Chris Phillips, VP EMEA Marketing at Taleo, takes a look at the advantages of learning technologies.
As organisations look to grow out of the recession, it is vital that they are doing all they can to make the best use of their existing talent and using the correct tools to maximise the skills and development of their current workforce.
Businesses are increasingly looking to implement learning solutions in order to add value and develop talent throughout an organisation by providing visibility and training. This kind of software can ultimately revolutionise the way a company trains and develops their employees. From solving the skills shortages to dramatically increasing retention, this article highlights the core business challenges that can be addressed through the use of learning technologies.
"Ensuring that your employees receive relevant training through the implementation of a learning programme will lead to increased employee morale, improved efficiency and a substantial drop in expenditure"Maximising existing talent
In many industries, organisations are currently facing serious challenges in finding qualified candidates with certain skills, despite double digit unemployment figures. In many sectors, notably oil and gas, the average youngest team member is over 40 years old, with specialists coming out of retirement to fill skills shortages. Learning technologies can provide the capabilities necessary to develop skills among existing employees and potential candidates. They allow organisations to grow their talent pool by providing external training portals for the skills and job roles they need the most.
As well as providing the necessary training to fill certain job roles, they can also provide HR professionals with further insight into their current talent pool – how did individuals perform on the assessments in the training? Did the candidate benefit from the free training you provided? Ensuring that your employees receive relevant training through the implementation of a learning programme will lead to increased employee morale, improved efficiency and a substantial drop in expenditure, as well as providing the tailor-made skills your company requires most.
Increasing employee referrals
In sectors where skills are more prevalent, high unemployment means that there is a saturation of candidates for each position. It is therefore important that organisations are able to quickly and successfully evaluate and assess the right fit between a candidate and the employer. As well as ensuring that their brand is represented at all stages of the process, companies can also use an established learning programme to drive employee satisfaction, consequently resulting in more employee referrals.
Referrals are widely recognised as one of the more effective forms of recruitment as network theory shows that high-performing individuals surround themselves with high-performing colleagues and friends. They are also more likely to lead to a correct cultural fit, with recommendations often being considered by those who fully understand the values of a company. Network theory also suggests that core beliefs and behaviours – the foundation of cultural fit - will be far more consistent across strong and even weak networks than among unconnected individuals.
"As well as ensuring that their brand is represented at all stages of the process, companies can also use an established learning programme to drive employee satisfaction, consequently resulting in more employee referrals"
Productivity and longevity
Getting the employee in the door is really just the first step in a much longer journey to productivity. If those employees leave within 90 days, what have you really accomplished aside from a substantial spend? Learning platforms can have a tremendous impact on both new hire retention challenges and on the retention of experienced personnel. An embedded and experienced learning program can significantly decrease time to competency by reducing training time and so increasing days of productivity and value per new hire.
Some of the biggest reasons for 'quick quits' are directly addressed by training: fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Learning technologies can have dramatic impacts on all aspects of recruiting from attracting top tier candidates to improving candidate-to-hire conversion. They can even be used to develop your own talent pools through external training and development offerings for hard-to-fill positions. The evidence is clear – learning technologies can improve the effectiveness and business impact of recruiting solutions.
Chris Phillips is VP EMEA Marketing at Taleo. Come and visit them on stand 151 at Learning Technologies
