With many companies diversifying or adapting working processes over the past 15 months, business owners and employees have had to learn new skills and adapt their job role to match those changing dynamics. Learning new skills makes the company more robust and well-equipped to face challenges. Edtech platforms that offer corporate learning can enable the business owner, or employee, to learn at any time, as a wraparound to their existing role, and work to engage participants with a personalised learning journey. Roger James Hamilton, Founder and CEO of Genius Group, discusses why this trend is helping strengthen businesses.
Roger James Hamilton, Founder and CEO, Genius Group
Growing a business, especially in a pandemic, is always a finely tuned balancing act. Grow too quickly and you face running into cash flow problems but grow too slowly and you could miss out on vital contracts or customers. It is a problem that all business owners face and taking the dive to go from a small team to a larger one has financial implications and can leave business owners facing a payroll bill that they can’t afford.
However, in these technology-driven times, adding new skills to the team doesn’t always need to equate to adding new team members. Job roles are no longer linear and there are easier ways of acquiring skills than recruiting for a new role.
With the onset of social distancing and a huge pivot to online services, we have recently seen a huge boom in edtech platforms, and it is now easier than ever to reskill and upskill for the existing workforce, resulting in a new dynamic and diverse team.
As technology touches every aspect of our lives, we are now moving beyond the information society age into the impact or imagination society where there is a digital layer across almost everything. Big data collected by the internet of things (IoT) will be converted into a new type of intelligence by artificial intelligence (AI) and this will reach every corner of society. We cannot ignore this technological shift, and businesses must recognise and reflect these changes by equipping team members with skills that will enable them to meet these new frontiers with ease.
Because of the recent boom in edtech platforms, adult learning and corporate training including online courses, webinars and masterclasses have seen an increase in popularity. Life-long learning will not only benefit the individual but will also create a high-level team with the skills to work across various departments, from marketing and customer experience to finance and HR. This not only allows for the business to be better equipped to deal with challenges and growth, but it also allows the individual to enjoy a varied role which improves staff retention and encourages everyone to progress in their roles, in line with their own personal interests and strengths.
When looking for an online course to diversify the skill set of existing team members, first list the areas of the business where skills are missing and look at which employee is the best match for each new skill. Whether that be increasing followers on the company’s social media, managing cashflow, or pivoting products or services to online, there will be a huge range of courses available out there.
The second step is to do your research. Draw up a short list of the courses that cover any relevant topics then compare what they are offering and how this will further your business. Read any reviews or testimonials and gauge how much other attendees have gained from completing them.
Before asking your team members to embark on a new learning journey ensure there is the time set aside to complete the course. Learning new skills takes time and dedication and without the hours available, it just may not be worth the outlay. Many companies allow employees to do these courses as part of their existing working hours, but some prefer that the employee does it as additional wraparound hours. Whatever is the case, be clear on expectations to the employees and ensure they are fully committed to learning the new skills.
A personalised learning journey for each employee will really help engage and nurture their growth within the team. This will also reflect the value the business places on the individual and creates cohesion and stability within a team, which only helps to strengthen and enable growth within the business.
Upskilling and reskilling really can add huge value to any business and encouraging personal growth in employees will only go to help grow the business. Of course, there will come a point where the team will need to grow but by offering corporate training and learning the company will become more attractive to potential employees.
By creating a company culture of growth both through the individual and the team, the business becomes more resilient and can face any challenges, new technology or customer demand with ease. The world is changing rapidly and because of this, businesses need to have the ability to change rapidly too; don’t let your business get left behind.
About the Author
Roger James Hamilton is a New York Times bestselling author and Founder and CEO of Genius Group, a multi-million-dollar group of companies including GeniusU, Entrepreneurs Institute, Entrepreneur Resorts and Genius School. GeniusU is an edtech company and platform providing over 1.8 million students with personalised learning paths and is currently seeing over 1300 new students join each day to take the entrepreneur quiz and identify their path to wealth. Genius School provides education courses for young people from 0 to 25 years old. Entrepreneurs Institute provides training courses from 25 to 100 years old, and Entrepreneur Resorts is a market leading group of entrepreneur focused luxury resorts and lodges, beach clubs and city co-working hubs, offering business leaders professional educational retreats in exotic destinations around the world, including Singapore, Bali, and South Africa. Entrepreneur Resorts will be expanding to 10 further locations this year. Roger is the creator of Wealth Dynamics, Talent Dynamics, and Impact Dynamics, used by over 1.8 million entrepreneurs to follow their flow. https://www.geniusgroup.net/
