Starting Out In Learning And Development

Education is highly prized by Asian society. Traditionally, education was provided for in schools and universities. There is also a large education sector catering for the needs of students and teachers.

- Ong Xiang Hong

However, as companies across Asia realise the need for talent, awareness of the learning and development (L&D) sector is important as well. L&D is an increasingly important focus for companies’ HR departments, as it has proven benefits as well as return on investment for reskilling or upskilling staff.

Employees themselves are also catching on to L&D. Millennial employees in particular cite the importance of learning and personal development as a factor in choosing a company to work for. The older generation of employees are not far behind either, as longer life expectancies result in longer careers. Thus, lifelong learning is crucial for continued productivity and life satisfaction.

Accordingly, startups in the L&D sector are also on the rise to meet this demand. These startups don’t offer traditional coaching or classroom training anymore. Instead, they are part of a growing sector known as education technology, or ed-tech. As its name implies, ed-tech facilitates learning by using technology such as computer-based training, online learning, mobile training, and learning management systems for student and curriculum management.

Aside from ed-tech providing solutions to schools, an increasing number of startups in the sector are also provide e-learning courses for corporate clients. They work with HR departments to tailor training programmes to each company’s needs.

UPSKILLING THE NEXT GENERATION

Upskilling is very much in demand by companies. If possible, companies will always prefer to upskill their own staff instead of hiring outsiders due to the tight labour market and associated costs of onboarding.