We work hard to ensure that our courses reflect the latest developments in business training so that your people and business continue to grow and succeed. Here is a round-up of some of the business and training trends for 2020:
Artificial Intelligence
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to confront us in our personal lives (think Google providing us with relevant ads, Instagram and Facebook using algorithms to give us content that interests us) AI is still relatively underutilised in the workplace. It will become more common for systems holding social media content, customer, product, and staff information to provide recommendations and insight. For example, identifying when staff are ready to move into leadership training.
Customer education
Sustainability and looking after our planet has been a huge area in the last decade in which consumers have put pressure on businesses to make changes. It is now expected that businesses readily provide this information and demonstrate how they are reducing their impact on the environment and/or supporting positive initiatives. It has also never been easier to compare products and services before making decisions. Companies need to ensure they are providing honest information on the quality and benefits of their products and services as well as human and environment betterment stories.
Actionable coaching
Being a coach takes a manager from average to effective. Actionable coaching is achieved by observing employees, tracking performance and skill development, and giving feedback. Effective coaching requires active engagement with employees. It requires taking information and turning it into an action plan. If the plan is built in alignment with the business’s strategy, then it’s a double win – improving both employee and business performance with actionable coaching.
Work and play blurring
There will be more people using their leisure time to get ahead at work. Using training programmes or researching via their mobiles ensures no down-time is wasted. While this goes against the longer trend of work-life balance, this will be harder to achieve against getting ahead in a chosen career. Training opportunities and allowances will increasingly become a part of benefits packages.
Geofencing
Already taking place, geofencing uses your smartphone to deliver job-related information just as you need it. For example, alerting you to activity in your area that demands attention. safer.me is an example of a company dedicated to hazard reporting and worker safety in real-time.
Soft skill trends
Some of the biggest trends emerging in business training are within areas that are uniquely human. These are traits that we all possess to varying degrees. Three of the soft-skill trends this year are (read more of them here):
- Having a growth mindset to manage stress triggers and change. People with a growth mindset believe that their talents can be developed through hard work and feedback. This compares to people with a fixed mindset who believe talents are innate and unchangeable. To build a growth mindset try Resilience and Wellbeing and Coping with Change.
- Communicating and building better relationships with people from different cultures. It is becoming more important than ever to avoid unconscious biases and learn how to embrace differences and different ways of working. Cross-cultural awareness and communication is our new course for 2020.
- Maintaining focus. Mastering the ability to avoid the biggest distractions at work (noisy offices, chatty co-workers, and social media scrolling) enables better productivity. Take control of your precious time with our Personal Productivity course. Mindfulness will help maintain focus.
I look forward to working with your business this year and being a part of new learning developments. I am interested to hear if your company is doing anything new or radical in this space.
Chantell Bramley
Resources:
https://www.forbes.com/ leadership trends
https://unboxedtechnology.com/corporate-training-trends-2020/ coaching
https://trainingindustry.com/ learning and development trends
https://business.udemy.com/ soft-skill trends
https://www.trainingjournal.com/articles/features/ld-trends-2020/ work-play blurring
https://www.edgepointlearning.com/blog/future-of-corporate-training-2019/ geofencing