There are a lot of exciting developments trending in the world of learning and development (L&D). But, which ones should you be looking out for? From learning experience platforms (LXPs) to experience application programming interfaces (xAPIs) to microlearning, you’ve probably come across a few buzzwords lately. In this article, we want to move beyond the buzzwords and talk about the transitions that L&D is going through, and how these changes impact the strategy, learning platforms, tools and content delivery channels. We believe there are four main trends you should take into account.
IMPACT ON STRATEGY TREND 1. FROM FORMAL LEARNING TO INFORMAL LEARNING Many L&D departments are moving their focus away from formal learning. Thanks to the work of Jay Cross and others, organizations are shifting their attention and budgets to informal learning. Formal training is essential for businesses, because each industry has an established set of rules and procedures that must be followed by all employees. For instance, compliance, security and onboarding are some of the mandatory training programs
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conducted by human resources (HR) in a formal classroom setup. However, there are other business-critical areas, like product, process and technical training, which may occur outside of a structured formal learning environment. We observe that more and more organizations are navigating in this direction. This trend from formal to informal learning offers L&D and HR an opportunity to reach employees outside the training’s scheduled agenda, and ensure greater knowledge retention on business- and mission-critical content. TREND 2. FROM A TOP-DOWN APPROACH TO A BOTTOM-UP APPROACH The days of companies telling employees how to develop and what to learn is over. A modern-day employee wants to determine what, where and when they learn. Due to this change in mindset, the old, top-down approach of the L&D department is no longer relevant. Now, it is all about facilitating the learner and moving toward a bottom-up approach. This bottom-up approach has a huge impact on the role of L&D, which is moving toward a moderator and facilitator rather than a controller and a planner.
TREND 3. FROM LEARNING APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE SUPPORT Learning used to be about transferring knowledge. Today, however, knowledge and facts can be Googled and teaching people to do this is only the first step. In the modern workplace, knowledge must be made available in the context of work in order to improve performance. The goal of formal training is to help learners acquire knowledge and new skills. Performance support systems can provide learners with the information they need to complete tasks on the job. TREND 4. FROM KNOWLEDGE FOCUS TO SKILLS FOCUS Having the knowledge available at your fingertips in a performance support environment is one thing, but we need to teach people what to do with that knowledge. Then, we can guide them to change behavior. It is not just about knowledge anymore. It is about applying skills in order to enhance performance. THE DIAGRAM OF CHANGE These four trends form the axes of our diagram of change (see Figure 1). Each quadrant covers one of the four
