Embracing A Fluidic Workforce By 2020: The CLOs' Challenge

Embracing A Fluidic Workforce By 2020: The CLO’s Challenge
Summary: CLO teams are once again pressed to prepare a workforce that extends beyond the employees: Moving from a structured, rigid personnel to a highly networked, fluidic workforce.

The CLOs' Challenge To Embrace A Fluidic Workforce By 2020 

Digital is now mainstream with every business. While technology is the big enabler of digital enterprises, it is highly-skilled people that define the success of an enterprise. Learning and Development teams have been very successful in procuring a seat at the decision tables. A larger challenge lurks close, mostly unseen and unprecedented.

Intuit Inc., and Emergent Research, in a study, estimated 7.6 million professionals will work in the on-demand markets by 2020. This is more than double the current total of 3.2 million on-demand professionals. 43% of the US workforce will be freelancers by 2020. Hence the emergence of Upwork, Peopleperhour, and more.

CLO teams are pressed to prepare highly skilled and digitally evolved professionals connected to the internet. Sounds like a strange scenario? Well, it's knocking the door. Speculations aside, but the benefits of this shift are immense. Enterprises can now access a smarter, competitive, promising, and fluidic workforce, or Fluidforce, if we may say.

CLOs are challenged more than ever to evolve from a classic learning and development team to a high-engagement “apparatus” that can connect, engage, and empower a Fluidforce. 4 priorities that can help CLOs stay ahead of the game and avoid a digital shock are:

  1. Perform a skill-gap analysis and identify one high-demand role where it is difficult to fill positions.
    Develop a new learning curriculum and deliver it to a pilot group of existing employees.
  2. Use this to understand how to make it more fluidic, i.e., available and omni-channel.
    Consider MOOCs, BYOD, social, and collaborative learning options.
  3. Determine your organization’s training capabilities and how to expand it to accommodate diverse channels.
    Adding new channels to your training infrastructure continuously improves the training outreach.
  4. Finally, create a plan to scale the pilot project across the organization.
    Formalize the training outreach program to make it ready for freelancers and contractors.

CLO teams need to step and pledge to offer an engaging and hassle-free experience to employees and students. Learning and development need to go customer-centric. According to Forrester Data, “If you don’t understand their emotions, you don’t understand your customers”. Managed learning services are key to Learning and Development transformation.

It is exciting to understand what our fraternity colleagues think of this upcoming shift in a digitally connected, fluidic workforce. Comments are highly appreciated.