For the first time ever, ManpowerGroup introduces the Learnability QuotientTM.
This quotient is beneficial to both individuals and employers in a changing world of work
When new skills become in demand as fast as others become extinct, employability is less about what you already know and more about your capacity to learn. It requires a new mindset for both employers trying to develop a workforce with the right skillsets, and for individuals seeking to advance their careers.
Mara Swan, Executive Vice President, Global Strategy and Talent, ManpowerGroup, shared, “It’s time to take a fresh look at how we motivate, develop and retain employees. In this environment, learnability– the desire and capability to develop in-demand skills to be employable for the long-term – is the hot ticket to success for employers and individuals alike.”
Seeing the necessary of Learnability knowledge that both individuals and organizations should have, ManpowerGroup has developed a web-based visual assessment (https://www.learnabilityquotient.com/) to identify each individual's LQ (Learnability Quotient) - providing insight into their motivation and style of learning. While IQ or EQ can be used to evaluate people’s intelligence and emotion, LQ (Learnability Quotients) shows their learnability to motivate the career development.
The Learnability QuotientTM represents a new way for users to assess their learning styles and receive recommendations for how to develop and engage, while providing validated, data driven insights to organizations. The results are expressed via three dimensions (Adventurous: The intrinsic desire to explore; Intellectual: Motivated to learn; and, Unconventional: Questions the status quo), and base on the information provided, users will be classified into one of Scores in each dimension.
There are three scores in each dimension, Adventurous: Thrill-seeker, Explorer, Planner; Unconventional: Free Spirit, Innovator, Traditionalist; Intellectual: Scholar, Thinker and Doer. By Classification users into scores, LQ assessment reveal their advantaged points and provide practical guidelines about how they should learn.
According to Global the Distribution of Learnability Scores survey from ManpowerGroup, there is an equal distribution of Doers, Thinkers and Scholars. Within the Unconventional Thinkers scales, 42% of the population are Free Spirits and 22% are Traditionalist. Within the Adventurous scales, 60% of the population are Thrill-seekers and 14% are Planners.
On average, there are no significant differences in Learnability scores between males and females. This survey also suggest that Learnability in “gender-neutral”, as both sexes are just as likely to be curious, adaptive and eager to learn.
The result also found that although there are similarities of Learnability across the work levels, upper management have higher levels of Intellectual Curiosity when compared to the rest of the organization.
Actually, curiosity is a sibling of learnability. You may not think of your curiosity as a job skill, but it is. There’s evidence, for starters, linking curiosity to employability, and as a predictor of your ability to gain and maintain a desired job over time. It is important to know that curiosity is crucial for building relationships. Curious people are more willing and able to connect with others, which equips them to collaborate, whether in person or virtually. Last but not least, curiosity may even be an antidote to job automation: If you don’t want your skills to get outdated or outsourced to a robot, you’d better keep learning!
As curiosity has been shown to be a predictor of an individual's employability, learnability can be an indicator of career mobility (as it indicates how agile an individual is). As organizations seek to invest and develop their employees, having insight into these metrics will provide guidance on how to best enable performance and make better decisions on how to motivate their workforce.
In ManpowerGroup’s research on Millennials in 2020, we found that Millennials value new skills so highly that many are willing to spend their own time and dig into their own pockets to pay for it. For employers, motivating and retaining employees with learnability means finding new ways to nurture a learning culture and to reward it day-to-day. This creates a virtuous cycle. It challenges employees to make themselves more valuable to the company and in turn keeps them engaged and stimulated in their job, boosting retention.