Learning Transformation Shift 1: From islands of activity to joined up talent management

10:03:00 Learning Boffins 0 Comments

There are many reasons why we find ‘islands’ of activity in L&D. Local practices evolve around individual sites or departments; organisations merge yet legacy practices persist; learning is booked and managed using different IT systems (or no system at all); different groups of employees deliver the learning; and some managers source their own training either out of frustration that the formal channels can’t respond quick enough, or simply because they can.

In short, without a strong unifying force, the natural evolution of organisations serves to decentralise and fragment learning provision. From an efficiency perspective, these create typical problems:
 

• Multiple processes for the same task are confusing for learners and wasteful. The same can be said for multiple systems (such as e-learning LMS platforms).
• Much of the bookings administration work is manual and time-consuming.
• Fragmented procurement of learning activity leads to variable/ duplicate content, inconsistent delivery quality and inconsistent employee access to learning and inconsistent spend.
• All of the above confounds any attempt to measure learning provision across the organisation – inefficiencies emerge without anyone realising.

Barriers to Transformation

In our experience, L&D teams instinctively recognise the need for transformation. What stops them is the need for investment: resources and budget. They struggle to build the business case for what they want to do and why (or how it will benefit the organisation). For example:

1. L&D recognises that their third party training spend is fragmented and uncontrolled, but the effort required to bring it under central control seems huge.

2. L&D know that they need an ‘Academy’ but can’t describe the steps by which it will improve workforce performance.

3. L&D know that their managers need more confidence, but leadership training is expensive and they can’t articulate the new behaviours needed, and how they will deliver business benefit.

When an organisation seeks to improve its learning provision, these are often the first things that are tackled, seeking to simplify processes and technology and gain control of learning such that it can be effectively managed.

What it looks like

One central L&D team. Learning experts who manage all learning throughout the organisation, on behalf of the organisation.

One set of best practice learning processes organisation-wide.

One central catalogue of ‘recommended’ frequently used learning content, together with quality standards for creating new learning content (regardless of who creates it).

One suite of integrated learning technology. This is likely to be several systems with complementary functionality, which exchange data with one another, and manage the whole range of developmental and talent management activity - automating manual processes where appropriate.

One central reporting suite, derived from the technology above, which gives a holistic view of all learning activity. This informs rapid decision-making and enables learning to be properly managed and controlled.

Central control of all third party training suppliers: identification; on-boarding and ongoing management.

Benefits

Inefficiencies, even in a pared-back L&D function, can be significant. With highly fragmented learning, savings are hard to achieve: costs are split amongst many different budgets and time savings are scattered in many small pockets. Nevertheless when added up, the savings can be substantial – depending on the start point up to 30% of the total cost of learning.

This shift is about making the learning machine efficient, however at this stage it might still be efficiently going in the wrong direction. The other two shifts – we look at in coming weeks - ensure the direction is right.