Intentional learning is HR’s secret weapon: Lepaya CEO

While 2022 was all about resilience in response to extreme economic and geopolitical uncertainty, things are looking very different in 2024.

Europe’s largest learning tech company Lepaya’s 2024 State of Skills Report found that the number of hours of resilience training declined 23% in 2023 – and it has been replaced with intentional learning (this has increased 461% in the last year).

The data comes 107,000 learning hours carried out 18,000 employees from 170 companies that use Lepaya’s platform.

The dramatic growth of intentional learning is linked with AI coming on the scene and disrupting organizations in a different way.

Now rather than focusing on one skill, organizations and learners are focused on a range of different skills, all of which will help them with their professional development and career growth.

Talking exclusively to UNLEASH, Lepaya’s CEO René Janssen notes: “While resilience may have been at the center of growth strategies previously, this year, it’s all about taking the responsibility of learning into your own hands and making the conscious choice to adopt lifelong learning.

Upskilling through intentional learning can be viewed as a secret weapon. A way to transform a company from the inside out.

“It is about the contributions that talent can bring to workplace and more importantly, where individuals want to grow.”

Interesting, the other top five skills remained the same between 2023 and 2024 – collaboration, analytical thinking, leadership and storytelling.

Skills that bring the human touch, like leadership and wellbeing, were also among the most popular in a study of 1,000 US workers by TalentLMS.

This shows that despite the proliferation of AI at work (and interest in AI skills; 67% of employees told TalentLMS that they wanted to learn AI skills in order to stay on top of the development of the technology), softer skills that focus on the more human side of the workplace remain critical to drive organizational success in the future.

Future proofing your talent in 2024

Lepaya’s report concludes that for organizations to succeed in the future they need to transition towards being skills-first organizations.

Janssen tells UNLEASH: “Now is the time for organizations to step up and show the value that upskilling can bring their talent.

Skills-based organizations go beyond a one-off training approach. Rather, they are a DNA shift, encouraging continuous learning while both recognizing and rewarding the focus on new learning strategies.

“In doing so, organizations will be able to identify and train their talent to grow with innovation.

“Helping to build teams with the relevant capabilities to not only keep up with market developments, but also navigate and brace the uncertainty of new innovation such as AI.”

In fact, skills-based organizations are those that really embrace (and implement) new learning technologies that enable workers to personalize their learning, and do it in the flow of work.

AI itself has a huge role to play here – 50% of companies told Lepaya they had implemented AI in learning, and 71% of workers told TalentLMS to understand AI’s impact on their roles.

Data is also crucial because it helps with future-skills planning – HR, it is important to remember, it is not about predicting the future, but using data and metrics to quickly adjust to emerging trends.

Another piece of the puzzle here, according to both Lepaya and Talent LMS, is having this is a good learning culture, which cultivates a learning and growth mindset.