Learning & Development Trends, 2015 and Beyond

Posted by Mathew French

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17 March 2015

Training, or Learning and Development (L&D), is a critial part of any organisation's retention strategy. As we've already discovered in the first paper of our Thought Leadership Series, Learning and Development is critical to Generations X, Y and the Millennials. However, the optimum way for a workforce to learn skills is not 'one-size-fits-all,' and there is an ever-increasing pool of technologically enhanced development pathways for employers to tap into. Advances in technology mean that L&D Professionals are now expected to be not only learning experts, but also fluent technology purveyors, capable of selecting the best fit-for-purpose and most cost-effective learning solution. Modern HR Software makes all this possible in a much more cohesive mannaer than was possible in the past. This Blog explore the top L&D trends for 2015 and beyond.

1. Increased use of mobile for eLearning, performance support and social connection

Learning and Development providers, both within an organisation, and externally, have learned a lot in recent years about how best to make mobile-supported content and applications really effective. Not only that, the up-and-coming Millennial generation of employees will demand it.

More and more, social media oriented applications are being used in the workplace as a work tool, particularly to improve customer service and increase rapport amongst colleagues through real time feedback and sharing kudos.

2. Ongoing coaching and mentoring 

Ongoing coaching and mentoring will continue to grow in importance because it’s generally quite difficult for us to remember something after only being told once in, say, a classroom or guided online learning session. Humans learn through repitition and habits are hard to break, particularly without an unbiased level of feedback from an independent party to help in transforming habitual or stuck behaviours.

More complex topics, especially so-called 'soft skills' like negotiation, presentation and other management skills, require an ongoing approach using a process of interventions to revisit complex topics and refine or refresh key learnings in order for them to create real and lasting transformation.

 

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3. A shift toward self-skilling and taking responsibility for one’s own learning and growth

As mentioned in last week's Blog, this trend, as well as activity-based working and continued rising interest in blended leadership programs, are patterns that are set to continue, and increase in popularity. This is reflective, amongst other things, of a different set of values in Generations X, Y and Millennials.

Given the Google-isation of the way we search for information, expect to see internal intranets and knowledge bases inside corganisations follow this trend. That is, how workers will locate an expert within your business or an answer they need, will become the same as if they Google something outside the office. Organisations will need to think about how they structure their proprietary information, IP and the shared knowledge of their employees, so that everyone is able to tap such knowledge as easily as googling the next screening of their favourite movie.

4. Managing a remote workforce

Ensuring that an increasingly mobile, global and felixible workforce are all able to access the same level of Training, Learning and Development is a challenge that many organisations will increasingly face in the future. Whether employees telecommute from home, or the road, or if there are teams of employees scattered across multiple time zones around the world, remote working is a growing trend that brings with it real and unique challenges that Learning Professionals and Managers need to overcome.

If you consider the genuine need to provide talent with an abundance of offerings to keep them engaged, motivated, learning, developing, productive and aligned along the same set of values, goals and vision with cultural cohesion, it's clear that the Learning and Developerment function of the future has a considerable incline to tackle.

However, advances in the sophistication of technology and the 24/7 availability of SaaS Cloud platforms, means that tech adopters have the opportunity to keep up with, or even surpass their competitors in the provision of L&D to their employees. The capabilities of many L&D platforms and providers mean that webinars, self-paced and self-directed learning are easy to integrate into any Core-HR platform through API functionality. The very nature of current HR Software and HRIS solutions makes it easier than ever before to incorporate your L&D into a sophisticted IT ecosystem within your organisation.

 

Topics: HRIS, hr software, Learning & Development, L&D trends

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