with the skills they need to launch digital and green economy careers.
On a smaller scale, local and regional partnerships with schools and nonprofit job training programs are an idea.
Remember the true focus of upskilling and reskilling is people.
Technology has opened the doors for people to learn anywhere, anytime, at scale. That’s great news for addressing the world’s technical skills gap. But getting people to embrace reskilling and upskilling also requires organizational leaders to think deeply about the culture they create and foster every day.
It is important to reflect: Are we working toward equitable, inclusive progress that enables people the world over to thrive in the jobs of the future? Because to make true strides on the global upskilling and reskilling imperative, people should be the operational focus.