What is Future-Fit all about?

We face a skills conundrum. One of our roles is to equip people with the skills required
in the face of an uncertain future. Unknown jobs need unknown skills, and current skills
are lasting for a shorter time than before.

What we do know is that our human skills will be essential. These ‘future skills’ will
prepare individuals, teams and organizations for an uncertain future.

The Future-Fit Journey will help you to drive engagement to build future skills in your
organization.

Only 26% of leaders agree they can identify the

skills the organisation will need in the future
Source: PWC: Future of Work and Skills

5 Principles to drive engagement

While we can create initiatives to prepare people for the future, we still face the age-old
issue of engagement. If we build it will they come?

On this journey you will apply the five evidence-informed principles discussed in the
eBook, to take small steps to build a future skill that’s needed in your organization.

 Connect with the right priorities - be clear about what you need to achieve
 Connect with the right content - be clear on how content links to goals
 Connect to what’s relevant - be clear about the messages you use to
communicate
 Maintain a connection - be clear in what you expect from others
 Improve the connection - be clear about how you track success and adapt.

It’s tempting to ‘go big’ and roll out a learning solution for your future skill across your
whole organization, especially when you have technology that allows you to scale
solutions efficiently. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Connecting with the right priorities means thinking ‘business first’ and ‘learner first.’ To
create value make sure your content and solutions address the real business
challenges, and address the different needs of each group. This will help you to be clear
on what you need to achieve and where to invest your L&D resources.

Top performing L&D teams are 4x more likely to

analyze business problems than lower
 performers.
Source: Mind tools for business (2021)

Driving engagement
You are asking managers and their team members to invest their time and, possibly,
budget to use a learning solution. You are more likely to gain their attention by
connecting with their priorities, needs and pain points to work on things that matter to
them. Making content and learning activities relevant to the specific needs of different
groups will deepen engagement.

Your action for today

Connect your selected future skill to needs.

Pick a group of people in your organization who need to develop this skill, and that you
can use as the target learner group for the rest of the journey. How would your future
skill improve their performance?

Complete step 2 on your Future-Fit worksheet.

People need to access information that will help them to learn and do their work. It is a
burden to filter through the increasing flow of information to find relevant, useful content.

Many modern learning platforms automatically gather and aggregate content on

nominated topics. While it’s easy to point people to aggregated content streams, this
often adds to the problem of information overload.

Connecting with the right content means appropriately and thoughtfully curating relevant
information to meet the goals and context of a target audience. L&D’s role as content
curator is to be the guiding force to help people find and access useful information.

People spend 41% of their time trying to find

information.
Source: The Modern LearnerThe Modern Learner

Driving engagement
Drive engagement with thoughtful curation that reduces the friction and cognitive load
for people to find content that meets their needs. Carefully assess the audience group,
their context and the actions they should be able to take after engaging with the content.
Ensure that content is easy for them to find and access, and clearly state who it is for
and what it will help them to do.

Your action for today

Connect content to audience goals.

Describe your target audience. Identify what they should be able to do after engaging
with the future skills content. What type of content would help them?

Complete step 3 on your Future-Fit worksheet.

Connect to what's relevant

Your L&D team may be working on the next big program that will help your organization
and its people be successful. However, many L&D teams create a program and cross
their fingers it will be discovered or bury the launch in a corporate email. There are
many dimensions to a communication plan. When the challenges aren’t addressed the
odds of program failure intensify. Is it any wonder so many programs never gain
traction?

Connecting to what’s relevant is about cutting through the noise of the modern
workplace to ensure that people are aware of what’s available and why they should use
it. There is no one-size-fits all communication strategy. Rather, a communication plan
should be carefully crafted as a key support tool for any new learning program.

8 out of 10 workers rate their business communication

as average or poor
Source: Communication Statistics 2020

Driving engagement
Drive engagement with learning programs by creating a launch communications plan
built around compelling, targeted messages. Design messages to educate the
audience, convey relevance and motivate them with clear ‘Call To Actions’ for them to
complete. Plan a stream of communications that commences before launch to build a
sense of excitement and continues after launch to sustain momentum.
 Your action for today
Be clear about the messages you use to communicate.

Identify one key message that you would like to communicate to your target audience
group about why developing your selected future skill is important to them.

Complete step 4 on your Future-Fit worksheet.

Maintain the connection

What happened the last time you asked a line manager to support their people to learn?
What did you actually ask them to do? Line managers have more influence on their
team member’s learning than anyone else. Yet they often don’t see the link between
learning and team performance, or understand how they can support learning.

Line managers are an essential stakeholder in future skills development. They have a
vital role to play to create the space for their team to grow. Being clear in your
expectations of them will maintain their connection to their team members as they
develop and put future skills to work, improving their performance.

Less than 1 in 4 L&D leaders agree that they equip line

managers to help their teams get the most out of
learning
Source: The Transformation Journey

Driving engagement
Support managers with light, yet powerful practices as part of their team rhythm.
Provide them with tools and guidance to run team check-ins that build habits of
reflection, sharing and team accountability for learning and growth. This creates a
culture of permission that drives engagement.

Your action for today

Clarify your expectations.

List two simple actions that a line manager could take to support their team to apply
what they learn about your selected future skill in their work. How would you
communicate this expectation to them?
Complete step 5 on your Future-Fit worksheet.