The constant change and volatility of the past two years has shone a bright light on organizations’ talent readiness. The upheaval caused by the pandemic and the aftershocks of The Great Resignation mean companies had to keep a lot of plates spinning simultaneously to ensure the business always has the right mix of people with the right mix of skills to meet its objectives. All of this is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.
From a learning perspective, the traditional LMS has served us well by delivering courses aimed at building skills. But it hasn’t done a good job figuring out where that learning is needed, so even if the reskilling and upskilling courses and tools are available, they may not be reaching the people who need them, leaving the organization with skills gaps.
This challenge becomes even greater when you start looking at building skills across the extended enterprise. Think of brands that have to train service, parts and sales professionals across a network of dealerships — none of which are owned by the parent brand. Or perhaps a network of healthcare professionals trained by a medical device company. In these environments, the insights into skills gaps and how to close them become even more cloudy. Add a heavy reliance on certifications and compliance to the mix and it becomes almost impossible.
Brandon Hall Group Smartchoice Preferred Provider Latitude CG thrives on this level of complexity. They have been providing training technologies to dealerships and other organizations with extended networks for years. Over that history, they watched the complexity around certifications and skill-building grow exponentially and have continually redesigned their solution to match it.
The LatitudeLearning solution brings skills, training, certifications and other critical business elements together in one place. The platform was built to allow individuals to see just where they stand at any given moment with the skills they need for current or future roles. They can also see their progress in training for those skills and easily get to courses and materials they need to move forward. This lets the skills requirements drive the learning journey.
It provides that kind of insight to managers as well. Now team leaders can see how their teams stack up in terms of required skills and quickly identify any trouble spots. This can be done across teams of any size — even for multiple teams in multiple locations, depending on the manager’s span of control. This is critical in the extended-enterprise environment. To be successful, these managers must quickly see that they have the right skills in place wherever they are needed and be able to quickly address any gaps.
LatitudeLearning can also incorporate a variety of other data to gauge organizational readiness. This can be quality metrics, customer satisfaction scores and external certification requirements and can be baked into someone’s competency and skill levels. Learners can see when they need to gain or retain certification and managers can see that they have the right certifications in place across their teams. The system is dynamic, always calculating based on any new data or updates to requirements. This convergence of external requirements and internal data skills gives companies a clear snapshot of their organizational readiness across the business and the extended enterprise. The learning delivery then makes it possible to immediately address any needs where the organization may be less than ready.
–David Wentworth, Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
