- While economic factors make learning a bottom budget priority for many clients, it remains a top action priority for companies seeking to retain talent. This presents a unique dilemma for leaders as they look for ways to minimize cost and maximize learning. The up side is the dilemma is forcing organizations to find new ways to bring learning into the workplace—accelerating innovation and generating new ideas that will shape the learning organization of the future.
- Many clients are responding to today’s economic situation by looking for ways to shorten or eliminate classroom learning experiences. All too often clients inquire about “e-learning,” as they call it; what they’re wanting is travel-free learning. As we explore these clients’ needs, we discover that they are using “e-learning” as shorthand for any learning delivered with electronic technology.Our experience indicates there are many forms of technology-based learning that both expand the reach and increase the impact of classroom learning. Webinars, podcasts, virtual role-plays, and collaboration sites are just a few examples of technology-based learning systems used today by businesses around the globe. With all the available options, we must remember that the learning content (regardless of delivery method) is only a part of the equation. Critical to the effective implementation of any learning initiative are the communications, systems, and processes supporting it.
- Keep it practical, relevant, and focused on the short term: results now versus long-term investment thinking. This thinking relates not only to today’s economy but also to the demographic makeup of the workforce. In a recent interview, Rajeev Peshawaria, CLO of Morgan Stanley, cites “Simple, simple, simple—practical, practical, practical” as one of his three mantras for leading in a down economy.
- We’re starting to see signs that people are ready for what’s next. For example: “Prepare for the upturn.”
- Some clients are bucking the trend of reducing classroom time. A major software firm that had grown considerably through consolidation ended up with several sales forces that had little in common. Forum built a learning system to provide them with a common language and set of selling skills. The classroom component was essential for enabling people to get to know one another. The client company even increased the expense of the travel component by flying people to other regions for training. As a result the company improved morale and increased retention in the new unified sales force; powerful informal support networks also improved sales performance.
- Some clients are being hit bad by the turbulent economy. Travel for learning is an issue, time off the job for learning is an issue, learning location is an issue. One client company’s proposed solution is to develop and run a series of webinars (one per month) called Sustaining the Gains to reinforce the application of learning in recent workshops—and to explore specific ways the learning can be applied in the turbulent economy. The webinars could also introduce relevant topics (for example, leading in a tough economy and selling in a tough economy. They would be interactive and materials-light, and they would be recorded and posted on the company’s intranet to facilitate participants’ continuing their learning journey.
- One trend (or positioning) is “going green.”Travel leaves a substantial carbon footprint. So does materials production involving three-ring binders, as an example. Binders are often just left on a shelf—or else immediately thrown away. Flipcharts are now frowned upon; whiteboards are preferred (though whiteboard pens are potentially toxic). We can go green by providing materials in simpler, crisper formats as PDF files and by lobbying hotels to providing conference rooms whose walls are whiteboards.
- Social networks have come to corporate life. Organizations are increasingly open to exploring ways to use tools like Facebook and Ning to generate and sustain communities of practice. Facilitation remains key in these virtual environments, with the focus shifting to deepening thought and insight at the group and individual level and to navigating groups through focus areas. Increased connection in today’s distributed workforce creates a strong draw for learners and helps bolster personal accountability for action and reflection. While there are challenges inherent in this medium, look for it to play front and center in the learning of the future.
- “The world has changed and we are not going back.” So says a client in the U.K. who has moved a segment of her company’s learning curriculum into a virtual classroom/webinar format. The current business climate has forced organizations to be bolder in trying new things—and many are finding they like it. Expect to see more organizations using blended delivery options as the norm.
- In the next 10 years “digital natives” will turn 40, and so become an increasingly powerful voice in corporate life. What is their expectation for learning? Learner-driven design: choice, customization, transparency, collaboration, fun, speed, and innovation.
Blogs
Archive for July, 2009
We asked Forum consultants: What are the top 10 trends in learning or strategy-execution methods you are seeing in your client companies?
July 17th, 2009 by Forum CorporationThe New Normal–Embrace or Combat it?
July 8th, 2009 by Ed Boswell
I recently attended a breakfast hosted by Forum with about a dozen senior sales executives in a boardroom in the Financial District of Boston. As a group, the executives represented some of the world’s leading brands in insurance, banking, professional services, and so on. As Forum people shared some insights on successful selling strategies in economic downturns and all of us shared what was going on in our respective worlds, you could tell that the initial reserve of this group of strangers was giving way to a warm sense of camaraderie—the kind that comes from shared pain!
We quickly came to realize that we were all facing very similar challenges, regardless of the industries we represented and the kind of customers we courted. For example, we talked about customers who do not put much stock in value-added services and long-term relationships anymore, who are unwilling to commit to large deals, who are making smaller commitments instead, and who are taking longer to make buying decisions (if they make them at all). Of course, we heard stories about customers asking for unheard-of discounts and demanding that we tear up existing agreements and provide even deeper discounts and better terms. As we went around the table telling our stories, we found that, despite the vast differences in our products and services, we actually had more in common than we would have ever imagined.
But an even more important insight began to emerge as the breakfast went on; that is, the world has changed forever in the wake of this economic downturn. Customers’ buying behaviors have changed dramatically and will most likely not return to the “good old days” of 2 or 3 years ago. We need to look at the current market not as an anomaly or a one-off situation that will go away soon, but as the “new normal.” Customers and their procurement departments will continue to demand more and more of their so-called partners.
So a question emerged in the group that morning: Do we figure out ways to combat this trend, or do we decide to embrace our customers (recognizing that their own customers are putting the same pressures on them) and work together to define the new rules of engagement for our mutual benefit? The answer to this question seemed obvious to us all.
What’s your opinion?
Contact. Connect. Share.