Role of Learning & Development in Empowering Employees in 21st Century

  

Role of Learning & Development in Empowering Employees in 21^st Century

Every business has an objective & a strategy to reach their objective. Aligning of the capabilities, skills & competencies of the employees to match with the overall business strategy is the prime objective of Learning & Development (L & D). The L & D activities plays vital role in preparing the workforce to face the external challenges that could affect the functions of the business such as, preparing for unique business opportunities, gaining competitive advantage, preparing for technological changes, aligning to changes in economy & meeting customer expectations in changing environment. (CIPD, 2022)

Requirement of training & development was suggested in order to bridge the gap between the employee performance & expected performance. According to Suhasini & Suganthalakshmi, (2015) learning & development is frequently changing with the changing technology & the business needs. They also discuss that the current L & D practices has developed on You Tube, Social Media, Smart phones & E-Leaning platforms.

L & D activities moves out of traditional class rooms today & on the job training concept also started to be a popular strategy which adapts job rotation & delegation of work as a L & D strategy. Taking the next step from the class room learning, the we based learning has started to become popular in the L & D modern trends. When the class room based learning & web based learning is compared, there are multiple benefits for the organization as well as for the employees in using web based learning. The cost involved in L & D activities conducted through web based learning is relatively low, web based material could be changed promptly in accordance with the changes in the environment without any additional cost. Further the social interaction in web based learning spreads over a wide area & it could be easily adapted to support the performance system. (Ongori & Nzonzo, 2011)

As the technology & the needs of the business environment changes functions & strategies used in L & D would continue to change focusing on aligning the competencies of the employees to the need of modern business world.

 

References

 

Learning & Development Strategy and policy: Factsheets (2022) CIPD. CIPD. Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/development/factsheet#gref (Accessed: December 2, 2022).

Ongori, H. and Nzonzo, J.C. (2011) “Training And Development Practices In An Organisation: An Intervention To Enhance Organisational Effectiveness,” International Journal of Engineering and Management Sciences, 2(4), pp. 187–198.

Suhasini, R. and Suganthalakshmi, T. (2015) “Emerging Trends in Training and Development,” International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 5(3).