Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others...
Jonathan Swift
Strategy Development
We can work with you to help your HR team develop a Learning and Development strategy that underpins the Organisational strategy.
What does this help look like? It can be as little or as much input that you require. We can help facilitate sessions with the senior management team, provide an independent assessment on existing strategies or we can produce the strategy for you.
By producing a Learning and Development strategy we will help you to:
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Support the delivery of your organisational strategy
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Help you to identify budgets
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Help to prioritise resources for development
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Create a medium for discussion across the levels within the organisation about learning and development
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Communicate to staff policies and plans
- Manage expectations
What is a learning strategy?
Learning Strategies are often poorly written, if at all, partly due to the misconceptions about what a strategy should do, and partly because it is often easier to focus upon the tangible learning interventions, of which there are many in the market place.
Given the number of different views on what a strategy should look like we believe it is important to articulate what we believe a learning strategy is and what it looks like.
For us a strategy should set out a road map of activities that can be undertaken as a means towards achieving a set of business goals. In Learning Development terms this represents the development activities that are required to achieve current or future capability of personnel.
A strategy is set over a period of time and should be reviewed at points to ensure that it remains achievable and will deliver the relevant outcomes. It is therefore not fixed but a dynamic document that recognises that the organisational environment is subject to change.
Analysing and producing high level development goals as a means to achieving the required capability within organisations is an important process. We believe it allows organisations to focus upon what is trying to be achieved and to assess the level of expenditure required so that learning can be focused and ultimately deliver against the business objectives.
We recognise that strategies can not be set in stone but are dynamic documents.
Top Tips
In setting a strategy make sure you agree on the purpose and structure of the strategy.
Engage the key stakeholders in the organisation, this is not something that can be done without consultation. Failure to engage the key stakeholders could potentially de-rail the strategy. Key stakeholders may include senior management team (including finance), trade union representatives, HR/L&D specialists, and line management.
Make sure when putting together the strategy that it is understood the strategy is dynamic and will need to be revised, it is not set in stone. Building in review points will help to ensure that the strategy is looked at amended to reflect any changes in the market place.
Make sure when putting together the strategy that learning requirements are clear and underpin the business goals (current or predicted future business needs). If goals are not clear, carry out a capability gap analysis to ensure that the learning strategy is focus on key skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours.
If the strategy is going to deliver the required business needs it must be realistic, achievable and measurable. If it is not, it will quickly become redundant. Measuring the effectiveness of the strategy is important, just as a any strategy that sets out to increase sales, it is important to demonstrate that it is delivering against the required outcomes.
