New research from technological research and consulting company Gartner has found that 85% of business leaders agreed that the need for skills development will dramatically increase as AI and digital trends continue to disrupt work.

According to its June 2024 survey of 330 business leaders, the vast majority (93%) agreed that their role is to ensure their workforce has the time and resources to continuously learn.

“In the context of today’s AI fueled accelerated disruption, many business leaders feel learning is too slow to respond to the volume, variety and velocity of skills needs,” explained Chantal Steen, senior director of global advisory in the Gartner HR practice.

“L&D must become more agile to respond to changes faster and deliver learning more rapidly and more cost effectively,” Steen added.

On learning agility, the survey found that enterprises which deliver the best business outcomes from their learning use a set of agile learning practices at least 1.5 times more than other enterprises.

Gartner has suggested leaders deploy the following recommendations to create a more agile learning environment within their business environment:

1. Connect Learning With Targeted Outcomes
Outcome-driven learning can benefit both the enterprise and its employees by connecting the learning activities with realising target outcomes, the research firm stated.

“For organizations, learning produces the skills critical for adapting to change and executing a competitive strategy, which in turn maximizes earning outcomes,” Steen further explained.

“The benefit of learning for employees is growing their skills to perform well amid change and advance their value, career and earning potential.”

Leaders can co-create narratives with their teams to help shift their view of learning, so they see learning as a vital part of their work that achieves tangible results, rather than time away from work that drains productivity.

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2. Adopt Agile Learning Values
According to Gartner, leaders can unite their teams’ mindsets around effective learning practices by adopting the five values provided in its new AI-Era Learning Manifesto:

• Business outcomes over knowledge gained
• Growth mindset over current skill set
• Skills-based agility over role-based stability
• Embedded learning over “off-the-job” training
• Community compounding over individual learning

By embracing learning values, employees will become more energised and learning will be more effective, Gartner said, thereby driving key business outcomes.

3. Harness Learning Agile Principles
L&D leaders can revitalise learning programs by combining emerging capabilities with proven methods—such as experiential and social learning—that provide learners the opportunity to apply their new skills on the job.

The research firm stated that, by leveraging the principles of the AI-Era Learning Manifesto, organisations will see more employee-led growth, which will better drive outcomes at speed and scale within this AI era.