Exploring embedded professional development

In today’s complex and ever-changing business landscape, the performance of many business enterprises hinges on the competence of their leaders. Businesses worldwide face the pressing need to develop leaders who can chart a way forward.

With this shortage in leadership talent, professional development within enterprises is a lucrative market across the globe.

In order to stay competitive and operational, organisations must develop the leadership and professional skills of their entire workforce, not just the C-suite.

The leadership and professional development pedagogy must reform to meet the changing needs of businesses today and overcome the gaps of conventional learning.

Therefore, it is imperative to know how embedded professional development can be a game-changer for businesses wanting to enhance the skills of their future leaders.

Embedded professional development mends professional learning in the flow of everyday work to effectively develop functional as well as leadership skills. It empowers leaders to bring about a change in their mindset, while equipping them with the right skillset and toolset to apply in real-time situations.

Unlike traditional leadership programmes that are heavily oriented towards teaching content, embedded professional development emphasises skill enhancement, which enables leaders to improve their performance and achieve their goals.

Effective skill building happens when a leader is able to invest time into upskilling based on the relevance of that skill to their performance and priorities. Leaders can master that specific skill by spending 10-15 minutes practicing it everyday and by stretching the learning over a days or months.

Real-time skill application. Most conventional learning approaches focus on teaching content and don’t create enough opportunities for people to apply it to everyday situations. The farther the distance between learning and practical application, the larger is the skill transfer gap. On the other hand, skill enhancement is deemed complete only once the leaders are able to apply that skill in a real-world situation, resulting in improved performance and first-hand experience.

Targeted outcomes. Conventional professional development programmes focus on imparting knowledge instead of helping professionals apply their skills. Embedded professional development, however, is all about skill upgradation and application on the job in service of targeted performance outcomes.

The approach closes the loop on the performance shifts and fine tunes the skill-building to bridge any gaps, producing desired outcomes.

Tracking learning outcomes is easier in embedded professional development as it allows managers as well as the employees to monitor their performance and track their learning outcomes. When management can track the skill development of their employees, they feel empowered to take effective measures and employees feel inclined to perform their best.

The global business landscape is shifting and the need for dynamic and adaptive leaders is more urgent than ever.

In order to foster the leaders of tomorrow, organisations need to break away from the conventional methods of leadership training and reform their executive learning practices. Embedded professional development, which effectively leverages new technology, can effectively develop the functional and leadership skills of future leaders.

(The author is the founder and CEO of a professional development platform)