In today’s world of work, there’s a stronger emphasis on growth and development than ever before. Employees are no longer simply settling for good benefits and a fair salary — workers are now seeking jobs that will help them learn new skills and move forward in their careers. 

However, research by Josh Bersin tells us that while the most impactful L&D practice is to deliver wide-ranging career growth options, only 17% of organizations are actually creating these opportunities for their employees. 

Part of every L&D team’s purpose is to make learning and development easy and approachable for employees — and even though career development certainly takes time and effort, employees shouldn’t be struggling just to understand how or where to get started. 

So, how can your team help build strong career pathways for employees? We've compiled our suggestions below. 

Create and define career pathways for every role

If employees are going to move forward at work, they need to know where they’re headed. Employees are often left in the dark trying to come up with ways to achieve vague promotions that may or may not come with a title change, role change, or pay raise — and may or may not even exist in the first place. 

Creating and defining clear career pathways for employees shows them exactly what to reach for if they’re working toward a promotion in their current role, and it also tells them what roles exist if they’re exploring a lateral move to a new department. 

While every organization will choose to communicate information about these pathways differently, a few factors you may want to consider include:  

Defining different levels within each role 

Creating job descriptions for each role and level 

Sharing compensation ranges for each level 

As an example, here’s what the different levels within a product marketing individual contributor role might look like: 

Whatever additional information you choose to provide about each level is up to your team’s discretion. Once an employee has a clear idea of what role they are working toward, they can begin collaborating with their manager to determine what steps they’ll need to take to attain a new role. 

Train managers to discuss and support career paths

Managers are an incredibly important part of every team – and they may have more influence than they realize. According to CliftonStrengths, 70% of the variance in a given team’s engagement is determined by their manager. 

Managers play a much bigger role than simply organizing their team and keeping them on track. For many employees, their manager acts as their primary source of truth at work, their go-to for advice, and the most influential person they work with. So, if an employee wants to grow but isn’t sure how, having a manager who has the skills and tools necessary to support them will be vital to their career development journey.  

Managers should be familiar with the career pathways available for their team so they can direct their reports to those pathways and answer questions about various roles and levels. They should also be trained to help employees determine the steps they might take to achieve their career goals. 

Offering leadership development training for managers can help them have more productive conversations with team members, learn how to identify each team member’s strengths, and identify areas of opportunity accordingly. 

A culture of growth is essential to an employee’s willingness and motivation to explore new career paths within the organization. Whether upskilling or reskilling, employees should feel empowered to make changes in their careers. 

It’s important that employees who are considering moving into another area of the company can speak openly about this with their manager. They shouldn’t feel ostracized or looked down upon for leaving their team but should instead be given the freedom and support necessary for them to reskill. 

L&D teams can help promote a culture of growth and opportunity by creating job shadowing, mentorship, or coaching programs. Job shadowing allows employees to get a glimpse into a new role, enabling them to decide whether it might be a good fit. Mentorship and coaching programs can pair employees with mentors or coaches from another area of the company who can help them grow into a new role. 

To move through a career pathway, employees will need to continue learning new skills. Skills requirements are constantly changing with the rise of AI and other advances in technology. A 2021 Gartner HR Research poll found that 58% of the workforce will need to learn new skills to succeed in their roles. To keep up with our quickly developing world, employees must be provided with learning content. 

Providing the right content for the right learners can be tricky, so be sure to focus on content that is diverse, personalized, and accessible. Learners should be able to find content that applies to their role, provided in the learning style that works best for them, and they should be able to access this content in whatever way is most convenient. Learning content can strengthen your career pathways by enabling employees to receive the training they need to grow. 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs. 

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How can your team help build strong career pathways for employees? We've compiled our suggestions below. 

How L&D teams can help build strong career pathways

Whether you’re an expert tailor, a digital marketing genius, or you like to get your hands dirty on a construction site, there’s one thing that every business has in common: an endless pursuit of productivity. How can you get an extra 0.1% edge over your competitors? How can you motivate employees to not just go through the motions, but go above and beyond? How do you ensure employees buy into your broader organisational strategy? While it’s easy to overcomplicate things and implement trendy productivity hacks, ultimately, the answer is simple. Productivity means fostering an environment where employees feel happy, valued, and engaged. 

But when everyone wants to boost their productivity, what will set your team apart? What is your point of difference? As is often the case, the answer is L&D. Creating a culture of learning can have a massive impact on your team’s productivity. For example, organisations with strong learning cultures are 52% more productive and 17% more profitable than their peers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

With this in mind, we’ll analyse how L&D can improve your team’s productivity. We’ll start by examining the state of productivity, before outlining five ways L&D can boost your team’s productivity. 

While every business wants to be more productive, it’s rarely that straightforward. Employees are only at their productive best when they feel valued and engaged. Thus, when it comes to productivity, you get out what you put in. If you’re merely going through the motions and paying lip service to your employees’ wellbeing, their effort and productivity will reflect that. 

Research shows that the average employee is productive for just 2 hours and 53 minutes per day, or 31% of an average 8-hour workday. Additionally, just 21% of workers say they are productive for an entire day. For managers and team leaders, these statistics should have alarm bells ringing. 

So, what factors affect workplace productivity? For starters, TeamStage finds that stress costs employers over $500 billion annually. That’s right, $500 billion. Unsurprisingly, 41% of employees say stress negatively impacts their productivity, while work overload reduces productivity by 68%. Finally, fatigue costs businesses $1,967 per employee per year in lost productivity. 

These points are worth emphasising: stress, fatigue, and unsustainable workloads all negatively impact productivity. The solution? Our brains need breaks. To maintain productivity, we need a chance to switch off and decompress, or else burnout is inevitable. A study by Microsoft demonstrates this, finding that participants who took short meditation breaks between meetings showed brainwave patterns with positive levels of frontal alpha asymmetry, which correlates to higher focus and engagement.

Interruptions also play a considerable role in declining workplace productivity. According to Time Magazine, the average office worker is interrupted a whopping 56 times per day, with 80% of these considered trivial interruptions. Even worse, it takes employees 25 minutes and 26 seconds to completely refocus after being interrupted. Obviously, it’s hard to be productive when you’re interrupted that often. 

Other common productivity roadblocks include poor communication, which 86% of professionals say is a leading cause of declining productivity, and unnecessary meetings, with 91% of people admitting they regularly daydream during meetings. 

On the other hand, happiness at work boosts productivity by 20% and working from home can increase productivity by 14%. What’s more, having a strong onboarding process increases productivity by 70%, while 60% of Millennials say flexibility is essential for their productivity. 

Finally, there is a strong correlation between engagement and productivity. According to Gallup’s 2022 State of the Workplace report, just 21% of employees are actively engaged at work. In other words, 79% of employees are disengaged! This is a shocking statistic, which should send a strong message to workplace leaders: take employee wellbeing seriously, or risk disengaged, unproductive workers. 

On the bright side, companies with engaged employees are 17% more productive, while highly engaged employees are twice as productive as the average worker. 

5 ways L&D can boost your team’s productivity 

So, productivity and engagement levels aren’t where most businesses want them to be. And that’s putting it lightly. As such, the question becomes, how can L&D engage employees and boost your team’s productivity? Here are five ways L&D increases productivity.

1. The more you put in, the more you get out

As we’ve covered previously, failing to invest in digital learning can be incredibly costly in the long run.

IBM finds that every dollar invested in online learning results in $30 worth of productivity. It’s the gift that keeps on giving! What’s more, well-trained employees increase their productivity by 10% on average. 

Further, in a recent survey, 42% of respondents said productivity levels increased significantly after introducing L&D initiatives, with some adding that productivity levels skyrocketed by as much as 40%. 

Accordingly, 72% of organisations believe their business gains a competitive advantage by investing in digital learning — largely due to the productivity boost. 

According to a recent report, 80% of employees say that L&D increases their productivity. It’s worth taking a second to reiterate that point: 4 out of 5 employees think they are more productive thanks to L&D. 

That’s not all, as there is once again a strong correlation between productivity and engagement. 75% of employees say L&D benefits their engagement and overall job satisfaction. Moreover, 90% of HR managers agree that training improves employee productivity and development.

Lastly, 91% of companies say upskilling and reskilling have led to a productivity boost, while 80% of employees say upskilling and reskilling have boosted their confidence. 

At this point, it’s clear that L&D is an effective productivity booster. But exactly how effective is it? A study by the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce (EQW) sought to quantify this. 

During the study, researchers increased the number of workplace L&D opportunities and the value of office equipment by 10% each. These increases led to an 8.6% productivity gain when employees had more access to L&D vs a 3.4% productivity gain for upgraded office equipment. 

As such, not only is L&D an excellent way to boost productivity, but it is more effective than other common productivity-boosting tactics. 

We’ve spoken time and time again about the benefits of developing a strong learning culture. For instance, high-performing organisations are 5x more likely to have an extensive learning culture.

Given this, it should be no surprise that a strong learning culture can also boost productivity. Organisations with strong learning cultures are 52% more productive, 17% more profitable, and 92% more likely to develop novel products and processes! 

As we’ve established, there is a strong correlation between productivity and engagement. Remember, companies with engaged employees are 17% more productive. 

And, surprise surprise, L&D is a fantastic way to increase engagement. In fact, 92% of people say well-planned training programs have a positive effect on their engagement. 

Additionally, Culture Amp finds that employees who have access to the appropriate L&D materials are 21% more engaged than those who don’t.

Want more productive, engaged employees? Look no further than L&D. 

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Productivity means fostering an environment where employees feel happy, valued, and engaged. With this in mind, we’ll analyse how L&D can improve your team’s productivity.

How L&D can boost your team's productivity

Productivity means fostering an environment where employees feel happy, valued, and engaged. With this in mind, we’ll analyse how L&D can improve your team’s productivity. 

Presented by Go1, this HR digital summit sessions focused on empowering neurodiverse talent and the importance of inclusivity in Learning and Development (L&D) spaces. Featured guests on the panel included Louis Chesney, Neurodiversity Product Manager at RethinkCare, Mandy Rutherford, L&D Manager Wave Utilities, and Nick Ramsay, Enterprise Account Executive at Go1.  

Kicking off the discussion, host Kieran Howells, head of content at HR Grapevine, asked the panel the key benefits behind instilling an inclusive learning culture whilst the audience considered how inclusive their own organisations currently were.  

The panel summarised neurodiversity in the workplace as an opportunity to harness people’s differences in order to make impactful business changes. A neurodiverse workforce offers a variation of perspectives and, in tandem, multiple solutions to a potential business problem. Louis expanded on this, noting that the larger gaps between a neurodiverse individual's strengths and challenges should be considered early on in the hiring process, as this allows organisations to better tailor their interviewing, onboarding, and training strategies to the specific needs of individuals. 

Historically, content education and traditional learning conditions haven’t catered for people's neurodiverse needs and although the pandemic accelerated more flexibility in learning, Mandy highlighted that neurodiversity is very much still a developing space. The poll results echoed this, revealing that 66% of the audience rated their organisation as “somewhat inclusive”.  

So what are some of the challenges that organisations still face? The panel identified psychological safety and learning stigmas as the key barriers restricting the learning journey of neurodiverse individuals. However, Louis expressed that such challenges can be mitigated through the cultivating of a safe learning environment that avoids jargon terms, and encourages both mistakes and open communication, and provides opportunities for individuals to showcase their knowledge and enhance their skills in diverse ways. Mandy then highlighted the critical role that managers play in building this inclusive environment, suggesting that leaders need to be provided with the resources they need to support neurodiverse employees.  

Nick was in agreement, flagging that such inclusivity is crucial in order to avoid cases of discrimination against neurodiverse individuals.  

Next, the panel considered how new emerging technologies can be utilised to develop inclusive L&D strategies, through identifying current and future skill gaps. Louis shed insight on how improved data systems can match individuals to the relevant learning content, subsequently benefiting the individuals career trajectory, as well as aligning with overall business objectives. 

Rounding off the discussion, the panel answered an array of questions from the audience, including concerns around current economic struggles and how reduced budgets can affect the availability of neurodiverse resources.  

The panel presented solutions such as offering micro-learning sessions that are scalable and can be disseminated across the entire workforce. Additionally, companies should recognise their existing neurodiverse talent who can champion such inclusive learning initiatives internally.  

The panel concurred that it’s vital that learning is built into existing everyday practices, acknowledging that an individual's time is a valuable resource. Nick concludes that wherever possible, learning should be personalised, digestible and have clear signposting to further development opportunities. A true learning culture, Mandy added, is one where everyone is considered on the journey. 

Digital Summit 2023: Empowering Neurodiverse Talent

How can workplaces empower their neurodiverse talent? This HR digital summit answered that question and emphasised the importance of inclusivity in L&D.

Empowering Neurodiverse Talent: The Importance of Inclusivity in Learning and Development

In an incredibly fast-paced world, it’s often difficult to plan for the present, let alone the future. Whether you’re closing a deal or putting the finishing touches on a big report, there’s always something urgent to do right now. In this environment, even knowing what you’ll be doing next week can feel like an impossible task, so trying to plan two years ahead can be incredibly daunting. 

Yet, as is often the case in life, taking the time to stop, smell the roses, and plan ahead will set you up for sustainable, long-term success. Accordingly, robust succession planning is imperative for high-performing businesses. 

Don’t just take our word for it, research by PWC shows that 79% of companies in top-performing quartiles engage in succession planning. By comparison, just 21% of other companies have formal succession plans — a huge gulf between high-performers and the rest! 

With this in mind, we’ll analyse why succession planning is vital for your business. We’ll start by defining succession planning, before examining the state of succession planning, and offering four best practices for succession planning. 

Ready to start planning for success? Start here. 

Succession planning means proactively planning for the future. No, it doesn’t require a crystal ball. Rather, it’s all about answering one simple question: when someone leaves the business, who will step up to fill their role? Knowing the answer to this question ensures businesses can strike a balance between current and long-term success — especially if the departing employee is in an influential leadership or executive position. 

There’s nothing worse than being blindsided by someone leaving the company and having no one ready to replace them. Everything grinds to a screeching halt as you scramble to fill the void of knowledge and skills they leave behind. By having a clear succession plan, you can avoid this scenario, ensuring there is a knowledge transfer between the exiting employee and their successor as part of the training and handover process.

As such, a central aspect of succession planning is creating a continuous pipeline of talent, thereby ensuring smooth transitions and minimal disruptions when an employee leaves. Robust succession planning means that when someone leaves the business, the next person in line will have the appropriate skills, experience, and knowledge to step up and fill that role.

As the University of Washington explains, “succession planning is the process of identifying the critical positions within your organisation and developing action plans for individuals to assume those positions. A succession plan identifies future staffing needs and the people with the skills and potential to perform in these future roles.”

BamooHR adds that a good succession plan “focuses on identifying potential leaders and high performers, helping them develop so they can advance within their organisation.”

To achieve this, you must identify promising talent and potential leaders early and continuously develop their skills to ensure they are prepared to be promoted to a new role when the time comes. 

While succession planning generally focuses on executive and leadership roles, as these are seen as the most impactful and difficult to fill, this doesn’t have to be the case. If someone is being formally developed to take over a specific role — whether that’s a CEO, a baker, a personal trainer, or a receptionist — that’s a succession plan. 

Ultimately, good succession planning is all about thinking three steps ahead. Rather than resting on your laurels and thinking ‘things are going well right now’, ask yourself ‘what would we do if X person left tomorrow? Could anyone fill their role, or would we be left shorthanded?’ If the answer is that you don’t have a plan, it’s time to start identifying potential replacements in your organisation and developing their skills. 

Now that we understand what succession planning is, it’s time to examine the current state of succession planning, including which companies engage in succession planning, the costs of succession planning, and the benefits of succession planning. 

While most businesses recognise the value of succession planning, few actually succeed. 86% of leaders believe succession planning is an urgent priority for their business, yet just 14% think they’re doing it well. This is a huge discrepancy and an even bigger missed opportunity! The good news is that if you are among the 14% of businesses that are good at succession planning, you have a huge competitive advantage. 

What’s more, just 21% of teams say they have formal succession plans. An additional 20% have informal succession plans, while 20% say they don’t currently have a plan but want to develop one. By comparison, 79% of companies in top-performing quartiles engage in succession planning, underscoring the importance of succession planning for high-performing businesses. 

According to ASIS, the most common reasons teams cite for not having a succession plan are a lack of time and resources to develop one (31%) and that their organisation is too small to have one (18%). 

According to a recent report by Ceridian, 65% of organisations use succession planning for key leadership roles. This figure drops to 61% for subject matter experts, 60% for critical technical experts, and just 50% for people leaders. 

Despite this, the report recommends that good succession planning should “be broad and consider the organisation holistically” rather than focusing exclusively on senior executives. 

Ceridian also found that 57% of teams rely on technology as part of their succession planning process, using dedicated succession planning tools to map talent and identify future leaders. 

While succession planning may seem like a daunting task, it will set your business up for success in the long term. Identifying and promoting internal talent has a far higher success rate than hiring external talent. 

34% of external hires for senior leadership positions fail, compared to just 24% of internal hires, underscoring the benefits of internal mobility and succession planning. 

What’s more, the HBR estimates that only 39% of outside hires would perform better than an internal hire, while employees who move into new jobs internally are 3.5x more likely to be engaged.

Moreover, 79% of companies from top-performing quartiles hired CEO replacements internally, far higher than the overall industry average. 

Despite this, only 65% of teams even advertise open positions internally, while 57% of employees believe it would be easier to find a new job in a different organisation than to find a new job internally in their current organisation. In other words, many teams are shooting themselves in the foot by not promoting internal roles! 

Given this, it makes sense that 62% of L&D professionals are prioritising internal mobility this year.

To learn more, see our article on why internal mobility is vital in today’s workforce. 

Not having a succession plan may be costing your business. A lot. While it may seem like a significant time investment upfront, failing to have a succession plan can be incredibly expensive in the long run. 

The HBR finds that poorly managed C-suit transitions at top-performing companies result in a loss of $1 trillion in market value per year. Plus, the average cost of replacing a failed executive is 10x their salary. 

You might be thinking ‘that’s all well and good, but I work for a small business, not a C-suite organisation.’ Well, you’re not exempt. Analysis by Gartner found that employee turnover due to poor internal mobility and a lack of future career opportunities costs an average-sized organisation a whopping $49 million per year. That’s $49 million that could have been saved by succession planning and internal mobility. 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. According to SHRM, the average cost-per-new-hire for companies is currently $4,129, far higher than the cost of transitioning an existing employee into a new role. As Toggl Hire notes, “an average company loses anywhere between 1% and 2.5% of their total revenue on the time it takes to bring a new hire up to speed.”

Whatever way you slice it, failing to plan ahead can be costly, so it pays to invest in succession planning. 

When teams do engage in succession planning, the benefits are significant. 94% of employers say having a succession plan improves employee engagement. Employees agree, with 62% saying they would be ‘significantly more engaged’ if their company prioritised succession planning. 

Employees are also more likely to want to work for a company with a strong culture of succession planning. 34% of employees say they are remaining in their current role because they foresee an opportunity to be part of the future growth of the company. 

On the flip side, employees are willing to jump ship to companies who do engage in succession planning. 37% of people say opportunities for career advancement elsewhere would convince them to leave their current job, while 27% say they would leave their job for the chance to learn and develop new skills.

Ultimately, 94% of HR professionals say internal recruiting helps retain their most valuable talent, while 81% added that internal hiring improves retention overall. Therefore, succession planning is essential to consistently attract and retain top talent. 

If, like many organisations, you understand that succession planning is vital but don’t know where to start, we’ve got you covered. Here are four succession planning best practices to set your business up for sustainable success. 

Good succession planning must align with your overall business strategy. As Altus puts it, “if your succession strategy seems like a departure from your long-held goals and beliefs, it will be difficult to get everyone on board with the process.” 

Employees must understand how succession planning aligns with your organisation’s broader strategy, goals, and values. Therefore, clear communication is vital throughout the process. You should explain to employees why succession planning is important and how it aligns with your company’s goals. Doing so will ensure buy-in and engagement throughout the process while also giving employees a clear path to career advancement. 

To get started on this alignment, see our article on how to align L&D to the organisation’s strategy.

It’s never too early to start succession planning. From the moment an employee comes on board, you should take note of their strengths, weaknesses, and overall potential to transition to other roles in the future. 

Of course, it is not enough to simply identify high-potential employees, you must also work with them to overcome potential skill gaps. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, this is where many teams let themselves down. 98% of businesses say they are good at identifying high-potential employees, yet, they spend just 10% of their time developing these potential leaders. 

As such, businesses must both identify and develop candidates throughout the succession planning process. 

We’ll analyse why succession planning is vital for your business, including four succession planning best practices to set your business up for sustainable success. 

Why succession planning is vital for your business

Partnering with Go1’s Enterprise Account Executive, Nick Ramsey, we investigate the current state of workplace stability, before diving into internal talent mobility and the interesting rise of talent marketplaces. 

The current state of workforce stability 

In a world where change is often the only constant, the idea of stability can feel like a faraway dream. One could assume there would be a limited case for ‘stability’ given the current state of the world’s workplace. 

Can today’s employees really expect, or desire, stability after the last 5 years of digital transformation, pandemic disruptions, and rapid innovation?  

Thankfully, the answer is a resounding yes. While the working world may be characteristically unstable, and could remain so for some time, there is a strong case for doubling down on efforts to stabilize your working environment. If for no other reason than to appeal as a breath of fresh air in the context of the otherwise chaotic 2020’s.  

Don’t just take our word for it, the Reserve Bank of Australia recently reported that “workers' perceptions of their own job security have declined in recent years.” Similarly, the ADP finds that just 20% of workers feel their jobs are secure.  

As such, employees are crying out for a greater sense of stability. According to a recent survey, 56% of people say that job stability is more important to them than flexibility. What’s more, 30% of people say that job stability is the number one reason they stay with their company (notably, even more important than salary for some), while 60% rate job stability among the top three most important reasons they remain at their job. On the other hand, employees who feel insecure about their job are 37% more likely to be disengaged.  

Accordingly, a sense of stability at work is vital. Yet, it is safe to assume that most of your workforce are feeling the effects of the wider working world’s instability. If they are also experiencing any lack of clarity or ownership around their position and pathways at work, you can be sure that their engagement will take a knock.  

Luckily, there’s a solution: talent mobility. Here’s everything you need to know about how internal talent mobility can help stabilize your workforce.  

Skills development and career mobility are two of the most powerful ways an employer can increase their employees’ job security.    

We spoke to Nick Ramsey, Go1’s Enterprise Account Executive, to gather his insights into where large organizations are (or should be) focusing their efforts to keep their best people in-house.  

How valuable do you believe skills development is when future-proofing an organization? 

It’s never been more important.  The ever-growing skills gaps in key industries and areas has been widely publicised and we continue to see the impact of automation, accompanied by an increasingly volatile economic climate.   

Skills development helps organizations future-proof their workforce – whilst offering employees much-desired opportunities for growth and development. 

Where do you believe the balance should lie between autonomous (led by the employee) and structured (led by the employer) skills development?  

I definitely believe the employer has the responsibility to make the right development opportunities available for their employees.  The utopia is to build a learner-driven culture of curiosity as the pillar of a world-class learning culture.  It’s definitely easier said than done. Learners need direct motivation and to understand the “why” of what’s in it for them.   

Tools that can unlock this include targeted learning campaigns, marketing learning correctly and using data & insights to drive engagement.  That’s why talent marketplaces have so much potential – they can identify the gap in the learner’s knowledge and present an opportunity to fill that gap with a relevant, personalised learning experience.  

A Talent Marketplace is essentially an internally leveraged platform which connects talent to opportunities. Employees promote their individual skills, career goals and preferences while gaining access to a broader selection of pathways than a traditional talent management program would provide. Josh Bersin describes them as a ‘Linkedin, but within the company’.  

Have you noticed any increase or change in the conversations around Talent Marketplaces in the industry of late?   

Absolutely.  I'm noticing that agile organizations are recognizing the challenge of identifying and mapping the skills and capability of their workforces – and beginning to address how they can fill the gaps.  It’s a task riddled with complexity but there is some amazing tech hitting the market that can have a huge amount of value when deployed correctly.   

It’s still a space that’s growing – but one that will only continue to become more prevalent in the coming years.   

Do you know examples of organizations successfully implementing a Talent Marketplace?  

The early-adopters of talent marketplaces in Enterprise organizations are already starting to see the benefits.  By their own admission, it is still early days, and they recognize that they are still in something of a pilot/MVP phase, particularly on identifying the right skills frameworks and technology to use.   

Tools like Gloat and Eightfold.ai are being widely adopted, whilst we’re also seeing the conversation in more mid-market sized organizations, too.  The positive here is that organizations are both identifying the gaps in their organization – and in turn the solutions required to address them.   

What place does skills development have in talent mobility? 

As always, L&D has a major role to play in this process to encourage talent mobility and stability. Attaching upskilling, reskilling and development opportunities is critical to a well-rounded talent mobility program. A robust development programme provides employees with the opportunity to gain new skills, thereby allowing them to explore new roles and opportunities outside of their current remit and take up other positions internally. In other words, L&D and internal mobility go hand in hand.   

One sure-fire way to achieve this is by offering an integrated talent marketplace platform. Providing employees with a clear understanding of where they might need to upskill, as well as the learning pathways to gain these skills, will win their loyalty and engagement.   

Josh Bersin also notes that promoting internal opportunities is one of the most powerful management practices in business. In fact, 94% of HR professionals say that internal recruiting helps retain their most valuable talent, while employees who move to a new role internally are 3.5x more likely to be engaged at work. 

To learn more, check out our blog on why internal mobility is essential in today’s workforce.  

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs. 

With insights from Nick Ramsey, Go1's Enterprise Account Executive we explore investing into skills development and competency, with a close look at the rise of talent marketplaces.

Stabilize your workforce with internal talent mobility

With insights from Nick Ramsey, Go1's Enterprise Account Executive, we explore investing into skills development and competency, with a close look at the rise of talent marketplaces.

The term ‘sustainability’ is appearing increasingly often in the world of business. Whether it’s social sustainability, environmental sustainability, or economic sustainability, this is something that companies can no longer afford to ignore. As such, taking a strong stance on sustainability is no longer an optional extra. It’s essential.  

But before you start thinking that sustainability is all about planting as many trees as you can (though that certainly wouldn’t hurt), there’s much more to it than just that! 

Let’s jump right into the world of sustainability in business and check out some of the different types of sustainability. We’ll also offer actionable steps that businesses can take to increase sustainability. Finally, we’ll attempt to answer the question that we’re sure is on everyone’s people’s lips: “why should you even care about sustainability in business?” 

Social sustainability can often be left by the wayside in favour of other types of sustainability initiatives that are deemed ‘more important’. The truth is, it plays a key role in employee safety and wellbeing in the workplace. It’s equally as important as environmental and economic sustainability.  

The question is: how can we move social sustainability up the priority ladder so it sits in its rightful place next to environmental and economic sustainability?  

Like so many things in the workplace, the answer is education. 

Workplace learning tools are more than just compliance-based training. Many of these platforms have courses that can educate all members of the workplace about how they can be more socially sustainable. 

It can help them answer questions like:  

What can we do to increase psychological safety in the workplace? 

How can we make sure that everyone feels represented within the company? 

How can social sustainability help public perspective of a company? 

One example of social sustainability that we saw explode in popularity at the height of the pandemic was giving employees the option to work from home. By providing this option, employers showed that they cared about their employees’ wellbeing during a very uncertain time around the world. In other words, it gave employees one less thing to worry about!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that environmental sustainability is a hot topic in business from an individual level right up to major corporations.  

Understandably, different companies will have different capacities for how they can demonstrate environmental sustainability. However, the point is that companies must make an effort that is visible to both employees and consumers. 

The increasing pressure for businesses to demonstrate economic sustainability is more than just hearsay to make businesses feel guilty. There are some real stats behind it! For example, a 2018 Nielsen study of US consumers revealed that a huge 81% of global consumers feel strongly that companies should be doing something to protect the environment. 

While it may not be initially expected, environmental sustainability has an impact on employee retention too. Another study of 1000 US employees revealed that more than 70% would choose to work at a company if it had a strong environmental agenda. 

Here are some ways, both big and small, that companies can demonstrate a commitment to environmental sustainability: 

Investigate the type of power used to produce products. If they’re made with coal power, is there any potential to switch to a more sustainable power source like solar or wind? 

For documents that you would typically print onto paper, try keeping them as a digital file. Many programs allow for documents to still be highlighted or have notes made on them digitally, negating the need for a printout. You’d be shocked how quickly a sheet of paper or two adds up to thousands of sheets in a business! 

For every waste bin you have around the office, have one for recycling as well. You’ll find that simply having the option to recycle will mean that a lot less goes to waste. It’s a small, short term financial investment for long term environmental gain. 

A big part of maintaining economic sustainability within a business is finding that sweet spot between cutting unnecessary spending while also still investing money in things that could benefit the business’s long term financial growth. 

As much as we’d like it, there’s no yellow brick road that leads straight to Oz in the world of economic sustainability for businesses. 

To determine what increased economic stability may look like for a specific business, it’s best to get in touch with a financial advisor or equivalent professional. In doing so, businesses can get a clear idea of what specific actions they can take to increase and maintain economic sustainability. 

Why should you care about sustainability in business?

You may think sustainability is more of a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must have’ for your business. After all, shouldn't things like financial growth and creating a superstar team of staff be the priority? The truth is, sustainability goes hand in hand with both of these things. 

While environmental, social, and economic sustainability all have distinct business functions, they can be likened to a house of cards. If all three are there, the house of cards can stand with ease. The moment one of them is removed or bumped a little too hard, the house of cards is at risk of collapsing.  

That’s not to say that not focusing on one of these types will cause a business to collapse entirely (there’s usually a lot more to it than that). However, if for example, environmental sustainability is being neglected, the social and economic sustainability of a business is likely to suffer as well. 

Before you start thinking that sustainability is about planting trees, there’s more to it than that! We’ll answer the question: “why should you care about sustainability in business?”

Sustainability as a business priority

Have you ever stayed late at work for a meeting in a different time zone, kept your Slack notifications on because your boss expects immediate responses, or, that dreaded cliche, attended a meeting that could have been an email? If these problems sound familiar, you’re experiencing the pitfalls of synchronous communication. 

Synchronous communication is just a fancy way of saying real-time communication. Common examples of synchronous communication include face-to-face conversations, in-person meetings, and phone calls. In other words, any form of communication where you respond instantly. 

While this type of communication certainly has its upsides, the alternative  — asynchronous communication — can be equally beneficial. Yet, it is often overlooked in the workplace, even though a majority of employees (52%) prefer asynchronous communication, and 42% say asynchronous communication is the future of work. 

With this in mind, we’ll explore the benefits of asynchronous communication for L&D. We’ll start by contrasting synchronous and asynchronous communication, before diving into the benefits of asynchronous communication, and finally outlining best practices to embrace asynchronous communication. 

Synchronous communication vs asynchronous communication

To understand the benefits of asynchronous communication for L&D, it’s vital to first understand the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication. Let’s compare the two communication styles. 

Synchronous communication is simply a fancy way of describing real-time communication. Any time you are talking to someone and they reply instantly, that’s synchronous communication. Examples of synchronous communication include: 

To expand on this, RingCentral defines synchronous communication as “that which takes place in real-time between two or more parties. Put simply; a synchronous communication exchange is an interactive, ‘live’ interchange between people.”

Accordingly, the key characteristic of synchronous communication is that it’s immediate. Synchronous communication happens in real-time as a ‘live’ exchange between two or more people. When you picture a conversion in your head, there’s a 99% chance you’re picturing synchronous communication. 

In contrast, asynchronous communication features a lag between one person sending a message and another person responding. Where synchronous communication happens in real-time, asynchronous communication involves a delay.

For example, sending a message on Slack and waiting an hour for a reply is a form of asynchronous communication. Other examples of asynchronous communication include: 

Basically, any form of communication where you don’t reply instantly is asynchronous. 

As Owl Labs explains, “asynchronous communication is any type of communication where one person provides information, and then there is a time lag before the recipients take in the information and offer their responses.” 

Likewise, Holloway adds that asynchronous communication “happens when information can be exchanged independent of time. It doesn’t require the recipient’s immediate attention, allowing them to respond to the message at their convenience.” 

Thus, the key characteristic of asynchronous communication is that it is not immediate, affording greater flexibility and more time to digest information. 

Essentially, if synchronous communication is live, then asynchronous communication happens on delay. 

To learn more, start your free trial with Go1 today to access word-class training on synchronous vs asynchronous communication and much more. 

The benefits of asynchronous communication

We’ll explore the benefits of asynchronous communication for L&D, outlining best practices to embrace asynchronous communication.