August 5, 2016
Session Overview
Recent changes in the work environment have placed L&D on a collision course with performance management.
First, traditional performance reviews are failing. Managers spend more than 200 hours per year on performance review activities with the average company spending around $47 million a year on related activities and technologies. Despite this investment, 95% of managers are dissatisfied with the way their companies conduct reviews and nearly 90 per cent of HR leaders say the process doesn’t yield accurate information.
Secondly, employee engagement is declining sharply across almost every workforce segment with future career opportunity emerging as the top driver of employee attrition. Whilst only 30% of employees are satisfied with future career opportunities at their organisations, 6 out of 10 heads of HR are predicting an internal skills shortage in the next three to five years.
Unfortunately, only 26% of heads of L&D agree that learning experiences align with employees’ career goals and around 11% of employees’ time at work is wasted on learning activities that are redundant or misaligned with future capability requirements.
Facilitator’s Point of View
Our approaches to both learning and performance management are failing because they are disengaging to employees and not meeting current and future capability requirements. In a world of constant change and disruption, we cannot talk about performance if we are not also talking about learning. As L&D practitioners, we have a rare window of opportunity to place learning goals at the core of a reimagined approach to performance management. By doing so, we can prepare our organisations for the future and help our employees thrive in their careers.
LearningCafe Point of View
LearningCafe considers the boundaries between learning, performance and knowledge management to be artificial. Learning should exist to support performance.
Big Questions
- Should learning goals be part of the performance conversation?
- What role should L&D play in performance management?
- How do we get better at delivering learning that meets future capability requirements?
- What role (if any) should L&D have in helping employees achieve their career goals?
Disruptive Thoughts
- L&D is facing an immediate threat to its relevance because it’s not keeping pace with future capability requirements.
- In a world of constant disruption, we cannot have a conversation about performance without talking about learning.If we do not know where the performance gaps are, how can we connect employees to the learning experiences that will have them bridge those gaps?
Next Steps
Resources
- Supporting Performance with Learning – LearningCafe webinar recording https://vimeo.com/125421121
- Read the April 2015 Harvard Business Review issue on Reinventing Performance Rating
- Companion Page – Employee Performance Management – Broken but can we Fix it?
Facilitator
Mathias Otte, Head of Learning Services at Bupa ANZ
August 4, 2016
Session Overview
What if employees were free to make a choice to consume or reject the Learning developed by L&D i.e. be consumers? Mandatory learning including compliance courses has been the engine that has driven the adoption of eLearning as it provides trackable, cost effective and a scalable solution to ensure that employees have acquired essential knowledge.
Mandatory learning however rarely addresses the higher level skills and mindsets required by organisations to stay ahead of the competition today such as innovation, resilience, customer centricity etc. Social, informal and workplace learning falls in the discretionary category and have a poor track record in most organisations.
Facilitator’s Point of View
LearningCafe Point of View
Earlier this year we released the “LearningCafe Digital Manifesto for L&D,” which is the result of thinking at LearningCafe about how L&D should adapt to provide value in a fast changing and digitally disrupted world. One of the principles of this manifesto is “Thinking of Learners as Consumers”.
Learners can now choose what, when and where they learn. L&D currently focuses on mandatory and compliance learning which is never a competitive advantage. Learning should be relevant and deliver value for money, time and cognitive bandwidth so that learners turn up. http://bit.ly/lcmanifesto
Big Questions
- Uptake of discretionary learning has had a poor track record, not many start and fewer complete it. What are the causes?
- Does discretionary learning require a different design and implementation approach which is more customer centric?
- How does L&D make a business case for discretionary learning where success is not guaranteed?
Disruptive Thoughts
Next Steps
Resources
- LearningCafe Webinar – Thinking of Learners as Consumers https://vimeo.com/175645900
- LearningCafe Digital Manifesto for L&D
- Companion Page- Survey Insights
- Flipboard – http://flip.it/oYfkP
Facilitator
Brenda Smith, Learning and Organisational Development Content Lead at Telstra
August 4, 2016
Session Overview
The traditional L&D business model looks something like this:
- A budget is set aside for L&D which is allocated to various project and expense heads.
- L&D go to business to find out training needs.
- Based on the budget and time available a solution is identified
- L&D either builds the learning solution or outsources it.
- Training is delivered and feedback collected but ROI is not really tracked.
This business model is one where L&D is sole provider of learning in the organisation with guaranteed income (budget allocation). Any monopolistic business model gives rise to inefficiencies.
In this interactive session we discuss other possible business models such as:
- What if employees were allocated a development spend and were free to choose internal L&D courses or external providers as long as learning outcomes were met?
- What if a variable part of the L&D budget depended on helping achieve organisational outcomes?
- What if L&D used the sharing economy approach and jointly developed compliance courses with other organisations?
Put on your thinking cap and join the discussion.
Facilitator’s Point of View
LearningCafe Point of View
Business like everyone else expects best service at the lowest cost. L&D should constantly improve the value proposition by look for smart ways to reduce costs and/or improve service levels.
Big Questions
- Does the monopolistic L&D business model stop us from being nimble and take risks?
- Should we think of Learners as consumers and work hard to get their business? Do you have any other ideas for business model?
- What new skills will be required to adopt a new business model for L&D?
Disruptive Thoughts
- Can we get rid of the L&D function by providing employee the required information and tools to find it. This is starting to sound like knowledge management.
Next Steps
- Read Business Model Canvas to map business models. http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/
Resources
- “Digital Disruption – Opportunity and Threat for L&D” – LearningCafe webinar recordinghttps://vimeo.com/153318403
- Assumed Constraints and Elephant Thinking – LearningCafe bloghttp://bit.ly/1SJafpL
Facilitator
Jeevan Joshi, Producer/ Founder at LearningCafe
August 4, 2016
Session Overview
Fifteen years after it started, LMS market is still growing. Bersin estimated that the LMS market was well over $2.5 billion and grew by over 21% in 2014. This market is driven by replacement cycles and growing adoption by small and mid-size organisations.
But this happy picture masks the discontent that many learning professionals are feeling with LMS. While ideal for page turning compliance courses, the current crop of LMS struggle to accommodate the flexible learning approaches needed by a changing workforce including 70:20:10, informal, unstructured learning and performance support.
Change is in the air. TinCan/xAPI is the latest generation of SCORM standards, which lay the foundation for employees to access learning anywhere (think articles, Facebook groups, YouTube video etc.). However mainstream adoption of TinCan/xAPI by vendors and organisations is still a couple of years away.
In the meantime, we are caught in this no man’s land where implementing innovative, blended and informal learning designs in an integrated manner will remain a challenge. Some organisations have started to use other platforms and learning delivery channels (e.g. using intranet, social collaboration platforms etc.) but this presents a fragmented experience for the learner and creates inefficiency of learning design. We discuss the current state of LMS usage in organisations and if there are any options to deliver new approaches to Learning to overcome current limitations.
Facilitator’s Point of View
LearningCafe Point of View
LearningCafe has observed with unease the growing gap between what L&D and Business require and what LMS currently provides. LMS has become a fine tuned platform for delivering compliance and “101” learning but struggles with delivering learning for performance support and higher level capabilities (i.e. behaviour change) where the real value add is. LearningCafe believes that TinCan/xAPI is an important development to reduce the gap but may take some time for mainstream adoption.
In the meantime, L&D should not wait but look for solutions and platforms to supplement the LMS for flexibility and increasing design options. However, this approach will be “messy” and care should be taken to provide a consistent learner experience.
LearningCafe has started an Ideas@work project to accelerate the adoption of TinCan/xAPI in Australia (www.ideasatwork.com.au)
Big Questions
- Have LMS kept pace with business requirements? Is your current LMS supporting flexible learning design?
- There is a large ecosystem built around the LMS i.e. teams, skills and vendors. Will this slow down the adoption of xAPI/TinCan?
- TinCan/xAPI is a technological and conceptual leap for L&D. Is L&D ready for it? What are your predictions for TinCan/xAPI?
Disruptive Thoughts
- Don’t regard LMS as the centre of organisational learning. If you do, it may limit your design options. Not all learning needs to be tracked and these can reside outside the LMS.
Resources
- Sharing our TinCan/xAPI@Work Journey – Step 1 – Validating the L&D Potential – LearningCafe webinar recording https://vimeo.com/129063274
- xAPI/TinCan@work – A collaborative exploration by Asia Pac organisations facilitated by Learning Café Webinar (www.ideasatwork.com.au)
Facilitator
Arun Pradhan – Senior Learning & Performance Consultant at Deakin Prime