The Role of Learning and Development in 2030: Four Emerging Trends
In the latest series of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, we spoke with five leading thinkers in the Learning and Development (L&D) space. From academics and thought leaders to practitioners and vendors, four recurring themes emerged about the future of learning over the next 10 years:
Learning will be central to redefining the nature of work, ensuring talent agility above all else
The business impact of learning is better understood as learning and work become firmly intertwined
Learning breaks out of a vertical silo and instead has impact across the business
To sustain remote learning, new technologies like VR will increase in popularity
“Learning is trying to figure out what matters now, this is what we were good at yesterday but is this what we need to do now? That kind of transformational learning requires not just putting aside, but actually subverting the logic of efficiency which is a religion in the way we design and run organisations.”
Currently, workers are struggling to connect the dots between learning and work. With one survey of knowledge workers in Europe suggesting that only 43% of the workforce believe their learning has a moderate impact on their work. Over one-third say there’s limited impact – or none at all – on work.
But in 2020, it has become abundantly clear that learning is at the very core of employability and ensuring the right work gets done at the right time by organisations. Thousands of workers around the world have had to take on new tasks and responsibilities, whether it’s in factories that shifts from their usual production line to manufacturing ventilators, or the mounting need for call centre operators.
The rapid repurposing of talent we have witnessed in 2020 is not about to slow down. In fact, the 2020 Future of Jobs report from the World Economic Forum showcases how another major disruptor of roles and responsibilities – automation – will drive colossal change over the next five years, creating 97 million new jobs and disrupting 85 million jobs in the process. That’s a lot of change over the next half-decade.
Work is now about agility – the ability to adapt, take on new roles quickly and efficiently, all in service of shifting customer needs. Learning is at the core of this, as it enables “workforce resilience” and “guided reinvention,” in the words of Vidya Krishnan. Simon Brown, CLO at Novartis, said “Work becomes, […] constantly trying to figure out a way through ambiguity and figure out the best way.” This means that the workforce can no longer rely on pre-existing knowledge, but must figure out how to continuously learn, be curious and retain a critical mindset. This then becomes a set of skills to be honed, that help people manage and drive continuous learning and change.
“Automation and the ability of the machine to do a lot of the work we need to accept, but the human portion of creating that condition and always making sure that the guidance is taking the business at large where it wants to go. That is what I believe L&D will be doing and the great ones already do that.”
One of the reasons organisations are currently struggling to see the impact of learning on the business and on the effectiveness of the workforce, is that the focus is too broad. Currently, the role of Chief Learning Officer (CLO) is all too often about “learning for learning’s sake.” In the future, the CLO’s role will be “so much more about performance and development,” according to Vidya Krishnan.
The most impactful learning is very specific to an organisation and their particular needs. Learning initiatives should start with close alignment to the goals of the company and the connection between learning and business value should be clear from the get-go.
This new business-centric approach to learning and development will be reflected in the evolving role of the CLO. Gianpiero Petriglieri even goes so far as to expand the role of learning and development from business-centric to taking on social responsibility for the organisation,
“One of the things that we are seeing, especially among the largest companies is hybridisation, where they say we don't just want to achieve this particular business result, but we also want to be a social force, we want to help people develop. The Chief Learning Officer will have a huge role to play there and so they will really become almost a peer of the CEO if you wish, to hold that balance between the instrumental and the socio-cultural purpose of business.”
“I think if the trend continues of more uncertainty and more volatility then learning in many ways will become not just a central part of organisations, but learning will become a way of organising, a way to constantly hold onto or renew your culture and capabilities. So maybe one of the things we will do is not just asking are we well organised for learning? But, are we learning in a way that makes us well organised?”
Building on this idea of business-centric learning and development, is the prediction that L&D will break out of the vertical silo that it is commonly in today. More and more, organisations will start to recognise that learning is connected to a whole host of workforce concerns, such as wellbeing, diversity and belonging, as well as how we value people in the workplace.
“I think in 10 years’ time [Augmented Reality] may be commonplace. Whether it's a virtual coach that is there looking and seeing what you are doing and guiding you through it or in some of the more manufacturing or technical aspects, or whether it is just in time performance support that is guiding you through looking at what you are seeing and overlaying what you need to be doing.”
Finally, we must address the changing environments in which we are learning and working. Remote work – at least in some capacity – is here to stay and the ways in which we learn must adapt. The promise of virtual and augmented reality to support continuous learning will be realised over the next decade.
New technologies shouldn’t be deployed for the sake of it. Once again, we have to focus on the business need and the business value delivered. Kat Kennedy says, “There are going to be so many mechanisms that emerge over the next decade that help people to develop. I think the responsibility for those that are technologists inside of the enterprise is how do we capture that value in a way that translates back. Great that we can do it, but what does it mean and how we can really take advantage of it and quantify it?”
It's very clear that whilst there is a lot of hype around reskilling, upskilling and lifelong learning, the impact of truly embedding learning into the very nature of work and, in doing so, ensuring that it is closely intertwined with the goals of the business, will be monumental. Learning has the power to redefine work, performance standards and leadership responsibilities over the next decade.
You can listen to all of the episodes in series 9 of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast here.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caroline is the Research Director at Insight222. She is a thought-leader, researcher and writer on people analytics and the future of HR. Prior to joining Insight222, she worked at the Center for the Future of Work where she was an advisor and in-demand speaker on topics related to the future of work. She has also held roles in digital services and transformation consulting at Cognizant. Contact Caroline at caroline.styr@insight222.com