As technology evolves and human-robot interaction impacts the way we work, it is crucial to ensure that people are capable to perform their current jobs while preparing for the future. In some instances, it means that people not only have to learn new tasks, skills, and behaviour, but also need to unlearn those that are outdated. They need to change their mind shifts in preparing for new possibilities.

The challenge is to determine what needs to be unlearned and relearned, as well as what mind shifts are needed. Although job descriptions indicate the minimum requirements necessary to do a job and role profiles indicate the ideal behaviours expected for an organisation to achieve its strategic objectives, it’s still difficult to determine someone’s skill and behavioural gaps.

People are resistant towards change, although there are those who would jump at the opportunity to learn new skills and behaviours that will prepare them for the future, whether that’s within or outside the organisation. All of this could lead to an organisation spending money on training that might not be required or on employees that do not perceive a need to learn.

LEMASA has more than 20 years’ experience in developing and implementing bespoke Collaborative Development Centres (CDCs), both in a manager-leader and various other functional contexts. We spoke to Sandra Schlebusch, who is the managing director of LEMASA.