There is no doubt that a fundamental shift is happening in the field of learning and especially in corporate learning. There is no doubt that this paradigm shift is being driven by technology. There are four dimensions along which this shift seems to be happening. Let us look at each of the dimensions.

Sources of Learning

In the good old days, the primary sources of corporate learning were programs conducted by the organization’s Learning and Development (L&D) department. The entire program was based on resources that were aggregated and curated by the department. A Chief Learning Officer (CLO) oversaw this entire process.

Fast forward to the present. These sources of learning are still quite relevant. The problem is keeping up to date and trying to address the myriad skill needs that are required by today’s employees. With the internet, the availability of information in terms of quantity, quality and topicality is getting better with each passing day. Typically, we reach out to Google or Wikipedia or any of the numerous other sources on the internet when we want to learn something. The internet is accessible to anyone with a smartphone and seems like a sizeable number of people in the world have one.

Hence, there has been a “democratization” of sources of learning and accessibility to these sources. Given this, it will be interesting to see how L&D functions transform to remain relevant to this dimension.

The way we learn

The changes in this area are not only driven by technology but interestingly by demographics as well. Gone are the days of multi-hour corporate training in a classroom setting. The Millennials and Gen Z want to learn at a time, place, and pace of their choice. They also expect a seamless app experience when they learn. Hence, things like personalization (relevant Nudges based on a recommendation engine) and analytics become important. The learning content needs to be interactive and structured in micro bytes. The place of learning is the mobile phone. They look forward to instant assessments tailored to their learning. They also expect social learning experience. The emphasis is on personalization.

The pace at which we are expected to learn

Speed and agility have become key for business. Gone are the days when employees could spend a few months learning something new and then applying it when the opportunity arose. In these times, one needs to learn something new every day and apply it almost immediately. The learning-apply cycle is a continuous one happening almost daily and the gaps in the application are fed back into subsequent learning. Employees are expected to learn on the go, which essentially means having a smart way to deliver content that is in sync with an employee’s workflow. In the face of these factors, it is hard to even imagine how L&D departments can cater to these dynamics with their current model of yearly course calendars, an elaborate registration process that involves manager approvals and a huge amount of logistics involved like trainers, classrooms, etc.

The number of things we are expected to learn at any given point in time

There has been an exponential growth on this front. In the technology world, “full-stack” which essentially means that individuals need to know multiple technologies at the same time, is a norm. In every field, it is expected that individuals have domain knowledge, technology, process models, design techniques, soft skills, and many more such things. All of these factors change every three to six months. How does the corporate L&D function address this need?

So, what does all this mean for the CLO?

It essentially means that the CLO’s job is going to become extremely interesting, to say the least. They must have an extremely good understanding of their company’s business and the way it is getting disrupted. It will be a CLO’s responsibility to predict the skills required to tackle industry-wide disruptors and ensure that employees remain future-ready. CLOs will need to be good at leveraging technology to meet demands emerging across all these dimensions. They will have to be tech-savvy and continuously identifying the best sources of learning online as well as offline and quickly being able to provide it. Their ability to create a pull factor for learning by designing innovative mechanisms to keep employees engaged will be the key. Ultimately, their ability to continuously justify their relevance and impact on the company’s business will be critical to their success.

The Way We Learn – Past\, Present\, Future

The Way We Learn – Past, Present, Future