As featured in Training Journal - What's shaping your L&D?

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Rachel Kuftinoff asks some serious questions about the future of L&D and invites you to join the debate

There are very real concerns in the sector that learning and development professionals and departments are being pushed into a different shape, and out of board-level decision-making processes. It can appear that we have no control on this, but is that true? The fear within the industry that L&D will shrink beyond a vanishing point shows that we need to fight to justify the impact we make on businesses.

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As Europe’s number one managed learning service provider, KnowledgePool (part of Capita Learning Services) represents some of the world’s biggest employers and has an incredibly diverse client base, from banking to bread-making. This is why we are perfectly placed to ask this question, and why in 2016 Capita is investing in a new, extensive globalisation study. After a series of events and market research, the investigation will give definitive insight into the challenges, changes and other factors that will shape learning and development over the coming years.

In the course of this research, we will be asking TJ readers, senior learning professionals, and heads of HR for their views, as well as practitioners from over 6000 training providers with which Capita partners. The study will also use the opinions of C-suite leaders such as chief operating officers and chief finance officers who do not work in L&D but feel its impact on organisations.

The insight we receive from the research will give answers on what is shaping the HR and learning services for the UK’s largest employers. Here are some of the emerging themes.

Agility
This recently came up in a discussion with the head of L&D for a large supermarket chain. The company had always had a centralised function, and had been criticised for being too slow to act. By the time learning programmes had been sign-off, the situation had changed. Agility is increasingly important as leaner operations mean that there are often fewer people working in departments, meaning that fewer learners can be taken out of operations for learning and development opportunities. How can we tackle that reduced access to learning?

Cost
Companies and employees across the board need to be aware of budgets. These were slashed in 2008 and we hoped at the time that this was the limit, but in fact it is even closer to the bone now. The funding hasn’t bounced back since, and there has been not so much talk of ‘rebuilding’, as ‘reshaping’, which often means losing employees. Is this the industry’s fault for failing to articulate, in business language, the value that L&D brings to organisations? Perhaps we need to try harder to “prove it or lose it”, showing the true return on an investment in good learning.

Technology
To implement all the exciting developments like mobile learning, bring your own device, social learning and social interactivity, you need to have the technology available to run them. Many companies are running on Internet browsers that can’t support this. Organisations that have large IT infrastructure and a big user base don’t have the available funds to justify the cost of updating to cutting-edge learning platforms. Some of the most exciting and flexible learning solutions, therefore, they simply can’t afford to access. How can we shape L&D to include those hundreds of thousands of users? Accessibility to learning is an important subject, and I’m not averse to recommending printed workbooks in some appropriate circumstances – such as for learners in remote countries with a lack of Internet connection.

Diversity
Diversity is not just about ethnicity and gender. Diversity of language is an issue in the learner population in the UK alone, where English may not be the first language. Diversity of working environment is a factor too: e-learning can work fine for those in an office environment, but where does that leave the employees on the shop floor, or who spend much of their time on the road? Diversity of expectation exists between different individuals, for example, the baby boomer generation might be happy not to undertake learning until they have to, but millennials tend to look for much more frequent access to learning, sometimes themselves on a weekly basis: “What have I learned today?”

Political
Especially in the current political landscape, with the Brexit vote looming, companies are holding their breath. Risk averse, they are waiting to know some of the unknown before investing, which is understandable. What they do need to think about is their readiness, as whatever direction the political landscape goes, they need to be prepared to lead, jump ahead of the game and take advantage of the situation. They already need to be training.

There are also growing concerns among many employers about the work-readiness of people coming out of education aged 16-19. The style of learning in work is unfamiliar after years of academia. If they aren’t following the same style they did in school, college and university, are they prepared for the more informal learning that we in L&D are promoting? There is a disconnection between the education system and requirements of the workplace. For example, what would be called collaboration in work would be seen as ‘cheating’ in school. The pen and paper environment isn’t representative of the real world, where people need to get used to learning out loud, as well as asking for and getting feedback. Should L&D professionals have more influence over education policy? After all, you spend more time learning as an adult than you do as a non-adult.

Generational
Millennials are a very large generation, who don’t necessarily come from the countries they are now living in. Fresh and vibrant, they want to be educated, amused, valued, appreciated and listened to. They are one of the most different and transformative generations we have seen in decades.

We used to talk about the ‘sheep dip’, a reference to everybody undergoing the same training. However, we shouldn’t treat every learning generation the same way. Millennials want to learn, but they also don’t need to be taught certain things such as political correctness and environmental responsibility. They already get it.

So what’s next? While the research is under way, we can think about becoming learners again ourselves by watching and listening. It’s important to give other people the space and opportunity to learn, and remember that learning doesn’t always require a teacher in the room.

We’d be interested in hearing what you as practitioners have to say about what’s driving the future of L&D. If you'd like to discuss it with us and a panel of senior L&D directors, then apply to join us on Thursday 26th May from 16:30 to 20.00 at The Hospital Club in Covent Garden – apply for the event here.

Data, data everywhere, but not a drop to drink

16:00:00 Learning Boffins 0 Comments

As large L&D departments progressively digitise their learning, they find themselves with systems capable of producing huge quantities of reporting data: learning management systems, purchasing/finance systems, HR systems, talent management systems, social learning platforms and so on.

Sitting on this great wealth of raw data, you’d expect to gain great insights from it. Yet L&D departments seem to be no better off: their decision-making becomes slow and based on guesswork rather than evidence. In a fast-moving economy, this is just not good enough.

Even basic metrics like how much is spent on learning, are still quoted to the nearest million pounds. Calculations of the amount of training delivered annually are, at best, estimates. We need to get better at MI!

Why is this?

I think there are three main reasons why this is so:

1. Systems are fragmented

There is often more than one LMS, or there’s one system with data about classroom training, and another with e-learning data. Then there’s no way to join together data from different systems to get the whole picture: data from different systems is incompatible, stored in different formats and with no universal indexing fields (for example, individuals in one system are identified by their email address, but elsewhere they are identified by their employee ID).

One central problem is that supplier spend data is held in finance systems, whilst the learning activity data is stored in one or more LMSs, if not, it’s held in a plethora of Excel spreadsheets. This means there is no way to link spend to activity, to see with any clarity where your spend is being allocated.

2. Data quality is low

Data input into these systems is often inconsistent, particularly when that data is not used for subsequent reporting. Once the data starts being used, there’s a lot more interest in keying it in right, in the first place.

Even when data entry is not involved, you can have problems. For example, when is a piece of e-learning content ‘completed’? Much of the point of e-learning is that the learner does not have to use all of the content, so unless it’s a compliance piece (which insists the learner view all the content, or tests them at the end), the concept of ‘completion’ (which is after all a construct related to ILT) is impossible to pin down. Another example related to digital learning concerns learning duration. Just because some content is open on a learner’s screen does not mean they are reading it. As a result, recorded learning durations can be highly overstated.

Unless you can improve accuracy or sidestep such problems by making some general assumptions, MI built on low quality data can feel like a house built on sand.
3. We can have unrealistic expectations of learning data

Systems tend to capture learning activity, not the outcomes of learning activity. Nowadays every Head of L&D wants to understand the impact of learning, but learning data is always going to struggle to demonstrate the business impact of our learning investments. This was well-illustrated by a frustrating conversation I had over Kirkpatrick Level 1 response data, about why you can’t use Level 1 data to demonstrate ROI. We risk having unrealistic expectations of our data, however there’s still a great deal that MI can do for you.

What is decent MI worth?

In short, it can reduce the total cost of learning by 30-40% in a large organisation. Big organisations are complex and fast-changing: you simply can’t keep track of everything just by keeping an eye on the daily workload. Good MI gives you the means to count everything that happens – that means you have visibility and the means to control what goes on.

I find that the introduction of good MI across the L&D function can save them around a third of their total cost of learning, because it gives them the ability to spot inefficiency and waste, and then work to drive it down. Here are the main areas where MI enables changes to happen:

Make sure learning effort is well prioritised (i.e. aligned to business goals). MI that shows you precisely what spend is going into which learning, will show you how good you are at targeting learning on the key needs. You can spot any large investments in low-priority low-impact learning, which will help you decide how to prevent that in future.

Reduce penalty costs. The cost of no-shows can be 5% of your external spend, good data helps you spot the trends: higher no-shows on a Monday perhaps; repeat offenders; learners booked a long way in advance and forgot or left the organisation. Spotting the trends tells you how to minimise the waste.

Maximise your ILT event occupancy. Make best use of your trainer cost by filling the room. Fill rate analysis shows you how well you are doing – many organisations only fill 60% of their training places, so use the MI to get smarter:

• · don’t schedule more events than you really need;
• · cancel low-fill events in advance before penalties become due;
• · work out your trainer utilisation in terms of people trained rather than just events delivered

If ILT courses end up running too infrequently, then think about redesigning them into a more flexible delivery mode. Lots of companies have shifted induction training from a traditional classroom event on the first Monday each month, to e-learning, webinar and social media delivery. The results are much better.

Analyse your happy sheet data. Paper feedback sheets are next to useless if you are trying to manage learning for several thousand employees. Capture all your course feedback online, and you can quickly generate data to tell you how your courses are being received. This way you can quickly spot the good and the bad: trainers, courses, suppliers, rooms. And make decisions accordingly.

Sort out your curriculum. Learning activity data that is reliable and comprehensive lets you see who’s doing what. As a rule, I find 90% of an organisation’s learning sits with the top 10% of learning content, yet the curriculum is usually choked with thousands of items that have not been used for 2+ years. Let the data tell you what’s being used, then add anything else you expect to need in the foreseeable future, then discard the rest.

Most curricula need around 500 items: make those easy for learners to find, don’t spend time and money maintaining any more!

What's stopping you?

Your organisation’s IT infrastructure. One global organisation said it took seven years to establish a joined-up suite of enterprise-wide HR systems. Surely it’s a big investment, but having up-to-date technology is fast becoming an important factor for workforce productivity and skills development is just one area of benefit.

Great systems but poor implementation. There are market leading learning systems out there, but the benefit realisation depends heavily on how well they are implemented, especially in the area of MI and reporting. Out-of-the-box reporting is basic and always needs some customising to address the organisation’s needs. Also, data quality depends on well-designed processes, system customisation to suit and a degree of discipline on the part of those responsible for data entry.

Disparate systems. Even without enterprise-wide systems, you can build data interfaces between your different learning technologies, perhaps having several data sources feeding into a single database, with a Business Information tool to conduct the analysis. You’ll need to be smart, so the different interfaces populate the database with consistent data, but this is one way of getting better (if not perfect) MI.

The need for learning impact data. If learning impact is what you need, then the data from learning systems will not get you far. You’ll need to look outside learning, to HR and beyond, for business data (and here you may start all over again!).

Getting your masses of learning data into shape isn’t straightforward, but once you crack it, there are big savings to be had.

Looking at learning evaluations in a runners world

15:00:00 Learning Boffins 0 Comments

From a previous post you may have seen that in April I decided to run 2 half marathons. Leading up to this point I was using a TNA approach to make sure my training was targeted, effective and most importantly going to achieve what I wanted at both of the half marathon events. In the previous post 'How to train for a half marathon in a learning consultants world' I discussed how this approach to training is just as important in workplace learning.

Having now having had a break I have spent this time to reflect, identify what went well, what was key in the training to enhance my performance, what I done differently because of the targeted training and what I think I can improve on for future events.

As I am the only person involved in my running evaluation it is relatively straight forward. I can pick out exactly what worked and I know I can identify what impacted the speed of my half marathons:
- A combination of both fast 'sprint' work and long lengthy runs.
- A focus on core strength
- Not to consistently feel the need to run the full distance until race day

What didn't work well:
- Both races I didn't properly prepare in the starting pens
- I was constantly checking the watch (throughout training and race day) and panicking each time I knew I was on target or above target.

Over all this is a brief, not thorough and quick evaluation but it is something I can take away and use to inform how I conduct training going forward and it also recognises what were the key areas that led to performance improvement, because I achieved my goal as I got my sub 2 hour half marathon, woo!!

On a larger scale this is something that we Learning Boffins look at within workplace training. A common question for L&D professionals is - what difference has the training made?

 Looking at evaluations in the learning world is more complex and difficult to do. Not only is there normally a much larger audience size, there is also a multitude of factors and measures involved.

We have experience of applying a methodology to an organisations training programme that we know can prove the business impact of learning. The flexible methodology adapts to, and enhances, the current level of evaluation you have. It doesn't require us having benchmarking data, yet we can still enable clear links to be drawn between the learning delivered and the resulting levels of performance improvements and where possible the ROI. The methodology we use is underpinned by the work of Kirkpatrick, Phillips and Brinkerhoff and can draw on a wide range of data sources and anecdotal evidence. We use the diagram below to show the objectives of our methodology. Through questioning techniques and qualitative analysis we aim to recognise the learner journey from the learning layer, to the performance layer and through to the business benefit layer:


The key benefit of this is to protect and justify L&D's value o we are finding more conversations around the methodology, because if L&D are not starting to prove the value of learning its likely to be taken away! Talk to us if you want to discuss about how learning evaluations can support you learning function or if you have tips to run a sub 1hr45min I would also be keen to hear :)

Learning Boffins Recent Activities

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How L&D can model Leicester City FC to do more with less

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First things first, let me just take a moment to congratulate Leicester City FC on achieving the impossible this season.  I'm sure by now you have all read numerous articles and posts relating to how Leicester went from narrowly avoiding relegation from the Premier League last season.  To starting the season as most likely to be relegated this season, with 5,000:1 odds of winning the league.  Only to prove all the doubters wrong by winning the league with a few games to spare.  Much has been said and written regarding how this miraculous feat has been achieved but what can L&D in particular learn from our new Premier League champions?

Winning on budget

Anything is possible

Final thoughts