If you have ever tried to read a new policy while your inbox is pinging away, your Teams chat notifications are popping up every two seconds, and you have reminders helpfully alerting you that you are, in fact, late on a submission, you will know that finding the time to learn can be like drying your clothes in a storm.
A recent Civil Service World webinar on workplace learning, hosted in partnership with KPMG, was a good reminder that learning is not just for those calm and peaceful days, whenever they deem to grace us with their presence. Instead, it is an important way to keep up with the increasingly faster pace of change, build confidence, and prepare for what is to come down the line.
Keeping up with fast-changing technology
Change in government is accelerating. And with it comes pressure on civil servants to adapt. As Mike Zealley, Managing Director of Learning Services at KPMG, put it, “change has never been faster and will never be this slow again.” For him, the question is not whether technology will keep advancing, but whether people have the skills and confidence to move with it.
Zealley described many organisations, including the Civil Service, as operating in “a perfect storm of change.” Hybrid working, shifting workforce expectations and macroeconomic uncertainty have created what he called a “trilemma” for leaders trying to steer teams through complexity. The answer, he said, lies in capability. “It is vital now to make sure that people have the right skills and knowledge to keep pace.”
Louise Scott-Worrall, UK Head of Learning Services at KPMG, agreed that adapting to this new environment is a work in progress. “We are still finding our rhythm with hybrid working,” she said. Many civil servants are leading teams they rarely see in person, which can make it harder to build trust and connection. The solution, she argued, is not more tools but better leadership, creating space for people to learn, feel supported and stay connected wherever they are.
For Tamzin Cooper, Managing Director at the Forward Institute, this adaptability is not only about technology but about resilience. “Civil servants have faced years of uncertainty, from Brexit to COVID and multiple changes in leadership,” she said. “Now the challenge is to rebuild confidence and look ahead to reform.”
Keeping pace, the panel agreed, requires making learning an active response to change rather than a task for quieter times. As Cooper put it: “Learning is how we build resilience. It is how we lead through uncertainty, not just react to it.”
Finding the balance
Technology’s rise brings both promise and uncertainty. The panel was clear that new technology must be used to amplify human strengths.
Scott-Worrall described her vision as a “balanced workforce where human intelligence is augmented by agents.” She emphasised that empathy and creativity will become even more critical as machines take on more routine work. “Empathy has to be our superpower,” she said. “It is what drives leadership, teamwork and public service.”
She also warned against over-automation. If entry-level tasks are entirely handled by AI, younger or more junior civil servants could miss out on opportunities to learn the fundamentals of their professions.
Zealley agreed, observing that the hype around AI is giving way to more practical thinking. “People are asking better questions now,” he said. “How can AI actually make work better?” He pointed to examples of public sector teams already using generative AI to research, learn and solve problems more quickly and effectively.
For Cooper, “this is fundamentally a leadership challenge rather than a technology one.” She argued that leaders must make choices about where and why they use AI. They must protect the values that underpin its use, and ensure everyone has opportunities to learn, adapt and grow.
Everyday and accessible learning
To keep up with the pace of change, the panel agreed that learning must move from sporadic training days to an everyday part of the workflow.
Zealley said that time is the main obstacle for most employees. “People want to access the learning they need now when they need it, not in three or six months,” he said. This shift has increased the use of on-demand and modular learning.
However, technology alone is not enough. The Civil Service already holds vast expertise within its own ranks. Scott-Worrall and Zealley both highlighted the power of peer-to-peer learning and communities of practice, groups that bring together people with shared challenges to exchange knowledge and solve problems collectively.
As an example, she pointed to the Government Commercial Function’s learning campaign on the new Procurement Act. By connecting policy, commercial and finance teams, the campaign built a shared understanding of a complex reform and strengthened collaboration across departments.
Scott-Worrall argued that the next step is to build a skills-based civil service that focuses on tasks and capabilities rather than just fixed roles. This means speaking a common language about skills, knowing team strengths, using technology to connect people with tasks that match their expertise, and rewarding adaptability and collaboration.
Cooper added that leaders have a key role in making learning visible.“Learning should not sit on the edge of the desk,” she said, and leaders can lead by example, setting the tone for their teams and showing their own learning. Simple things like starting team meetings by asking colleagues to share ‘what we learned this week’ can help shift learning from the edge of that desk to firmly on top of the pile.
As Zealley put it: “People are already stealth learners, quietly experimenting with new tools and ideas. The role of leaders is to notice that curiosity and nurture it.”