With 2021 just around the corner, it’s that time of the year to look back, reflect and analyze all the things that impacted our personal as well as work lives in 2020. Oh, and what a year it has been!

From remote work to digital disruption, there have been numerous unprecedented changes that have rocked the business world at large. Now it’s time to settle in and measure our resilience in the face of such disruptions and our readiness for the upcoming year.

Here’s our yearly roundup of emerging trends, in-demand skills, digital transformation of L&D, skill-readiness and learning in the digital world, all in one place-

We introduced a Plethora of Off-the-Shelf eLearning

We launched Plethora in early 2020, our digital learning content library that houses a comprehensive collection of over 80,000 off-the-shelf, ready-to-use eLearning, mLearning and Microlearning courses and videos, covering in-demand topics critical for today’s workforce, ranging from Behavioral Skills to Digital Skills, Compliance Training, Sales & Service and more!

Plethora came into being with the sole purpose of helping HR and L&D leaders adopt a hassle-free and more efficient and cost-effective solution to address their learning content needs, and is truly the go-to solution for employee skilling that promises significant effectiveness for newer eLearning projects as the courses are readily available for use whenever you want and at the point of need.

Top 5 In-Demand Soft Skills in 2020

The year 2020 brought with it an ever rising demand for newer skills that are critical for the modern workplaces. We explored what soft skills today’s organizations must prioritize and what soft skills provide the most value to the modern workforce to identified some of the most sought-after skilling courses to help L&D and HR leaders get a better understanding of the current upskilling and reskilling trends, and device an effective learning program, starting with the skills they need the most.

Here are the top five in-demand soft skills of 2020-

1. Creativity
2. Growth Mindset
3. Communication
4. Emotional Intelligence
5. Critical Thinking

Everything you needed to know about Remote Working

After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a global pandemic, businesses the world enforced strategies to roll out mandatory work-from-home to enable ‘social distancing’ initiatives undertaken by many a governments. However, not everyone was equipped to accommodate this kind of a sudden disruption. So, we explored ways in which businesses could familiarize the leadership as well as the workforce with remote working and stay vigilant and productive at the same time.

Learning: The mother of prevention

While training employees on key skills and behaviors is an important component of the L&D program, it should not be the use case for building the learning program. Compliance training and other mandatory training (like Induction/ Onboarding) should not be underestimated either. We explore why prevention-focused approaches help in avoiding unpleasant scenarios and are more cost-effective in the long run too.

Continuous Skilling in times of Remote Everything

While it isn’t too early (now) to predict how COVID-19 will affect the rapid adoption of digital learning, it is clear that employees’ safety takes precedence over cost as the major driver for digital learning. And, for L&D pros it offers a blessing in disguise to finally make a case for online learning and promote the adoption of learning technology and digital learning. It can serve as a reminder to employees that their professional development doesn’t need to stop in this crisis.

Urgency of Tech Skilling for the Corporate World

Talented employees are always in high demand, while the skills they possess today might not be relevant in a few years. As new jobs are created and skills demand shifts, the existing workforce won’t be able to meet the industry demands of the future. The point being, businesses can’t always resort to hiring newer employees to future-proof the workforce. Fortunately, HR and L&D pros do have other options to build a future-proof workforce by investing more in their employees’ skills development right away by leveraging the available tools, technologies and innovative solutions to foster skills development within the existing workforce.

Bridging widening Skills Gap in 2020 & beyond

In the technology-driven, fast-paced corporate world of today, bolstering skills is imperative for the sustainability of businesses. Companies and industries across the world are plagued by skill gaps in the workforce, especially at a time when digital innovations continually and rapidly alter the demand for skills in the future. It is natural for organizations to feel overwhelmed considering the sheer scale and complexity of continuously reskilling their workers. More importantly, it is not just about cultivating technological skills, rather it is about acquiring a whole gamut of skills, from the creative to the complex cognitive capabilities that the future workforce will require.

‘Fast forward to Learning in the world of the future’ by Meenalochani Kumar

Be it digital transformation, embracing emerging technologies or attracting top talent and achieving competitive advantage, there’s little doubt that continuous learning has emerged as a major priority for global organizations in today’s day and age. Driven by both employees and organizations, continuous learning stands to build more space and alignment to the borderless and amoebic ways of work.

We #DisruptTheNEW with Digital Transformation of L&D, Learn-Tech & Future Skills

There is no way around the fact that evolving workplaces will demand newer skillsets from the employees, as the skills employees have today may not be relevant tomorrow, which is why it becomes business-critical for companies to embrace adopt continuous learning in the face of digital transformation.

We continue to #DisruptTheNEW and embrace the new way of working, new way of doing, new way of learning, and leverage digital learning to stay ahead of the curve. We help you navigate the digital landscape of L&D with our new-age learning platform and digital content solutions that will help you get ready for the future of work, today!

Are your employees skill-ready for 2021?

Addressing skills gap, and developing talent and capability has always been a highly strategic priority for L&D, more so in times of unprecedented disruptions and tech advancements. Constant innovations in the workplace and the rising attrition rate have resulted in a constant demand for talented employees, and calling on L&D pros to be more proactive in their approach to optimize available talent and focus on capability development in order to address the skills gap.

Explore some of the most sought-after courses that will help L&D and HR leaders get a better understanding of the current upskilling and reskilling trends and device an effective learning program, starting with the skills they need the most.

The entire Plethora team wishes you a very Happy New Year and happy learning in 2021!