Change is the only constant of the 21st century. With fast-growing technologies, work has evolved so much in the last 20 years. Employees and workers are expected to keep up to date and be constantly trained and retrained to keep up with the business expectations of the company. How has an increasingly globalised workforce and technology shifts affected the way corporations learn? We present to you 7 top trends to look out for in the Learning and Development Sector.

1. TOP CORPORATE TRENDS
In 2O14
THATWILLSHAPE
LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
Photo by: Jes

2. The 21st century will be marked by
remarkably rapid, complex and
disruptive changes that will redefine
the challenges for every business
and individual.
Photo by: Allison

3. TOP CONCERNS OF EVERY BUSINESS
How will I keep
my top talents
engaged and
challenged?
Photo by: Betsy Weber

4. What will be the impact
of an increasingly
globalised workforce
on organisational
development?
TOP CONCERNS OF EVERY BUSINESS

5. How will technology
shifts redefine the
learning organisation?
TOP CONCERNS OF EVERY BUSINESS

6. Will our L&D team be
ready to navigate these
changes for better
business performance?
TOP CONCERNS OF EVERY BUSINESS

7. Here are the top trends in the
corporate sector and what it will
mean for the L&D sector..
Photo by: Ken Teegardin

8. 1ANEWDEFINITIONFOR“LEADER”
The traditional archetype of leaders are fast fading
into a broader definition that prescribes that
leaders are no longer just the ones that hold the
fort, but they include any individual that makes a
sizeable impact in their specific role within the
organisation.
Photo by: U.S Department of Education

9. Advice to L&D
ANEWDEFINITIONFOR“LEADER”
Consider extending leadership programs to those
beyond the management and reach out to high-
performing individuals with a willingness to
develop their leadership capabilities.
1

10. 2GROWINGIMPORTANCEOF“BIGDATA”
Many organisations now have a greater volume of
information at their disposal. Enterprise data is
expected to grow by 650% in the next 5 years.
Great volume of data means a greater potential
for companies to process this data into insights for
the business and to predict trends.
Photo by: infocux Technologies

11. 2GROWINGIMPORTANCEOF“BIGDATA”
Focus on ensuring that leaders are equipped
with the necessary skills to leverage on the
data available to steer the organisation in the
right direction.
Advice to L&D

12. 3GLOBALISATIONWILLCONTINUETO
SHAPELEADERSHIP
In an increasingly globalised environment,
the need for a global outlook in
development initiatives becomes increasingly
vital. Some of the challenges L&D has to
contend with include cultural differences
within the workforce and juggling the
specific business challenges in each country
or locale that the organisation operates in.
Photo by: Bruce Irsckick

13. 3GLOBALISATIONWILLCONTINUETO
SHAPELEADERSHIP
Focus on key competencies for global leadership
programmes that include change management,
ability to influence and build coalitions, critical
thinking and problem solving.
Advice to L&D

14. 4LEARNINGBECOMESINCREASINGLYMOBILE
By 2O15, the global mobile workforce is
expected to grow to 1.3 billion people, of which,
most have grown so used to information that is
accessible at our fingertips through smart devices.
Not only that, employee mobile access is also
increasing thanks to the “Bring-your-own-device”
trend.
Photo by: PicJumbo

15. In line with the growing trend of mobile
workforce and growing usage of smart devices for
information retrieval and learning, L&D should
consider mobile corporate learning programmes
in terms of both training and performance
support.
4LEARNINGBECOMESINCREASINGLYMOBILE
Advice to L&D

16. 5RENEWEDFOCUSONCORE
SKILLSDEVELOPMENT
As the economy strengthens, developing
core skills are essential to thrive and
countries are now focusing their businesses
more and more on long-term productivity
and growth.
Photo by: Atos

17. The focus will no longer just be on highly
targeted modules that meet short-term business
needs. The importance of developing core skills
will re-emerge as vital training is necessary for
long-term employee productivity. Examples of
core skills include effective communication,
critical thinking, collaboration and creativity.
5
RENEWEDFOCUSONCORE
SKILLSDEVELOPMENT
Advice to L&D

18. 6PUSHFORMORETRANSPARENTPROCEDURES
Businesses are expected to be more transparent in
the way they communicate about different
processes- for eg. selection processes for hiring,
career advancement, development opportunities
and performance review criteria.
Photo by: Mahdi Abdulrazak

19. 6PUSHFORMORETRANSPARENTPROCEDURES
Expect to be more transparent about the type of
development programmes and schemes available
for different executive levels, managers, trainees
and employees.
Advice to L&D

20. 7RISINGTURNOVER
As job markets improve, there is a high
expectation that turnover rates will increase
correspondingly. Many organisations are worried
that they are not equipped to deal with the
challenges of rising turnover.
Photo by: daily sunny

21. 7
RISINGTURNOVER
Look into developing engaging training
programmes as a way to inculcate employee
loyalty, build closer relationships and keep
employees invested in the organisation. Not
only that, they may want to explore training
programmes that improves time-to-productivity
to mitigate the productivity loss during which it
takes to train an employee to optimum
productivity.
Advice to L&D

22. Check out our mLearning solutions at
http://epiphanyedu.com
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