In the Aisles: What's the Most Pressing Talent Development Challenge You Face?

The most pressing talent development challenges we face are:

• As digital transformation progresses, nontraditional leadership skills are required, but I can’t find the leadership development programs required by the digital transformation situation.

• Investment in education is less effective because talented people leave the workforce. It is especially difficult to determine which personnel we should retain.

• Remote work is becoming more common during COVID-19 outbreaks. Training is also conducted remotely, but its effectiveness has not been verified, and the optimal remote teaching method has not been determined.

Toshio Fukuda

Japan

ATD21@Home

The most pressing talent development challenge that I am facing in my role as an ATD chapter leader and independent consultant is developing a talent strategy. Partnering with small and medium-size businesses as a human resources and talent development consultant sheds light on the lack of best-in-class recruitment, training, technology, and retaining strategies. Organizations are struggling with their own value propositions and communicating it to candidates or current employees. It is within this strategy and value proposition that we can start to identify the skills gaps and needs for the future to remain competitive in this ever-changing environment.

Cornelius “Neil” Dowdell

Atlanta, Georgia

ATD21@HQ

The transition to digital learning has actually reduced efficiencies in many ways for our talent development teams instead of optimizing them, and in some cases, we’ve taken a step backward in scalability for virtual classroom learning opportunities. While it’s easy to “fit more bodies” into a virtually led session without the constraints of physical space, the outcomes aren’t always ideal if you are interested in quality experiences with high rates of knowledge retention. The same number of trainers are having to conduct smaller classes, with more frequent offerings, all to support complex process or technology trainings effectively and maintain participant engagement and interactivity, resulting in burnout and less-than-ideal experiences.

Katie Kuhl

Omaha, Nebraska

ATD21@HQ

For our company, it’s being agile and adjusting to the impacts that the pandemic has had on a few things:

• Carrying the torch of our company culture to new hires, which was very in-person before

• Growing our internal talent for potential leadership roles and career development opportunities, which has shifted to virtual

• Retaining top talent with the 100 percent remote opportunities that they are being solicited by—companies that weren’t in our marketplace before are now coming in to take our folks!

Laurie Lumston

Dallas, Texas

ATD21@HQ

My most pressing talent development challenge is persuasion. ATD Power Membership keeps me well-informed of the latest talent development best practices and trends, yet subject matter experts and instructors aren’t necessarily convinced when new approaches are incorporated into our curricula. Gratefully, student feedback has been positive.

Steve Hodgson, CPTD

Las Vegas, Nevada

ATD21@Home

The world is changing like never before and so is the talent development landscape. It is clear that L&D is continuing to see unprecedented change today. The accelerating pace of change in advancing technologies relating to data, advanced analytics, robotics and automation, along with the need to upskill and reskill employees is pivotal. New technologies need to be matched with people who know how to effectively use these tools. Hence, the need to change is clear, and we need to keep pace as TD professionals with this change while focusing on providing value to our organizations and supporting the organizations in reaching their business goals.

Seema Nagrath Menon, CPTD

Dubai, UAE

ATD21@Home