Struggling to fill your critical roles? You’re not alone. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation that followed has seen record numbers of employees leave their jobs in order to seek more fulfilling work, or a better work-life balance, all of which in turn shifted the balance of power in favor of employees.¹

One sector where employees are in the driving seat is tech. Unsurprisingly, given the widespread impact of digital transformation, tech skills are highly sought-after — a report by ManPower Group indicated that the most in-demand skills for 2022 are, in fact, in IT, technology, telecoms, communications, and media.² To gain these skills, organizations often resort to poaching top tech talent with lucrative offers, which results in a smaller, less diverse talent pool for others.³ And as only 26% of computing-related jobs are held by women,⁴ this shrinking pool means a shrinking diversity, too, which is concerning for a field struggling to transform socially.

Rapid digital transformation, combined with the impacts of the pandemic, has also resulted in skills becoming obsolete, and by consequence growing skills gaps. According to a study, the latter are an issue for 43% of companies globally.⁵

The combination of shrinking talent pools, growing skills gaps, and a lack of diversity is creating a perfect storm for hiring managers, particularly those hiring for tech skills. But in the midst of this lies an opportunity for companies to rethink their hiring initiatives in a way that actually grows the amount of talent available to them. It starts by relooking your recruiting model.

The problem with traditional recruiting

Vacant positions have a financial cost, which varies depending on the industry, position, and business circumstances, as well as a relevance cost. The longer it takes to fill a position, the more likely the skills required for that position will have evolved by the time you find a qualified candidate.

Businesses urgently need to examine and reform their recruitment and selection processes. The traditional talent process or funnel, which starts with a business need and leads to hiring, onboarding, and development, is slow to fill vacancies and bring workers up to operational speed.

The SHRM calculates the average cost per hire to be $4,683 in the U.S.,⁶ and these costs grow every day the position remains unfulfilled. When you consider that the median time to hire (from application submission to first day on the job) is 44 days for IT and 49 days for an engineering position, for instance, it’s clear that the longer the hiring process is, the more expensive it becomes.⁷

Thankfully, there is an alternative to the existing talent funnel framework, one that follows the same fundamentals but is more efficient and effective.

A new approach to recruitment

Businesses need to expand their talent pipeline and cut down on the time they take to hire. This can be achieved by building your talent pools, rather than competing with other companies for the same people. Doing so will enable you to train potential candidates according to your specific requirements, so they’ll join your company with job-ready skills.

So, how do you go about creating your own talent pools? We have two solutions for you.

Solution 1: Your next great hire may already work for you

Internal recruitment has the potential to address both the issue of a shrinking talent pipeline and increased employee turnover. Hiring from within the company preserves culture and knowledge, expedites onboarding, and aids in retention — one study shows that if employees understand that there are broader internal mobility opportunities available, they’re more likely to stay.⁸

The internal-recruitment method requires strategies and programs that enable workforce development and on-the-job skills transfers.⁹ In order to anticipate the skills required and plan workforce development programs effectively, you should start by developing a succession plan strategy. This involves assessing the skills you need your employees to have, gauging employee engagement, and determining how quickly you can replace key employees should they depart.¹⁰ Consider these four tips for succession planning:¹¹

• Identify internal talent regardless of current vacancies.
• Create an inclusive, transparent culture of progression throughout the organization.
• Engage in continuous performance management and career pathing.
• Move toward a data-driven view of skills by using succession planning software to identify employees who might leave; track high-potential staff to fill vacancies; and improve internal hiring through access to a robust database of available skills.

By partnering with employees and trying to understand their career goals and aspirations more, you can co-create learning paths that align to company goals and employees goals. A coordinated, collaborative approach to ongoing skills development sends a message to employees that if they want to make a career pivot, they don’t need to look outside the organization.

Furthermore, equipping staff with transferable skills that enable them to move into other positions should not be seen as a liability, but rather a future-facing competitive advantage.¹² Richard Branson wasn’t wrong when he said: “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”¹³

Alongside increasing your staff’s confidence, pride in their work, and earning potential, ongoing training equips employees to respond to shifting organizational and market conditions.¹⁴ It also reduces costs: In the U.S., average training expenditure per learner is $1,111,¹⁵ less than a quarter of the average $4,683 cost of hiring a new employee.¹⁶

Solution 2: Hire for potential, train for skills

Rather than competing for scarce tech talent, the train-to-hire model allows you to focus on creating your own pool of technical talent.

New hire training widens the top of your talent funnel by welcoming a broader swathe of candidates who are screened based on their potential to learn and grow, rather than merely on their experience and skills. It also enables you to tailor employee skills to the exact requirements of your business at that time. This has an immediate and positive effect on employee engagement, because more than simply providing employment, you’re facilitating a growth opportunity for new hires from the get-go.¹⁷

It’s also now assumed that every new hire will have basic digital capabilities and literacy, and that job-specific skills can be imparted as part of the hiring process. However, as artificial intelligence and automation become more prevalent, they may furthermore take over some of the tasks previously done by tech staff. This will free these employees up to perform higher-level functions, meaning that critical and analytical thinking, strategy, communication, and leadership will grow in importance.¹⁸ These skills can be more difficult to train in employees, and may necessitate a different and more guided approach to recruiting and training.

Because train-to-hire casts a wider recruitment net, it’s a good way to diversify your talent pool, too. Hiring tech talent from other major tech companies will likely bring you candidates from a non-diverse pool, whereas opening your hiring practices to professionals from other backgrounds, such as those from marketing and sales, might attract diverse candidates with the right attitudes and aptitude to learn.¹⁹

IT services and consulting company Cognizant, for example, found that it needed to boost its ability to hire local technical talent for clients in particular regions. To achieve this, the company partnered with edX For Business to recruit talent from regionally recognised technical boot camps, such as the UConn Coding Boot Camp in Connecticut. This gave the company access to a broader pool of college graduates, who could be trained in practical, technical, job-relevant skills so they could hit the ground running the moment they joined the organization. It also drew in workers from other sectors for whom the boot camps facilitated a career change; this in turn brought a diversity of industry experience and perspectives to Cognizant. Ultimately, Cognizant was able to deliver contemporary skills in the shortest time to a more diverse pool of candidates.

Beyond traditional hiring initiatives

Many companies have responded to the talent crunch by approaching recruiting as a zero-sum game. But savvy organizations recognize that, whether enabling employee mobility or train-to-hire models, continuous learning is key to growing and maintaining a sustainable talent pipeline.

By taking a step back from the traditional method of recruiting and building instead a culture of development — from before a candidate joins your business to the day they depart — you can position your organization as one that values and nurtures talent. And that, in the long run, turns your organization into one for which people will want to work.

Do you want to improve your company’s hiring initiatives? edX For Business offers a broad skills development portfolio to help you develop and nurture the potential of your current and future staff.

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Despite efforts by organizations to address widening skills gaps, just 51% of employees surveyed consider training from employers to be useful.¹⁶ This may in great part be due to a disconnect between the learning opportunities available to employees, and the training they need to both excel in their roles and grow in their careers.

Given that 96% of employees are nevertheless interested in cultivating new skills¹⁷, there’s an opportunity for learning and development (L&D) managers to leverage this interest, while simultaneously advancing company goals.

To do this, they need to create skills development pathways focused on building critical competencies that match organizational objectives and the goals of individual employees.²⁰ This in turn will address existing skills gaps, and lay the groundwork for employees, and organizations, to survive the shifting world of work.

Step 1: Conduct a training needs analysis

An effective skills development plan must begin with a training needs analysis (TNA). TNAs help organizations address the gap between where a team may be, and where it needs to be. It’s a proactive, cost-effective tool that helps L&D managers to outline training and development needs, address potential issues, and ensure that training is, in fact, the best way to address business problems.²¹

Training-needs analysis levels

L&D managers need to work through three levels of analysis, starting with individual analysis, and ending with the analysis of competencies needed to perform specific tasks.

Individual analysis

The individual analysis should outline the skills present within a team and identify any barriers to success their absence may cause.²² To identify the training needs of each employee, L&D managers should:

1. Analyze performance reviews, appraisals and other available data to gauge opportunities for individual development.
2. Engage with employees one-on-one, in focus groups, or through surveys to take stock of their daily challenges.
3. Connect with team leaders and managers on where they think skills are lacking.
4. Identify workers who are at risk of redundancy due to automation or skills gaps, and note transferable skills that can be redeployed as part of individual employee development plans.²³

Company analysis

Once you’ve assessed needs on an individual level, it’s time to plot out business goals so you can identify any overlaps, and prioritize areas for intervention.²⁴

Look out for issues present on an organizational level that can be addressed through training, i.e. issues caused by a lack of certain skills and competencies. Consider how technology, legislation, or even business growth might shift needs.

During this step, identify the kinds of support that management can offer employee development and gauge whether additional resources are needed to meet the company goals.

Operational tasks analysis

Finally, drill down into the details of each task and role. This will involve a deep dive into employee job descriptions.²⁵ Map this information against what you already know about the skills that exist within any given team. At the end of the TNA process, you should have identified any potential or upcoming skills gaps.

Step 2: Identify skill development focus areas and goals

With these insights, you have the beginnings of a learning roadmap. Your next task is to consider short- and long-term training needs so you can identify priority areas, and build critical skills pathways.

You can use the Skills Hierarchy to help you identify what skills are most needed.²⁶ This framework helps to differentiate between assumed, foundational skills like digital literacy, and transferable, human-centered skills like leadership that prepare individuals for a shifting work landscape.²⁷

As you prepare to craft learning pathways, focus on prioritizing these human-centred skills, as well as other competencies that are resistant to change, such as analysis, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

At the end of this process, you should be clear on both present and future training needs, and have L&D goals that will meet them.

Step 3: Identify learning solutions and tech to support L&D goals

Once you know what you’d like to achieve, you need a clear plan to get it done. Your professional development plan must factor in the expectations of your employees, too, and what’s needed to help them learn effectively.²⁸

Source or create a learning pathway that acknowledges the interests, skills, and learning styles of your staff, and is designed to support them in their development.²⁹ Gauge if existing training resources can be used or repurposed, or if new instructional materials need to be created. Depending on what you have available to you, this could result in a custom course made up of rich educational media like video, animation, and interactive content. Alternatively, it could be a curated learning journey that pulls from industry leaders and existing free resources.

You’ll need furthermore to consider the broader goals of your training, and how it will be broken down into individual modules and lessons.³⁰ To get the best results, include a mix of materials and sources to bring in diverse perspectives and to cater to different learning styles. For top learning outcomes, you can look into models like the 2U Learning Experience Framework for guidance.

Targeted approaches, with hand picked, curated learning experiences have proven more impactful than one-size-fits-all learning solutions. For example, to cater to staff who need leadership development, you could explore learning that’s focused on making an individual and team impact, as well as strategy. Other staff members might need to cultivate technical skills, which would call for more intensive learning solutions that have longer study times and are highly practical.

Finally, consider what kind of technology you’ll use to deploy your learning solution, be it a company learning management system (LMS) or learning experience platform (LXP), as well as any additional learning tools or integrations. The right technology will enhance your learning material, provide a smooth user experience, and ensure your learning solution is delivered effectively.

Step 4: Gain stakeholder support

Without stakeholder backing, even the most comprehensive learning pathway can fall flat. With leadership buy-in — from middle management all the way to the C-suite — you’ll not only create a culture of learning, but also ensure there is shared purpose in the learning experience.

For learning to be supported at all levels, L&D managers must be able to outline the short- and long-term strategic benefits of training interventions. Just on the global level, for instance, the World Economic Forum anticipates a boost of up to $6.5 trillion to the global GDP if we innovate and address emerging skills gaps.³¹ To secure leadership buy-in from your organization, however, communicate the impact of the learning and of its alignment with business goals such as revenue or staff retention.³² This will help you secure a budget for learning, and time allowances for individuals participating in learning initiatives.

Step 5: Co-create learning pathways with employees

Beyond the C-suite, it’s absolutely essential to have employee support in skills development. While you conduct in-depth checks at the analysis stage, make sure you circle back with individuals to ensure your new learning pathways align with their goals, too.

Where immediate skills gaps aren’t addressed, you can collaborate with individuals to craft personalized learning pathways that prioritize these. Later, you’ll continue working together on a plan for ongoing development that balances employee career goals, emerging skill gaps, and changing business needs.

Step 6: Track and measure progress

A deployed employee development plan doesn’t mean the end of your efforts. With the future of work in flux, you’ll need to keep monitoring your learning success metrics — new gaps may, after all, emerge, and employees may not be meeting their training goals, which will call for a strategy reevaluation. Learning success metrics will equip you to continuously assess the effectiveness of your development plan, and find ways to improve alignment with business goals.

Step 7: Ongoing repetition

Learning and development are part of an ongoing process that evolves and builds on itself. To keep making gains and establish a system where learning, growing, and skills development are encouraged at all levels, you should work to establish a culture of learning.

An emphasis on learning helps teams to feel motivated, valued, and excited to progress within the organization — and within their career. For insights into building a culture of learning, take a look at our white paper, here.

A roadmap for learning success

With this roadmap that takes you from analysis all the way to implementation and iteration, you have everything you need to establish a learning strategy that’s customized to the evolving needs of organizations and individuals, and primed to close skills gaps.

Need help getting started? We get it. In a shifting learning landscape, it helps to have a guide. Contact an edX learning and development consultant to discuss the learning solutions your team needs.

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Today’s businesses are experiencing tremendous pressure to keep up with human, social, and technological changes. For one, we don’t work the way we used to. We work through digital tools, remotely or in hybrid arrangements, for longer careers and more employers, at full-time jobs and side hustles. Then, there’s our ever-changing world of technology where nothing ever really stays the same.

It’s no wonder that skills gaps are growing across several industries, making it often difficult for organizations, and the professionals who work for them, to adapt to the dynamic demands of their market. McKinsey research shows that even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 59% of leaders already felt that skills building was essential to long-term growth.²⁷ That figure has since risen to 78%.²⁸

While technology and digitalization present opportunities for positive change, these can’t be utilized without appropriately skilled professionals — learning and development (L&D) managers — to guide their organization through appropriate developmental programs, and help professionals apply their newly learned skills.²⁹ Nor can such programs be easily set up without a strategy in place, and often without outside expert support.

The age of disruption

We live in an age of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, all of which lead to rapid change within businesses. These are the 10 biggest factors causing disruption across organizations: ³³

It’s no surprise COVID-19 sits atop the list, having accelerated and amplified the impact of other factors, such as digital transformation in businesses.³⁴

Regardless, all the disruptors above are shifting the skills requirements for a host of industries, most notably financial services, advanced technology, and telecommunications. The business areas most affected, meaning those experiencing the greatest skills gap, are data analytics, followed by IT management, executive management, HR and talent management, and sales and marketing operations.³⁵

How professionals and companies are responding

A recent GetSmarter survey of nearly 6,000 people across 128 countries found that 58% of respondents anticipated needing to learn new skills for the current job within the next six months.³⁶

Currently, C-suite professionals are learning more than anyone else, with 57% engaged in reskilling. That’s good news, because it indicates that a majority of business leaders recognize the need to address and close the skills development gap — an understanding that may lead to more learning opportunities across all professional levels.

And while many professionals may still feel that they are solely responsible for their career development, it doesn’t necessarily have to be so — in fact, more and more L&D managers are being tasked with setting up upskilling and reskilling programs.³⁷ In fact, L&D managers have never been so valued, nor under such pressure. Without them, and without an enterprise development team, businesses that want to help their employees upskill run several risks, such as:

• A disconnect between upskilling choices and the organization’s needs and goals
• Haphazardly designed programs with minimal impact, or impact limited only to certain teams
• Lengthy launches of skills development programs
• Low retention levels, due to a lack of real career-partnerships meant to help employees on their professional journey

How to close the skills gaps

To address these issues, leadership, talent, and L&D managers typically focus on three strategies: hire, reskill, and upskill.

Hire:

Talent and recruitment teams face a shortage of applicants, let alone highly skilled ones, which forces them to look at hiring differently.³⁸ Here are a few steps you may want to take if your organization faces similar challenges:

• Change recruitment mindsets to focus on the desired skills rather than personalities, and welcome a broader diversity of backgrounds.
• Review hiring procedures to ensure promising candidates are not rejected by traditional screening methods.
• Look beyond traditional labor pools to include older workers, those with disabilities, foreign talent, and veterans.

Hiring is also timely and expensive — in the U.S., it takes an average of 36 to 42 days, and costs $1,633, to fill a position.³⁹ Moreover, when unemployment stands near historic lows, as it currently does in the U.S., it also leaves very little available talent to pick from.⁴⁰ To top it, the “great resignation” spurred by the pandemic has seen record numbers of people leaving their jobs, creating significant issues for hiring teams. Case in point, of all hiring managers surveyed by Prudential Financial:⁴¹

• 58% don’t receive enough applications to fill their vacancies.
• 71% say the applications they receive don’t match the skills required.
• 82% are willing to hire someone who requires initial training.

That last statistic is particularly telling: New-hire training may be a solution for many employers, and could be for your organization, too. For instance, Netflix recently employed this tactic to improve workforce diversity, by partnering with edX and establishing the Netflix Pathways Boot Camps to teach industry-relevant tech skills to under-represented populations. By doing so, Netflix, in partnership with edX, grew a more diversified, and qualified, talent pool.

Reskill:

You don’t always have to look to the external talent pool to bridge skills gaps — you could focus instead on reskilling your current staff. A World Economic Forum survey found that 50% of workers would need reskilling by 2025, and 40% of respondents expected that to take six months or less. ⁴²

From a financial perspective, reskilling makes sense. A report by the Financial Services Skills Commission in the UK found that reskilling a financial services employee costs an average of £31,850, compared with a redundancy and rehire cost of £80,875 — a saving of £49,025.⁴³ It’s therefore not surprising that 53% of business leaders prefer reskilling over engaging freelancers or contractors, or even hiring new talent.⁴⁴

Reskilling is also a key way to retain talent — it not only offers learning opportunities, which leads to an increase in job satisfaction, but it also promotes internal mobility. A recent Gallup survey found, for example, that 57% of workers in the U.S. want to update their skills, and so much so, that 48% would even consider moving jobs to improve skills. But, here’s the good news: According to the same Gallup survey, not only do 71% of workers in the U.S. report an increase in job satisfaction through training and development, 61% of workers consider learning opportunities a good reason to stay at their job.⁴⁵

In other words, the opportunity to retrain at work could be a big retention incentive for employees at your organization, especially those who may want to pivot careers.

Upskill:

Reskilling gives employees the chance to develop new skills. Upskilling, on the other hand, helps them augment their existing skills on a continual basis so that they can adapt more easily to the evolving requirements of their jobs and careers.

Upskilling can prevent skill gaps and develop better resilience against accelerating change.⁴⁶ Though not always, it’s also often done within hybrid roles — these are jobs that include both technical expertise (hard skills) and traditional (soft) skills such as leadership.⁴⁷ For example, an employee who learns to automate everyday tasks, and applies their learning to their work, can soon free up more time for strategic thinking and collaboration. 

What skills you need to prioritize

Many of the skills required to keep pace with modern businesses and industries are naturally aligned with digital capabilities. However, as digital capabilities become assumed for most professional jobs, the key differentiators among candidates are increasingly more human-centric: analytical and critical reasoning, interpersonal skills, and leadership abilities.⁴⁸

There are also many advantages to focusing on human-centric development. Skills specific to particular jobs — such as software proficiency, programming languages, coding, or digital marketing capabilities — will require more frequent upskilling. On the other hand, analytical skills, human-centric skills, and the fundamental capabilities required to leverage digital tools have much greater longevity.⁴⁹

What’s also clear is that digital transformation in organizations is majorly influencing what we should be learning, when, and how. Ultimately, you and your L&D team will need to balance both types of skills: the ones needed now, and those your organization will need later.

Your guide to digital transformation skills

GetSmarter’s Digital Transformation Skills Framework lists the key capabilities your employees should have to stay on top of current and future digital skills and technologies. It also provides a foundation on which to build your L&D programs.

This framework places interpersonal skills (such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence, creativity, and adaptability) at the center of four other categories of skills that organizations may want to develop now and for the future.⁵⁰ It also speaks to many of the skills gaps that organizations currently face, yet those skills are the most valuable capabilities to have if you’re aiming for a successful digital transformation.

The future of skills development

Skills development is no longer simply a business augmentation; it’s an essential component of survival, both for organizations and for individual professionals. Companies with a view to the future continue growing because they understand that to learn is to innovate.⁵¹

There may be no one-size-fits-all approach to skills development — each organization, team, and professional being unique — yet two aspects of it are a must for all:

• In the age of disruption, skills development should be conducted on an ongoing basis as part of any organization’s strategy for closing continually evolving skills gaps.
• Skills development should take place across an organization, rather than in silos; if technical teams are getting upskilled, for example, then leadership should be learning how to better support the new needs and goals of those employees.

Owing to time, budgetary, and remote-working pressures, training programs will also likely have to be delivered through digital channels, which have the advantage of being easily scalable — but the digital aspect is no surprise: Learning, in the era of digital transformation, has already gone digital. What is more, remote learning has the potential to deliver essential skills quickly and prompt employees to exercise them immediately on the job, improving engagement and performance.⁵²

With this in mind, edX For Business can help you curate a holistic skills development strategy, across a range of disciplines and learning styles. From closing technical skills with boot camps, to leadership development with executive education courses or company wide upskilling with open courses —  edX For Business can help you future-proof your workforce.

Are you keeping pace with today’s fast-changing skills requirements? Learn how edX For Business can help future-proof your people and your business, by helping you close skill gaps.

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Organizations are being pressed to do more to keep teams together and win the battle against workforce churn. Employee retention is the key.

We’re in the midst of the ‘great resignation’, a period where 3.4% of workers in the U.S. are leaving their jobs each month. Employees are in search of better benefits, a closer connection to corporate values, and corporate commitment to career progression.³⁷With as many as four million Americans expected to resign from their roles during the course of 2022, the need to improve workforce retention isn’t showing signs of slowing down.⁵³

Major economies are witnessing historically low rates of unemployment. The U.S. unemployment rate is 3.9%,⁵⁴ and the U.K. unemployment rate is 3.7% — the lowest in over 48 years.⁵⁵ While organizations are competing for an even smaller pool of applicants, digital transformation and emerging technologies have created burgeoning industries and many new jobs that now need to be filled. Calculations from EMSI Burning Glass and Eightfold point to almost 17 million vacant roles in the U.S.: that’s one in nine roles.⁵⁶ It takes an estimated 36–42 days and now costs $1,633 to fill a vacant role.⁵⁷ Whichever way you slice it, employees are demanding more, hiring is expensive, and the market is tight.

Since an organization’s most valuable resource is its people, it pays to focus on their retention and development. By creating pathways for team members to develop existing skills, reskill to address emerging gaps and grow their careers, learning and development managers are investing in strategies to retain their current workforce. 

How to meet employee expectations in the current market

In this competitive market, new recruitment can’t stem the tide alone. Organizations need to respond to existing employee concerns. 

They can do this by finding ways to: 

1. Create a culture of learning. 
2. Prioritize employee wellness.
3. Align brand values with employee expectations.
4. Foster paths for employees to grow internally.
   

Tip 1: Create a culture of learning

The benefits of a learning culture are well-established. Learning and development opportunities help motivate teams, engage individuals, and provide opportunities to build clear career pathways so employees can grow within organizations instead of needing to move externally. 

But ongoing learning isn’t just a requirement for career growth, it’s now essential for business agility. Driven by emerging tech and business models, skills gaps are widening. Upskilling and reskilling employees is not only important for corporate culture, but it is a necessary method of narrowing the skills gap caused by the evolving world of work.

One way to build learning into your organizational culture is to offer learning as a benefit. Traditionally, this would comprise tuition reimbursement for undergraduate or postgraduate degree programs. But, increasingly, enterprises are extending this to online learning opportunities for traditional degrees and also alternate credentials offered via an Open Courses Marketplace like edX.

edX For Business enables online learning opportunities with elite academic institutions and corporate curriculum partners from across the globe. Employees are able to fit self-paced learning into their schedules and practically apply their learnings in real-time at work. 

This means employees are empowered to plot and pursue steps in their career paths. Or they can reskill and ensure they remain relevant in a market where 85 million jobs are expected to be automated by 2025.⁵⁸ 

Applied Materials is one organization that was able to offer education as an employee benefit, at scale. They partnered with edX to provide targeted training to their team of over 27,000 individuals who work in nearly 115 countries worldwide. Training is designed to help staff advance along their career paths, grow the organization, and benefit the industry more broadly.

Applied Materials selected training opportunities in key areas, including data analysis, critical thinking, communications, and Python. This helps them to remain at the cutting edge of innovation in materials engineering solutions, and equips employees to pivot into new areas and fill emerging skills gaps. Since the program’s inception in 2017, employees have completed: 

• 1,500+ professional education courses
• 14,000 learning hours
• 55 distinct course offerings

Along the way, Applied Materials has built up a culture of learning that makes sure the company is always improving and teams are happy. 

With a transformational culture of learning infused into your organization, your teams will feel valued, motivated to make a positive impact, and excited to grow with the business. Learn how to embed a culture of learning into your organization, here.

Tip 2: Prioritize employee wellness

It’s no secret that many employees are struggling with mental health in the wake of the pandemic. And this impacts how employees feel about their lives, their purpose at work, and their confidence in themselves. 

But there are factors that can turn this around. When employees have strong relationships at work, believe in the value of what they’re doing, and feel they’re meeting their potential, they’re likely to feel good about their work. And in this scenario of employee well-being, staff retention rates could triple.⁵⁹

Learning and development plays an important role in employee well-being. Great Place to Work®, a leading workplace culture consultancy, advises organizations to create an environment where ongoing learning and development thrives. It’s one of six key mandates for creating a company culture that promotes employee well-being.

Great Place to Work® advises organizations to:⁶⁰

1. Track feedback on employee well-being on an ongoing basis.
2. Walk the talk when it comes to well-being at all levels of leadership, and be honest about tough times.
3. Give access to personalized and professional care and support.
4. Enable and encourage all levels of employees to champion well-being.
5. Create a culture where ongoing learning and development thrives.
6. Facilitate autonomy at work and clarify links between individual roles and the outcomes of the organization.

Tip 3: Align your brand values to employee expectations

Organizations need to show that they can deliver what employees need to grow and thrive in the workplace. Where there’s alignment between public-facing values and the day-to-day operations of an organization, and the development opportunities on offer, trust grows and employee buy-in improves. Not only will this help attract top talent, but it also supports employee well-being and motivation.

Through a job that’s aligned with their values, employees find greater meaning at work, as well as an intrinsic motivation. This, in turn, leads to improved productivity and staff retention. It’s a win-win and a strong motivator for prioritizing human-centered leadership.

Tip 4: Foster paths for employees to grow internally

With millions of jobs on a path to automation, many employees need to upskill or reskill to maintain employability.⁶¹

What happens to the workers whose jobs become obsolete? Around 77% of workers report that they’re willing to upskill or retrain to stay relevant in the job market. This is promising, given that 74% of CEOs report concern with the availability of certain key skills.⁶²

By investing in your teams, and upskilling and reskilling staff, organizations can match talent to fill in skills gaps and retain quality employees. When you do this, many other areas receive a boost too. Data from LinkedIn Learning demonstrates that engaged learners are far more likely to participate in internal mobility programs.⁶³

What happens when organizations have strong internal mobility programs? Employee retention doubles.⁶⁴

To set up an environment that fosters internal mobility and opportunities for reskilling, organizations can look at Boot Camps, which provide a learning solution where employees can be reskilled on technical topics through high-touch, intensive training. 

Invest in your best asset

In a complex talent market that’s adapting to waves of change, focusing on the needs and development of your team is the best way to improve staff retention. It makes teams happier, more effective, and helps prepare organizations to plug skills gaps. 

With these tips on employee retention you’ll be equipped to create an environment where people can thrive. And with a happier team in place, your employees will find greater meaning in their day-to-day, and are far more likely to stick with your organization in the long run. 

Contact an edX learning and development consultant to begin building learning solutions for your teams today.

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January 23, 2025

The world is changing faster than ever, and companies are struggling to stay ahead of the curve. Savvy organizations recognize that the answer lies in developing and leveraging their most valuable asset: their people. 

However, people’s values are shifting, and with them their relationship with the places they work. Studies have found workers are more stressed than ever, with a staggering 81 percent reporting that they feel at risk of burnout and one in five saying that working for a company whose values don’t align with their own is the cause of that feeling.⁵⁴

This is one of the factors driving the ‘Great Resignation’, which has intensified competition for top talent. When you consider that in the U.S., it takes 36–42 days to fill a vacancy, costing $1,633 per hire,⁵⁵ it becomes clear that employee retention is critical.

Workers are also fighting to keep pace with change. Remote work, e-commerce, and automation are all reshaping work as we know it. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the impact of these trends. McKinsey revised their estimate for the number of workers that will need to change their occupations: up to 25 percent more than previously predicted due to the accelerating effects of the pandemic.⁶⁰

Professionals are also likely to work longer. Research shows that because of increased lifespans, organizations need to invest more in lifelong learning.⁶⁴

It’s clear that human resource and learning and development managers face a growing range of challenges. Fortunately, there are resources available to help address these hurdles and take advantage of the opportunities they present.

Close skill gaps

As people begin to lead longer and more diverse careers, planning and managing their long-term skills development will become more important. Digital skills are now assumed, and knowledge of business processes and related concepts are considered core competencies within every worker’s skills toolkit. Analytical and critical thinking have evolved from being the exception to the necessary, while interpersonal and leadership skills are more valued than ever.⁶⁵ Many companies are experiencing critical skills gaps, particularly in the retail, construction, real estate, manufacturing, education, and medical and health services industries⁶⁶. In fact, a significant 87 percent of executives report skills gap challenges today or expect them within a few years.⁶⁷

Student loan service Nelnet realized they had a widening skills gap as a result of the pandemic and automation, and recognized the risk it posed to businesses and employee roles. They partnered with edX for Business to help close skill gaps in critical areas like cybersecurity, information technology, finance, and compliance. The modular, stackable nature of the programs enabled employees to enroll in college-level courses with real credits and certificates while remaining flexible enough to adapt their learning as their positions evolved.

edX Open Courses and Professional Certificates can help your workforce gain essential skills today so they’re prepared for tomorrow. 

Improve hiring Initiatives

In a world of labor shortages and job-hopping, hiring talented, qualified people has become absolutely fundamental to business success. It’s not easy, though. In the U.S., 74 percent of companies underperform when it comes to hiring, and only 60 percent of new jobs created are being filled.⁶⁸

Businesses are trying to attract not just talented employees, but diverse staff too: 43 percent report finding diverse candidates with appropriate qualifications is the biggest challenge to their DEI goals. ⁶⁹
The spotlight is firmly on the moral imperatives and performance benefits of diversity, along with the multiplier effect it brings: 76 percent of job seekers and employees identify a diverse workforce as a key factor in judging companies and job offers.⁷⁰

Despite this, some industries remain deeply untransformed, such as technology, in which African Americans comprised just 7.4 percent of the total workforce in 2014.⁷¹
 Little has changed since then among major technology companies: In 2020, Facebook reported 3.8 percent of its staff were Black, Microsoft 4.5 percent, Twitter 6 percent, and Uber 9.3 percent. Reasons for this include companies being reluctant to recruit from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), internal referral systems that reinforce existing racial dynamics, and a lack of mentorship.⁷²

Netflix recently set out to tackle this issue, partnering with 2U and seven HBCUs and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). The Netflix Pathways Bootcamps teach industry-relevant foundational and advanced data science, Java, and UX/UI design skills to under-represented populations, preparing them for entry-level jobs in the tech industry.

The boot camps have created not just opportunities for under-represented graduates to find employment, but also a pipeline of highly-trained and mentored future talent. 

Adding a “train-to-hire” program to your recruiting efforts is an effective way to close specific skills gaps or boost the effectiveness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Learn more about hands-on boot camps here.

Leadership development

Living in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world has become the status quo. Effective leaders require a high level of agility, constant re-evaluation and iteration of leadership practices, and a drive to build resilience for the future.⁷³
 Building these capabilities has become a key focus area for L&D professionals, with 53 percent listing development of leadership and management skills as their top challenge.⁷⁴
 Key leadership trends for 2022 reflect the shifts in practices and values brought about – or accelerated – by COVID-19. These include:⁷⁵

• Building a culture of well-being
• Investing in employee development
• Addressing workplace culture inequality
• Building technological infrastructure
• Embracing an experimental mentality

Communications consultancy PLMR took a future-facing view of leadership development, identifying the need to plan effectively for succession, improve strategic thinking, and reward and invest in their employees.

To mesh training smoothly with work, PLMR invested in online executive education from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. PLMR enrolled its leaders in Online Oxford Programmes for professional service, women’s leadership development, digital marketing, disruptive strategy, and executive leadership. Leaders were able to apply their learnings to their everyday work challenges immediately, demonstrating applicable value for them and PLMR.

To learn more about how executive education can grow your leaders, click here. 

Workforce retention

The ‘Great Resignation’ has seen historic numbers of people quitting their jobs, with these sectors among the most affected:⁷⁶

• Leisure and hospitality
• Trade, transportation, and utilities
• Professional and business services
• Education and health services
• Manufacturing
• Construction

Businesses are grappling with the question of how to retain staff. Providing learning and skills-based career growth opportunities to employees is one answer. Professional development opportunities are seen by employees as the top way to improve company culture,⁷⁷
 with 94 percent of employees saying they would stay longer if the company invested in learning and career development benefits.⁷⁸
 They’re key to attracting young talent, too — a 2021 study found that 66 percent of workers aged 18–24 ranked upskilling opportunities as the third-most important benefit in evaluating a new job, while 48 percent of workers in the U.S. would move jobs for such opportunities.⁷⁹

Quick commerce and food delivery service Postmates chose edX to provide its thousands of workers access to more than 2,800 courses and certificate programs. As independent contractors, these workers could have sought alternative job opportunities when the pandemic hit. However, the learning made available through edX provided an attractive and valuable benefit, with many spending lockdowns or quarantines engaging in online programs safely at home. Courses in project management, health, entrepreneurship, Python, and business English were particularly popular.

Keep staff engaged with a range of courses on the edX Open Course Marketplace to promote a culture of learning in your organization.

Enterprise agility

Thriving in a highly dynamic world requires organizations to adapt quickly to changing technology, markets, and customer needs. Enterprise agility represents a shift away from traditional hierarchical structures and disconnected teams towards an operating model optimized across strategy, structures, processes, people, and technology.⁸⁰
 As businesses re-examine their role in society, enterprise agility is becoming a necessary paradigm to respond to issues such as sustainability, the need for workplace diversity and inclusion, and corporate social responsibility. Agile enterprises are more likely to capitalize on emerging technologies and business trends to distance themselves from the competition rather than be stymied by the relentless pace of change. However, two-thirds of enterprises report that they’re unprepared for workforce disruptions caused by technology and market trends.⁸¹

Such was the case for CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate company. CBRE wanted to develop a training plan for its European senior leadership to help develop and drive an environmental, social, and corporate governance initiative. They enrolled 142 senior leaders in the Sustainable Real Estate: Creating a Better Built Environment executive education course, developed by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). CBRE has been able to see the impact the course has had in providing their leaders with the ability to apply their new knowledge back to the business operation.

edX Executive Education courses offer focused, immersive, cohort-based online learning designed to help prepare leaders to respond to the pressing issues of our time.

The transformational potential of learning

Employees and organizations are on a journey together, trying to navigate the complexities of a rapidly evolving world. Advances in technology are changing the jobs we do and how we do them, and workers need to embrace a culture of lifelong learning to stay relevant.⁸²   The benefits for businesses are clear, with skilled workers more agile and motivated. Upskilling and reskilling have the potential to transform society at large, too, facilitating broader economic participation and inclusion for under-represented groups.

However, to unlock the true potential of continued professional development, workers need easy access to learning at every stage of their careers. edX for Business recognizes this and has brought to market the most comprehensive online talent-development product portfolio in the industry. edX for Business is uniquely equipped to craft nuanced learning and skills development solutions for today’s enterprises that will help position them to compete in today’s and tomorrow’s business environment. 

Is your workforce ready for the future of work? Contact an edX learning and development consultant to begin building learning and development solutions for your teams. 

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There is a growing global push toward sustainable practice driven by consumer, government, and industry pressures. The United Nations has released Sustainable Development Goals to drive change and commitment to sustainable practice before 2030. According to a Deloitte report, COP26 and the Paris Agreement Commitments will lead to a focus on supply chain decarbonization, reduction in emissions, and supply chain transformation to meet environmental goals.

In today’s world, our markets for goods and services are so interconnected that it will take global transformation to make significant progress toward sustainable practice. Fortunately, sustainability in the supply chain isn’t just good for the environment—it’s good for business, too. Sustainability within the supply chain doesn’t force businesses to compromise profit in the long term. In fact, optimization of supply chains to maximize value and minimize waste will allow markets to be both financially and environmentally sustainable.

Make Sustainable Supply Chain Your Organization’s Next Competitive Advantage

The Sustainable Supply Chain Professional Certificate Program from the International Supply Chain Education Alliance (ISCEA) empowers employees to develop expertise in integrating both sustainability and professional supply chain knowledge. This program helps organizations develop their next generation of leaders in this in-demand field and bridge the gap between supply chain and sustainability. Professionals with a strong background in the supply chain will benefit from sustainable education and incorporate it into their practices. And professionals with a sustainability background can also develop supply chain expertise. While the lessons in this program can apply to any type of business, it’s especially valuable and applicable to professionals in the supply chain, manufacturing, sustainable business, and service industries.

The program, which is designed for mid- to upper-level professionals, consists of three courses that deliver a comprehensive understanding of supply chain sustainability, including circular economy practices, and fosters decision-making to fuel a “green supply chain” that benefits the planet and your bottom line.

Additionally, this program prepares learners with resources for the ISCEA certification exam (for those interested in earning the Internationally recognized CSSCP designation), and will highlight real-world examples, including case studies of relevant industry practices, to demonstrate current innovation in the supply chain industry.

Employees who complete the ISCEA program will bring new sustainable strategies for the supply chain process (production, sourcing, distribution) and foster a commitment to reducing wastes within the supply chain to your organization. With multiple professionals educated in a sustainable supply chain among your ranks, expect a seachange across your enterprise as leadership and the organization as a whole experience – and advocate for – sustainable processes that benefit the environment and support your company’s success and longevity.

Start Your Transformation With edX For Business

Whether you want to equip your employees with the right skills to transition to a new role in sustainability, spark sustainable company initiatives, or provide continuing education for those who currently work in a sustainability role, The Sustainable Supply Chain Professional Program will help meet your goals.

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January 23, 2025

The future is unknown—there’s been no better lesson than the pandemic to teach us that. But within this inexorable truth, what we’ve learned over the past two years is that the worlds of work and education are incredibly resilient and adaptable. They’re capable of not only weathering great change but also embracing new ideas that challenge the status quo to meet the ever-changing demands of the future. These worlds are also more interconnected than ever.

The level of flexibility needed to navigate today’s unknowns is fueling a more skills-driven workforce, and those skills continue to be shaped and defined by a high-speed, technology-driven economy. At edX, we’ve seen demand rise for more modular, stackable, and affordable learning options—such as innovative boot camp credit waivers and credit-backed MicroBachelors® programs—that empower individuals with the tools they need to establish rewarding careers and pivot to whatever comes next.

We have also witnessed firsthand the powerful impact that university-industry partnerships can have on learner outcomes, as well as rigorous high-quality curricula that’s intentionally designed to align with workforce needs and continually adapt to the latest tech skills and job trends. By working more closely and collaboratively together, we’re better positioned to deliver educational solutions that drive societal impact and superior value for learners at scale, while helping universities and businesses strengthen their institutional vitality for the digital age.

As we move forward in 2022 on the path to new frontiers and possibilities, we asked three of our corporate partners from the technology, business, and finance realms—IBM, The Linux Foundation, and World Bank Group—to share with us what the future of work and education looks like to them. They drew connections further emphasizing that these worlds are not mutually exclusive, and that we’re mission-aligned in understanding what it will take to meet tomorrow’s demands.

Here are their predictions and perspectives.

From IBM Skills Network: Leon Katsnelson, CTO and Director

In his 2016 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos wrote, “If you fight powerful trends, you’re probably fighting the future. Embrace them, and you have a tailwind.” The trends affecting higher education today are lifelong learning and job-ready skills. These trends will redefine the role of universities, and for those who embrace them, they will no doubt offer great new opportunities.

With the current dizzying pace of technology evolution, universities can no longer be expected to equip students with the knowledge lasting a lifelong career. When training a medical doctor, universities provide in-depth knowledge of human anatomy. This knowledge will serve graduates their entire careers. AI engineers, on the other hand, may find their skills in need of an update soon after graduation.

Today, employers are not satisfied with foundational knowledge alone; they demand job-ready skills. Satisfying this demand is not something universities can attempt on their own. What holds promise is a trend of university-industry partnerships, especially partnerships focused on continuing education and skills development, backed up by certificates and micro-credentials. These types of partnerships are quickly becoming the tool of choice for many universities willing to embrace these powerful trends.

See what courses and programs IBM has to offer.

From The Linux Foundation: Clyde Seepersad, SVP and General Manager, Training and Certification

Digital transformation was driven into overdrive by the pandemic. Yet there remains huge amounts of technical debt within organizations around the world. It will take a major effort to lift and shift legacy systems into the cloud. We need more individuals with expertise in cloud technologies to make this happen, and we need them ASAP.

However, knowing how to deploy and maintain a cloud instance isn’t enough. DevOps has become the standard methodology for building, deploying, and administering software, so no matter what role you fill, DevOps will be critical. We’ll also see demand for skills with emerging technologies, from AI to blockchain to edge computing, continue to grow.

When it comes to the future of education, we’re already seeing the rapid migration to remote methods, and that is not going to slow even as the pandemic wanes. People want the option to learn anywhere, anytime. They also want options in how remote learning works. This means not only increasing the number of courses and platforms they can be taken on, but also having options for watching videos, reading or listening to lessons (including in different languages, like Spanish), and performing hands-on tasks. Online learning will continue to displace in-person education, which will require innovation for many subjects that require students to do activities live rather than simply listening to a lesson.

See what courses and programs The Linux Foundation has to offer.

From World Bank: Sheila Jagannathan, Head of Open Learning Campus

The coming together of COVID-19, the massive skilling challenges generated by the ongoing Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the youth bulge have compelled the world to reimagine their education models quickly. Innovators like edX are taking edtech and the accompanying novel pedagogies to the next level to raise the quality, equity, effectiveness, and resilience of learning.

Learning is key to solving complex global development challenges such as climate change, fragility, gender equality, and building back better after COVID-19. Digital learning and teaching tools are reshaping the educational landscape to meet the new challenges of closing the skills gap and helping upskill and reskill at scale. It is no longer a question of whether digital learning is a viable option, but rather of how do we go about the transformation—and how soon can we get started?

See what courses World Bank Group has to offer.

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January 23, 2025

Learning and development leads have been doing more with less for the last two years. Departments have been tasked with completely rewriting learning plans and rewiring how employees think about skills development.

In a recent webinar, Udit Bhatia, EY India’s Head Of Learning, shared insights into navigating this complex new world to help prepare learning leaders reshaping their own workforce development program this year. Below, we dive into three of key learnings from the webinar:

1. Why it’s critical to understand your company and industry landscape
2. How the pandemic has impacted workplace culture
3. Despite the impacts and opportunities new technology brings to learning, why people remain your secret ingredient

Watch the Webinar

1. Understand your business and industry before redefining learning at your company

The last two years have ushered in huge shifts, from lifts in industries and technology from telehealth and at-home fitness to cloud kitchens and chatbots to changing strategies in areas such as manufacturing and supply chain. Understanding your organization’s and industry’s unique future amidst these changes is crucial to navigating the complex budgeting decisions facing L&D leaders as we head into 2022.

Asking the right questions can help you and your learning team develop a strategy that drives learning success at your organization. Bhatia shared a few questions to help you start the deep dive into your organization and industry:

• What is the future of the industry or business I work for?
• Do I understand the competitive landscape, both existing and potential?
• What are the top five threats or weaknesses I see in our business or industry today?

DID YOU KNOW

Not only can understanding your organization’s priorities help shape strategy, it can also help drive engagement. Show your employees how L&D initiatives and opportunities ladder up to business goals to contextualize the impact of learning new skills.

2. Previous learning plans were built for a different workplace and employee

According to Bhatia, learning plans created in 2019 are essentially obsolete. Not only has acceleration in innovation and automation changed the types of skills and tech workforces need to thrive, but also the way employees engage with their organizations and learning. Bhatia shared a few data points to help illustrate:

• One third of the skills needed for a job in 2018 will not be needed by 2022.
• Today’s average employee can absorb half as much change as they could manage in 2019.
• 47% of employees feel disconnected with their teams or organizations.

As you examine where to invest your budget, reexamine the skills your organization lacks, including the ever-important human skills, and how you can create a culture of learning that engages and motivates your workforce.

SKILL HIGHLIGHT: HUMAN SKILLS

Human skills, like hard skills, need nurturing. In the Virtual Age, these types of skills, from communication to critical thinking, are essential to making remote and hybrid environments feel productive, efficient, and collaborative.

3. Mentorship will play a large role in the future of learning

Learning isn’t just about sitting in a classroom anymore (virtual or otherwise).

When talking about how employees will learn post-COVID, Bhatia shared, “On-the-job learning, managed coaching, mentoring, team-based development action plans—these are mentor-based models where you need somebody to mentor you. In the future, organizations are going to make their middle and senior managers more impactful so that they can actually train and mentor well.”

Bhatia also stressed the importance of peer-based learning and how that will impact the learning methods that organizations utilize. While some mentor-based learning is already happening at work, it isn’t always formalized or helpful to your employees.

Learning is changing, but so is your team

Heading into 2022, change will continue to be the only constant across work environments, industry landscapes, technology, and organizational priorities. Learning has had massive shifts, and so have our team members. As a learning leader, you have the opportunity to redefine what learning looks like as employees return to the office and the skills employees need changes.

To learn more, watch the full webinar with Udit Bhatia for actionable advice and key data points that will help you build a lasting learning and development experience.

Watch the Webinar

Discover more about how edX For Business supports learning and development.

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Business skills have always been foundational to keeping organizations competitive. As businesses become more digital, learning content that helps employees in all types of roles keep pace with the latest in business technology and practices has become critical. On the other hand, as technology changes the way we work, core competencies in areas like communication and project management are even more important.

Read on to learn how fellow financial services L&D professionals use business courses to develop relevant, mission-critical skills in their organizations.

Cultivating Technical Literacy, Leadership, & Collaboration

While developing technical talent is important, so is growing technical literacy and understanding within business roles. Knowledge of fintech and related emerging technologies and their implications and applications for the business is critical.

Technology isn’t the only area where skills are shifting—business leadership is changing, too, requiring new competencies even for seasoned managers and executives. Within financial services, L&D teams focus learning in areas like leadership and management—skills that improve workflows, operations, morale, and innovation.

Communication skills are also a priority. Especially for remote work, communication is key for effective collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders, and complement technical skills by ensuring ideas, products, and services are effectively communicated, developed, and delivered to others.

Popular edX Business Courses

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January 23, 2025

The pandemic has only increased businesses’ acceleration towards digital transformation and underscored the power of technology and computer science skills to help overcome economic disruption across industries, including financial services. Under the lens of the pandemic, opportunities sharpen focus specifically in areas that help reduce costs, enable remote work, and sustain operations, which a Deloitte report says will help businesses prepare for and endure whatever comes next.

Read on to learn how fellow financial services L&D professionals use computer science courses to develop relevant, mission-critical skills in their organizations.

Broad Upskilling & Targeted Competency Building

Within computer science, financial services companies offer a variety of opportunities:

• Building skills in universally useful programming languages such as Python— a gateway to upskilling to roles in priority areas such as data science and productivity enhancer across functions.
• Nurturing competencies in other business-critical areas, such as cybersecurity and DevOps.

Popular edX Computer Science Courses

From programming basics to cybersecurity and web development, explore a sampling of computer science courses and programs from the world’s top universities used by financial services organizations. 

Learning That Takes You From Keeping Pace to Staying Ahead

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