Notes:
- A decent report based on a survey of L&D leaders.
- The headline taken away is that digital has truly arrived with increased use of video, mobile, social and micro formats. Perhaps more interestingly is the strong intention to use “instructors” to the same amount (c.65%) or more (10%) suggesting a general increase in the mix/blend rather than shifts.
- The “greatest challenge” was budget (surprise surprise) with 47% reporting this issue.
- When considering the metrics to justify that budget – “employee engagement” was identified as the “most important”. I wonder how much this is due to the fact that employee engagement surveys are relatively easy? The KP programme would argue for combining different metrics and, indeed, the catch all of “business metrics” was a close second to EE in the survey response list. A separate quote from Jack Welch reverts to three measures for overall company performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction and cash flow.
- I had more issues with the question of “So how do L&D professionals get employees excited about learning?” being answered “by giving them what they want”. The report here is talking about “speed, efficiency, relevance and usability” but, of course, that’s all well and good but only if it actually helps improve their performance. We can give wonderful ‘development’ experiences, that people want, that can be completely irrelevant and fail to stop someone being redundant a few weeks down the line.
- There’s a run out for the old quote (included below). Lots of issues with this I’d say, including:
- retraining might be to solve original failures,
- the upgrade needs a clear as-is/to-be message,
- development in this context = performance and outcomes?
“People need maintenance and upgrades even more than machines do. Retraining is maintenance. Training is an upgrade. Development is the next generation model.”
Whose Education Is It Anyway? 