Andy Young is Managing Director within the Talent and Organisation Practice at Accenture.

It would be an understatement to say the past few months have been different. Many organisations have had to redeploy, upskill, or reskill staff quickly. People are adjusting to working from home, often with pets or children in tow. (In my case, in addition to my role with Accenture, I’m also the headmaster of my children’s homeschool.) 

But even before the pandemic, organisations were facing an increasingly complex and unpredictable future, driven by wider technological, societal, and economic trends. Before COVID-19, businesses needed new skills and more highly skilled people, and people wanted growth and development within their careers and working lives. And those things are still true. 

Learning is a critical capability for the future 

This all points to the importance of evolving learning to meet the needs of an uncertain future. If skill-building doesn’t catch up to the pace of technological change, Accenture analysis shows that the UK could lose up to US$185 billion over the next decade. That’s the equivalent of forgoing half a percentage point from the annual average GDP growth rate every year, for the next ten years.  

Mind the gap: How are UK organisations supporting learning? 

Clearly, learning is a priority. Which takes me to the CIPD’s research on learning in UK organisations. Overall, the results are mostly positive. For example, 83% of respondents say learning strategy is aligned to organisation need, 78% understand the skills they need today and tomorrow, and 67% can respond to changing skills needs in an agile way.  

However, there’s a gap between the apparent importance of developing, training, and supporting people to develop new skills and where organisations are investing. The vast majority (86%) identified at least one barrier to delivering learning. The biggest barriers are lack of learning time (41%), limited budgets (40%), and lack of management time or support (29%). 

There’s also a lack of urgency around developing skills for the future. For example, only 4% of respondents identified the need to reskill employees affected by automation, and just 8% are focused on developing soft skills. That’s an issue because the past few months have emphasised the demand for us to expand and combine two very different skill sets: the human magic of empathy, creativity, problem solving and resilience, with digital skills like cybersecurity, data, cloud and artificial intelligence.  

When it comes to technology use, there’s some good news: The popularity of online learning and development has increased to 57%, up from 29% in 2015, when the survey was last conducted. But at the time the survey was conducted, face-to-face delivery was the majority of learning delivered in 44% of organisations. And digital (augmented and virtual reality) and mobile device-based learning are used by just 18% and 14% of organisations, respectively. In other words, there’s work to be done before on-demand, ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning is commonplace. 

Most larger organisations aren’t taking advantage of emergent technologies 

Finally, we expected some differences between larger organisations (those with more than 250 employees) and SMEs, and these are reflected in the research. For example, larger organisations are doing more to deliver experiential learning, such as apprenticeships, job-shadowing, and mentorships. And larger organisations report more use of digital tools like AR, VR, and mobile devices. However, only the minority of organisations are using these technologies, which are particularly suited to larger workforces. That suggests that the majority of large companies aren’t taking advantage—and that’s a concern. 

What leaders are doing 

Here are some actions high-performing organisations in this study are doing to close the gap:   

• Using learning to a drive of business value and revenue, rather than perceiving learning as a cost   
• Investing in strategic learning to drive the agility and foster the skills needed in future work 
• Nurturing a learning culture where learning is valued, supported by leaders, and constant  
• Personalising learning for individuals, providing learning that’s ‘just enough and just for me’ 
• Emphasising ‘anytime, anywhere learning’ that’s woven into the flow of work and performance, so people learn as they work and work as they learn  
• Tapping into the value of powerful digital learning from apps, to advanced simulations, to VR and XR 
• Investing in learning platforms, both to improve the learning experience and gain data and analytics to inform next steps  
• Being more creative and innovative in learning experiences, in a way that keeps learners coming back 
• Embedding immersive learning experiences into key moments in life, work and career 

It’s time to close the gap 

UK organisations need to evolve the way they deliver learning. Learning must be accessible, agile and flexible. It must be available in the flow of work, not a conference room; via digital technologies that enable ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning; and curated, not just created. And it needs to be personalised and targeted and measured and iterated to achieve business goals. 

I want to highlight what Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development, said:  

“Learning has never been more important for business, the UK and working lives—we needed it before COVID-19 and we need it even more now. Yet this report highlights the gap between companies who know this, following through with strategic investment, professional practice, new technologies, and time to learn—versus those who know the importance, but allow it to be the first thing cut from the budget. Within the report, there are some incredibly innovative examples of learning, which are developing new skills, behaviours and performance—at times like these we need these examples to be more commonplace.” 

Well said, Peter. It’s time to close the gap between intent and action, the human and the digital, what we know about learning and how we can deliver it more effectively. With great challenges come great opportunity. Let’s move forward to create the new reality of work. 

Over the next six weeks, I’ll be highlighting different aspects of the CIPD’s research on the Accenture Talent & Organisation Blog. I invite you to join me there and share the research with your colleagues.