How to Empower Your Workforce With an Effective Employee Learning And Development Plan

Employee learning and development are essential to maintaining an engaged workforce. By offering your people opportunities to learn, you are letting them know that they are seen as valuable contributors to the team.

According to the NTUC Learning Hub State of Workplace Report 2022, 73% of employees are open to participating in company-offered and external L&D programmes. However, 52% answered that they are unable to attend training due to lack of time, and 45% claim that they have a heavy workload that prevents them from joining.

As the future of work continues to change, organisations would do well to equip their people with a solid learning and development programme to stay ahead of the curve.

According to the Association for Talent Development, learning and development (L&D) is a function within an organisation that is responsible for empowering employees’ growth and developing their knowledge, skills, and capabilities to drive better business performance.

To drive employee growth, L&D must build a culture of continuous learning within the organisation. According to professional services firm Ernst & Young, L&D should emphasise the role of coaching, feedback, leadership and ownership to help the workforce keep up with the challenges many companies face today.

Creating an engaging L&D plan can help boost employee engagement and the overall employee experience. Semiconductor company GlobalFoundries, for example, rolled out several learning initiatives in their organisation including talent development programmes, training and on-the-job learning, mentoring, and online learning, which helped improve engagement, talent retention and employee performance.

According to the company’s Corporate Responsibility Report 2023, its global instructor-led and web-based training amounted to over 350,000 hours, with an average of over 22 training hours per employee. GlobalFoundries’ engagement survey saw a record high participation rate of 86% in 2022. The company’s achievements in Singapore won them Gold for Best Learning and Development Programme at the Employee Experience Awards – Singapore in 2023.

1. Align your L&D programme with company strategy Aligning your talent management strategy, which includes L&D, with your business strategy can help drive business success. What are your organisation’s business objectives? What skills do your people need to achieve your goals? Reach out to the employees, leaders and other stakeholders in your company to find out where the gaps are and create an L&D plan from there.

2. Get leadership on board According to the NTUC report, establishing an L&D budget helps ensure that the organisation will prioritise employee skills development. Getting your top leaders to support your organisation’s L&D priorities and setting an ample budget can help you plan your programme better. Let them know that investing in their people is a worthy expense.

3. Understand your audience As the workforce is made up of different personalities, it is also made up of people with different types of learning modes. Reaching out to your people to learn how they learn can help you create the programme that will best fit their needs. Create learner personas* to create a clearer picture of the audience you’re dealing with.

What is a learner persona? Learning operations platform Cognota defines a learner persona as “a fictional profile" that represents your target audience. Creating these personas can help guide L&D teams in creating more relevant learning experiences for the workforce. Here are some tips for creating learner personas:

• Use a fictional name – This helps label the different personas you’re creating. It also helps humanise the persona, reminding you that this isn’t just about fulfilling a list of requirements but addressing a person’s needs.

• Use a data-driven approach – To better understand your learners, it’s best to generate qualitative and quantitative data from your people. Through surveys or interviews, the team can understand how employees learn better.

• Create as many personas as you need – As you learn more about your audience, you start to recognize subgroups of learners, which can help determine the number of learner personas you create.

• Stick to relevant information – Make sure you use information that would help you develop your programme. For example, knowing that Employee A prefers online learning is useful, but knowing that she is a single mom with two kids is not.

• Ask stakeholders – Managers and supervisors are a good resource in figuring out how your people learn. As the employee reports directly to them, they have firsthand experience with how the workforce responds to teaching methods.

4. Partner with external consultants and CET providers NTUC recommends that companies that don’t have a dedicated L&D team consider partnering with an external Continuing Education and Training (CET) provider. These groups are experts in developing the right learning strategy and addressing skills gaps in an organisation. Here are some links to help you get started:

• Nanyang Technological University

• National University of Singapore

• NTUC Learning Hub

• Social Service Institute

• SkillsFuture Singapore

5. Communicate your programme effectively Your office L&D programme should be communicated from the top down. Leadership and managers should actively promote learning to their people to ensure that everyone is made aware of the options available to them.

6. Solicit feedback Employees should be encouraged to speak up about their learning needs and concerns. By listening to them and creating solutions for their concerns, the organisation will help them feel more empowered and part of the team. NTUC recommends conducting regular skills reviews with employees to help spot gaps and action them.

Employee communications firm Davis & Company emphasises the importance of ensuring that all employees know what learning opportunities are available in your organisation. A strong L&D program, after all, helps retain talent and build their performance.

Appeal to the employees While both employees and managers understand that L&D is crucial, the two groups have different reasons for pursuing L&D. According to the NTUC report, 61% of Singaporean managers cited increasing employee productivity as a top reason for L&D. For employees, 64% said they want to join training to “keep up with the times”, particularly in the tech sphere. So to get your employees’ attention towards your L&D programme, best to highlight the opportunity for career growth and skills improvement over talent development and increased productivity.

Create a resource hub Ensure that information about the L&D programme is readily available to your employees through a dedicated resource hub. Davis & Company recommends establishing an intranet page that houses links to the courses available in your programme. By creating a one-stop shop for all the learning resources available to your workforce, you are making it easier for your employees to pursue their learning journeys.

Share testimonials Word of mouth still strongly impacts this highly digital work environment. If employees hear about their colleagues who successfully boosted their careers by joining your L&D programme, they will be more interested to participate.

By investing in a good employee L&D programme, your organisation is investing in its human capital and overall growth. If your people have opportunities to grow with the company, they will feel more empowered and purposeful in their day-to-day tasks. Empowerment leads to trust, and employee trust can lead to retention. A successful L&D programme is a success for everyone.

1. What is L&D? Learning & development (L&D) is a function within an organisation that is responsible for empowering employees’ growth and developing their knowledge, skills, and capabilities to drive better business performance.

2. Why do employees need L&D? L&D programmes help employees address skills gaps and grow their careers. An empowered workforce can help boost the business, retain talent and increase productivity.

3. What is HR’s role in L&D? The L&D function is usually under the human resources (HR) department. As the team in charge of talent development, HR is responsible for assessing the workforce’s learning needs.

4. How do you create a successful L&D programme? A successful L&D programme requires conducting comprehensive research and connecting with various groups to create the best programme for your target audience.

• Align with company strategy

• Get leadership on board

• Understand your audience

• Partner with external consultants and CET providers

• Communicate your programme effectively

• Solicit feedback

5. How do you get the workforce to engage with L&D? It’s not enough to have a good programme in place. The organisation also has to promote it effectively so that the employees can grab the learning opportunities available to them.

• Appeal to the employees

• Create a resource hub

• Share testimonials