LinkedIn Report Suggests Leaders Don’t Care About Career Or Skills Development

Career development isn’t dying; it’s just frigidly stuck in the past. And by “past,” I mean the Pleistocene epoch.

LinkedIn Report Suggests Leaders Don’t Care About Career Or Skills Development

When I go on about the need to a) implement an internal gig economy across your organization, b) introduce a horizontal ignition skills strategy, and c) evolve from a career ladder mentality to a career mosaic development model, it’s because of data points like what has recently been published from the 2023 Workplace Learning Report via LinkedIn Learning.

LinkedIn Report Suggests Leaders Don’t Care About Career Or Skills Development

Review the following graphic from the report:

LinkedIn Report Suggests Leaders Don’t Care About Career Or Skills Development

After surveying 1,579 learning and development (L&D) and human resources (HR) professionals with L&D responsibilities who influence budget decisions, as well as 722 team members across over 20 countries, it’s fair to suggest there is a lot of work to do.

LinkedIn Report Suggests Leaders Don’t Care About Career Or Skills Development

Only 15% of workers report that their employer actively encouraged them to seek out new opportunities within the company. This statistic is indicative of a culture that fosters the hoarding of talent, encourages silo-based attitudes, and is led by leaders with tunnel vision. To combat the effects of such a circumstance, a company should thoughtfully consider implementing an internal gig economy platform.

Your organization might consider an internal free-agent marketplace open only to full-time team members. Think Upwork, Fiverr, Guru, or Toptal. It’s a system geared not toward external contractors but wholly focused on your internal employees. Team members are allowed to take on temporary roles; doing so does not put them at risk of being demoted or losing their permanent position. Consider it a type of job crafting.

Maybe it’s even a certain percentage of their time. Let’s say two days per week, or 40 percent of their time, is allocated to a three-month project posted to the system. Think of the benefits the team member receives in terms of new skills, experiences, and networks simply in those three months and 40 percent of their time. Now, extrapolate that win-win benefit across your organization.

As I have written in this space previously, horizontal ignition skills development is thinking about the ‘big picture’ of your organization’s talent ambitions while keeping the individual in mind.

If only 26 percent of employees say their organization challenged them to learn a new skill over the past six months, we are in big trouble. The eye isn’t off the ball—there is no ball!

Organizations and their top leaders should consider implementing a company-wide strategy to provide employees with a wide range of opportunities to learn and grow, such as special projects, cross-departmental collaboration, brief rotations, job shadowing, and extended sabbaticals.

It’s no longer solely about moving up but growing across. Horizontal ignition is—quite literally—igniting the skill development of employees horizontally in the organization. Therefore, the approach should focus on critical opportunities for employees to network and learn from one another.

Lastly, should we be shocked if turnover rates skyrocket and engagement levels plummet if only 14 percent of team members say their organization encourages them to design a new career development plan?

People and Culture departments, HR, and L&D, stuck in the mindset of offering career development laddering options have their heads buried in that Pleistocene epoch ice field. While there is nothing wrong with showing employees how to shift and thus develop from a Level 1 skill through Level 7, providing that as the only option of a career development model is antiquated thinking.

The career mosaic method does not limit one’s career to upward mobility; it becomes more about experiences, skills, overall talent, and networks. Adobe’s Vice President of Corporate Development, Direct Investing, and M&A Integration, Hannah Elsakr, refers to it somewhat differently as a “leadership mosaic,” but it achieves a similar result. She said, “If you tie together a lot of the experiences in your life—the setbacks, the mentors, the skills and education—that all ties together into what I call my leadership mosaic.”

From a career mosaic perspective, what are you doing to help team members pinpoint and achieve the various experiences that help complement a better overall skills matrix for themselves? For example, should the career focus solely on upward mobility, or might we look at a swathe of experiences that help build out the career mosaic? I think you get where I stand on this one.

If you want engaged people in your organization, in part, you must look at their development in a completely different way going forward. If you want to keep them, well, good luck doing so if your head remains in the ice.

Gigs, horizontal ignition skilling mindsets, and a career mosaic mentality are crucial.

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Pre-order my next book publishing in October, Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team That Flourishes, (You won’t want to miss digging in.)

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