Tackling three HR fundamentals for Britain’s mid-sized organisations

The middle market, which is made up of mid-sized organisations, is the unsung hero of the British economy. Businesses in this category (typically ranging from 700 – 5000 employees) have grown from the SMB stage but aren’t quite considered large enterprises.

Despite individual successes, the middle market experienced a rocky finish to 2023, marred with wider economic challenges. Yet, it remains resilient, optimistic and a key player in Britain’s future growth. But for these businesses to flourish, it’s critical that their employees, and their HR teams, have the right support and resources to excel.

Whatever its size, your business has its unique set of HR challenges. Your talent teams are under pressure to replicate the learning and employee experiences of large enterprises, but with less resources and budget. Working with mid-sized organisations, we’ve come to understand their unique pain points, and as such, have developed Cornerstone Learning Fundamentals - an all in one, easy-to-deploy learning solution, so your employees can power their own growth and your organisation can drive productivity.

The right technology can make a huge difference, however some organisations fall into the trap of acquiring various bolt-on platforms that are incompatible with each other. Needless to say, this isn’t economically viable and doesn’t create a good employee experience. A positive experience starts with a unified approach, and ultimately there are three fundamental HR areas mid-market organisations should tackle.

First up: Learning Content. Employees don’t want to work through lengthy e-learning courses or workshops anymore; they want a hybrid model and tailored, short form content. So, how can you as an HR or L&D professional facilitate this?

Data allows you to make intelligent decisions on how you curate and build content so that you can best support your people. For example, aspirational leaders in the retail sector will require different skills and training versus aspirational leaders in the legal sector. So, AI can automatically curate relevant learning modules and collections in the employee’s preferred format. And, with reporting and analytics built into our AI fabric, HR teams spend less time tracking learning and more time focusing on the tasks that require their expertise.

Tailored learning content is crucial because of the impact it has on skills. Today, every organisation is thinking about how they can track the skills their workforce has and the skills they need to future-proof themselves.

This is where solutions like a skills ontology can help. This is a set of unique skills with defined connections, or relationships, to other skills or entities like job roles. With a skills ontology, you can benchmark and assess skills, close skills gaps, empower skills development and enable strategic skills deployment.

Take one of our existing mid-market customers as an example: this organisation has over 200 brick-and-mortar stores, but its focus is shifting to e-commerce. With fewer physical stores in the coming years, the question is raised: which employees will move into a different role and how can we prepare them for this? By working with Cornerstone, they ensure their people have the skills to survive today and excel tomorrow.

Future-proofing your business also means allowing employees to pivot internally as you evolve. Talent mobility is at the core of almost every conversation we have with our customers.

Employees certainly want visibility into internal mobility; our 2023 Talent Mobility study found that 73% of people want to know about internal opportunities. Moreover, mobility is the outcome of learning and development. If employees are consuming relevant content, and developing the right skills, the next step is to ensure they’re aligned with the right role.

Let’s look to another one of our mid-market customers: this particular organisation experienced rapid growth but was struggling to make the best decisions around breaking into new markets and hiring talent as a result. We helped them implement an internal gig economy, where employees were offered three-month stints to try something new, with the option to go back to their original role if desired. The result? Holistic employee development, and better organisational decision-making.

So, we’ve covered the fundamental HR areas for mid-sized businesses. But if you’re still on the fence about what your business needs, here is a summary of the benefits you could derive from our Learning Fundamentals solution, which has been developed exclusively for mid-sized organisations:

Are you ready to get started on transforming learning at your organisation to drive employee engagement and productivity?

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your organisation succeed, you can book a demo with us here.