TikTok’s Owner ByteDance Dissolves Global Talent Development Team. Why Does it Matter? Lessons for Learning and Organisational Development Professionals.
Original Article Link here
Background
Global Training Development (TD) Centre Employees of ByteDance were told about the dissolving of their work function in a 5 min townhall meeting. Affected employees were given 3 weeks to request for internal transfers or be laid off, this move was estimated to affect 70 to 100 employees.
So what made ByteDance take such a drastic step?
Is it true that firms no longer think developing its people is a critical part of the business?
This episode is a highly instructive one for Learning and Organisational Development (L&OD) professionals in positioning the learning development function as a critical capability to achieve the firm’s strategic goals instead of being a cost centre.
For simplicity, in this article I’ll use talent development, learning development, and people development interchangeably as their functions are similar.
Factors Leading to Dissolution of the Global TD Centre
ByteDance cited the following issues with the now defunct Global Talent Development Centre that led to the firm’s decision:
1. Lack of alignment of the centre with firm’s development strategies.
2. Programs conducted were of “limited practical value” with a “disconnect” with employee needs.
3. Employees’ lack of understanding of TD centre’s functions.
4. Mediocre learning events with information that were easily accessible on open source.
5. “Doing things for the sake of doing things” [cited from ByteDance Memo].
Implications of Ineffective People Development Strategies.
Ineffective learning and people development strategies not just prevent the firm and individual employees reach their full potential; they might degrade the firm’s performance in the following ways:
1. Higher Cost for Both Employee and the Firm.
When learning initiatives are not conducted effectively, resources such as funds for the program and employee productive time would be wasted. These resources could have been put to more productive uses if not spent on ineffective training sessions.
Harvard Business Review (HBR) reported that only 12% of learners apply knowledge gained during training their jobs. This suggests that many trainings conducted do not address the skills gaps that employees have effectively. This, coupled with HBR’s estimates that more than US$359 billion being spent annually on training suggests that up to US$315 billion could be put to more effective alternative uses if not for ineffective training.
The lack of application of the newly acquired skills would degrade over time and render the training ineffective when time passes by. This is articulated in the forgetting curve below:
2. Lowered employee satisfaction and increase turnover.
A firm can expect lower employee satisfaction which leads to increased turnover if its people do not feel like they are adequately prepared to perform at their jobs.
We can be certain that employees who do not feel that they’re growing professionally or adequately prepared from their jobs will lead to disconnect and burnout. Shift Learning reported that 74% of workers felt that they could not achieve their full potential at work due to the lack of development opportunities. HBR also highlighted 70% of employees reported not having mastery of the skills required to fulfil their job requirements.
Sequoia shared that 22% of staff turnover occurs within the first 45 days of employment and an additional 33% leave due to a lack of development opportunities. The high turnover will impede progress in the business’ core activities.
Stressing the Relevance of Learning/ Talent Development’s Role in Achieving Strategic Goals
The onus is on L&OD professionals to stress the function’s relevance to help achieve the firm’s strategic goals. I’ll share how executives and learning/ talent development professionals can optimize its people development strategy to better achieve the firm’s desired outcomes.
1. Position learning and talent development as a firm’s capability development function.
It’s critical to position the learning and talent development function beyond being a “good to have”. This function ought to be seen to be as important as a firm’s R&D, sales, and operational functions. An effective learning and skilling strategy would allow the firm’s employees to contribute better to improving the firm’s bottom line.
2. Develop an overall strategy and support system for learning/ talent development to fulfil firm’s strategic requirements.
a. Developing the Firm’s People Development Strategy to Fulfil Business Needs.
The people development strategy must address to the immediate and future business needs based on the firm’s unique circumstances, human capital, resources, and organizational culture. This ensures that the resources are allocated to the most pressing needs of the business instead of hoping that a cookie-cutter solution would fulfil the firm’s requirements.
The Centre of Excellence (CoE) for people development needs to ensure that the functional expertise aren’t kept in a silo that is out of touch with the various business units. This ensures that interventions rolled out fulfil the skilling needs of the various business units and has a deep understanding of the pulse of the firm.
b. Aligning Stakeholders to Take Ownership of Employee Development.
Everyone in the firm ranging from top executives to line managers must take ownership of employee development to ensure accountability of learning and performance improvement. The L&OD function can advise how learning can be improved and applied to the job functions; however, without sufficient supervision and support, the incentive to apply knowledge acquired would be greatly reduced.
3. Surgically Identifying Learning Interventions Through Skills Gap Analysis.
It’s critical to understand the competencies required for different job functions at different levels to ensure that learning programs are targeted to the right audience and competency gaps. Generic learning curriculum offered by mass market providers can be used to help employees fulfil individual interests in other functional competencies in its T-Shaped learner’s profile, and to identify “what they don’t know”. [see my perspectives on Competency Based Staffing Model here]
4. Learning Must be Verified through Behavioural or Quantifiable Work-Related Improvements
Learning outcomes from training must be verified through behavioural or quantifiable measures related to its application in real-world work done by the employee. This measure requires the learning professional to partner with business unit managers to develop a matrix to quantify the effectiveness of learning. This engagement and subsequently implementation will allow business unit managers to determine easily if training brought about improved business outcomes.
McKinsey research finds that only 50 percent of organizations even bother to keep track of participants’ feedback about training programs. Worse, only 30 percent use any other kind of metric.
The quantifiable outcomes, together with holding managers and employees accountable to apply knowledge gained from training allows the firm to determine critically on the effectiveness of training interventions, allowing the people development CoE to continually refine its strategy.
Conclusion
This episode with ByteDance’s TD Centre shows the firm’s desire to align its TD functions with its larger business goals. It’s a good reminder for L&OD professionals to continue to understand the larger intention of sustaining the people development function, which is to help its people fulfil their potential while bringing out the best possible outcome for the firm and its stakeholders.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of any associations that the author is affiliated with.
About the Author:
Zu Hui is currently the Associate Director (HR Transformation) of Singtel, Asia’s leading communications company. He is responsible for driving Singtel’s people agenda with different stakeholders to make Singtel an employer of choice.
Prior to joining Singtel, Zu Hui spent 17 years in the Singapore Army and last performed the role of Head of Training Development where he served as the in-house learning and organisational development consultant.
He specialises in performance improvement of organisations through learning and organisational development initiatives using design thinking, agile, learning design methods, and the adoption of digital technologies.
His other interests include:
1. Understanding how businesses work
2. Understanding how financial systems work
3. Equestrian activities
4. How mechanical watches tick
He enjoys discussing topics related to human performance improvement, process improvement, learning development, organisational transformation, and advancing social good.
Connect with Zu Hui on LinkedIn
