Learning Transformation: Part 1

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Repeated cost-cutting of learning spend can lead to fitter, leaner L&D functions, but it can also leave L&D hollowed out and ineffective. We argue that L&D needs to change dramatically, in order to offer best practice and best value in all things learning. We see three ‘shifts’ which are necessary for learning to achieve a transformation. Over the next few weeks we will share a 4 part blog that will look at these 3 shifts. But first let’s take a view of current L&D and what led us to develop the idea that L&D need to shift.

For many years, learning departments have been under pressure to cut costs. One indication of the extent of this reduction comes from the CIPD annual Learning and Development survey reports. In 2002 the annual training spend per employee was £361: twelve years later it had fallen to just £286 – that’s a fall of 40% in real terms[1].
 
In a recent survey of L&D and HR managers[2], despite the fact that 65% said this year’s L&D budget was lower than last year, 62% claimed their budget was sufficient to achieve their goals. However that does mean that 38% feel their budget is not sufficient.
 
So, as L&D does more and more with less and less, it raises the question: how far can cost-cutting go before workforce development is seriously compromised?
 

Over the last ten years, KnowledgePool has provided Learning Business Process Outsourcing (LBPO) services to large organisations, accompanying them through this period of cost reduction. In some cases, outsource interventions have enabled large and inefficient learning teams to be considerably reduced. Undoubtedly this has led to fitter, leaner, learning functions. However in other situations, where the learning function is already lean, further cost reductions risk going too far – we are now starting to see hollowed out and ineffective L&D. Here are some examples:

  • Learning gets reduced to mandated or compliance-based learning only, with very little developmental learning. Consequently we see workforces that know the ‘rules and processes’ but lack the behavioural skills to execute them effectively.
  • The drive to promote e-learning and informal learning becomes a Trojan horse for cost-cutting. Organisations with an enthusiasm for low-cost learning delivery largely fail to provide self-learners with enough support and guidance.
  • L&D headcount is reduced to a point where it no longer has the resource to support best practice in learning. Increasingly the L&D modus operandi is that of order-taker, as important areas like evaluation3, needs analysis and investment in learning technology succumb to cutbacks.
  • The learning team becomes small and centralised: managing a handful of generic programmes, whilst the majority of learning is managed elsewhere in the business. The cost is dissipated around many budgets and departmental headcounts, resulting in multiple processes, inconsistent learning delivery, no useful MI and the organisation loses economies of scale.
Throughout this process though, the tendency is for evolutionary rather than revolutionary changes. We substitute face-to-face with e-learning, but keep our distance from social and informal learning. We adopt technology to manage our learning in more standardised fashion, but use it to create multiple variants of course materials. We introduce Preferred Supplier Lists, only to find reasons why we must continue to buy outside the PSL.

If we are to tackle the need to cut costs and adequately support workforce development, we need a radical re-think. L&D needs to think very differently and it will need to look different as well.

A New Paradigm for L&D?

Throughout these developments we see one consistent characteristic: L&D functions cannot say how and where learning contributes to business benefit. This is crucial, because until we can make convincing arguments at board level about how learning contributes business benefit, the cost-cutting proposals will always win out.

Whilst it is right that L&D should serve the organisation, instead it is subservient. It needs to be less cowed and more bullish.

So for learning to offer best practice and best value in all things learning, right across the organisation, requires more than a development of the current operating model. Transformation is a better description: transformation of the way we think, and a transformation of the way we operate.

Learning Transformation: We would characterise this transformation in terms of three key shifts in the diagram. Over the next 3 weeks we will explore ech of these shifts in detail!
 
 
 







Kevin Lovell
Learning Strategy Director







[1] CIPD Annual Learning and Development Reports for 2002 and 2014 show that the annual training spend per employee was £361 and £286 respectively. ONS statistics for annual CPI show prices rose on average by 32.18% over the same time period (01JAN02 to 31DEC13), hence £361 is equivalent to £477 at today’s prices. The 2014 figure of £286 is 40% lower than the 2002 equivalent figure of £477.
[2] Survey of 209 L&D/HR managers in large UK organisations, conducted for KnowledgePool by LoudHouse, June 2014.
 

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