Upskilling is not as much about being exposed to new knowledge, as much as it is about starting to implement it

To promote implementing learned knowledge or skills, end your training or workshop with individual goal setting (something that is measurable). For example, Feedback training ends with the goal of giving actionable feedback using 3 different learned methods. The presentation upskilling workshop ends with a goal of doing 2 team-faced presentations, 1 organization-wide and 1 external presentation and collecting feedback from the audience on key learned techniques to see if your implementation of new presentation skills was improved. These are personal goals, but making it a challenge or a miniature competition among workshop participants gives them an extra initiative to implement learning. And having all participants committed to it makes it more meaningful to follow through.

Learning from example

I can tell my team on our every encounter what I think is the best way to do /enter_any_topic/. I can be very good at my job, bring in the results and then give them a written step by step overview about how I did. Neither of those approaches fully help them take over the knowledge and skill themselves. To a meaningful exposure for alternative ways of executing their role, I recommend easy no-strings-attached shadowing sessions. Things that we do daily basis, can easily be so un-noticeable for ourselves, that we do not even know those are part of our success. Therefore exhibiting your every day in a regular way while having someone accompany you, sharing the reasoning why you are doing things in a particular way and letting them bring out questions about what they see, brings together the success factors that could never be explained.

For example, I went through a learning process of getting a lot of lectures on the theoretical approach. I was exposed to written materials and guidelines. In addition, I got to do practical problem-solving exercises on my own, do group assignments and online training. It all felt abstract until I had the chance to implement my gathered knowledge in real life. But soon after you develop your initial ways of working, you more than often stick to them. This becomes your normality and reading any new suggestions does not move you as easily from the habits you have formed. My own experience of shadowing subject matter experts showed me ways they set themselves up for success and being exposed to it, activated my motivation to try out shaping my methods in new ways.

Embed learning as a core responsibility that employees themselves carry

Shifting a mindset from "Oh, I have not been offered any L&D opportunities" to "I can create my opportunities to learn and develop". Most often we are best aware of what is our actual developmental need, therefore no outside initiative can replace our internal evaluation and drive us to upskill. To keep the curiosity and interest up for employees themselves taking time to learn and practice new skills, their managers have a key role. Making sure team leads and leaders of departments keep asking their team members about "what is your developmental need?" and "what will be your solution to develop the skills you feel have room for improvement" is an easy way to make sure the ownership of self-development stays with employees themselves. Managers support, encouragement and constant communication on this matter is a supporting factor for learner-led upskilling initiatives.

Support independent learner-led continuous learning and improvement

Managers keep having conversations with their people with encouraging self-development and do check-in's on these topics, yet they keep hearing "I am so busy with my everyday work, that I have no extra time for it". This is a blocker that the manager should react to and take responsibility in supporting resolving it.

Even better, show that even if you emphasize the learner to lead their development, then you as the employer are providing the tools. Offer personal learning time as a time off reason (Dedicated Learning Time; Protected Learning Time etc). To make it as meaningful as possible, everyone before going to it, have to map their self-developmental goal. And after returning, they either do a 3-5 point key summary of learnings and 1 action item as a new thing for them to implement or give back to the organization by sharing what they learned (writing an article; in-house presentation; mentor someone etc).

Focus

With small resources, you can't go and tackle all the existing problems. Therefore prioritization is the key for taking 1 existing problem (skill gap; future advancement; leadership quality; role-specific growth; in-house collaboration etc) and really focus all central learning initiatives around it.

I understand, most likely, you have many first time managers in new positions and difficult strategic discussions taking place, while there is a lack of several core skills for what you would see the company need to be set up for success. Prioritise 1 topic that is the most impactful for the majority of the organization and start there.

For example, my go-to solution for tackling leadership inconsistency would be to start offering coaching for your leadership team. This is a way to face many individual challenges with a unified approach. When having chosen a coach that clicks with your organizational culture and wished leadership approach, they can cover the needs of more experienced leaders and also support the ones who are still at the beginning of their developmental path.

*Disclaimer: of course a strategic and unified approach offers a stronger impact and drivers better results. For a temporary fix, these suggestions could still help to fill a specific gap and offer a boost for the employee experience.