Experts’ View on Changing Dynamics of Outsourcing in L&D Interventions

As the businesses across the industries have been visibly impacted by this massive disruption; experts agree that the talent has been under pressure to perform better. The need for up-skilling is what we are witnessing in order to catch the pace of a new and uncertain world where business growth is demanding a new set of skills and values.

BW People in association with BW Businessworld recently organized a virtual day-long event to discuss and celebrating the current L&D response due to the massive disruptions. HR leaders and L&D Heads came together to share their valuable insights. Emmanuel David, Director-HR, TMTC; Anjali Raghuvanshi, Chief People Officer Randstad; Tanu Srivastava, L&D Head, Air Asia were on a panel to share the thoughts on how and what to outsource in L&D which was chaired by Ruhail Amin, Senior Editor, BW Businessworld.

Learning and development leaders are considering outsourcing as an opportunity to invite experts who can add value to individuals and to the company as a whole. Anything which is core to the industry or business; internal leaders are the best to be able to handle. Companies majorly tend to invite external trainers and experts where they are focused on training employees on personal development or individual upskilling. Leaders believe that the organisations are realizing the importance of upskilling people. Outsourcing has become the “opportunity for stimulation” and also has a “mélange of people” 

Reinforcing the famous quote by Winston Churchill i.e. Never Let a good crisis go waste; Tanu Srivastava laid emphasis on the swift response and action during the disruption she said, “The lockdown has hit us commercially but from the ‘learning perspective it has been a blessing’. We were able to make a sustainable measurable impact as the learning journey still continues.”

When asked about the general outlook of how people are ready for learnings and investments for upskilling on the real ground to which David responded and said, “The numbers and interventions have increased of the learners who have graduated from the portal of TMTC in past few years.” He added to the same lines and mentioned, “As we started experiencing L&D interventions in the later months of disruption; the various companies trusted us and we were getting very unique requests and training demands.”

HR and L&D leaders concluded where they heavily insisted on invest in grassroots innovation, keep up the employee engagement; prioritize physical, emotional, and mental health for employees, and adopt the technological advancement and different digital modes for effective results from L&D interventions.

Building and maintaining a personal connect and empathizing with employees in this virtual environment of work is a new-age necessity of a pandemic-hit world. Anjali Raghuvanshi explained her side of the story and shred, “At Randstad, we started an initiative called “Be Kind To Your Mind” which is all about meaningful engagements, mental health and fun at work. She added and said, “People have really valued that we have come up with these initiatives to ensure care, empathy and compassion towards employees and the in all of these; the business has never been compromised.”