Introduction
As the globe moves toward a knowledge-based economy, many companies have had little choice but to increase their efforts and resources dedicated to cultivating their employees’ skills. A company’s success depends on its ability to recruit, hire, and retain talented people in today’s increasingly complex and fast-paced business environment and globally competitive marketplace. Organizations must ensure that their Learning and Development (L&D) efforts and practices contribute to their overall mission and objectives.
Discussion
BREXIT and the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly affected the labor market. Fewer jobs are being created or filled, causing the unemployment rate to rise. Using data on the UK labor market before and after COVID-19, Benito 2020 analyzes the scenario via the lens of the Beveridge curve, which shows how unemployment rates and job openings affect one another (2). Job growth has slowed, and unemployment is rising.
However, this increased demand for remote labor has also presented new technological problems for firms. As a result, IT companies work proactively to spot shifts in the market, so they may better comprehend their clients’ wants and objectives and impending business issues that can be mitigated by employing IT. It was thought that government limitations were the only reason people could not freely move about. However, three months after the economy was officially reopened in July 2020, there was only a 7% increase in public mobility (NIESR 2020, 3). This trend reflects people’s desire to exercise caution and play it safe. It does not take long for businesses to recognize that they need a solid foundation to keep running forever. Because of this, the need for IT solutions has skyrocketed all around the globe, and new doors have opened as a result.
Accessing WBA under the same conditions, it is a multinational company with a solid reputation and an edge in the market. Diversifying and nurturing talent should be a top priority for IT companies. In addition, it stresses the importance of expanding the IT industry’s recruitment strategies beyond the traditional focus on hiring only highly experienced IT professionals. By prioritizing recent hiring graduates, WBA demonstrates an awareness of the need to plan. The company needs to change its culture from a rigid bureaucracy to one that encourages innovation and growth at all levels.
Although there needs to be more information in the case study to analyze the organization and its environment comprehensively, the section below expands on a few of the internal and external organizational influences.
SWOT Analysis and PESTLE Analysis
A primary management model, SWOT analysis, helps assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the company that help to develop effective strategies for moving forward. SWOT is a framework for analyzing a company’s weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats. The approach analyzes internal and external settings, and opportunities and strengths match the identified gaps.
The strengths associated with WBA are as follows; WBA is a leading software developer with rapid expansion and rising profits, experienced an increase in skill set as a result of company growth and mergers during the past decade, and is also characterized by low employee turnover. Moreover, WBA employees enjoy more freedom since they can work from home and provide reasonable pay and benefits. However, WBA also has weaknesses as follows; WBA’s bureaucratic organizational culture and structure hinder innovation and communication in the organization. The organization also advocates for a self-study program, making monitoring individual progress and efficacy challenging. WBA also appoints inexperienced recent college grads who have no background in IT or business and also have the organization lacks insufficient learning and development planning
Opportunities exist which could lead to the improvement and strengthening of the WBA organization. An effective learning and development strategy may help people make the most of their skills and talents. The organization should create a more effective L&D plan by integrating virtual and in-person instruction and increasing IT infrastructure spending. The threats that exist within the WBA organization are; Low levels of engagement and flexibility among workers as a result of an overly bureaucratic work environment. Difficulties in educating workers about new software and industry trends. Future employee turnover is likely due to the lack of a formalized strategy for transferring knowledge and expertise inside the organization.
The Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legislative, and Environmental components of PESTLE Analysis are examined to understand the external environment better (Frue, 2018). Below is a PESTLE Analysis for the WBA organization;
Political instability is one of the challenges that exist as an external factor affecting the WBA organization. The Government’s ability to solve national challenges has been affected and exposed by the uncertainty that has ensued in the wake of COVID-19. Economic factors affecting WBA are the increase in inflation rate and the poor labor market. This is due to inadequate sources, restricted movements, and the rise in the unemployment rate. Several sociological also affect WBA organizations, including changes in lifestyles, racism, and an increased need for efficient online services and sales (Ferguson, 2018). When establishing a positive reputation as an employer in the competitive UK labor market, a company must foster an environment free of prejudice and promote equality for all employees.
Technological issues also affect organizations; for instance, businesses embrace technological solutions due to travel and sociability limitations. The increased demand for IT software and other merchandise to manage enterprises has benefited IT fields positively, despite the numerous negative implications of COVID-19 (Frue, 2018). This has led to a higher need for qualified IT specialists. The modifications to existing rules and regulations in the legal system affect how WBA conducts its business. The organization must revise its rules and practices to reflect recent shifts in national legislation. These can be broad, long-term shifts or specific, crisis-specific restrictions. The environmental issues that affect the WBA organization include the Covid-19 pandemic. The corporation should take the lead in corporate social responsibility initiatives befitting its status as a leading industry.
WBA is expanding and generating a healthy profit because of its cutting-edge IT innovations and comprehensive suite of in-demand service offerings. The corporation has expanded through several acquisitions and employs a culturally and racially diverse staff (Ferguson 2018,13). Moreover, it enriches the business with a wide range of expertise. Despite the company’s efforts to keep turnover to a minimum through competitive pay and benefits, some of its most brilliant and experienced employees may leave if they do not see a path to advancement.
However, employees can learn at their own pace using the company’s online self-study platform. The organization might benefit from integrating its online training platform with on-the-job instruction more systematically. With the world in disarray since the COVID-19 outbreak, many companies have been forced to go remote. WBA is in a unique position to pioneer remote work solutions for its clientele and serve as a benchmark for what it means to successfully combine remote work with the pursuit of organizational and personal development. In order to keep a positive work atmosphere and foster the development of effective teams, businesses should prioritize cross-cultural and diversity education in light of the difficulties posed by a workforce comprised of people from many different backgrounds.
Strategic options that WBA plc might consider adopting to address the issues identified
As defined by McKinsey, learning and development strategy involves five distinct but interrelated functions. One, attracting and retaining top talent; Two, fostering growth in each employee’s specific set of skills; Three, fostering a culture of Worker enthusiasm and commitment and the reputation of the company as an employer are points four and five, respectively. On the other hand, (CIPD 2020, 1) stresses the importance of L&D practices that align with the organization’s overall strategic goals. Identifying priorities for learning and development; Conducting performance reviews and skill gap analyses; planning for L&D expenditures; Methods of instruction options; Assessment; Creativity; and lastly, justice and fairness.
Taking the WBA scenario and the aforementioned L&D recommendation into account, the following strategic L&D objectives can be formulated: To Improve the use of online learning platforms, which involves setting goals and incentives and evaluating learning outcomes. To establish a young talent development program by fill positions with recent graduates who will be mentored and coached to develop skills. To plan for successors if they lack the necessary abilities or if a talented worker lacks possibilities for advancement within the organization.
The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD, 2020) has highlighted seven factors to support the growth of young talent within the learning-to-work program. The first element is the business case, where the organization should figure out the value of young talent. Secondly, they should collaborate with regional organizations to recruit young professionals. Third, get the next generation of talent ready to learn; fourthly, close the skills gap among recent college grads through work experience. Fifth, the organization recruits and creates a solid pipeline of talent. Sixth, it invests in the future of the organization’s workforce by increasing their skills. Lastly, evaluate how this change affects the company and staff (CIPD 2020, 2).
WBA currently hires recent grads, but by forming partnerships with regional institutions, it can find and hire the most talented individuals, create a pipeline of future employees, and help those employees advance in their careers. This will also contribute to the goal of lowering youth unemployment. Employers and prospective apprentices in the UK market can receive funding and support from the Apprenticeship Levy (Powell et al., 2020). WBA may use this chance to make the most of its investment in employee development. For WBA to foster its employees’ growth and development, it must find and employ people with an insatiable appetite for personal and professional growth.
The workplace is undergoing dramatic change due to technological advancements and other socioeconomic factors. As businesses adapt to the new realities of the modern workplace, they have become flatter and less hierarchical (Social Talent 2017). The idea of climbing the corporate ladder does not work very well. In contrast to the linear progression offered by the corporate ladder, the corporate lattice model allows for advancement in various directions. The lattice model only considers the first three dimensions. First is the consideration of profession; more options for advancement across the organization in addition to the standard up-and-out ladder. The second consideration is employment, the evolution of work, with more emphasis on outcomes than on clock hours. Reflecting the reality that many people today neither work in an office nor adhere to the conventional 9–5 schedule. The third consideration is involvement: a lattice approach to management, in contrast to more hierarchical structures, encourages people to speak up and be heard in crucial conversations that lead to important decisions.
WBA should adopt the self-service model and 70/20/10 model as learning approaches to make learning more successful and reflective. The 70/20/10 model concentrates on learning through one’s own experience (70%), with another 20% coming from socialization and other practices such as mentorship, coaching, or engagement with peers, and the remaining 10% coming from professional training or coursework (McPheat, 2018). WBA can use a similar method of training. There is a direct correlation between an individual’s ability to learn and the time spent training on the job. The organization may encourage its employees to learn by having a voice in decisions, taking on new and challenging responsibilities, being free to develop their methods of working and thinking, serving as mentors and trainers, and encouraging others to do the same.
WBA already has a self-learning platform that employees may use to learn at their own pace, but the organization still needs to incentivize and push people to expand their skill sets and analyze the impact of their training. Competent employees are essential to the survival and growth of tech companies in light of the industry’s rapid pace of change. In 2013, a similar struggle occurred at a Dallas-based IT firm trying to foster a culture of continuous learning and employee retention. The IT department launched a self-service platform that centered on metrics. First, clearly outline targeted performance outcomes and the requisite skill sets for the current or target job. Second, giving them access to self-evaluation tools based on actual work scenarios that may be used to gauge performance in the current position and predict future success. Third, adjusting how one is rewarded can alter one’s perspective on achievement. (CIPD 2019, 3). With the self-service model’s support, workers could pinpoint areas in which they lacked expertise and were then connected with training and education programs to fill the resulting gaps.
WBA may use a similar model to reimagine its talent development methods, and better results can be achieved by highlighting each student’s unique learning requirements. Given that the company’s 100,000 employees are too numerous to be tracked by a centralized HR system, empowering employees with the freedom to chart their courses of study and professional development is in everyone’s best interests.
Recommendations
WBA should redefine its organizational structure to achieve its corporate goals and objectives. WBA’s centralized and bureaucratic structure restricts the scope of its authority. The design of such an organization is more rigid and well-defined and stifles creativity (Devaney, 2018). The IT company relies on its employees’ creativity to come up with novel IT solutions for its customers. The WBA has to either adopt a multi-level approach combining corporate, operational, and functional levels to improve the organization’s ability to learn, be creative and include employees in decision-making or rethink its current structure. For the best possible strategic outlook, the Matrix model may be a viable alternative to consider. Instead of having a single supreme decision-maker, it allows for a range of options and a complex hierarchy to weigh in. It can further divide its functional-level plans into demographic categories, allowing it to tailor its approach to each market’s unique needs. Second, a matrix model can improve academic performance, adaptability, and originality by encouraging lattice-based thinking.
WBA also has to reexamine the managers and individual key performance indicators. Evaluations are valuable for determining each learner’s specific requirements (CIPD 2018, 4). The self-service model allows individuals to evaluate their performance without input from outside sources such as peers or managers. Line managers at WBA should be responsible for their employees’ training and development. Their performance should be evaluated based on employees’ ability to apply what they have learned in the workplace (Susa et al. 2019). Managers and team leaders usually only need to worry about the results of the tasks they have been given. In other words, they are changing how managers are evaluated and holding them responsible for their team’s growth and improvement in skills. Managers can do what would be highly challenging and impossible for a single person in charge: keep tabs on team members’ development, assess their needs in terms of education, and make the best judgments possible in their best interests. The initiative’s evidence and outcomes may be easily collected by upper management, who can then assess the program’s overall impact and tailor their assistance to the needs of each division, office, or team rather than relying on blanket measures.
When managers are involved, employees’ training is more likely to be relevant to company objectives. A learning culture is ingrained in the organization’s structure, systems, and shared goals and objectives. Involving top-level management in articulating a vision for education and transformation, setting learning objectives, and ensuring that these objectives align with business objectives. (CIPD 2020, 5). If the organization wants line managers to act as a catalyst for learning rather than a deterrent, they need to be actively involved in L & D.
To further progress, WBA should also redesign the current company culture. Structure and strategy inside an organization both define and sustain its culture. A healthy culture has three pillars: shared values, clear guidelines for how employees should behave, and a firm belief in what is proper and acceptable (CIPD 2020,6). The “Understanding and Developing Organizational Culture” section of SHRM’s publication emphasizes the importance of HR in creating and maintaining the appropriate culture inside an organization. There is a dominant culture and multiple subcultures within any organization (Browne, 2017); he also stresses the importance of individual and people-centered approaches to culture development. A learning culture is one in which people are expected to learn via experience.
To thrive in the dynamic and ever-changing IT business, WBA must be open to new experiences and learning opportunities and instill in its employees a passion for lifelong learning and a commitment to the organization’s core values and mission. WBA benefits from a multifaceted staff that spans multiple generations and demographic groups. In addition to the baby boomers, traditionalists, generation X, and the much-discussed generation Y, the modern workforce also includes members of generation Z, which consists mainly of recent college graduates (In Focus Report 2017, 23). A new era, Generation C/Digital Natives, may hail from any of the cohorts mentioned above but share a trait that makes them cohesive as a group. The members of Generation C highly value connectivity, technology, content, and communication. As a result, it was clear that they love maintaining contact with one another through open dialogue with superiors and peers. Since the IT industry is driven by anticipating and progressing technological needs, WBA can leverage its expertise to further develop its technologically savvy workforce by providing a self-driven learning platform with organized feedback to encourage and facilitate learning and innovation.
Conclusion
In light of the rising need for IT infrastructure in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s SWOT and PESTLE analyses reveal that it employs a multicultural workforce and has room for future expansion. The event devastated the global economy but created a surge in demand for technological solutions in the IT sector. On the other hand, WBA has institutionalized a bureaucratic culture that may stifle the creativity and originality that are the supposed lifeblood of the business world. Unfortunately, there are no formal training and development programs to foster innovation and advancement among the company’s employees.
The research analyzes WBA’s L&D practices to pinpoint problems and provide remedies. The report is structured on the elements of the L&D plan recommended by CIPD and Mckinsey. However, primary attention is paid to the issues that emerged during the in-depth analysis of the presented case study. In order to expand as a company and to give people more chances to study, WBA needs to reorganize itself as a flexible and adaptive institution that makes greater use of its existing online learning platform. As has been discussed, WBA’s workforce may comprise members of various generations, the most prominent of which are Gen C members. To foster a learning culture, the company can create and encourage employee engagement, clear lines of communication, a space for both formal and informal feedback, and the participation of line managers in team development. To better cultivate future potential, it can adopt more systematic methods of graduate recruitment and put money into their education or training to help them improve their job prospects.
Reference List
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Analysis
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