Defining the future of training
The pandemic has resulted in a paradigm shift that we need to take on board in terms of the way we spend, the way we design and the way we conduct our training.
The world of work is changing, with COVID-19 and emerging technologies accelerating existing trends in defence, cyber and wider afield.
Raytheon UK believes the training sector must adapt to this new reality – and seize the opportunities it presents.
Organisations today must pursue a robust upskilling strategy, something that was apparent even before the current disruption.
According to 2017 research from McKinsey, 14% of the global workforce – or 375 million workers – will have to switch occupations or acquire new skills by 2030, thanks to the impact of automation and artificial intelligence.
What’s more, 87% of executives said they were experiencing skills gaps in the workforce or expected them within a few years, but less than half had a clear sense of how to address the problem.
At Raytheon UK, we have been observing these trends close up as training has been a growing focus for us for more than a decade.
We have extensive experience of designing, delivering and supporting training for Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force personnel both within UK and in NATO.
The deep experience of the wider Raytheon Technologies in military and commercial worlds gives us a unique insight into the changing priorities and demands within a variety of sectors, particularly when it comes to investment decisions.
The pandemic has resulted in a paradigm shift that we need to take on board in terms of the way we spend, the way we design and the way we conduct our training.
This is most notable when it comes to military training, with the demands of social distancing upending traditional teaching methods.
Organisations must also consider not just the types of skills they need and the technologies that can help them along the way, but the people they are training.
Organisations in the defence sector are therefore being required to work out what they can gain from technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality, the levels of competence that can be achieved and the efficiencies that can be realised through conducting large portions of training remotely.
The key is to ensure that the technology is apposite to the learning outcomes required, whether it be individual or collective training.
The applications of gamification to training have a particular potential, for instance. It is, however, imperative that the industry and the military work together to fully identify and understand those benefits in the military context.
Organisations must also consider not just the types of skills they need and the technologies that can help them along the way, but the people they are training.
While a great deal of investment has rightly focused on training the young adults of “Generation Z” – typically viewed as the cohort born from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s – it is now time to consider the future: the “Generation Alpha” children born in the last decade, who will enter the world of work in the 2030s.
These future employees are likely to adapt and thrive under the emerging technologies of the training domain, according to Julian Free, deputy vice chancellor for people services and operations at the University of Lincoln.
Julian has argued recently that the younger generation are more comfortable asking questions using chat functions online than physically putting their hand up in a lecture theatre.
These types of cultural shifts are vital for organisations to understand and take into account when designing future training programmes.
Across the UK, we now need to look to the future and ask how we can fast-forward the economy beyond the current pandemic and other challenges of recent years.
We at Raytheon UK believe that world-class training solutions will be an integral part of realising this ambition, and that the defence industry can help support this transition, both directly with the Government and through its partnerships with the wider commercial sector.
The provision of high quality apprenticeships is just one example of the type of support our sector can provide to assist the Government’s skills agenda and the economic recovery at both national and regional levels.
That’s why we are investing so much in our apprenticeships.
To show how Raytheon UK is defining the future of training, we have partnered with Shephard Studio to produce the Defining the Future podcast series.
Listen here to the Defining the Future podcast on training.
More information about Raytheon UK’s training capabilities is available here.
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