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From Keeping Pace to Staying Ahead: Effective L&D in Financial Services Learn what skills, courses, and techniques drive company and employee success at leading financial services companies Content Introduction 3 Top skills and sample courses for financial services learning programs 4 How accessible, structured, data-driven programs cultivate agility 8 Learning that translates into doing 10 Your partner in building relevant, fast, effective programs 12 2 The power of relevant, fast, and effective skills development According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Work report, one in five financial services jobs are at risk of disappearing, and half of all employees can expect to see their jobs change. Consequently, L&D and HR professionals are feeling the heat. A Gartner report revealed that 60 percent of HR executives say they’re under more pressure from their CEO to ensure employees have the skills needed in the future—but simply offering more learning opportunities is not enough. “HR is often wasting time and effort on irrelevant learning that won’t ever be used to further the business or the career of the employee,” said Sari Wilde, managing vice president at Gartner, in the report. “Skills development must be relevant, fast, and effective. That requires HR to ensure employees not only learn the right new skills, but also apply those skills.” In this report, we unpack those key ingredients of effective reskilling programs, sharing: • What learning content fellow financial services L&D professionals use to develop relevant, mission-critical skills in their organizations • How to deliver opportunities in ways that cultivate a culture of learning and a flexible, agile workforce • How to choose learning content and platforms that translate to real results—and tracks them 3 RELEVANCE Top skills and sample courses for financial services learning programs Learners are the most important factor in any professional development solution, and should feel that they’re getting value from time invested in learning. One senior manager with Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), an industrial company in the UAE that uses the edX platform, explains, “What I like about edX is that it provides the opportunity to complement leadership training with technical and functional training across a broad range of topics. As an IT professional, I have found that the courses related to digital transformation to be relevant and practical.” According to data from The World Economic Forum as well as edX courses, industry research, and other experts, the following seven skill areas will help financial companies stay competitive in the future of work: 1. COMPUTER SCIENCE: Pervasive importance and protection of infrastructure 2. DATA SCIENCE: Growing demand in areas like machine learning and big data 3. EMERGING TECH: Need for employees in AI, robotics, and automation 5. BUSINESS ENABLEMENT: High demand for collaboration and management skills 6. HUMAN SKILLS: Increased communication needs among dispersed, cross-functional teams 7. WORKPLACE SKILLS: Basic frameworks for knowledge work 4. DIGITAL FOUNDATIONS: Increased complexity of marketing and strategy 4 While financial services industry-specific data echoes the list of seven overall key skills, three areas emerge as hyper relevant: 1. Data science As one of the industries most affected by pandemic-induced disruptions and acceleration of digital transformation, it’s no surprise that data science is a top skills area that financial services companies are investing in. With data science roles in high demand, competition for talent is fierce. Reskilling your existing workforce into data science roles, with capabilities in machine learning and big data, and arming employees across functions with data analysis skills can save resources and costs spent on hiring, improve retention rates, increase productivity, and accelerate your organization’s competitive edge. Sample edX For Business data science content Data Processing and Analysis With Excel RITx Python Basics for Data Science IBM Data Science: R Basics HarvardX Big Data Strategies to Transform Your Business DelftX Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics ColumbiaX “I have finished six courses so far related to data analytics. I transferred the knowledge I got to my team and colleagues and we implemented new tools in Power BI for cell performance analytics both for EGA and for an external client. Now, analysis which took a few hours can be done in minutes.” - Manager, Modelling, Technology Development, & Transfer, EGA 5 2. Business While developing technical talent is important, so is growing technical literacy and understanding within business roles. Knowledge of fintech and related emerging technologies and their implications and applications for the business is critical. Technology isn’t the only area where skills are shifting—business leadership is changing, too, requiring new competencies even for seasoned managers and executives. Within financial services, L&D teams focus learning in areas like leadership and management— skills that improve workflows, operations, morale, and innovation. Communication skills are also a priority. Especially for remote work, communication is key for effective collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders, and complement technical skills by ensuring ideas, products, and services are effectively communicated, developed, and delivered to others. Sample edX For Business business content Introduction to FinTech HKUx Inclusive Leadership CatalystX Applied Scrum for Agile Project Management University of Maryland System Communication Skills and Teamwork FullbridgeX The Iterative Innovation Process MITx 6 3. Computer science Within computer science, financial services companies offer a variety of opportunities, from building skills in universally useful programming languages such as Python—a gateway to upskilling to roles in priority areas such as data science and productivity enhancer across functions—along with nurturing competencies in other business-critical areas, such as cybersecurity. Sample edX For Business computer science content CS50’s Introduction to Computer Science HarvardX AWS Developer: Building on AWS Amazon Web Services Cybersecurity: The CISO’s View UWashingtonX Basic Network and Database Security IBM Computing in Python I: Fundamentals and Procedural Programming GTx 7 SPEED How accessible, structured, data-driven programs cultivate agility In a presentation at an MIT Systems Thinking Conference, Michael A M Davies proposed that organizations and teams across all industries “who learn the quickest, win” in innovation. This refers to how quickly organizations pivot and apply new approaches, rather than the speed that learners consume content. To best set up your teams and organization to actively use learning to apply new approaches, follow these tips: Make learning accessible: Accessibility means both the availability and ease of taking advantage of learning opportunities, and encouragement to participate. For availability and ease, consider subscriptions models and look for providers and platforms that will integrate with your current LMS and LXP systems. For encouragement, understand that in some cases, employees fear to ask for support. Facilitate a learningwhile-working mindset through example. In a top-down approach, higher level leaders can demonstrate their commitment to learning, support unified understanding of new subjects, and serve as role-models by enrolling in courses themselves. Conversely, companies can promote success stories of individual learners within the organization as social proof and motivation to inspire others. What to look for: Providers that enable administrators with support, resources, and tools to help promote learning offerings and keep employees motivated and on track. 8 Structure learning into pathways: It’s not always clear how employees can get from where they are skill-wise to where they need to be. In addition to offering a pool of courses via subscriptions, consider also developing more formal pathways to achieve specific results. What to look for: Providers that work with you to create custom pathways based on industry, subject, and skill, or recommend existing multi-course programs designed to build capabilities in areas like data science, cybersecurity, and more. Use experiment-guided data to inform scaling: While it’s easier than ever to access more training content, it’s also increasingly complicated to determine how to package this content to deliver on your L&D strategy and company goals. Jumping in too quickly risks the unknown, while the opposite prevents the organization from ever reaching a critical mass. To set yourself up for success, plan to test courses and assemble the right combination of content to make an informed decision. Leverage accessible learning delivery methods like subscriptions to understand what content learners are choosing to engage with. Work with your learning provider to understand where to start, how to track results, and how to use data to inform future offerings. What to look for: Platforms with analytics tools that leverage labor market data to ensure employees are gaining critical skills, track progress and engagement with easy-to-digest insights and trends, and demonstrate success with impactful, customizable data views. 9 EFFICACY Learning that translates into doing True workforce transformation relies on learning that translates into doing. Active learning is a critical attribute for programs that must result in employees successfully applying new skills in their day-to-day work. And it’s an effective filter for narrowing down corporate online learning choices. What is active learning? Active learning is a well-known approach to designing a learning experience that pairs course material with application, feedback, and reflection. Active learning results in employees developing skills in a way that’s retainable, transferable, and ultimately transformational for an organization. “Active learning is a crucial component in developing skills and being able to do things rather than just know them or know about them,” said Ben Piscopo, edX senior learning designer. “There are huge chasms between those levels or abilities.” In addition to choosing a learning provider and content designed using active learning principles, it’s also important to create opportunities for employees to discuss, practice, and apply their learning on the job. For example, you may choose to enroll learners as cohorts with channels for discussion, facilitate opportunities for employees to share what they’ve learned with others, or create development plans that track learning to specific outcomes or projects that showcase new capabilities. 10 “Peer feedback and development plans are exciting ways to demonstrate the effectiveness of eLearning withn an organization.” - Daniel Adsit, Three Key Steps Towards a Transformational Culture of Learning white paper How can you measure the impact of active learning? In addition to ongoing support and guidance from your provider’s team of experts, being able to report and package key insights into digestible, visual information is a key part in helping you make decisions and share progress and results with stakeholders. Leverage the power of your platform to: Understand the health of your program - e.g., are employees engaging with courses? How many and for how long? Identify opportunities to improve and expand - e.g, introductory data science courses are the most popular, should you build pathways to more advanced courses? Report progress to stakeholders - e.g., how many employees completed programs? How many continue enrolling in additional courses? In addition to making the most of your platform’s analytics, consider investigating other areas to further illustrate the impact of your program, such as the benefit of new capabilities on current work, increased productivity, and affected costs such increased retention and billing rates. From upskilling to upped billing: According to a Harvard Business Review article, one global professional services firm found that the billing rates they could charge for consultants who had been through a data analysis upskilling program went up 3%, “more than justifying their investment.” 11 Your partner in building relevant, fast, effective programs Financial services companies must upskill and reskill employees as quickly as possible to keep up with today’s (and tomorrow’s) rapid pace of change. Investing in learning platforms and programs designed to build on-the-job capabilities in data science, business, computer science, and more is a critical component of driving company and employee success. edX For Business helps organizations fuel workplace transformation with scalable solutions designed to work for teams of any size. Connect with the edX For Business team to learn how your organization can take advantage of expert guidance, a flexible online platform with advanced analytics and customization features, and a catalog of top courses and programs to take your team from keeping pace to staying ahead. “We’re your partner in enabling growth within your organization and to support change, identifying solutions that offer the breadth and depth that businesses and employees are expecting and deserve from their learning experience.” - Johannes Heinlein, edX Chief Commercial Officer and Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships About edX For Business Build the workforce of tomorrow, today. Create essential skills pathways with verifiable and stackable credentials to upskill and train every employee with the highest quality online learning experiences, in today’s most job-relevant subject areas. 9.2.2021 12