How is your learning plan 2022 coming along? We have hardly had time to digest 2020, let alone the previous year. While there was a slight return to normalcy in 2021, it appears that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic will continue in some form for the following few years. Businesses and learning and development (L&D) teams worldwide have started to operate under this assumption after understanding the importance of planning ahead. But, before we move ahead to 2022, let’s take a glance back over the previous two years.
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The Shift in the L&D Paradigm
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, 2020 absolutely changed our workplace model — how L&D teams work, how training is delivered, and how businesses operate. Everything changed to some extent for everyone. We learned a lot about how to transition to digital work and training.
We learned how to use modalities like eLearning and virtual instructor-led training to bring training programs online successfully. A similar trend continued in 2021, to the point that the two years had merged into one.
In a nutshell, 2021 was when we perfected new processes and established them as standard. What does this imply for the current year when it concerns the importance of planning your L&D model?
3 L&D forecasts for making your learning plan 2022
Nothing is guaranteed if the last several years have taught us anything. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility of anticipating and planning. Let’s get started.
A Huge Move to Concentrate on Employee Retention
The Great Resignation took place in the year 2021. The year 2022 will almost certainly be worse. Inflation is rising, and people are under pressure to earn more to keep up. It’s a long-held assumption that getting a new job is the best way to increase your compensation significantly.
People are looking for greater fulfillment and progress in their current jobs than just a paycheck. They don’t want to be treated like robots; instead, they want to feel invested and have a route to follow. They want to walk into a job, be trained in what they need to know, and feel confident right away.
Companies will be scrambling to retain the finest personnel to avoid waves of resignations, and they will rely on training as part of those efforts. As organizations seek to solve retention concerns across all industries by implementing new L&D programs, L&D teams will inevitably have a prominent seat at the table.
Conventional Training Models Will Turn Obsolete
The eight-week onboarding cycle is fading away, and it will continue to fade away in 2022. Consider how individuals learn these days, both at work and outside of work. The majority of learning occurs outside of the classroom and in tiny doses. People go to a person or a location to receive the information they require when they require it. Whether through VILT, eLearning, or hybrid methods, L&D teams must account for this self-service feature in their learning plan 2022.
However, you can not move all training online. A lot of applications still need to be done in a classroom. The same concepts, however, apply. Get out of the classroom for more than a few hours or weeks. In your learning plan 2022, keep it short and to the point, no matter what technique you use to deliver the information.
The Demand for L&D Teams to Use Data to Showcase Results Will Increase
With the rise of remote and hybrid work, as well as innovative approaches to onboard, train, and develop people, forward-thinking L&D teams have become increasingly important. In your learning plan 2022, companies will demand to demonstrate a measurable return on their investment in learning and development.
The demand for L&D professionals to demonstrate return on investment was already high, but in 2022, it will be even higher. In a nutshell, be ready to back up your claims in your learning plan 2022 with statistics.
What Are The Most Important Factors To Consider When Creating Learning Plan 2022?
As we can see from the above trends, hybrid, data-driven L&D models will continue to grow as part of your learning plan 2022 in the coming months. Hence, training frameworks must understand the importance of planning ahead and adapt to support them. When developing your learning plan 2022, keep the following points in mind:
Focussing on Connections
Workers who aren’t connected often feel left out. Given that hybrid work is the new “normal,” L&D strategies in your learning plan 2022 must examine how to develop and maintain continuing ties and contacts between learners, trainers, and mentors to support inclusivity effectively.
Filling the Gaps in Skills, Capability, and Cost
Staff to conduct L&D initiatives or generate instructional materials is often challenging to come by. And when they do, these items aren’t inexpensive. Companies must collaborate with partners who can balance capabilities, capacity, and cost. Outsourcing or even hiring supplemental workers until you can hire full-time can be more cost-effective. Working with a team that can complement your skills and fills the gaps is more important than ever before to be embedded in your learning plan 2022.
Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment
Hybrid workers collaborate and provide real-time feedback to help them learn more effectively. As a result, they’ll expect L&D methods to facilitate these collaborative learning opportunities. This necessitates a more significant emphasis on peer learning and social learning techniques in your learning plan 2022.
Increasing Learner Autonomy
What is autonomy? Corporate learning strategies will be forced to provide greater autonomy to learners as a result of the emerging hybrid workplace. As a result, self-paced and self-directed learning must be considered in L&D initiatives.
Understanding and Incorporating the Needs of the Learner
The hybrid workplace is a brand-new work paradigm with distinct learning requirements. This model necessitates a new learning plan 2022 for L&D teams to comprehend and incorporate those requirements to better train a new generation of learners.
Creating an Environment Conducive to Lifelong Learning
Like the need to learn and use new skills, the workplace is constantly changing. On the other hand, busy workers don’t want to log in to the corporate LMS every time they have a learning opportunity, especially in a hybrid context. Employees can chart a continuous learning journey by making continuous learning feasible through both push and pull choices, social learning, performance support tools (PSTs), and other self-directed learning support.
Bringing LIFOW Assets Together
Employees learn best when they are at work and in a situation where they are needed. Make resources available to promote learning in the flow of work (LIFOW) as part of your learning plan 2022. That means including on-demand learning strategies available to everyone, including remote and mobile professionals. Make it selectable and searchable to access the exact information they require, when and when needed.
Considering How to Get Creative in L&D
Training teams will need to experiment with new methodology and approaches to develop their learning plan 2022. Learning models that evolve in tandem with the transitions in the hybrid work model are urgently needed. Working with external partners and outsourcing essential L&D services that in-house personnel may not be able to manage is one facet of a Learning and Development strategy’s new work paradigm.
What Should Your Learning Plan 2022 Focus On?
It’s critical to stay focused on key topics as you start designing your learning plan for 2022. These include features that show how important your team is to the organization in creating high-performance, fully engaged and inclusive hybrid workspaces.
Creating Efficient Learner and Learning Experiences
There’s a subtle difference between learning and learner experiences, and it’s important to note in your L&D goals for the learning plan 2022. A learner’s experience includes all aspects of their learning, whereas a learning experience includes interactions between learners and their learning settings. Along a learner’s learning path, make sure to highlight both of these events.
Adopting Agile Training Models
Building flexible, agile learning methodologies that encompass frequent training design and development iterations will be critical in 2022.
Training Future Leaders
Organizations will search for ways to strengthen resilience by developing the next generation of leaders from within. According to LinkedIn, the newest set of professionals in the workforce is interested in career advancement. On the other hand, companies are very interested in internal mobility; since the pandemic, the number of internal hiring has increased significantly.
Upskilling and Reskilling the Workforce
A new set of abilities is required for the new hybrid workplace paradigm. Make sure your learning plan 2022 focuses on equipping employees with the capabilities they’ll need in the future rather than on honing skills they already have.
There was a lot of anxiety about the skills gap a few years ago; how could firms acquire enough individuals with the required talents to fulfill specific roles? The upheaval of recent years has shown the L&D sector that there is another option to close the skills gap: retraining existing employees with new skills.
According to LinkedIn, in 2021, reskilling and upskilling will be a critical L&D focus. In 2022, this tendency is expected to shift, with people being trained for skills rather than specific tasks. This step is beneficial to both the organization (it increases organizational resilience) and the learners (they can utilize their acquired abilities to advance their careers).
Investing in Employee Well-being
Everyone has had a difficult few years. According to recent reports, the pandemic’s impacts have remained — even in the post-pandemic world, 94 percent of workers report being anxious. According to Gartner, organizations have evolved into an extended safety net for employees, investing in the well-being of their workforce. Training workers in self-care, incorporating mental health into training, and teaching stress reduction as part of your L&D program can help assist this effort.
Transforming the Learning Culture
You must incorporate the transformation of learning culture across the firm into a Learning and Development plan for 2022. Building effective learning frameworks that foster a culture of lifelong learning is part of this.
Considering Virtual Reality
We’ve been anticipating VR to make a place for itself for years, but it hasn’t quite manifested itself in the training environment as we may have imagined 15 years ago. Virtual reality, on the other hand, may have a future. L&D departments may begin investing in new, cutting-edge tech solutions in 2022 as a result of the recent migration to remote work and the necessity to produce engaging training for distant learners who miss classrooms. Large corporations, such as Walmart, have already begun to use virtual reality and augmented reality to train employees.
Measuring the Impact of Training
While many company executives recognize the benefit of L&D, L&D leaders must continue to demonstrate that value—both in terms of financial impact and the ability to create a more inclusive, engaged, and high-performance hybrid workforce.
Focussing on Mobile Learning
Mobile learning will continue to be used dominantly in 2022, given a large number of hybrid and remote learners. The majority of students carry their phones with them at all times, and the majority of people — around 71 percent of the worldwide population — own cell phones. Despite this, many learning organizations aren’t mobile-ready.
According to Brandon Hall Research Group, only about a third of the companies they studied have a mobile strategy, and over a quarter of those surveyed had no plans to develop one at all. Many of those that do only offer modest mobile learning – 27% of organizations offer some learning via applications, web pages, or portals, while 36% offer information via mobile browsers. L&D departments will be looking for ways to reach all learners.
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Labelling L&D as a Performance Booster
L&D is viewed as a cost center by the conventional corporate executive. It’s critical to consider the business impact of your training as you prepare your hybrid learning plan 2022. It’s critical not to lose sight of L&D’s role as a value-creating and performance-enhancing function. To do so, make sure your training measurements are in line with your organization’s KPIs. Concentrate on high-value metrics like revenue generation, improved performances, a boost in compliance, and enhanced credibility.
Conclusion
Working models have shifted dramatically in 2021, with a greater emphasis on the hybrid workforce. Learning and Development strategies for 2022 will be defined by this trend, as well as a stronger emphasis on diversity, participation, engagement, and performance. We hope that the material in this post will assist you in planning and developing L&D strategies for 2022 by emphasizing critical priority areas to consider when doing so.
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