Article: Learning is for All: Here’s a checklist to strengthen your SMB’s L&D agenda for business excellence

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Learning is for All: Here’s a checklist to strengthen your SMB’s L&D agenda for business excellence

From employee engagement to solving the challenge of skill shortages, learning leads the way. As SMBs tackle the challenges of today’s disruptive business landscape, investing in their learning solutions will be vital to gaining a competitive advantage.
Learning is for All: Here’s a checklist to strengthen your SMB’s L&D agenda for business excellence

In today’s business landscape, SMBs play a pivotal role by creating new avenues for growth and innovation. Prime Database Group highlights how it is the backbone of the Indian economy, with data that shows the steady rise witnessed in the initial public offerings for SMBs. With 28 companies raising ₹ 244 crores to 67 raising ₹ 932 crores, combined with the government’s commitment to supporting such fast-growing enterprises, the future brims with potential. 

However, on the flip side of this growing investment is also rising inflationary pressures from the Indian economy, especially at this juncture which has given rise to budget cuts, fear of investor backouts, freeze hiring and mass layoffs. And this is where the potential for growth gets cut off. The challenge is no longer about attracting talent in the face of rampant skill shortages but about building competencies internally. With leading companies investing in their learning culture to stay one step ahead of the competition, it’s imperative that SMBs also resort to this strategy. After all, an agile, future-ready workforce has continuous access to upskilling opportunities. 

How can SMBs thrive in today’s rapidly evolving skills economy?

Employee productivity and retention are fundamentally tied to the culture that an organisation builds and strengthens. One of the key facets of this is the initiatives for learning and development that cater to skill-building in line with industry demand and opportunities for internal mobility. By addressing the dual concerns of productivity and engagement on the one hand and skill shortages on the other, a robust learning culture is the move forward for accelerating business growth. 

While HR and Executive leadership acknowledge the burning need for L&D, especially in light of the rapid transformation and automation of job roles, for SMBs, the struggle might be about where to start. Digital solutions are optimal, especially with a diversified workforce at the reins of innovation, but budget constraints remain. However, with its range of competency-building solutions designed for companies of all sizes, UpsideLMS is ready to meet your learning needs. What’s critical then for SMBs at this point is to outline the must-have features to build a digital learning landscape that will deliver the desired outcomes for the near to long term.

An L&D Checklist to get started on your transformation journey: 

In partnership with UpsideLMS, which champions the cause of learning for SMBs, we bring you a list of questions that leaders must ask themselves before investing in any learning platform or solution:

  • Can it be easily adopted and accessed by the workforce? In other words, does it enable anywhere, anytime learning?
  • Is it open to personalisation by offering multiple choices in learning content and formats?
  • Does it encourage peer or social learning?
  • Can it accommodate in-office, remote and hybrid workers seamlessly? 
  • Does it keep track of learning analytics and offer dashboards with relevant insights?
  • Can it measure the ROI of learning strategies implemented?
  • Will its content be updated in line with the changing industry trends and skill demands?
  • Finally, does it align with your learning budget? 

While this may seem like a long list, investing in your learning culture is critical to your business strategy. Learning interventions are no longer the domain of large enterprises; it’s equally, perhaps even more critical for fast-growing companies with their targets for success set high. In addition, skill shortages are an ongoing challenge, and as we debate the build vs buy approach to high-impact talent, building that very talent internally will become more urgent. Finally, SMBs can no longer do away with mining the potential of L&D strategies if they want to catch hold of the opportunities for innovation today. 

This checklist is only the starting point for you to embark on your learning transformation journey. We also bring to you an exclusive webinar that will delve deeper into how we can tick off all the boxes and elevate our learning culture and employee productivity with the right L&D solutions. So join us this 26th of July and embrace the future of work with a robust learning strategy that empowers an agile, highly-skilled, future-ready workforce

A bonus: attendees will also get an exclusive opportunity to witness UpsideLMS launch its latest innovation, so stay tuned!

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Topics: Skilling, Learning & Development, Learning Technology, #HRTech

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