Author: Rūta Lūse, chairman of the board of organizational development centre “Spring Valley”

The process of globalization is changing the world very fast. On the one hand, these changes are very inspiring because globalization is providing a lot of new, invaluable opportunities. On the other hand, these changes are making the world more complex, generating a lot of challenges in all areas. For example, they are influencing all aspects of people and organizations life, forcing us to rethink – how we develop and train our people, how we create and strengthen organizational capabilities and culture. The good thing is – although we can’t prevent and ignore globalization and the changes it causes, we can adapt. 

There are some success factors that should be considered regarding the adult development and training process. Firstly, the efficiency of the individuals’ learning depends not only on their own motivation and efforts of trainers – the same impact has an economical and social context of the country the company operates in, as well as its culture and HR policy regarding the training issues. Secondly, it is necessary to analyze the reasons – why development and training initiatives fail resulting in long-term complicated consequences. And, thirdly, it’s crucial to find inspiring evidence of successful experience of promoting and encouraging an adults learning culture in different organizations as well as in the local society itself.

Encouraging adults to engage in the training and education process is far from easy, especially for uneducated and lower-skilled individuals who aren’t engaged with education the first time round. For those people, barriers to upgrading their professional (and personal) skills are less related to money, which is quite an important aspect to improve one’s competitiveness in the labor market nowadays, than to a sense that education isn’t for them. 

Read more about the most effective ways how to deal with the escalating change and “turbulence” caused by globalization. You will find the the full version of the learning material at our Toolkit (click here).