COVID – Two-thirds of company leaders say their organizational cultures currently place a high or very high value on learning

In a new survey, leaders say the pandemic has alerted them to the urgency of getting learning programs right. Yet companies are falling short in delivering outcomes, and executives can do more to support capability-building efforts.

Across the globe, company leaders report that the value of capability building has increased dramatically since the start of the COVID-19 crisis (Exhibit 1). Nearly 80 percent say that capability building is very or extremely important to their organizations’ long-term growth, compared with 59 percent who say that this was true before the pandemic. What’s more, about two-thirds say their organizational cultures currently place a high or very high value on learning (Exhibit 2).

Many leaders also report that their companies value reskilling over other ways of addressing capability gaps: in fact, the share of leaders ranking it as the most useful way to close them (53 percent) is larger than the combined share who cite external hiring, redeploying people, andhiring contract workers (Exhibit 3).

Learning is in high demand, with investments to match

The survey suggests that respondents also ascribe great value to learning in the pandemic. Four in ten say they are spending more time on it than they did before the COVID-19 crisis began (Exhibit 4). Only about one-quarter say they’re spending less time and just 2 percent that they have not participated in any learning or skill-building programs at all during this time. Nearly all respondents (92 percent) say they have built capabilities on their own time—mostly informal learning efforts through commercial media. Company leaders, too, are prioritizing learning: 54 percent of them say they have engaged in self-paced learning, compared with 47 percent of all other respondents.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story @ Rethink capabilities to emerge stronger from COVID-19 | McKinsey