The pandemic has made “resilience” a buzzword, but now, as we enter the post-pandemic era, “agility” is the new theme for organizations. With shifting internal and external tides, quick skill-building has become the top priority for those attempting to pivot and stay relevant.
Enterprise upskilling and reskilling programs, meanwhile, take time that many organizations just don't have in the face of layoffs, ChatGPT, and other challenges.
Organizations that can inspire a learning culture-- encouraging employees to build their skills regardless of formal in-house programs-- will create the ultimate win-win. The business will earn urgently-needed skills, and employees will receive opportunities for professional growth and internal mobility.
Although technical skills are important, human-centric skills focused on people and relationships have become increasingly in-demand. Communication skills, management skills, and emotional intelligence are all experiencing renewed importance after taking a back seat to pandemic-influenced course demands for Engineering and Virtual Skills.
Presentation Skills is another area that is becoming more popular among learners.
Leadership (perennially, the most in-demand course category) is flexing its muscle and gravitas with increases not only in the category, but also in the subcategories of Leadership Fundamentals and Comprehensive Leadership.
To remain competitive in this new landscape, individuals must prioritize their development and ensure they have the skills necessary for success. It's back to basics for many.
Rama Eriksson Editor
In last year's Course Trends report we wrote somewhat foretellingly, "The future of work relies heavily on employee treatment and experience as the rallying point for corporate efforts in 2022." This year's findings from users materializes this sentiment.
Let's revisit 2021 for a moment-- record number of workers who quit jobs as part of the “Great Resignation” exposed burnout, bad bosses, and bad culture; robust employee experience was held up as the panacea to work's woes. Since then, 2022 and 2023 are increasingly being characterized by return-to-work disconnects between some employers and employees. Many workers prefer working from home and they don't want to go back (full stop). Bosses and organizations are now under pressure to evidence their authenticity, else reveal the pandemic "togetherness" as a fleeting dream.
Learning needs for pandemic-relevant course categories like Engineering & Maintenance (with courses focused on industrial hygiene and processes) and Virtual Teams have understandably dissipated. Users are now moving on to living and working within a new working construct characterized by the need to forge and nurture personal connections.
The new way of working requires a new way of leading, but there are best practices from which to build upon. As such, users looked to Leadership Fundamentals to reexamine and refresh knowledge.
Managers turned to Communication Skills courses to improve and enhance dispersed team interactions.
They also shifting away from Virtual Teams courses once the initial pandemic need quieted. Management Skills overall saw more importance for users now wanting to how to effectively manage teams wherever the location.
Executive Education continued to rise in the top ten. What many executives started during COVID, with more flexible schedules and ExecEd availability, they continued.
Leadership remains the most viewed category on findcourses.com for the 4th year in a row. The remaining top ten tells the story of our "new normal" and the shifting emphasis to putting our humanity at the center, even at work.
This shift back to and "deep dive" into the foundational basics of professional skills is what drove course interest in 2022.
Interestingly, users sought out more Finance courses than in years past.
In addition to page views, we look at course inquiries to identify trends in course interest. Course inquiries refer to requests by users for more information about the courses.
The top two categories by inquiries have been remarkably stable for the last three years. Communication Skills and Leadership hold the first two positions, respectively, albeit switched in importance for the first time this year. Likewise, Train the Trainer has steadfastly held onto the 4th position, underscoring the importance to Learning & Development professionals.
Management Skills and Emotional Intelligence increased with Comprehensive Leadership making the steepest climb into the top ten categories by course inquiries from last year.
Following the rise in Communication Skills views, Presentation Skills made an impressive jump in inquiries from last year.
Human Resources also saw a significant increase in inquiries last year due to the need to keep up with the changing nature of the workplace, practices, and needs.
Virtual Teams and Business & Management understandably saw their interest fall now that the urgencies of COVID-19 are behind us.
In this section, we've pulled together what we see on the horizon for skillbuilding and training in the year ahead.
2022's top ten categories tell the story of the emergence from COVID-influenced learning priorities (managing hygiene and how to remote work) to those of our "new normal." These are the learning categories that write the story for how we will work and train in 2023.
Most likely, the job individuals have dedicated themselves to is no longer the same as when they first started in the position. To ensure continued professional growth, individuals need to adopt a lifelong learning mindset seeking out programs on their own to grow the necessary skills to stay up-todate and remain valuable, no matter their employer.
The topics we've identified indicate their importance as new (or renewed) essential skills categories for organizations and individuals today. It's back to business.. and back to basics for everyone, no matter the seniority.
Three learning trends are noticeable:
(1) Leading the Way- leadership learning covering every aspect and career level;
(2) Back to the Basics- back to basics fundamental learning of key skills appropriate for all; and (3) Life-Work Harmony- learning that allows individuals to keep work and personal lives in balance and reduce the prospect of burnout.
The common thread among the three trends are their human-centric focus. Individuals and organizations learned during the pandemic that people and people skills matter. The coming year will be the continued application of that learning.
For the past four years, Leadership has secured the #1 spot for most popular course category. Given our users' consistent interest in this topic, is there anything different to talk about this year?
Our “new normal” at work is actually far from settled-- remote, hybrid, in-person-- there are new ways of working and each complicates how the workplace functions. These new complications also bring new challenges for leaders (and aspiring leaders). Consequently, interest in Leadership (and all its elementary components) has heightened.
The past two years of working remotely have offered us a peak into each other's personal lives. Unmistakably, the expectation for leaders now is not only should they be able to manage these changes, but they’re expected to be better humans while doing it.
Leadership Fundamentals, new to the list at #10, is up 116% from 2021. Comprehensive Leadership joined the ranks at #9 in terms of inquiries with an increase of 205% (+ 65% in views). Both sub-category increases underscore the hunger for guidance in these turbulent times.
Leadership is not the leader-as-warrior construct of business management from yesteryear. On the contrary, the true leader of today is an empowering one who leads with kindness and humility.
Looking below the surface, our learner data also points to increases from 2021 across several key leadership-related study areas— Motivational Intelligence (+1305%), Team Building (+305%), Management Skills (+49%), Emotional Intelligence (+43% and #5 in the ranking), and Coaching (+39%).
Three of the reasons driving the increases in these areas, according to Gallup:
The worries surrounding employee retention are still strong among organizations. Despite the economic shifts, employees continue to have the upper hand when it comes to job switching and engagement (a key indicator of retention) is declining. People may join companies, but they leave managers. A strong coaching leader who offers continuous and helpful feedback develops engaged, productive, and happy employees who will not want to leave.
Fostering a strong sense of teamwork and collaboration can help ensure that all employees feel valued and connected to the organization and team, regardless of where they work from.
Team building looks very different, however, when a team is dislocated. Only 1 in 10 managers have the inherent skills to lead. Training managers, therefore, to better support dislocated teams will have the biggest impact on individual and team performance, satisfaction, and engagement.
Additionally, a positive team culture fosters a collaborative and inclusive environment where individuals can work together effectively-- all key influencers of retention, innovation, and morale.
Individual team members may be more satisfied skipping the commute to work from home, but they also become more lonely. Today's leaders need to be able to check the pulse of team members (even from a distance). Drawing on psychology as well as management theories, Emotional Intelligence and Motivational Intelligence are considered critical components of effective leadership.
Smart leaders know they need to step up their leadership "game" to deliver results in today's hybrid workplace. Mastering Teams or Zoom just doesn't go far enough to nurture teams for performance. The best leaders are working to get their leadership skills right and learning how to keep their people at the center.
1305% Motivational Intelligence
65% Comprehensive Leadership
116% Leadership Fundamentals
43% Emotional Intelligence
305% Team Building
49% Management Skills
39% Coaching
The reason behind the increases in these basic course categories of Communication Skills, Presentation Skills, and Project Management is simple-- it's back to basics time. No matter your role, industry or even level of seniority-- these are the key skills every individual needs to survive and thrive in any organization.
Learners are focusing most on Communication Skills and its communicating cousin, Presentation Skills. The rise in interest, up 54% and 41% from 2021, respectively, shines a light on the importance of creating effective informational exchanges within organizations. Without them, conflicts emanate and there is no alignment of understanding, so both collaboration and productivity suffer.
Good communication skills are foundational and are vital to:
(1 of 2)
It was connection with others that germinated as a rallying point during the pandemic. It is that human connection that remains the common thread behind our training needs today. In fact, connection-oriented communication is more important than ever now that we've developed our new hybrid way of working.
(2 of
The surge in course interest we see in Project Management supports our finding that communication skills remain paramount for workplace productivity. Driven in no small way by the workplace's displaced teams, intentional communicative effort needs to to take place (and perhaps more often) to keep all parties informed, accountable, and project deadlines on track.
In some ways, project managers are the ultimate leader. They need to communicate project goals and provide direction without misinterpretation. They also use their interpersonal and negotiation skills to balance stakeholders’ and team members’ competing goals, in addition to managing risk, planning, and analyzing.
53%
(1 of 2)
The lines between personal and professional lives may have always been a bit blurry, but the pandemic served to merge the two worlds. Not only did it help us connect to one another as human beings, it also made us realize we had been moving at an unsustainable pace.
Courses to help with improving Stress Management (increased by 42%), and Mental Health (increased by 56%) to avoid burnout became popular with users. Employees are searching for a balance between the intersections of their work and personal lives.
56%
Stress, burnout, and exhaustion are still very real concerns. Employees are now more willing to recognize the signs and treat the symptoms. Leaders are also finally recognizing that workplace wellbeing is no longer a luxury but a "must" when it comes to a healthy organization. According to Workhuman's Human Workplace Index, 43% of workers are concerned about their mental wellbeing at work. Feelings of disconnectedness while remote working has become a new kind of workplace mental health issue. Employees who struggle with physical or mental health issues are more likely to be absent or less productive.
Employees have now reconciled how they want to work and how they don't want to work. In fact, 90% of those employed say work-life balance is an important aspect of their job, according to the Forbes Health-Ipsos Monthly Health Tracker. Also important are flexibility in when (82%) and where (80%) you work. As such, employees want to and are making choices that are compatible with the work-life harmony they are eager to achieve.
Courses in Time Management (increased 44%) and other types of productivity enhancing methods are top of users lists to reinforce their ability to keep harmony. Good time management can help employees balance their work and personal lives, allowing them to devote time and energy to family and interests outside of work. Fostering this balance can contribute to a greater sense of fulfillment and well-being.
It is clear from findcourses.com's user trends that course interest aligns with the state of business. As technology and innovation continue to rapidly progress worldwide, more learning challenges are expected in the coming year. The hybrid workplace will persist, creating pressure for both employers and individuals to maintain their skills agility by continuously learning and developing, else be left behind.
Our pandemic era has highlighted the significance of human-centric skills and personal wellbeing, which will remain crucial for the foreseeable future. Short-term burnout fixes learned during the pandemic will help create and maintain a happy and balanced work-life in the long run.
The basic skills renaissance and leadership skills resurgence mean that those who possess soft skills will be in high demand. Effective communication is vital for success, no matter the industry, making communication skills a crucial area for personal development.
While technical skills are important, their relevance can diminish rapidly due to the swift pace of technological progress. Consequently, those who prioritize personal growth and continuous learning are better equipped to pivot and achieve sustained success in the future.
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