One of the most difficult circumstances for an individual is uncertainty. Many have uncertainty surrounding the economy and lingering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past few years, we’ve had several customers working for companies being divested, merged, or acquiring another. It’s stressful, it’s confusing, it’s frustrating, and most people in this environment, at all levels of the organization, feel helpless. What most people do is NOTHING. They wait and they watch.

Help people take control with time for learning

Rather than being bootstrapped by uncertainty, there is a different message that we as Talent and Learning professionals are in a unique position to convey that can flip the script.

In uncertain times, the best thing to do is take control. What can we control? Our own personal development. What you want to promote is that they have the opportunity, right here and now, to develop their skills – whether that is in their current role or to prepare them for their next role, wherever that may be.

Here’s the message and plan you can share:

1. Inventory your skills for your current role or the role you want next. If you have access to a competency assessment, do it. Know your strengths and any skill gaps.

2. Build a manageable plan to grow your strengths (be a mentor) and close any gaps. One activity each month. Just one. Document it and put it on your calendar, so you can hold yourself accountable and use it, should you need it, as part of your interviews.

3. Work your plan by completing each activity and adding/scheduling one more for next month.

Not only does this plan best prepare you for whatever may come, but it puts control back in your hands.

How SkillDirector can help people build 'skill currency

SkillDirector provides a competency assessment and development tool called the Self-Directed Learning Engine™ (SDLE) that provides each person with the ability to exert control in a positive way for both themselves (skills are currency) and the organization.

Like GPS, the SDLE lets each person know where they are (identify their skill gaps), shows them where they need to be (what great looks like – a competency/capability model), and gives them a path to get there via personalized, competency-based learning.

Leaders say that the skills that are most important for workers to succeed and get promoted don’t have anything to do with new technology. Instead, they’re most concerned with workers improving soft skills that will outlast the impacts of tech developments. These soft skills are growing in importance because automation, digitization, and AI can’t replace them. That’s why they are called Skills of the Future. And these Skills of the Future are the biggest and most critical skill gaps for organizations. SkillDirector provides Skills of the Future models for assessment so people can get started right away.

SkillDirector also provides 70 skill practices that people can use to learn while they work. Experiential learning is required to develop Skills of the Future.

In other words, using the 3 steps above, your message should be:

1. Use the Self-Directed Learning Engine™ to inventory your skills, strengths and skills gaps for Skills of the Future, your current role, or the role you want next.

2. Using the personalized, competency-based learning recommendations provided, build a manageable plan to grow your strengths and close any gaps. The SDLE Development Plan makes it easy to add one activity each month and hold yourself accountable via workflow reminders.

   • SkillDirector skill practices can be used not only by those still working for you, but also by those you have furloughed. They serve as artifacts that can be used in interviews to prove you have been developing and how well you learned the skill.

3. Work your individual development plan (IDP) by completing each activity and adding/scheduling one more for next month. This creates a learning snapshot you can use to differentiate yourself from others.

Lifelong learning is the key

You can be paralyzed. Or you can take action. You can use your time away from work to binge-watch movies or develop the skills for your future.

Help people flip the script and see a different outcome. Give them hope to exert some control over their situation. Give them an empowerment system. Be the catalyst.