I keep reading about “The Great Resignation” in which millions of employees either have already left or are forecast to leave their jobs in the next 12 months. But I’d like to suggest organizations reframe the movement as “The Great Opportunity” and focus on the valuable training and development they can provide to both their current employees and new hires to engage and retain them and help them grow.
During our recent TechLearn 2021 Virtual Conference, I was glad to hear that keynoter Anh Nguyen Phillips, research director in Deloitte’s Global CEO Program and author of “The Technology Fallacy,” shares this sentiment, noting that “continuous learning is key in today’s Digital Age.” She advocates encouraging experimentation, making learning more exploratory, and asking, “What can you do to expand your own learning experiences?”
As I awaited the tabulations for our 2021 Training Industry Report, I wondered whether we would see a nosedive in training expenditures due to the pandemic as we did during the 2008 recession as training budgets often are the first thing cut during an economic crisis. Instead, I was delighted to discover our research showed training expenditures actually increased nearly 12 percent over the last year as many organizations plowed cost savings from virtual training back into their learning and development offerings. They also focused on employee engagement and well-being as they wrestled with decisions about whether and how to bring workers safely back to the office.
I hope to welcome you back in person to our Training 2022 Conference & Expo February 28-March 2, 2022, in Orlando, FL. Register at: https://www.trainingconference.com/2022/discounts.cfm. Until then, I wish you a healthy and joyous holiday season with your loved ones. I look forward to seeing you in 2022!