The evolving world of L&D

“Technology will not replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational” – George Couros

Organizations today are changing faster than ever, and they are continuously innovating and transforming to deliver value to their customers. With the workforce mainly comprising millennials who have shorter attention spans, rely greatly on technology, are task-oriented and hungry for learning, the changing organizational landscape has rendered new challenges and opportunities to the Learning and Development (L&D) teams too!

Gone are the days when L&D professionals organized classroom training sessions, tracked attendance, feedback scores, and post-assessment scores as a measure of success. Today, traditional learning methods are losing their relevance. Let me ask you a simple question, you are making a presentation for a client meeting and you need to understand how to insert an animation, what do you do?

Most likely you will Google the answer! And that’s what organizational learning is moving towards technology-based learning practices as employees no longer have the patience or the time to sit through long drawn training courses to upskill themselves. And thus, one of the key shifts in the role of Learning and development teams has been from organizers of classes to curators of content, i.e. of providing employees all the resources and experiences that they may need to do their jobs better in a easily consumable format. 

Given that context, the key imperatives for the learning teams are:

Any-time, anywhere accessible content: Corporate learning teams need to ensure that employees have access to learning opportunities anytime and anywhere, and that the content is available when it is actually needed. For this, organizations should invest in a state-of-the-art learning management system, which brings us to the next imperative for L&D teams.

Digitally-enabled content: All content should be digitally-enabled and device-agnostic. Employees should be able to access all learning content through a single source. Content enabled through a digital platform should include all forms of content such as Custom learning content created for the specific needs of the organization; and Content aggregated from various sources such as YouTube, Ted, and various other learning content providers. Through such a platform, learners should also be able to see their past learning history, make notes for references, bookmark content of interest, and ask questions.

Social and collaborative learning: Social and collaborative learning platforms nurture a meaningful learning culture within an organization. With social and collaborative learning, employees can share their learnings with others, and seek clarifications from experts within or outside the organization. A collaborative learning platform also encourages meaningful discussions and exchange of views on critical topics through connecting a globally diverse team.

Byte-sized learning: In an era of changing business dynamics where there is a premium on speed of execution (with quality work), both the employees and organizations do not have time for long drawn learning programs. Therefore, it is important to provide content that is easily consumable, understood and timely like café style learning sessions etc.

Last but definitely not the least, organizational learning teams should continue to focus on the outcomes they deliver to the business. A winning L&D strategy leads to better engagement scores, improved employee retention rates, increased client satisfaction and therefore business growth!