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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently declared a global recession, and is expected to cause 2 trillion dollars of economic losses. In a nutshell, the pandemic is not only a global health crisis but also an economic catastrophe.
Unfortunately, when money is scarce, one of the things that often hurts the most is investment on people development. As person working in HR business, I can say that hard times for the business do not mean that people development should be frozen. On the contrary, the pandemic should be the driving force for the quest for new knowledge and skill sets. Lot of companies, not necessarily big ones, shown that recession can be the best time for skilling, upskilling and reskilling efforts to enhance capability, competitiveness, and resilience. For example, the pandemic has forced schools, universities and learning institutions to shift rapidly from face-to-face learning to digital learning, there are some advantages: digital learning provides greater accessibility, saves logistics costs, offers personalization of learning needs. Now with videos, simulation, virtual coach and gamification features, digital learning is no longer just a training method but has vast potentials to create a totally new learning experience. Also, HR professional are using more sophisticate tools like interview on demand, and using of AI cloud base solution for predictive analytics to improve the candidate experience.
For individual employees, the need for self-directed learning is more crucial than ever. Even before the pandemic, the rise of gig economy has redefined the views towards work, organization, and employment. These changes also shift the responsibility of learning from employer-led to learner empowerment. The Covid-19 pandemic is a story with no clear ending. This is the time where the world needs optimism the most. We need to turn this tragedy into lessons, converting its challenges into opportunities: indeed, put the People Development strategy centric in a company’s priority will allow learning becomes fundamental and inevitable: It requires people to learn, unlearn and relearn to find alternative ways to operate.
Partner of Horizon Consulting in Poland – www.guidiconsulting.pl
