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If you open the recent LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report for 2024, you'll find that the top L&D focus areas for 2024 centre around developing learning programs that benefit the business and helping employees develop their professional careers through upskilling and creating a culture of learning.
Creating a culture of learning and continuous learning models aren't new terms, but their importance continues to grow and outrank other organisational priorities due to their crucial role in employee retention, building resilience, and strengthening a workplace culture. According to LinkedIn's report, businesses with a strong learning culture can increase retention by 57% compared to those with baseline learning cultures.
Depending on what industry your organisation is in and the type of products or services that you provide to customers, the need for specific training programs or development of skill sets can vary greatly. Unsurprisingly, the need for more skills in analytics and AI tops the list year on year. It may be surprising, however, that the area with the fastest growth rates amongst L&D professionals from October 2022 to October 2023, according to LinkedIn, is Human Skills, which we often see being referred to as soft skills or power skills in various sources.
One soft skill often not mentioned in these top-level reports is adaptive capacity. This skill can specifically help the public sector to be prepared for the future and fuel workforce resilience in a continuous learning model.
What is adaptive capacity?
A 2020 KPMG report defines adaptive capacity as "the ability to adapt in complex and uncertain environments, solve new and unfamiliar problems, and thrive."
Further, a published whitepaper from Science Direct defines an organisation's adaptive capacity as "their ability to continuously design and develop solutions to match or exceed the needs of their environment as changes in that environment occur." Interestingly, the same report says that organisations must make proactive investments to develop adaptive capacity within their teams, as it is usually a latent organisational feature that is difficult to measure in advance.
Similar to adaptive capacity, the Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) defines adaptive innovation as testing and trying new approaches in response to a changing operating environment. In the public sector, where there is a need for stability and to act quickly, especially during crises, adaptive innovation can systematise innovative action in government through methods and tools, including Human-centred design, agile methodology, and design thinking.
How adaptive capacity relates to the operating model
Before you can effectively adjust an organisation's operating environment in response to changing and complex circumstances, you need to have an overall picture of how the organisation operates to ensure that there are no gaps, or broken links in the end-to-end value chain—i.e., how the organisation delivers its products and services to customers. More simply, you need a robust operating model.
As explained in our whitepaper "The BeHOLISTIC™ Blueprint," an operating model outlines how an organisation's parts – people, technology, processes, and physical locations -should work together to generate the desired customer results. A well-designed operating model helps maximise resources, improve efficiency, and boost an organisation's ability to respond to ever-changing needs. Importantly, an operating model needs to be aligned with the organisation's Business Model and our BeHOLISTIC framework is the unique vehicle that enables this alignment.
Developing operating models
The term "operating model" can sound intimidating and is sometimes interpreted as overly technical, potentially turning organisational leaders away from developing these skills with employees outside of their technical teams. But the truth is, having the knowledge and tools required to create, interpret, and continually evolve an operating model helps individuals build strategic, innovative, analytical, and communication skills that move their organisation forward, especially when crises arise that require adaptive innovation.
Powerful skills development
Developing strategic analysis, evaluation, and communication capabilities within a team is powerful. Not only does it allow individuals to learn how to define, interpret, and analyse a current state, but it also enables them to effectively plan and design for a future state and respond and communicate when unexpected and challenging events arise. These skills are indispensable for helping teams adapt, build resilience, and strengthen culture.
Understanding adaptability skills
According to BetterUp, adaptability skills can be cognitive, such as the ability to process new information and adjust thinking, personality-based, such as the ability to adapt behaviour to respond accordingly to a situation relying on resourcefulness and communication skills, and emotional adaptability, drawing on individual resilience through acknowledging, accepting, and moving past changes.
Identifying and developing adaptive skills in the workforce
In our recent article, Skills-based Transformation – Solving the Capability Gap, we discussed skills intelligence and the ability to identify adjacent competencies. These abilities are similar and related to those already listed in your talent profile, which could reveal further capabilities that people may likely have or could develop. When it comes to identifying attributes adjacent to adaptive capacity within your team, there are associated characteristics of adaptability that you can look out for. According to BetterUp, these are:
Calculated risk-taking – having a positive attitude and possessing creative thinking skills.
The ability to learn new things – applying critical thinking, engaging in continuous learning, accepting feedback, and taking it on board.
Resourcefulness – finding solutions to problems with limited resources or in the face of challenging circumstances.
Communication skills – possessing high emotional intelligence, active listening, and non-verbal communication skills.
Organisational skills – project management and time management.
Teamwork skills – leadership, conflict resolution, and compromise skills.
Resilience – Diligence, determination, perseverance, and self-belief.
Professional development done right with CorbettPrice
Planning for the future can seem impossible when you are struggling to deal with and respond to present events. Without proactively developing strategic, innovative, analytical, and communication skills within teams, leaders will increase the risk that their organisation will be ill-prepared for the future in meeting the needs of the customers they serve.
CorbettPrice offers professional services at every phase of transformation and can develop customised training solutions delivered in a variety of flexible formats so that your workforce is equipped with the knowledge and tools it needs to make an immediate impact now and in the future.
Contact us to arrange a no-obligation chat about how we can help your organisation prepare for the future.