I came across this article on Twitter today that I wanted to share to see if this is your experience.
If you work in L&D or you're looking to get in to L&D, I'm sure it's no surprise to hear there is a great deal of debate around HOW L&D adds the most value, be it in terms of consulting, route cause analysis, design, delivery, evaluation. A combination of all of this and more....
And who does it - do we have jack of all trades professionals who manage the entire L&D cycle or are we seeing specialists in specific roles like instructional designers and L&D project managers. We're also seeing a whole host of new roles such as performance consultants, social learning architects and community managers...
BUT
Are these cases few a far between and actually L&D in many organisations isn't changing, hasn't changed and isn't likely to change because
L&D Leaders are sticking to the familiar
Take a read of the article and have a think...
I'd love to hear from you to find out if this is the case OR is L&D in your organisation pushing boundaries and doing things differently? What roles do you have in L&D to support your organisation?
I'd love to hear from anyone who feels they or their organisation isn't sticking with the familiar and are bringing the things in this article to life through action.
How have you approached it and what successes / challenges have you encountered?
Mike
Replies
As in all things Mike, the reality is very industry specific.
Yes there is a lot of conversation about using new tools and technologies in the delivery of training and development programs. As the article says their is an increasing percentage of respondents saying that they will be doing so by 2016, but there is a big difference between what L&D departments say they expect to be doing next year and what actually happens.
The reasons are largely due to economic factors, and the prevailing truth P&L, in the eyes of the budget holders, comes first and if Q1 is behind investment in training and development infrastructure is always in the first wave of restrictions. The result being yes, L&D departments are largely sticking traditional platforms and methodologies.
The big problem I have observed across three organisations is that when they do invest in the platforms, such as on line programs, they are not to 'Support Learning and development' to quote the article, but effectively replace any other form of learning. Why? because once you have the platform it is cheep and easy to push everything into this environment. There is the spectre of P&L again.
If you go out into the professions, lets take medical training as it is something that I have observed a lot of, a consultant trains their registrar in the way that he was trained in the past through the lens of what works for them, and so it perpetuates. Very rarely does true innovation (compared to evolution) come from within, possibly because tolerance of failure is far to low.
People Who take risks make two big mistakes every year, people who don't take risks miss two great opportunities, who is more valued?
Mark
You make some great points here Mark thank you and it's fantastic to see you getting involved in the Community discussions.
There was a recent conversation around risk taking / disruption which links to your last point about risk vs. opportunities and the types of people that an organisation needs but also the impact organisational culture has on this
Are game changers born or made
Interesting question Mike. The way an L&D department is set up, in terms of human resource and available budget, probably determines what is delivered and how much leeway there is for change on a day to day basis. From a strategic perspective, the case needs to be made for change based on evidence which is somewhat difficult to find in the public domain. Vendors are keen to sell their wares, unfortunately with little by way of evidence to support the claims they make.
Having said that, the changes referred to in the article as being outside of "the familiar" appear to be: use of games, badges, mobile learning, social collaboration through communities of practice and curation of online resources.
(Reference was also made to embedding the 70:20:10 model, but I don't agree that this is new or outside of the familiar. It may not always be made explicit to employees, but certainly the 70% bit has been relied upon by employers for as long as people learn from each other on the job - which is probably forever.)
The article said most (of those that responded to the survey) are using e learning and live online learning platforms and use of video is increasing. The "top performing" companies apparently have seen evidence of business improvement, but this evidence and how it is measured, or how it is correlated with the provision of L&D isn't detailed in the report. As the reported results rely on self reporting (through the survey) it is easy to treat the results with a degree of cycnicism.
Considering the "unfamiliar" techniques then, it would be useful if some games could be used to provide accredited training, as often workplaces want to deliver accredited courses in order to demonstrate to auditors their worth and also as a perk for staff, who often prefer accredited courses that provide useful certificates. (Particularly where staff want/need to move jobs for experience or promotion.) This might increase their use. Most trainers make use of games to increase particpant interaction, but those answering the survey may assume it is asking about electronic games, as the thrust of the survey promotes technology enabled learning.
Mobile learning is interesting as so many people commute these days and work whilst commuting. In the old days you could buy "audio" courses to listen to and to learn from whilst travelling. I know that isn't what's being referred to here of course. It's only the technicality of tweaking courses so they can be used on mobile media such as phones and iPads, that is needed. (Probably easy to do and at not too much cost.)
Social collaboration relies on available fora, where likeminded people can discuss issues of interest. We do it here and there is the CIPD forum. There are others but in a working day it can be hard to find the time to sign up to the ones of interest, read the blogs etc, and also to filter out the dross, so possibly a lot get deleted or ignored.
Curation of online articles of interest to the business is a relatively new art and requires a platform upon which to place the curated material and where it can be advertised to the relevant audience. It also needs the business to recognise this as a worthwhile activity to be involved in, rather than seeing it as just surfing the web for fun!
Badges may be useful in some workplaces and could possibly be linked with "rewards" in return for staff training. They would need to be well thought through otherwise they might be seen as merely a fad, and not worthwhile working for.
Where I work we have one L&D manager in the HR department, based at head office, who manages all L&D for both the HO and the manufacturing site. We also have one compliance training manager based at the factory site (me!), looking after compliance and technical training only. (This includes the 70% on the job training and assessment for requisite role competencies.) We use a wide variety of approaches for delivering site mandatory training and refreshers and I am always looking at new ways to deliver material to make it more effective in terms of transfer of learning to the workplace - also to make it more enjoyable for the learner. (We use curricula, competencies and certification, but not "badges".) Our main recent challenge has come about due to being acquired by a new company, and having to "start again" in many respects, whilst at the same time maintaining continuity!