Specialisations, secondments, lateral moves, projects and promotions. Just some of the large range of options organisations are combining into today’s diverse career paths. And learning and development is crucial to shape and support these journeys, preparing individuals and the organisation for success.
With such diversity, personalised, scalable learning is vital to success. Online learning solutions can offer a versatile approach, adapting to different skills needs, levels and paces.
Discover three key strategies you can use to make sure your online learning courses support your employees and prepare them for growth, whatever career path they take.
Reading time: 5 minutes
Did you know that less than half of individual contributors are keen on becoming managers?
In fact, only about 38% of individual contributors like the idea of moving into a people management role within their current organisation. And it’s not about the organisation itself, as only 36% of individual contributors are eyeing that manager's seat elsewhere. It's more about the role and what it entails that's got people thinking twice. This raises questions about how organisations can support career growth, without it only meaning climbing the traditional career ladder.
Specialisations, secondments, lateral moves, projects and promotions. Just some of the large range of options organisations are combining into today’s diverse career paths. And learning and development is crucial to shape and support these journeys, preparing individuals and the organisation for success.
With such a diversity, implementing learning and training programmes becomes more complex. Personalised, scalable learning is vital to success. Online learning solutions can offer a versatile approach, adapting to different skills needs, levels and paces.
Whether you’re developing online learning modules in-house, customising content or selecting a training provider, it’s crucial to ensure online learning can adapt to the diverse career paths in your organisation. How?
Read on to discover three key strategies you can use to effectively implement personalised, scalable online learning that makes a difference, whatever career path your employees take.
1. Provide relevant, structured content to develop and assess targeted skills
Online learning offers a wealth of content, spanning a broad spectrum of skills development, facilitating upskilling and reskilling for a wide range of career paths on a large scale.
To maximise its impact for diverse career stages and types, it’s vital that online training content aligns closely with each career path’s skills framework. Ensure courses or modules directly target specific competencies and capabilities, closing skills gaps and meeting both current and future, individual and organisational needs.
Thoroughly review content to determine the depth of coverage of essential skills, tools, principles and practical applications. Check they are relevant to each career path. Do the training methods facilitate the use of real-world case studies, simulations and situations relevant to participants’ contexts, challenges and needs?
Craft or check for structured learning paths to provide clear, systematic progression from foundational to expert proficiency levels, guiding employees along diverse career journeys.
And don’t overlook assessments, crucial to providing concrete evidence of an individual's readiness for the next career move or stage and pinpointing targeted areas for growth and development. Ensure online training has a range of assessment types to gain a well-rounded understanding of individuals’ skills proficiency and knowledge levels. Make sure they tie directly to your career path skills frameworks and are equitable and transparent - providing the data you need for planning and decision-making and ensuring fair outcomes.
2. Implement tailored learning experiences based on strengths, areas for improvement and career aspirations
Online learning is known for its capacity to personalise learning experiences on a large scale, offering a wide array of modules and resources that cater to the diverse needs, preferences, and career paths of individuals.
To ensure effective learning outcomes, it's essential to examine the extent of personalisation when evaluating online training. Look beyond the surface and examine whether the course offers tailored learning paths, custom content and individualised feedback in line with your organisation’s needs. Does it use assessment data to ensure learning experiences are based on individuals’ strengths, areas for improvement, and career aspirations? Does it include formative as well as summative assessment? Are individuals (and you) able to view dashboards to track progress towards their goals, plan their ongoing learning and adjust their career paths if needed?
Review platform capabilities to identify whether these include adaptive learning paths and assessments.
Adaptive learning paths function as dynamic guides, like having mentors, but on a much larger scale. Just as mentors provide tailored advice and support, these paths adjust to learners' goals and progress, offering targeted content and guidance throughout the learning journey. They remain flexible, accommodating shifts in career paths, such as transitions from traditional leadership tracks to specialised roles.
By dynamically adjusting to the proficiency and skills of each learner, adaptive assessments provide customised evaluations, ensuring individuals are appropriately challenged, regardless of their starting point. This personalised approach is invaluable in where employees bring varying goals, backgrounds, experiences and skill sets. By pinpointing strengths and areas for improvement, adaptive assessments empower individuals to advance along their distinct career trajectories with confidence.
3. Offer flexible, adaptable options to engage different learning styles and needs
Online training programmes offer employees to access learning anywhere and fit into busy work schedules, whatever their career stage.
To make sure these diverse learners are engaged, consider the range of learning methods available: from live sessions fostering real-time engagement to asynchronous learning offering flexibility in scheduling. Then, there's group or social learning, promoting collaboration and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. Lastly, personalised one-to-one sessions provide tailored guidance, ensuring individualised support. By integrating these diverse methods into online learning programmes, organisations can cultivate a rich learning environment that caters to diverse needs.
Look for platforms that enable learners to progress at their own speed, whether it's accelerating through modules or taking extra time to grasp complex concepts. By offering this flexibility, organisations can ensure that individuals feel empowered and supported in their learning journey, ultimately fostering a more effective and inclusive learning environment.
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Implementing personalised, scalable online learning for diverse career paths requires a strategic approach that prioritises relevance to skills frameworks and structure, balanced with customisation, flexibility and adaptability.
By leveraging comprehensive assessments, targeted content, adaptive elements and flexible options, you can empower employees to navigate their career journeys effectively.
With a focus on meeting individual needs and aspirations, online learning becomes a powerful tool for driving professional growth and success across diverse career paths.
British Council has almost 90 years’ experience of partnering with organisations and individuals in over 200 countries to upskill their workforce for success. Our four-step process supports you to implement initiatives that make a difference, whatever the career path your employees choose.
Our online courses offer personalised, scalable options to grow your employees’ skills.
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