Mrs Margaret Jackson, Convener for Learning and Development Africa (L&D) has called on the corporate world to inculcate inclusion and diversity in their learning programmes for staff as part of capacity building.
Mrs Jackson said at the two-day first hybrid and third Learning and Development Africa Conference in Tema on the theme: “Leaving No One Behind in Learning and Development-The Practicalities,” which was monitored by the Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult) in Tema.
The conference explored possibilities to empower the corporate world to use Learning and Development practitioners in Africa to achieve an all-inclusive programme, to get practical with the hope of using dialogue and experience sharing to better understand how to encompass diversity, and inclusion in learning programmes.
The first hybrid and third Learning and Development Africa Conference which was powered by Rainbow Consult, also explore the potential to invest in learning and development while ensuring that no individual was left behind in organizations.
Mrs Jackson said the topics tackled in the two-day conference which included re-strategizing for L&D in light of the global trends, and how to prevent the great talent exodus in organizations.
She said participants were also equipped on using technology for wider accessibility and promoting diversity and inclusion, and the role of using mobile apps among others in micro-learning, as well as the use of L&D as a tool to build and support a Neurodiversity workforce.
Mrs Jackson explained the gender lens perspective, empowering employees with disabilities, employee upscaling, and reskilling, and how to manage generational diversity at the work place among others were discussed.
Dr. Peter Bamkole, the Director of the Enterprise Development Centre of Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos, Nigeria, speaking on brain drain said some of the reasons for professionals leaving the African continent was economics.
He explained that economic hardship was forcing many to seek for better lives in developed countries.
Dr. Bamkole said health was another push factor, stating for instance, that during the covid-19 era people were worried about their health and travelled outside for care as Africa was the last continent to get a vaccine.
He indicated that other reasons were social, family related, as well as peer influence.
He added that Covid-19 did not necessarily change things happening in Africa such as brain drain but rather accelerated what was there and brought to the fore what people were not seeing as learning and development practitioners.
He said it was the responsibility of practitioners to understand and develop new strategies for their staff as people now want flexibility at work without restrictions as they now want to do remote working.
He indicated that now workers go for competence over loyalty, and do not want to be limited by boundaries, knowing that money was not everything and they could optimize their earnings.
Dr. Bamkole urged the management of organizations to treat their staff differently based on their outputs and give them flexibility to work instead of boxing them all together with policies adding that “when the mind is at peace, talents will flourish.”
Mrs Kosi Yankey-Ayeh, Chief Executive Director of the Ghana Enterprise Agency (GEA), delivering a keynote address said the world was changing and would continue to change adding that the only way for people and organizations to rise up to the challenge was to continuously learn and develop themselves,
Mrs Yankey-Ayeh noted that to reshape the future of the country, it was important to learn at all times.
She, therefore, called on Learning and Development practitioners to think of how they would utilize digital tools to include everyone in benefiting from learning to fit into the current evolving scope of work.
She said there was a need for pro-activeness in designing new solutions for learning and development for the youth, women and persons with disability.
Mrs Yankey-Ayeh stated that “the youth can’t be left behind, the way they do things has changed, they now sit on their phones for long, how do we take learning to them using digitalized tools.”
Source: Modern Ghana
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