Written by guest blogger Maureen Frank, Chief Disruption Officer at Emberin, and Diversity & Inclusion thought leader. Maureen challenges leaders and organisations to get real about diversity and inclusion. She has mentored over 35,000 people worldwide and has a passion for women in leadership and inclusive career development. Her approach to diversity and inclusion is challenging and unique yet simplifies a complex discussion.

Recently, I committed to having one hundred virtual coffees with leaders and diversity and inclusion experts from around the world. As a result, I have been having some interesting conversations. My main question is:

What will the pivot in diversity and inclusion look like in a post-COVID world?

This article is the fifth and final blog in a series of thoughts, drawing from these conversations, my research, and hands-on experiences supporting leaders to be more inclusive during the lockdown.

If you haven’t already, be sure to read the other articles in this series: 

Taking the lessons of COVID forward to our new normal

We're in this together, but we aren’t experiencing it in the same way

Seize the moment to embed inclusive leadership habits

“L&D is a powerful enabler of business performance. Companies whose leaders welcome diverse talents and include multiple perspectives are likely to emerge from the crisis stronger. In short: diversity wins, now more than ever.” - McKinsey

For business executives the world over, the next few months may prove to be a defining moment in their careers. They must not only protect the health of their employees and customers, but also navigate far-reaching disruption to their operations, plan for recovery, and reimagine their business models for the new normal. 

Companies that maintain or increase their L&D output during a downturn are less likely to be penalised in the aftermath. So, when leaders and companies reaffirm their commitment to L&D, they can make gains in five key domains where, according to my research, L&D frequently makes a significant difference to an organisation’s performance. These are:

Opportunity 1: Winning the war for talent

Opportunity 2: Improving the quality of decision making

Opportunity 3: Increasing customer insight and innovation

Opportunity 4: Driving employee motivation and satisfaction

Opportunity 5: Improving a company’s global image and license to operate 

Innovation is more business-critical than ever

The global response to COVID-19 has amplified the importance of innovation. We have seen striking examples of creative and novel thinking in response to unprecedented challenges. We have also seen that innovation is not an optional extra. All companies in all industries need to apply an innovative mindset to their work to survive.

As such, earnest diversity approaches are one of the strongest tactics leaders can employ. There are several challenges, though.

Currently, employee engagement is at its lowest ebb. However, there’s growing evidence to indicate a diverse and inclusive workforce increases motivation and improves productivity. Diverse teams, diverse brains, and diverse conversations result in more creativity!

But why? Admittedly, trying to brainstorm solutions when there are many different viewpoints can feel counterproductive at first. But, this is precisely the type of environment where innovation flourishes. When you have many different opinions coming together, you may have a tough time initially. However, eventually, the brain works harder and gets a better result. That’s a winning formula!

Walking the path of diversity and inclusion may feel like the road less travelled. But by creating psychologically safe places, new and different ideas have space, time, and freedom to germinate and grow.

Inclusion is critical for fostering innovation and agility 

The full economic impacts of COVID-19 are not yet clear. With entire industries being brought to their knees (aviation, hotels, and restaurants among them), companies that can reimagine their businesses in the new post-crisis environment will win. As a result, many companies will have to develop new ways of working, new products, new services, or even entirely new business models.

People from diverse backgrounds who bring new ideas and perspectives will be crucial to these efforts. Companies with a culture based on trust, collaboration, and inclusion, in which all employees feel comfortable speaking up, are typically those where the best ideas emerge. Conversely, companies with cultures based on fear or groupthink most likely won’t be agile enough to pivot in the post–COVID-19 landscape.

According to McKinsey, diverse teams are more innovative. Such teams are also better at anticipating shifts in consumer needs and consumption patterns that make new products and services possible, potentially generating a competitive edge. 

Building inclusive leadership capabilities

Creating the capabilities and skills needed for inclusive leadership is vital. However, this is something that doesn’t come naturally to all of us. Why? Because inclusive leadership takes effort. It’s hard work because you have to interact with — and relate to — people who are not like you.

Creating a sustainable, diverse, and inclusive culture requires effort on multiple fronts. Most importantly, creating a diverse leadership culture has to be deliberate — a continuous action until it becomes second nature.

As McKinsey notes, “the experience of diversity winners we have studied has shown that if companies deploy a systematic approach to L&D and don’t fear bold action to foster inclusion and belonging, they are most likely to reap the rewards.” I believe that now is the time to be even bolder. 

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.

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Creating a sustainable, diverse, and inclusive culture requires effort on multiple fronts. Most importantly, creating a diverse leadership culture has to be deliberate — a continuous action until it becomes second nature. This article is the fifth and final blog in a series written by D&I thought leader, Maureen Frank.

Diversity and inclusion post-COVID: be fearless in the face of opportunity

Creating a sustainable, diverse, and inclusive culture requires effort on multiple fronts. Most importantly, creating a diverse leadership culture has to be deliberate — a continuous action until it becomes second nature. This article is the fifth and final blog in a series written by D&I thought leader, Maureen Frank. 

Written by guest blogger Laura Overton, award-winning L&D Analyst. Laura is an experienced international speaker, author and facilitator with a passion for exploring, challenging and sharing. She believes that the role of learning leaders in the changing workplace is to unlock the potential of business and people.

Carpe Diem - seize the day! Six out of 10 Americans plan to make this their new mantra for 2021, with seven out of 10 planning to emerge post-COVID as new people¹. 

The words Carpe Diem were first used by the Roman poet Horace over 2000 years ago and continue to echo throughout the ages, with his advice clearly still inspiring many. 

For others, the call to 'seize the day' may seem insensitive and even brutal. When your day is falling apart around you, there doesn’t seem much to grab hold of. A day spent in full response mode to never-ending requests provides little opportunity to be proactive!

But as a modern learning professional, looking for ways to add better business value, the disruption in our lives and workplaces means that today is absolutely the day to Carpe Diem L&D!

Many of us have been researching how L&D can better impact business outcomes and have been advocating a fresh approach to learning and development services relevant to the modern world. 

Authors, researchers, and practitioners from around the globe have been advocating for decades that our reliance on programmes and courses will prevent us from being as responsive or relevant as we need to be, if we are to help organisations and individuals be ready for the new world of work. 

Evidence amassed over the last 20+ years has pointed to the fundamental shifts needed in traditional L&D practice to support better business outcomes. 

Our L&D response to those seismic shifts in the world of work are creating the opportunity to establish the foundations for our future.

How we respond to today’s opportunities impacts our reputation, our credibility and trusted relationships, and the way our stakeholders perceive our value.

For progressive learning leaders, there has never been a more important time for L&D to seize the day.

Disruption to work and life has created unforeseen endings, rapid beginnings, and lots of time spent in between. 

For business shop doors and offices, our established routines and ways of working ended abruptly. New systems, processes, and ways of engaging with customers and delivering services had to be worked without notice. 

For L&D, disruption has meant that classrooms and face-to-face programmes ended overnight. New remote working regimes and demands for online learning sprang up within days. No one had the opportunity to map out a plan for the best way forward. Some were better prepared than others.

These abrupt changes create unprecedented (yes that word again!) opportunities for L&D professionals. Opportunities to add bottom-line value to hard-pressed businesses, opportunities to equip others for a different future, opportunities to accelerate change and eliminate risk. 

Disruption has provided a unique opportunity for many learning professionals to roll up their sleeves and find new ways of working and supporting individuals and teams - to become part of the business ecosystem. 

Disruption has also shown us that workers can adapt, and adapt fast to change, to technology, and to new ways of working. Prior to the pandemic, many learning professionals felt their learners were reluctant to engage with learning online. Now, 71%² say that their learners are demanding it - an engagement opportunity that few of us could have predicted!

Overall, business endings and beginnings have provided learning professionals with more opportunities to connect and engage and support at grassroots levels than ever before. 

Disruption, however, has also created an uncomfortable in-between space leaving us to speculate: has our old way of doing things ended, or is it just on hold? What will the new future and new normal look like for me?

What is certain in this in-between space is that we do not know what the future will hold - and this also creates an opportunity for L&D.

The in-between space that we have found ourselves in because of disruption is not a typical transition phase in a planned change cycle, where we know where we need to go but are reluctant to go there.

Instead, it is what anthropologists call a 'liminal space' - a rite of passage or threshold between what was and what will be.

In a liminal space, the psychological impact of not knowing what is to come makes life complicated!³. As a result, these transitional spaces can be uncomfortable, creating internal conflict and confusion. 

They can also be liberating, releasing creativity and experimentation. And there are plenty of opportunities to seize, to grow, to develop and try something new.

For example, take the financial services trainer unable to engage in their normal classroom work and facing furlough. They might jump at the chance to volunteer to take up a front-line role alongside their peers, manning the contact centre to help relieve pressure. Who knows how this completely different perspective of the work environment and the pressures might influence the way that they design and support learning forever?

As Sarah Lindsell from PWC, one of our guests in the Learning Uncut Emergent podcast suggested, disruption has provided us with an opportunity to "Start by being bold... do something, suggest something different... accelerate your experiments and relationships with the business."⁴ 

In November 2019, I facilitated a Future of Learning event with 30 L&D leaders across different sectors here in the UK. As part of the session, we did an exercise that explored what you would do in January 2020 if you were 10 times bolder. The figure below shows some of the ideas that were put forward.

Each of these ideas was evidence-informed, proven to correlate back to better business value. But they were ideas back in November 2019 that pushed these L&D leaders out of their comfort zone. I often wonder if this group were better prepared to 'tap into their bold' and seize the day as they faced the realities of 2020. 

Carpe Diem involves a level of boldness and a level of spontaneity where L&D leaders can spot the opportunity to make a difference in new and fresh ways. But Carpe Diem is not about recklessness; it also involves a level of insight and understanding to really make the most of that opportunity.

Roman Krznaric, a social philosopher and author of Carpe Diem Regained⁵, claims that the cry to 'just do it' has been hijacked by what he calls the existential crime of the century.

 In the rush to get the best and latest, the concept of 'just do it' has turned into 'just buy it.' Our increasing emphasis on efficiency and productivity has turned 'just do it' to 'just plan it.' Our thirst for Netflix type experiences has turned 'just do it' to 'just watch it.' 

As learning leaders, we don’t want to hijack our Carpe Diem response by rushing headlong into the excitement of new technology finds, halted through overplanning or driven purely by providing a tsunami of content. 

Krznaric provides us with an alternative. He highlights that 'seize the day' can also be translated as ‘harvest the day.' In fact, the last line of Horace’s original ode has been translated as 'harvest the day and leave as little as possible for tomorrow.'

The ability to harvest involves the ability to understand the environment, the opportunity, and to make the most of today’s opportunities in ways that will continue to feed and sustain us in the future.

Keep an eye out for our next article from Shannon Tipton, exploring how we do this smarter. Until then, let’s Carpe Diem L&D!

One last thing - Carpe Diem is not about recklessness, it also involves a level of insight and understanding to really make the most of that opportunity. 

Take the first step - download the Learning Triage flowchart from Lori Nile Hoffman and Amanda Nolan to help you ask the right questions that deliver the best value!⁶

1. For a majority of Americans, 'carpe diem' is the new motto heading into 2021: https://www.swnsdigital.com/2021/02/for-a-majority-of-americans-carpe-diem-is-the-new-motto-heading-into-2021/ 

2. COVID-19 L&D Research: First Take: https://www.fosway.com/research/next-gen-learning/covid19-research/

3. What is Liminal Space? - 4 Key Features of Liminality: https://helpfulprofessor.com/liminal-space/

4.  Learning Uncut Emergent podcast, 'Building L&D Courage and Curiosity': https://learninguncut.libsyn.com/emergent-series-building-ld-confidence-and-courage

5. Carpe Diem Regained: http://www.carpediem.click/01/

The first blog in our Carpe Diem L&D series, written by award-winning L&D Analyst Laura Overton. As Laura says, for progressive learning leaders, there has never been a more important time for L&D to seize the day.

Carpe Diem L&D

Too often, L&D teams are seduced by short-term thinking. In fast-paced environments, it can be difficult to see past your immediate goals and plan for the long term. However, in a world where ‘sustainability’ is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, L&D must adapt. 

Whether it’s environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, or sustaining a healthy work-life balance, sustainability is now a critical consideration in most areas of life, and one from which L&D is not exempt. 

In fact, with the shelf life of skills shrinking and the cycle of unlearning and relearning in full swing, creating a sustainable learning culture should be a top priority for L&D teams. 

With this in mind, we’ll outline the importance of creating a sustainable learning culture, before asking what a sustainable learning culture looks like, and offering four practical tips to create a sustainable learning culture. 

Ready to put sustainability front and centre? Read on. 

The importance of creating a sustainable learning culture

If, like us, you’re a firm believer in lifelong learning, then the value of a sustainable learning culture is self-evident. However, to put it in more concrete terms, teams who create sustainable learning cultures also tend to be more successful in areas such as revenue, growth, and talent retention. 

Training Zone outlines the strategic importance of having a sustainable learning culture, saying, “Linking work-based training with an organisation's strategic goals and objectives can significantly improve business performance and, importantly, develop an organisational culture that nurtures innovation.” 

According to a recent report by Docebo, which surveyed 832 talent development leaders, just 31% believe that their organisation currently has a culture of learning to a ‘high’ or ‘very high’ extent. Only 6% of respondents said they didn’t have a learning culture at all, with the remaining respondents split between having a learning culture to a small or moderate extent.  

While most organisations recognise the importance of developing a sustainable learning culture, these findings show that doing so is an ongoing process, and there is usually room for improvement. 

Business benefits of sustainable learning

Organisations that cultivate a sustainable learning culture reap the rewards, with Docebo’s report finding that high-performing organisations are 5x more likely to have an extensive learning culture. Top performers are also twice as likely to say their learning functions help meet organisational business goals and 3x more likely to hold leaders accountable for demonstrating the importance of learning. 

Additionally, top-performing learning cultures are 6x more likely to “discuss an employer’s commitments to ongoing talent development during pre-hire interviews.” Such companies are also 3x more likely to leverage their learning culture in the recruitment process, showing that teams with entrenched learning cultures have a better chance of securing top talent.

Given these findings, building a sustainable learning culture is beneficial on multiple levels. Obviously, learning is its own reward, and the pursuit of knowledge is always a worthy goal. Yet, from a business-centric perspective, organisations with sustainable learning cultures tend to outperform their counterparts in many areas. As Docebo explains, “robust cultures of learning are distinct hallmarks of organisations that consistently produce the best business results — companies that lead the world’s markets in revenue growth, profitability, market share, and customer satisfaction.”

What does a sustainable learning culture look like?

Sustainability can mean different things to different L&D teams, whether it’s securing L&D’s position in the global marketplace, ensuring your team’s goals will be viable in 5 years, or upskilling employees to maintain relevant skills in a changing L&D landscape. Whatever sustainability means to your team, there are a few overarching traits of sustainable learning cultures. 

A study by the Association of Talent Development provides a useful definition of sustainable learning, highlighting several shared characteristics of successful learning cultures. They explain, “A culture of learning...is one in which employees continuously seek, share, and apply new knowledge and skills to improve individual and organisational performance. The importance of the pursuit and application of learning is expressed in organisational values and permeates all aspects of organisational life.”

A sustainable learning culture shares these characteristics, but with extra emphasis placed on long-term planning and repeatable, future-ready processes.

Characteristics of sustainable learning cultures

Deloitte’s 2021 Human Capital Trends report identifies several notable trends in sustainable workplace learning cultures, such as, “integrating workers’ physical, mental, financial, and social health into the design of work itself”, “creating teams and superteams that use technology to enhance natural human ways of working”, and “developing and acting on forward-looking insights using real-time data to harness workforce potential”.

Perhaps most importantly, they identify “capitalising on worker agency and choice as the means to drive learning, adaptability, and impact” as a key pillar of sustainable learning cultures. Unsurprisingly, when learners have agency over their professional development, results are more likely to be positive in the long term. 

According to interviews with talent development leaders, other characteristics of sustainable learning cultures include “closely aligned business and learning strategies, organisational values that affirm learning’s importance, and an atmosphere in which learning is so ingrained that it simply becomes a way of life.” 

Collaboration and personalisation lead the way

Deloitte's Human Capital Trends report lays out the top factors for sustainable workplace design. According to their research, 39% of respondents believe ‘introducing collaboration platforms’ is key to sustainable work, while 36% say ‘allowing for personal choice in determining how work gets done’ is vital to sustainable workplace design. 

Similarly, Docebo’s report identifies collaboration and open knowledge sharing as crucial factors in sustainable learning cultures, saying that in top-performing organisations “employees share knowledge with their colleagues at a rate four times greater than that of workers in lower-performing firms.” 

Likewise, the Association of Talent Development believes that ‘making time for learning’, ‘personalised development plans’, ‘creating accountability’, and ‘using culture to attract new talent’ are key contributors to sustainable workplace learning. 

While this may sound straightforward, simple things like learner collaboration, prioritising learning, and personalised learner development plans can go a long way to creating a sustainable learning culture. 

These findings paint a picture of modern sustainable learning cultures. It seems workplaces must take a holistic approach to employee wellbeing to reduce burnout and increase sustainability, while also removing barriers to allow open communication and knowledge sharing. 

Further, sustainable learning cultures tend to place employees in control of their learning, via initiatives such as personalised development plans, learning in the flow of work, and technologies that facilitate learning anywhere, any time. Over time, this can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where learners actively seek out knowledge, and learning becomes a way of life. 

Four practical tips to create a sustainable learning culture

While creating a sustainable learning culture is likely a high priority for most L&D teams, achieving this goal isn’t easy. As we know, only 31% of organisations believe their learning culture currently performs to a high or very high extent, leaving the rest in a state of development. 

To help you take the next step towards a sustainable learning culture, here are four practical tips. 

Embedding a learning culture on an organisational level starts with your leaders. After all, why would employees take sustainable learning seriously if leaders don’t practice what they preach? 

Harnessing your leaders is good advice for any form of organisational change, with McKinsey finding that “good implementers were 1.4 times more likely than poor implementers to have change leaders who had personally led multiple change efforts.” 

In the context of sustainable learning cultures, high-performing organisations are 3x more likely to hold leaders accountable for demonstrating the importance of learning.

2. Put your learners in control with lifelong learning and learning in the flow 

As mentioned above, learners are more likely to succeed when they have autonomy over their learning. This just makes sense: would you rather someone tell you what you have to learn, or listen to your needs and help you develop a personalised learning plan? 

The stats back this up, with ‘allowing for personal choice in determining how work gets done’ ranking second among the most important factors for sustainable workplace design. 

For further insights on this topic, we analyse the importance of putting your learners in control in our recent blog post on making the shift from formal education to lifelong learning and our recent webinar on learning in the flow of work. 

3. Implement a growth mindset to develop a culture of knowledge sharing

Once again, it all comes back to mindset. As we discussed in our recent article on fixed mindsets vs growth mindsets, adopting a growth mindset opens up a world of possibilities for L&D teams — including embedding a sustainable learning culture. 

By doing this, you will remove communication barriers and develop a culture of knowledge sharing. As mentioned, high-performing learning cultures share knowledge 4x more than other organisations, so this should be a high priority.

The more you share knowledge among teams, the more you learn and grow, and the more sustainable your learning culture will become!

It’s fantastic to have a good learning culture now, but developing a sustainable learning culture is all about planning for the future. Having a future-ready learning culture has become more important for L&D teams, as the shelf-life of skills is shrinking, forcing a wave of reskilling and a shift from hard skills to soft skills. 

Put simply, L&D teams must focus on skills of the future to ensure their learning culture will be sustainable in the long run. 

Unsure what skills your team will need in the future? Don’t worry, we cover that in detail in our recent blog on closing the L&D skills gap.

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. 

Sustainability is now a critical consideration in most areas of life, and one from which L&D is not exempt. As such, we look at how to create a sustainable learning culture.

How to create a sustainable learning culture

As the new year begins, we have had time to reflect and set goals for the year ahead. The next step is to focus on how to stay disciplined and turn vision into reality.

In her famous Ted talk and book Grit, psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth explains that IQ isn’t the only thing separating the successful from those who struggle. Her research is concerned with concepts such as self-control and grit, and how they can predict both academic and professional success. 

While this is useful to know, it doesn’t make it any easier to develop a disciplined mindset. Being disciplined doesn’t come naturally to us: it is far easier to give in to distraction than it is to dig deep and focus on the task at hand. We need to work on our thought processes constantly and strengthen them like muscle to keep growing.

One of the best ways to improve your resolve is through online learning. If you only have five minutes to spare at the end of the day, a course can give you the quick insight you need. We’ve hand-picked five of the best to help you build the right mindset for your professional development this year. 

When looking to improve your chances of success with the goals you set, it is helpful to understand the skills that set you apart. Where does the potential in your personality lie? 

The course Harnessing Your Strengths and Understanding Your Weaknesses can help you identify traits, characteristics, knowledge, and skills that positively impact your work. It will also help you to mitigate your bad habits, personality traits, and less developed skills that hold you back professionally. 

Deciding that you need to make a new, positive habit is the first step towards behavioral change. Sticking to the commitment is not as easy, but understanding the psychology can help. 

With The Complete Daily Positive Habits Building Course, you can build steady, healthy habits quickly and get rid of old, bad habits just as fast. The key is to find a simple way to reinforce these habits daily for them to take permanent root. 

Building positive habits will help you to develop the grit and discipline you need to see your goals through to completion. 

While setting goals for yourself is crucial to your professional development, you also need to factor in the vision of your organization and the needs of your colleagues. Focusing solely on yourself and your personal goals will have limited success. 

The aim is to consider your needs and the needs of those around you. This balancing act can lead to tension, but the course How To Manage Team Conflict can help you to navigate any disagreements. 

Each lecture will help you to implement relevant and meaningful strategies to support you as a leader and culture driver now and in the future.

Resilience is a necessary characteristic for bouncing back from adversity, managing stress, and reaching your full potential in life. 

Power Up Your Resilience is a practical online course which offers a great introduction to the topic, to help you change your mental health and thinking. 

The course is broken down into seven videos, based on content from Dr. Sven Hansen, founder of The Resilience Institute. Dr. Hansen is a medical practitioner with a background in special forces and sports medicine, and since gaining an MBA in 1993 has focused on applying the science of resilience to business.

Resilience can help you with all aspects of life, including your physical health, emotions, sleep patterns, stress levels, and relationships with others. 

Our brains are wired for learning and growth, no matter where we are or what we are doing. From an evolutionary perspective, our ability to learn has shaped us as a species and continues to do so.

To reach our potential, we have to be in the right place psychologically, and this is why developing a growth mindset can be useful.  

This course on leadership innovation provides you with a clear roadmap for creating an environment that inspires trust, cohesiveness, agility, and innovation.

Author Shawn Hunter will show you skills to help you grow into an impactful leader, including listening intently, acting with kindness, showing gratitude, and embracing challenges.

Go1 is your employee's gateway to professional development growth. With courses that cover numerous business functions, we help your staff grow into their role by unlocking their potential. Content is at all levels of difficulty and is suitable for any employee, in any department, in any region

Encourage your learners to own their personal development training, by giving them the flexibility to search and select courses that reflect their professional interests. This helps your employees take the learning outside of the workplace, so they can access it whenever and wherever they want.

Five courses to change your career trajectory in 2021 

Written by guest blogger Shannon Tipton, workplace Learning Strategist and owner of Learning Rebels. Shannon is excited to work with organizations to develop learning solutions to achieve applicable business results. Recently named in the top 100 eLearning‘ Movers and Shakers’ by eLearning Industry, Shannon’s blog ‘Learning Rebels’ is in the top 100 eLearning blogs.

The “workplace digital divide” is the gap between those organizations who are at the forefront of technical investment and use, and those who have failed to invest or have invested poorly in the wrong areas. This ultimately impacts employee productivity and employee motivation[1] creating a glaring divide between those companies who are technology leaders, being flexible and adaptable, and those who are falling behind. 

The divide between those companies who are technology risk-takers and those who are comfortable in their analog world, may not have been as apparent pre-pandemic but now with the sudden switch to remote working, the divide is now a chasm and have put their IT departments and their ecosystems into the fast lane. Now is the time to determine what specific aspects of your current organizational digital strategy is holding people back. 

It goes without saying that the challenge of bringing technology innovation into the workplace is going to be cost and culture. It may feel like waiting to implement a digital strategy may be wiser, because something new and shiny may be just around the corner. 

However, preventing the workplace digital divide is the difference between a proactive upgrade and an urgent, necessary upgrade. A proactive upgrade means the organization would feel and function at a higher level and keeps it a step ahead of the organizations that wait and find they have been left behind. 

It is important to point out the workplace digital divide is not about upgrading laptops and phones. The divide is about the failure of organizations to provide clear digital pathways for ease of communication and collaboration. 

Those organizations who exhibit technology leadership are those that create a culture of technology leadership in all areas of the business by addressing three missing links: technology education through data, communication and collaboration, and North Star connection to people and business results. The question then becomes, does your digital strategy connect people to each other and to business results? Let’s discuss why L&D should be paying attention. 

People who work in organizations that are technology challenged are more than 500 percent more likely to be frustrated with their employer and 600 percent more likely to want to leave and work elsewhere[2]. The ask from people to employers is simple:

Understand how we work, and how we want to work

Help us do our jobs better and faster, know our daily journey

Give us up-to-date devices and reliable access to collaborate and communicate beyond email

However, organizations create frustration across the board by wanting people to be creative and innovative[3] yet do not allow or take away access to tools that would support such initiatives. This creates gaps with employee engagement, productivity, and attrition – which is referred to as “Access Agony[4]” which is defined as employees being burdened with the following:

Limited devices, lack of BYOD (bring your own device) programs

When employees were asked about how the lack of a connected digital and technology strategy makes them feel, the responses were enlightening:

85% of employees feel frustrated in their jobs

14% feel the lack of appropriate tech support makes them want to work elsewhere[5]

These are telling figures. A 2017 Gallup report stated attrition costs US businesses a trillion dollars every year due to voluntary turnover. What's most intriguing is that for the most part, some of this damage is self-inflicted through not listening to what employees are clearly asking for. 

“Losing your best people means losing your reliable winners, your constant innovators, and your most effective problem solvers." - Gallup, 2017

Is the workplace divide breaking down your organization?

Employees today realize that a positive social structure within the workplace enhances overall mental health, but also improves engagement. However, those organizations who are technology laggards are removing the potential benefits of key collaboration, communication and relationship building tools. 

Not only does this affect employees in the workplace, but it also affects potential employees. Those who are of the most creative, flexible, and innovative mindsets will take their talents to organizations that have a digital strategy that reaches across the organization. In fact, according to a recent McKinsey report, 74% of people are influenced by the apps, tools, and devices a potential employer offers when making an employment decision. 

Devices and the lack of access to workplace social structures has been identified as one of the biggest pain points within organizations today with 45% of employees feeling that outdated devices and access limitations prevents workplace collaboration. We know that positive social interactions at work directly bolster resourcefulness i.e. enhanced productivity. 

So, what would happen to the workplace if we planned social connection into bridging the workplace digital divide?

Employees who are satisfied with their workplace relationships are more likely attached to the organization. Organizations and leaders who encourage connection and collaboration significantly improve employee satisfaction and organizations that invest in connecting employees see 4.2 times the average profit than those who do not.[6]

Organizations that support social interactions see a positive impact on employee engagement, which then equates to lower business costs, improved performance outcomes, lower staff turnover and absenteeism, and fewer safety incidents (Gallup, 2017).

Collaborative spaces and team settings can lead to knowledge and productivity spillover from trained to untrained workers. We know productivity is improved when employees can collaborate and communicate with more knowledgeable co-workers.[7]

Moments of “access agony” create additional hardships to employees which create pain-points in productivity achievement. When 71% of your employees must create work-around solutions for antiquated technology, there will be a productivity issue. When 35% download additional software to their PCs in hopes it will help them do their jobs quicker and smarter there may be a security issue. When 45% of your workforce feels as though their devices are outdated and use their personal devices instead, there is an engagement issue. 

The following data from a 2017 Gallup report is noticeably clear in the overall KPI results of organizations that are technology laggards: 

27% state the lack of up-to-date technology slows them down at work

28% state the lack of access to programs that are important to their work prevents them from doing their job

20% of employees report using 3 or more devices at work to get the job done. 

30% state the lack of interconnectivity prevents them from doing their work in less time

There is clearly a pattern of employees being so frustrated with organizational technology that they are creating their own bespoke solutions to get the job done – with or without approval. This likely creates actively disengaged employees which cost the US $583 - $605 billion in lost productivity. What is it costing your organization? 

What can L&D do to support the business and decrease the workplace digital divide?

Raise the “Tech IQ"[8] of your organization to create a culture of technology acceptance 

As with most things culture driven, education brings knowledge and acceptance. This means starting from the top, educating leadership through data and using cross-department partnerships and gaining an understanding of an organization's capabilities to shift the mindset.

Do this by helping business leaders understand what they should be exploring. Start with workshops and use-cases to build a foundation of technology curiosity. 

Take inventory of the employee’s journey. How do they use current legacy apps and tools? How do they want to use these tools? Identify all frustration points.

Your digital strategy must first begin with the end in mind, how we can help people to help the business? To do this, there are a few areas to address.

People will be afraid of technology. Some fear technology may take over their jobs or job roles. Help them to understand that technology may subvert some of the tasks we do, but not necessarily erase the actual jobs we have.

Create quick wins to display the critical advantage that bridging the divide will have. Create your hypothesis about the creative methods technology can support that help people work smarter, better, faster to create business results. 

Sharing data around the technology growth and success to show proof of concept.

Create a mindset of community and collaboration

Strong community ties with frequent social interactions (even remotely) with co-workers provide opportunities to experiment, collaborate and share experiences. Additional benefits reach deep and wide across organizations. 

Employees with broad cross-department access can help solve the problems of tomorrow because they see the problems coming. 

Create access to tools, apps, and up-to-date devices to take the handcuffs off people and allow for freer, more productive thinking. 

By creating broader and wider communities and connections, we create an organizational ecosystem. Where if one part falters the others are there to keep the momentum going. 

L&D has an opportunity to have a role in empowering the workplace to bridge this divide. Here are some questions to unlock this opportunity:

Do you know what employees have access to or not have access to?

Is L&D consciously or unconsciously limiting access to important connections and tools?