“If re- and upskilling is such a challenge, maximising the effectiveness of training and learning is more important than ever.”

Jos BerdenMay 2, 2022The skills obsession

Introducing:

the skills obsession for training providers

The learniverse seems to be heavily preoccupied with re- and upskilling. As with any topic or trend that gets a lot of attention really quickly, questions should be asked about why that is happening, if all that fuzz is appropriate and what should be done about it.

For the next couple of months, we will explore this renewed skills obsession through our channels. In this piece, we are going to tell you what you can expect from us.

Why training providers should care about the current skills obsession

Influential institutions like the World Economic Forum, McKinsey, PwC and more have been writing thick reports in 2021 about the problem the world is facing around a shortage in skills.

Employers see that their employees don’t have the right skills for work to come, employees see themselves changing jobs that require new skills sooner than later and the pandemic has had a massive impact on how we work and what skills are needed for that. These are a few large scale movements that all (at the least) predict a huge demand in re- and upskilling.

This has trickled down this year into the learniverse in several ways. First of all, investments in Edtech are truly exploding, with analysts saying that soon the popular phrase ‘every company will be a fintech company’ could soon turn into ‘every company will be an edtech company’. Secondly, it’s clearly on the hearts and minds of learning professionals worldwide. The Global Sentiment Survey has re- and upskilling as the unmistakable hottest topic for two years straight now. Finally, governments of many countries have put in place funding and other financial perks to let people (re-)educate themselves.

If there is one group of organisations or types of companies that should be on top of this ‘thing’ around skills, it’s training providers. Their core product is providing the best possible training or to put it in other words: helping people learn new skills. Their role is crucial. So, if re- and upskilling is such a challenge, maximising the effectiveness of training and learning is more important than ever.

How we will explore the skills obsession

We will be asking a lot of questions. To experts, to ourselves, to you, to the universe, … Not completely at random, but somewhat structured around subtopics. Hopefully, at the end of this period, around august, we will have to come to a conclusion about how training providers should handle this skills obsession.

Expect various content pieces, like blogs, interviews, case studies and more. Also, we will share, review and recommend research and reports. Last, but not least, we would love to hear from you! Share your thoughts on the topics and chime in.

Our aNewLetter is the main channel we will be using, and subscribing to it will ensure you get regularly updated. All main content will be available on our blog page as well and follow us on social media for updates as well.

What are the questions we will answer about the skills obsession

During the coming months we will try to answer one central question: “How should training providers handle the current skills obsession?”

To find an answer, this topic will be cut into smaller pieces.
We will be exploring the following elements:

How to re- and upskill in a hybrid learning world?
What’s the role of training providers when it comes to the skills obsession?
Who’s responsible for improving skills?
Re- and upskilling in a specific industry, e.g. soft and hard skills
How about the skills of the learning professional?

Our two cents about the skills obsession

“As a learning professional at a training provider, you might feel like all this talk about ‘reskilling and upskilling’ is a bit offtopic for you. We can’t help but feel that’s dismissing it too easily. Sure, your (and our…) core focus lies more on making learning effective and engaging instead of these macro level discussions. But shouldn’t those two things influence each other?

Global institutions, politics and multinational corporations sticking their noses in learning can make you weary that it’s all big business and only focussed on commercial success. But scaling the volume of training and learning should not mean the quality and impact comes second. Not on our watch!

Now that learning (and development) is higher up on the agenda, means there’s fertile ground for all training providers to show how skills training is done right. How to make it impactful and how to make best use of learning technology. Impactful learning is effective learning. Effective learning is long term efficient learning. And efficient learning is scalable. See, they connect.

Whether or not the skills gap is real and if this talk about skills is rightfully an obsession isn’t the most important thing. It is making sure that the increased interest and demand for learning is handled right. Pioneers in learning like you are needed. Time to join this discussion.”

About the author

Jos Berden

A thinker, questioner and listener. The perfect combination of a pragmatic and idealist.

On the wish-list to learn: soccer tactics, flying a helicopter, reading other people’s minds.

How can training providers capitalise on ‘skills obsession’ opportunities?

Start exploring the obsession for re- and upskilling and the global skills gap today

Employers and professionals have an obsession with skills. As a training provider, you can benefit from this. In this guide you will learn how with different perspectives, hard figures and visions of ‘Learning Rockstars’.

Get the guide

“ If there is one group of organisations or types of companies that should be on top of this obsession around skills, it’s training providers. ”
– Ger Driesen

anewspring-perspectives-guide-skills-obsession-front-preview-cropped

Check out more content like this

Back to blog overview »

Receive our fresh insights and inspiration
within the world of learning in your mailbox

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Well, you wanted to sign up or get in touch, but it doesn’t seem to work (yet). Maybe a bit annoying, but we want to do this the right way; by getting your permission. Click here to see which cookie-setting you need to accept to fix this.

About us

The learning platform

Learning methods

You know the drill…

We all love to hate or hate to love cookies, the yummy, edible ones and the internetty, online ones. We also use them (the latter) to make our website prettier, faster and better tailored to you. Click ‘Accept all’ if you’re alright with that or make a well informed choice by checking out and adjusting all the specifics under ‘Cookie options’. Mmm, cookie options...

You can find more information on this in our Privacy Statement. | Close

Cookie options

Take a moment...

Your privacy is very important to A New Spring BV. Find below the mandatory and optional approvals you can give us to allow us to process your personal data.

You can find more information on this in our Privacy Statement.

If you wish to withdraw these approvals, please click on ‘forget my approvals’ at the bottom of this page.

Forms and chat

We use Hubspot to safely collect, save and use your personal data and contact preferences; an example of this is our online chat or forms that you complete in our site.

View details

Watch YouTube

Videos on this website are provided from the YouTube or Vimeo streaming video service. YouTube may show you personalised adverts preceding the actual video you want to watch. This consent is optional, but required if you wish to view videos directly on this website.You may wonder, why can I watch vimeo without this consent? Vimeo has an anonymous function which allows us to display the videos without cookies.

View details

Personalised advertising

You probably use Facebook or LinkedIn and also, you probably use Google from time to time to search for stuff. Then, you’ll know that they have advertisements on there. To make those less annoying (i.e. more personalised), we use a number of services on our website.

View details

Website statistics

Feedback is valuable. When it comes to how well our website works for you, feedback is formed by numbers and statistics. That’s why we use Google Analytics and Hotjar to learn how visitors move, click and act on our website. To make it less scary, we anonymise this data before we save it by masking the last few numbers of your IP-address. And we do not allow Google or other parties to use this information for any other purposes.

View details

Functional technologies

You want a pretty and quick website, right? Our (WordPress) website uses a cookie during your visit to our website to check if your browser supports cookies. We kind of need those cookies, because it makes your visit much nicer by remembering personal preferences, quicker performance and loading the correct fonts from Google to properly represent our branding (which we hope you think is pretty, too).

View details

Forget my settings Removed!

“If re- and upskilling is such a challenge, maximising the effectiveness of training and learning is more important than ever.”

Introducing:

the skills obsession for training providers

Why training providers should care about the current skills obsession

How we will explore the skills obsession

What are the questions we will answer about the skills obsession

Our two cents about the skills obsession

Jos Berden

How can training providers capitalise on ‘skills obsession’ opportunities?

Check out more content like this

How training providers can improve their impact: Concluding our search for answers

Introducing: the never-ending story of learning impact

Takeaways from the skills obsession for training providers

About us

The learning platform

Learning methods