Corporate learning versus formal education: you can and should have it all

Angela Bingham, Executive Director People and Capability at the Open Polytechnic, unpacks the traditional view of poverty and education, and looks at how formal education and corporate learning both need a place in an organisation’s capability strategy.

Education is a pathway out of poverty. We all recognise this, and the research tells us the same. I was doing some reading and found an article in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology: The impact of vocational education and training programmes on recidivism (Newton et al, 2016 ). It states, “it is clear that levels of education, training, and employment for ex-prisoners everywhere are much lower than for the general population”. Virginia Tech produced research in 2016 (Gault et al, 2016) that single mothers with a post-secondary degree have a 33 per cent lower poverty rate than those without a post-secondary degree. The Human Sciences Research Council and Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences also have articles that support the view that education is a pathway out of poverty.

We can’t assume that, because those in the New Zealand workforce are working, they aren’t in poverty or impoverished, mentally or physically. New Zealand media report the rising cost of living in New Zealand, so much so that we have working families turning to food banks and feeling like they are struggling.

We can’t assume that, because those in the New Zealand workforce are working, they aren’t in poverty or impoverished, mentally or physically.

Poverty in the workplace can reflect the true meaning of poverty (not having enough income to meet needs or a complete lack of means). There are many different forms of poverty. I suggest we consider a broader definition that is more reflective or inclusive of the New Zealand workforce. Perhaps that connotation is a fixed mindset, a self-limiting belief or imposter syndrome, a more psychological sense of poverty.

Therefore, in a work setting, how about we consider education as a pathway out of poverty, as well as a means of contributing to our capability strategy and our wellbeing strategy.

As Michelle Obama said, “Education is the single most important civil rights issue that we face today”.

So let’s look at the difference between education and corporate learning to help us truly understand how both can support our organisations and our employees.

As Michelle Obama said, “Education is the single most important civil rights issue that we face today.

Corporate learning is learning that enables individuals to meet specific business goals. It is often visionary and provides vital elements that sell to the learner. Most corporate learning initiatives start with answering the question, “what is in it for the learner?”. What is the hook that engages learners’ hearts and minds? Topics can range from compliance, fancy communications, new systems, processes, procedures, products or more organisational development type changes, values and missions.

Education provides continued professional development pathways for chosen vocations. Also, education offers an opportunity for people to change their world view, invest in themselves and their self-worth, working towards psychological needs. Education is often self-sourced learning (or as a requirement for continued professional development). Adults are attracted to education because of two main drivers:

1. they are deeply passionate about a topic and want to explore via formal learning, research and then receive a credential.

2. they have a vocational goal that education helps them achieve: nursing, teaching and trades, among others.

Learning and education both have a role in coaxing the growth mindset of the people in our organisations.

Invest in people and invest in the organisation

My plea to you all, as leaders, practitioners and humans interested in developing people, is to think broadly about investing in your people. Consider both corporate learning and education – have them both as crucial strands of your capability strategy. I have spent most of my career in learning and development roles creating, strategising and delivering corporate learning. It is something very dear to my heart. I joined the Open Polytechnic because I wanted to learn about education from an academic perspective.

Essentially your capability strategy will need to answer the question, “what are the capability needs within the organisation and how will they enable business drivers?”. Those capability needs will be addressed by content that you want to push to your people and by content your people will seek out.

Think broadly about investing in your people.

Push versus pull

Traditionally, corporate learning is more push than pull. Organisations push learning out to staff to meet organisational goals and objectives. In many instances, this is entirely appropriate. However, we know that adults don’t like being ‘forced’ into anything and therefore a lot of time, effort and money are dedicated to changing the ‘optics’ of push learning to appear more like pull learning. That is, employees feel compelled when they can self-select corporate learning. Many large vendors are selling their libraries to organisations so that their staff feel like they are self-selecting or pulling learning in, and then embedding it all together in a learning platform. We are absolutely no different at the Open Polytechnic. We have a suite of educational courses (the public curriculum) and a partnership with the library of content for the justin-time generic content. Also, there is a series of compliance activities (Whakamana ngā Kaimahi). As you would expect, we are weighted to the education end of the continuum and plan to grow our corporate learning. Both need to have equal weight in our capability strategy.

Common ground – the capability strategy

You all know that adult learners will only learn if they are motivated. It’s the motivation that is the exciting part. The organisation will have the motivation to push learning, and learners will have motivation to pull learning. Your strategy has to provide a balanced scorecard on the motivation of the individual to seek and the organisation to spend.

Quick example

Imagine you work for a bank and you want to grow market share by having a needs-based sales model that understands the customer life cycle. The organisation’s motivation to invest is to create revenue and profit.

The individual’s motivation will be to find meaning or satisfaction in their daily job, build skills for their future career and not just sell for the sake of selling. Therefore, your capability strategy could incorporate:

1. financial advisor qualifications

2. off-the-shelf soft skills training: customer services content on questioning, empathy and listening

3. customised and contextualised specific features and benefits of branded banking products.

What you have enabled is education and learning to be balanced within the capability strategy, thereby investing in the organisation’s goals, individuals’ growth and their future.

“Hapaitia te ara tika pumau ai te rangatiratanga mo nga uri whakatipu.” Foster the pathway of knowledge to strength, independence and growth for future generations.

He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata! He tangata! He tangata! Angela Bingham started as Executive Director People and Capability at the Open Polytechnic in October 2018. Before that she held a variety of leadership roles, with an emphasis in learning and development. She has worked for Kineo (Pacific), ACC, Endeavour IT Limited, Rugby New Zealand, Department of Internal Affairs and ANZ, among others. Angela has a strong people agenda, which she has developed from her degree in Community and Family Studies from the University of Otago. Angela’s philosophies are that an effective leader works for the good of others with a firm foundation in strength-based conversations.