Learning Insights 2018: This Time It’s Personal
Every year Kineo conducts an annual survey – a pulse check on the Learning and Development world. Over 200 L&D professionals around the world shared their thoughts with us in Learning Insights 2018: This Time It’s Personal – their challenges, successes, new learning technology adoption, and areas where they need more support. We identified 6 big themes this year.
1. Power To The Learner
As one of our interviewees commented: “Our job is to look at what learners need and want. As a profession, we’ve spent too long telling learners what they need to learn. I’m looking forward to asking more.”
The message from this year’s interviews is that it’s no longer good enough to take your best guess at what will work for your learners. We need to strike a balance between providing a learner what they want and guiding them on a learning pathway. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is also coming into play here, suggesting learning resources based on the other content they’ve engaged with, what their peers are viewing, or using chatbots to provide rapid-fire suggestions based on profile.
2. Supporting Performance At The Right Time
Not everything we do is about formal learning. More and more often our role is about providing information or tools at a moment in time. L&D is evolving to balance formal learning with the need for access to a broader set of resources on-the-job, in the moment of need. New technologies including mobile, AI, and social platforms are providing a critical layer to more quickly and efficiently connect learners with the right content.
3. The Challenges Of Globalization
“Global versus local is always an issue. What must we do to make sure standards are being met around the world?”
With the rise of better, faster, and cheaper types of technology the world is becoming smaller. Many organizations consider themselves to be global and using digital solutions is the perfect way to ensure a consistent approach around the world. However, an element of localization needs to be considered. Will messages land in different cultures in the same way and does the course represent the diversity of the global audience? Our clients are looking at the ways they work and using satellite teams in specific locations to take responsibility for the localization of learning pushed out by central teams on a global scale.
4. What Digital Transformation Means For L&D
Keeping up with digital technology is just as tricky for customers as it is for our learners. Our clients who work in retail talked to us about upskilling their employees on new technologies to ensure the end experience for a customer is seamless, whether this is teaching them to use banking apps or self-service checkouts.
Within the world of L&D we want to make the most of the technologies available to provide the best experience for the learner. But this also needs to be easy to use independently. As ever, it’s important to consider the audience group, their skills gaps and familiarity with the method you’re using to deliver the learning.
5. Re-Imagining Learning Platforms
For lots of our interviewees, the current priority is upgrading, refreshing, or replacing their learning platform. The modern learning platform needs to deliver plenty – searchable, tailored, curated content, for instance.
As one person summed up, the aim is to “drive people back often rather than serving all the content up at once and then the learner never returns”. We want learning to be an ongoing experience, not a one-stop shop. A new platform can also be a chance to review your current learning content and see if that also needs a refresh.
6. Be A Consultant For Your Internal Clients
Our interviewees revealed a stronger working relationship between internal stakeholders and the L&D team. This has stemmed from deeper trust and understanding on both sides. As one interviewee said, “we’re trying to shift from being order-takers to seeing what’s coming down the pipeline and being better consultants”.
The L&D team needs to have a good handle on the culture of the business and have the data to demonstrate the effectiveness of training interventions. If they know more about the strategy, broad objectives and how each team contributes to these aims, they’re more likely to be able to create a learning solution that will have a business impact.
Conclusion
No two Learning and Development professionals will tell the same story about the challenges they’re facing or the creative ways they’re meeting them. But some trends are certainly prevalent. From social learning to development pathways to localized content, it’s all about doing what’s best for the learner. And that’s a very mature place for workplace L&D to be – sharing responsibility with each employee for their own learning.
If you want to learn more about the future of Learning and Development, download the eBook Learning Insights 2018: This Time It’s Personal.
