Why L&D is Invaluable for the Modern Enterprise
Learning and development makes a difference at all stages of the talent management lifecycle. But there’s one area and one group on which L&D has an outsize influence in today’s marketplace: Engaging and retaining employees on tech teams.
Why can L&D benefit tech teams?
Tech teams are at the core of innovation in modern enterprises. And as you can imagine, the larger the organization, the more coordination and effort are needed to move teams towards their goals. Like any group, a tech team’s goals are project- and deadline-based, but there is the added challenge of technical fluency in a constantly changing landscape. L&D has the domain expertise to address these challenges, with sometimes small and sometimes big tweaks to ensure visibility and scalability.
How can L&D help teams?
Among many things, L&D is very capable of building out programs for teams. Teams aren’t just fixed assets, and they understand that there are real people with personal and professional needs that need to be taken into account when creating a successful training program. Call it soft skills, call it a love for education — whatever you call it, there’s an emphasis on helping individuals and the complicated goals and lives they have.
How can L&D really shine with tech teams?
Creating anything with technology is complicated, not just because of the technical hurdles but because of the earlier mentioned speed of change. The other big factor when creating something with a team is the human variable — something that L&D is poised perfectly to contribute to since they fundamentally understand the goal of helping employees grow.
So when L&D and technical management work together, this creates a valuable opportunity to form a new type of effective partnership: one where the groups can work in unison to review shared insights and common outcomes.
What are these insights and outcomes? As we keep on repeating, tech changes quickly, so a good first step is to have custom learning goals that are as modern and updated as possible. Add to that the ability to see where individual and team skills are at the beginning, middle, and end of a learning experience. And the ability to understand what is a good next step in order to foster a culture of continuous improvement and professional development.
Want to learn more about how L&D can help tech teams succeed?
Executive leaders recognize the importance of solving skill gaps while maintaining engagement, retention, and even having a financial impact. These are all huge contributions that L&D is perfectly positioned to make. Download the Cloud Academy eBook Why You Need Comprehensive Tech Upskilling on Your L&D Roadmap to get a deeper dive into skills, scalability, and success.
