René Janssen, Founder & CEO of Lepaya, is passionate about human and business potential enabled by tech-enabled L&D.
The war in Eastern Europe that started in the spring of 2022 caused commodity prices to spike in the United States. A steering error by a large container ship in the Suez Canal disrupted worldwide supply chains for months. A virus first discovered in a Chinese city led to a global economic and cultural standstill for almost two years. And only recently, the launch of a commercial AI-driven large language model with the potential to disrupt entire industries is making us rethink the concept of real versus artificial. From the impact of climate change to technological advancements and digitization to the war on talent, the people you work with, the challenges you face and the competitors you’re up against transcend national borders.
In a world where change can be instigated anywhere and anytime, the agility and adaptability of your business model and of your employees are the primary source of sustainable competitive advantage. Having the right people with the right skills can determine tomorrow’s success. The optimal way to address this is to invest in upskilling and reskilling your employees continuously. If you haven’t already done so, I believe now is the time to reset your board-level priorities and put learning and development at the top of the list.
For internationally operating companies, making L&D a strategic priority is easier said than done. Applying a genuinely global approach to upskilling requires scalable and contextualized solutions. Traditionally, we see L&D being tackled on a country level, designed and executed by local HR personnel, leveraging local providers and local content. But many feel that responding to global threats through locally coordinated actions will yield little results. These threats often have to be addressed on the highest level using global solutions.
Upskilling on a global scale, however, comes with specific challenges. Traditionally, we see offline-driven L&D solutions that focus on multi-day, face-to-face training events. This type of learning can be limited by its lack of scalability. It is well-suited to train a group of people from a single location on a specific set of skills but often lacks the scope to cater to thousands. These methods generally take the form of one-off, isolated training sessions without tracking the long-term impact on behaviors or business outcomes. At the same time, they come at the cost of workflow disruptions leading to a loss in productivity. What further complicates offline-driven L&D solutions is that the providers in this space are highly fragmented. Imagine a corporation with locations in Buenos Aires, New York, Berlin, Johannesburg and Singapore that wants to double down on upskilling. Setting this up through the traditional channels will require local HR in all five locations to find a local provider and tons of coordination to safeguard quality and consistency.
So, how can you successfully execute L&D strategically across multiple countries? Here are three practical tips for creating a globally scalable and contextualized learning approach.
1. Design an upskilling blueprint tied to business goals.
The first step is developing a clear business strategy. Based on what you want to achieve business-wise, you can determine which skills you want to build in your organization to excel in the long run. The starting point for answering this question is a deeper understanding of the challenges your organization will most likely face, potentially differentiated towards the various markets you are active. Based on those, you can design an upskilling blueprint detailing which capabilities to build in your globally distributed talent.
2. Select trainings that effectively build the skills needed.
The world is full of trainings that do not demonstrably deliver skill improvement. In my experience, some traditional providers can overload learners with content and leave it to the learners to digest and apply the concepts in their work without support. Digital content platforms, on the other hand, sometimes do not allow for customization, and their content primarily focuses on theory.
A traditional provider makes sense in cases where live interactions between colleagues are crucial; however, they should always be complemented with pre- and post-classroom L&D interventions because regular reinforcement is necessary for learners not to forget and apply what they’ve learned. A digital content platform may make sense for fully remote teams to carry out hard skills or technical skills training at scale, but I also recommend regularly tracking learner progress to ensure employees are actually following through with the curriculum.
Another effective approach is to release short and specific bits of content over an extended period. This enables learners to internalize the theory and practice its application in day-to-day situations, thus more likely leading to the adoption of new behaviors and sustainable performance improvements.
3. Roll out your curriculum globally.
Build capability academies that treat understanding, which can be driven individually, and actual skill development, where instructors are needed, separately. Looking beyond traditional training providers and conventional learning methodologies, you’ll find new ways to set up effective learning modules globally. Combining digital tools and in-depth human interactions can result in engaging, self-paced and contextualized upskilling solutions that achieve lasting behavioral change and boost individual, team and company performance. Examples of new digital tools are AI algorithms to help learners develop their presentation skills and VR modules that create lifelike opportunities to practice professional communication.
When budgets are tight, HR expenditures, especially L&D budgets, are generally the first to be cut. Even though these costs might feel like luxury expenses, they certainly are not. Especially in times of turmoil, doubling down on agility and adaptability through your employees’ skill development can help you outperform your competitors and come out on top. Redesigning your L&D curriculum along these three practical tips can also mean cutting the slack and replacing ineffective—and generally expensive—programs with scalable and more effective solutions, potentially bringing down L&D costs.
Scaling L&D will require a contextualized approach that considers your company’s specific challenges and is delivered through effective methods that stimulate lasting behavioral change. I believe the multinationals that succeed in building an agile and adaptable global talent pool will earn a dominant position in their industry and be able to enhance their business performance sustainably.
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