Modernizing Learning and Development to Enable the ...€¦ · SIGNATURE SERIES | MODERNIZING LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT TO ENABLE THE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE | 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Modernizing Learning and Development to Enable the

Workforce of the Future

SIGNATURESERIESAN HCI INSIGHT PARTNERSHIP

SIGNATURE SERIES | MODERNIZING LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT TO ENABLE THE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE | 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 3

Introduction 5

Learning Services 12

Organizational Structure 15

Delivery Processes 18

Learning Infrastructure 23

Learning Technology 25

L&D People and Staff 27

Performance Measures and Reporting 30

Conclusions and Recommendations 35

About the Research 40

Endnotes 41

Demographics 42

About the Research Partners 45


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY While managers have direct impact on their employees, Learning and Development (L&D) and Human Resources (HR) functions have a broad influence over people and processes. The scale and reach of HR/L&D functions often pose a challenge to quantifying business impact. Typically, L&D functions are the responsibility of HR departments; only 16% of organizations have separated the two.1 HR/L&D practitioners have the important task of aligning employees’ knowledge, skills, and behaviors to the business strategy. But, are HR/L&D practitioners providing learning experiences that equip employees with the right knowledge and skills and enable measurable behaviors that create value for the business?

With this research, conducted in partnership between the Human Capital Institute (HCI) and Oxygen2, we explore the current state of organizational learning and development and offer recommendations for a more modern approach that evolves L&D into a business-within-a-business. Through interviews with L&D leaders, and a research survey fielded to practitioners, we examined perspectives from both L&D providers and their internal customers on the individual and organizational capabilities of the L&D function. Our finding: L&D impact is limited, with plenty of room to grow and elevate its role as a strategic partner to business unit leaders, executive teams, and CEOs.

In this study of over 200 organizations, key findings from this report indicate there is knowledge and awareness of lack of business impact by the L&D function. There is also lack of clarity as to how to approach the challenge. For example:

L&D providers and customers of L&D agree L&D function’s services are currently ~50% effective.

Insufficient measures are in place to track learning effectiveness and recipients question long-term business impact.


Additional findings indicate challenges with business impact relevance, and little planning to address:

In most cases, L&D is a specialist team reporting to the HR function.

Instructor-led classroom training is the most common delivery method, but on-the-job training is rated the most effective. High-performing organizations are maintaining the status quo for the number of classroom trainings while low-performing organizations are increasing the number of classroom training.

Three-fourths of L&D providers say realistic training environments are very important, but only half say they are currently available at their organizations.

High-performing organizations are up-skilling L&D team members and investing in technologies while low-performing organizations are increasing their staff and budget.

Better measurement skills and deeper understanding of business strategies are the top two skills reported as essential for L&D teams. The most common metrics assessed by L&D teams relate to affective/attitudinal and employee engagement. In most cases, L&D measures are not tied to business outcomes.


INTRODUCTION

As skills gaps widen and it becomes harder to attract talent in a candidates’ market, it is no surprise that organizational learning has become a more strategic business imperative. Eighty-four percent of business leaders cite the need for improved organizational learning as a top priority, and 44% say it’s an urgent need.3 While a culture of learning becomes more and more important to business success, L&D and HR departments are often viewed by CEOs as ineffectual and non-strategic. Most often L&D departments are unable to show impact because they do not evaluate ROI and sustained behavior change.4

HCI has conducted much research on how the widening gap between strategy and execution signifies business’ failure to adjust to market realities and our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world.5 Seventy-seven percent of HR practitioners and leaders report that their organization is in a state of constant change, with priorities and strategies continuously shifting.6 Change cannot be managed as discrete events in our VUCA world. Instead, it is best understood as a continuous transformation with interdependent variables. In this new complex, ever-changing environment, attention spans are short, content is on-demand, and competition for talent is tough, and in some cases, the talent simply doesn’t exist. How then, can L&D best enable change and growth in people to be a true business-driving function? Our research team interviewed L&D subject-matter experts and surveyed L&D professionals and the customers of L&D services (i.e., business leaders, line managers, and individual contributors) to find out.

The Current State

According to L&D providers, there is low operational confidence in L&D solutions and services. Seventy-six percent of L&D professionals “Somewhat Agree” or “Strongly Agree” that L&D makes an impact on the business. Organizations with 2015 revenue growth above their competitors were more likely to agree (92%). Sixty-nine percent of L&D providers “Somewhat Agree” or “Strongly Agree” that L&D has a strong partnership with the business. Forty-four percent of L&D providers are “Very Confident” or “Extremely Confident” that L&D can exceed internal customer expectations across the critical roles they support. Yet, less than half (41%) of L&D providers “Somewhat Agree” or “Strongly Agree”

Change cannot be managed as discrete events in our VUCA world. Instead, it is best understood as a continuous transformation with interdependent variables.


that they have efficient L&D processes. Finally, 22% of L&D providers say that they are “Very Effective” or “Extremely Effective” at creating sustainable behavior change with frontline staff.

Percentage of L&D Provider Respondents.

Because of the low confidence in L&D services and solutions as rated by the L&D providers themselves, it is not surprising that more than half (62%) of the providers surveyed have changed L&D structure and operations in the past two years. Unfortunately, many L&D leaders are unable to connect these changes to a quantifiable business impact (Figure 1).

There are differences in the shifts that L&D providers are making, based on current organizational performance. For this research we created a composite of organizational talent effectiveness from several survey scale items (see page 44 for details). Along with better talent outcomes, High-performing Organizations (HPO) have higher revenue growth irrespective of the size of the organization compared

76%L&D makes an impact on the business.

69%L&D has a strong partnership with the business.

41%L&D has efficient processes.

22%L&D creates sustainable behavior change with front-line staff.

44%

L&D can exceed internal customer expectations across the critical roles they support.

FIGURE 1


to Low-performing Organizations (LPOs). Thirty-seven percent of HPOs report above average revenue growth for 2016 compared to 20% of LPOs. High-performing organizations are focused on up-skilling L&D team members’ and investing in technologies while low-performing organizations are increasing their staff and budget (Figure 2). Both groups are increasing the number of peer-to-peer learning opportunities and the number of self-paced online courses, and creating trainings in-house rather than using a third-party vendor. HPOs are more likely to reduce the number of formal classroom trainings compared to LPOs. HPO’s consistently invest in technology and invest in training for L&D practitioners. They also provide more breadth and depth of L&D offerings to the audiences they support.

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

HPOLPO

9%54%37%16%44%40%

9%66%25%15%49%36%

5%38%57%16%40%44%

4%44%52%12%54%34%

2%28%70%8%29%63%

14%53%33%16%35%49%

12%57%31%27%42%31%

4%29%67%10%28%62%

37%63%37%63%

Increase Stay the Same Decrease

Will Each of the Following Decrease, Increase, or Stay the Same in the Next Two Years? (L&D Providers’ Rating)

FIGURE 2

L&D budget

L&D staff

Investments in L&D technology

Training for L&D practitioners

Number of peer-to-peer learning opportunities

Number of self-paced online courses/training

Number of formal classroom courses/training

Number of external L&D offerings (third-party)

Number of internal L&D offerings (created in-house)


MEASURING OUTPUTS

“Since it was linked to business strategy, we have now developed measurements to effectively and efficiently deliver training programs in our organization.”

“We are working to have more focus on business engagement and business impact measurements.”

ALIGNING TO BUSINESS

“We just changed two months ago to increase alignment to the business, and increase cross-departmental collaboration.”

“We made adjustments based on changes in business. We added skills, redeployed roles to better fit the needs of our organization, and created a more agile approach to support the business.”

“We are in the process of determining who should own L&D at our organization. Until recently, HR had very little involvement and it has negatively impacted the business. Currently, no one owns L&D, which is a problem.”

“We implemented a consulting model to support the business with assigned resources to each business unit.”

REDESIGNING L&D STRATEGY

“We created a new internal coaching organization. The services we deliver change, therefore roles and responsibilities shift and change.”

“We began using a “push-pull” learning method. Employees are now empowered to take ownership of learning because we provided them with a number of tools to develop and grow.”

“We went from designing learning experiences to outsourcing the design, and now we act as consultative resources instead of IDs and facilitators.”

“Recently, more of our line managers have developed the ability to learn to teach, and teach to learn.”

CHANGING THE REPORTING STRUCTURE

“We moved our reporting structure from business units to a central corporate university.”

“We combined two departments into one corporate training function that includes L&D and Curriculum Development.”

“We used to be a team outside of the HR function with about eight people total including the leader. Now we are part of HR, reporting to the VP of HR and down to three folks.”

“All of L&D and Training were reporting to HR previously. Now, training has been separated and is reporting to Operations, while L&D still reports to HR.”

“We moved from an exclusively Regional and Functional basis, to a Matrix model that includes work-streams (on-boarding, leadership development, competency development, etc.), which crosses traditional Regional and Functional lines.”

“We have moved the training administrative function to ‘shared services’ and thereby lowered the number of L&D staff in corporate HR.”

IN YOUR WORDS:What Changes To L&D Team Structure Are You Making?


ADDING STAFF AND CAPABILITIES

“We have added an instructional designer, adopted a more robust LMS, and developed in house training.”

“We have added more in-house trainers and an online training manager.”

“Our redesign of key training initiatives required the addition of two FTEs to the training team to help with training administration, training delivery, and support.”

“We hired a new Director of Learning & Development this year which was a new position for us.”

“We started a corporate training environment from scratch. We added to our L&D staff, and added responsibility to our current L&D department (moved Compliance to L&D).”

“We have added positions internally, as well as increased the number of overall facilitators within the organization.”

“We realigned skill sets for roles in LMS administration and content development.”

REDUCING STAFF

“We have lowered our overall headcount.”

“It has become leaner and is complemented by self-service learning options on the Learning Management system.”

“We have reduced by 50% in personnel.”

“We are working to create new roles, but less positions overall.”

ADDING TECHNOLOGIES

“My job as director and sole provider of training has been changed to Talent Management, and we are seeking to implement an LMS and have someone administer it.”

“We have added new leadership, title and scope changes, new technology, and a new approach to training design.”

“We are working to increase staff and technical offering software.”


The Modern L&D Function

From the research findings, it is clear the L&D function needs to evolve (Figure 3) to better serve business leaders and their teams. Today’s perceived value of L&D is found in the ability to output training content; however, there is a major gap in L&D’s ability to consult with business leaders about how to effectively enable employees across the lifecycle of a role.7 This “end to end view” of sustained advancement of a role through an architected assembly of learning interactions is known as Learning Experience.

FIGURE 3Before and After States for the Modern L&D Function.

FROM TOL&D function “owns” learning

A culture exists where learning happens by everyone, everyday

Instructor-led classroom training is the defaultBlended learning approach with on-demand options

L&D team as order-takers L&D strategic consultant to the business

Broad, one-size-fits-all learning contentCustomized, role-centric approach to learning content

One-size-fits-all learning environments Realistic learning environments

Technologies that track and manage participation

Techologies that create a learner experience

Smile-sheets and affective reactions to trainingLearning outcomes measured against business outcomes

Oxygen defines Learning Experience as the architected sequence of learning interactions to enable success in a targeted role. Learning Experience incorporates defined productivity measures, role-specific objectives, and assessments or certifications, all mapped to an overall learning journey for that role.

SIGNATURE SERIES | MODERNIZING LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT TO ENABLE THE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE | 1 1

At the end of the day, it’s about being savvy and connected to the business strategy and operating plan, and then being intentional about building out leadership development to support the enablement and the execution of the enterprise strategy.”

— Taryn STejSkal, Ph.D., DirecTor, Global Senior leaDerShiP DeveloPmenT & aSSeSSmenT, ciGna

For L&D to evolve from a function of order-takers to a value-added provider of experience-driven services, the research team has categorized seven operational areas that need to be assessed and shifted.

1 Learning Services. The services provided to internal customers, including content development.

2 Organizational Structure. The structure, culture, and governance model including roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.

3 Delivery Processes. The end-to-end activities involved in managing and delivering services.

4 Learning Infrastructure. Physical locations including facilities and associated assets (e.g. equipment, furniture, etc.).

5 Learning Technology. Tools and applications used to enable the management and delivery of services.

6 L&D People and Staff. The technical and professional skills and experience of employees.

7 Performance Measures & Reporting. Metrics used to measure the performance of services.

“


LEARNING SERVICES

To evolve and enable more effective learning, L&D leaders are modernizing the services they deliver to internal customers to more clearly align to business objectives and demonstrate business value. Some of the subject-matter experts for this research project shared their perspectives on an increased focus on business results. They also shared how they have shifted their approach to better support rapidly changing sales and service teams.

What we are really wanting to do is encourage our organization to learn how to learn. With technology moving as rapidly as it does, the reality is that we all need to be learning every day. We need to be curious about different topics and we need to be flexible on how we consume that information, so learning how to learn is really important. The second thing is we want to create an environment of individuals that are critical thinkers, that are problem solvers, and that can work together as a team.”

— Deborah carTer, Senior manaGer of oPen clouD acaDemy, rackSPace

We need to create a culture of learning. I would like to see learning be continuous, and that people take ownership in two ways. One, of always and learning for the betterment of them and their team, and two helping others learn for the betterment of themselves and their team.”

— barry ShielDS, Sr. manaGer leaDerShiP anD Team inTelliGence, ciSco

Because of the new reality of our VUCA world, L&D providers must immerse themselves in the business to deliver effective and scalable learning. They must deeply understand the needs of their internal customers and build partnerships with them. L&D must function as true business partners, but by their own admission, they are not there yet.

Because of the new reality of our VUCA world, L&D providers must immerse themselves in the business to deliver effective and scalable learning.

“

“


49% report L&D works “Very Well” or “Extremely Well” as an internal partner to business unit leaders (34% LPOs vs. 55% HPOs).

34% report L&D works “Very Well” or “Extremely Well” with business leaders and their staff across the breadth and depth of their training needs (20% LPOs vs. 39% HPOs).

47% report L&D is “in touch” with the reality business leaders and internal customers face “To a High Degree” or “To a Very High Degree” (32% LPOs vs. 54% HPOs).

28% report L&D services are “Very Coordinated” or “Extremely Coordinated” across the entire employee lifecycle (15% LPOs vs. 33% HPOs).

According to David J. DeFilippo, Ed.D., Chief Learning Officer, Suffolk Construction:

I think too many times I’ve seen HR, learning, and talent folks get kind of caught up in their own processes and not stay very connected to the business. If you’re just reacting all the time, that is no way to be good at this type of work. This type of work that we do in learning and talent doesn’t pay off for a number of years. So, if your planning is episodic and reactionary, it never pays off. If someone says they want to change the strategy and change approach and they cannot align it to a change in the business, I would question that and push back on that and say, ‘why would we do that now?’”

Most of the L&D providers surveyed have documented learning strategies for a variety of situations and factors (Figure 4). These documented strategies clarify the responsibilities of the L&D function to both the L&D team members and the business. Measurement strategies are frequently lacking, however. The biggest discrepancy: 85% reported that they have a documented strategy for the roles they train, yet only 41% address principles of instructional design for adult learning—suggesting a disconnect in approach to Learning Experience.

85% reported that they have a documented strategy for the roles they train, yet only

41% address principles of instruction design for adult learning—suggesting a disconnect in approach to Learning Experience.

“


Percentage of L&D Providers with a Documented Training Strategy (L&D Providers Only).

FIGURE 4

The roles/audiences we specifically train 85%

The frequency of training we provide 77%

The training solutions and programs we offer 68%

Integration points with HR strategy (e.g., hiring, recruiting,

talent, etc.)78%

Service levels and expected turnaround times 70%

Modality specification (e.g., online learning modalities, mobile learning

modalities, instructor lead modalities)65%

Feedback mechanisms 62%

Measurement approaches 51%

Intake processes and prioritization approaches 62%

41%Principles of adult learning and

instructional design


ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

To deliver Learning Experience that ties to productivity results, L&D needs to move from a siloed learning function and perceived “owner of all learning” to a cross-functional “orchestrator” drawing on abilities and knowledge from specific internal customer roles. This modern organizational structure contains L&D roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships that are focused and streamlined to add well-defined value to the organization. Currently, there are 9.8 (mean) full-time employees at the organizations surveyed who are responsible for L&D strategy. Survey respondents report an average of 14.6 full-time employees who are responsible to L&D delivery at their organizations. Low-performing organizations however, report more full-time employees responsible for L&D delivery and strategy (Delivery—LPO: 15.2, HPO: 14.4; Strategy—LPO: 15.6, HPO: 7.2). We determined through analysis that size of the business (i.e. number of employees) does not influence these variables.

Of course, L&D providers must be aligned with business leaders, but reporting to business leaders isn’t always the norm (Figure 5). Most often, L&D is considered a specialist function reporting to the HR function (63% of HPOs and 49% of LPOs). Low-performing organizations that do not employ this structure are more likely to have their L&D team reporting to business unit leaders (25%) compared to high-performing organizations (9%).8

Survey respondents report an average of

14.6 full-time employees who are responsible for L&D delivery at their organization.


8%

9%

In HR, as generalist activities

19%

13%

In a separate L&D function that does not report to HR Leadership

9%

25%

Within business units reporting to business leaders

L&D Providers Total

High-performing Organizations

Low-performing Organizations

64%In HR, as a specialist function/role

53%

L&D Function Placement (L&D Providers Only).FIGURE 5

9%

61%

17%

14%


Whether leadership decides if your L&D team members to report HR or the business leaders, it is clear that L&D providers need to adopt a more consultative and business-outcome focused approach. According to Stacey Gardner, Senior Learning and Development Specialist, Microsoft:

Great L&D happens when we sit close within or aligned to the business. When training organizations are completely outside the business, we have to work extra hard to ensure constant alignment to business outcomes and build training that has real impact. In every learning organization, especially in modern and forward-leaning organization, we have to be business consultants anchored in learning sciences and experience.”

If L&D functions as a center of excellence, Barry Shields, Sr. Manager Leadership and Team Intelligence, Cisco has some advice:

We need to figure out how to educate HR Business Partners so that they become the consultant to the business on behalf of L&D. HR Business Partners (or a role like them) could help provide the inputs that L&D teams need. The person in that role understands all of the services being provided and what the value is of all the services and can speak to them. He or she doesn’t necessarily have to get into the weeds around the actual learning design. You can just bring in a specialist for that. The thing that L&D has done in the past is that they haven’t felt comfortable letting the HR business partner represent them.”

By sitting within the business unit or very closely aligned, L&D providers are able to collect inputs from their customers to determine training priorities and create more impact through purposeful learning experiences for the employees they support. However, only 31% of L&D providers say they “Very Effectively” or “Extremely Effectively” collect inputs to determine training priorities. Our subject-matter experts share effective practices on the methods to collect inputs below.

By sitting within the business unit or very closely aligned, L&D providers are able to collect inputs from their customers to

determine training priorities and create more impact through purposeful learning experiences for the employees they support.

“

“


To collect business inputs, it’s a combination of interviewing our clients, doing focus group meetings, surveys, and reviewing past feedback. It’s also about understanding how we are aligning our strategy with the strategy of the company and the goals for the overall company.”

— nancy carlSTon, manaGer, leaDerShiP DeveloPmenT, The miTre inSTiTuTe

Do you know who the people are that are actually buying your product? And I think this may sound silly, but I think you need to really spend the time to work with the business leaders for the products and for the vertical markets, so you really get to know them and you become integrated into their process. Because when you know more about the business side, you can improve that learning experience. More of: why we’re doing this, why we’re doing that, why this is bundled with this, why this is a new release, and why this is a new product in the first place. More of the why. A lot of learning professionals don’t get in early enough to understand the why. They just go straight into kind of what to build.”

— Tracy TibeDo, DirecTor of Global SaleS TraininG, chromaToGraPhy anD maSS SPecTromeTry DiviSion, Thermo fiSher ScienTific

DELIVERY PROCESSES

To foster better alignment to the business, L&D leaders must exert their influence over their own internal processes. Methods borrowed from software development can help blend processes and delivery teams together: iterative design, agile development, and project management are becoming more prevalent as L&D teams partner with their business colleagues to accelerate production and create more business-relevant content and learning interactions.

When modernizing core L&D processes, it’s important to garner quick wins. Research showed that one area worth exploring is within onboarding programs, where providers rate their development/training and onboarding services as only moderately effective (Figure 6). The average rating for onboarding services was 3.14 (on a scale of 1: not effective at all to 5: extremely effective), with a higher average rating for

To foster better alignment to the business, L&D leaders must exert their influence over their own internal processes.

““


HPOs (3.24) than for LPOs (2.89). The average rating for the effectiveness of ongoing development and training services was 3.37, with a higher average rating for HPOs (3.51) than for LPOs (3.02). Additionally, there is room for improvement in hiring support and assessments and certification programs. The average rating for effectiveness of hiring support services was 2.72, with a higher average rating for HPOs (2.85) than for LPOs (2.40). The average rating for effectiveness of assessment/certification services was 2.7, with a higher average rating for HPOs (2.75) than for LPOs (2.56). All of these programs require evolving L&D processes to improve the impact of learning.

Live, instructor-led classroom training is the most common learning delivery method (Figure 7). This delivery method popularity is followed by live, instructor-led virtual training and self-paced online trainings. However, High-performing organizations are diversifying their training methods and reducing the number of classroom trainings (Figure 2).

0 1Not At All

2Slightly Effective

3Moderately

Effective

4Very

Effective

5Extremely Effective

Hiring support services

Onboarding services

Ongoing development/training

Assessment/certification

Providers’ Mean Rating of L&D Effectiveness for L&D Services.FIGURE 6

3.37

3.14

2.72

2.7


Percentage of Learning Hours Delivered by the Following Methods (L&D Providers Ratings).

Live instructor-led real classroom

Live instructor-led virtual (online) classroom

Devices (i.e., iPads, tablets)

Self-paced online (networked)

Self-paced stand-alone (non-networked computer-based

(e.g, a CD-ROM)3%

Technology other than computers (e.g., videotape, audio CD, mobile) 3%

Rank by %

Other 2%

Live instructor-led remote, but not online (e.g., satellite, video

conference, and teleconference

Technology other than computers (e.g., videotape, audio CD, mobile)

FIGURE 7

44%

15%

14%

8%

5%

5%


Organizations with a blended learning approach have L&D professionals who must intentionally create content for that delivery method. This approach works at Thermo Fisher Scientific according to Tracy Tibedo, Director of Global Sales Training, Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry Division at Thermo Fisher Scientific:

So we try to make sure that the e-content—that the content for e-learning is ideal for e-learning, and that the classroom is being used most effectively. The classroom should not be regurgitation of the e-learning. In the classroom, we try to make sure it’s question and answers, case studies, role plays, discussions, things of that nature. And in the follow-up training after the in-person training, typically we work more with online sale simulations, game-based learning, which is something we’re just starting to explore. Great e-learning should be short, short segments, about 15 minutes long. It should be story-based and relevant whenever possible. And it should be very concise. One can’t just take a PowerPoint deck and record it and say, I’ve done e-learning.”

L&D professionals must align their processes to support the rhythm of the business, and also ensure that internal customers are aware of available services. Seventy-eight percent of L&D providers report that L&D team processes are aligned and integrated with business processes (Table 1). This is more likely for organizations with better talent outcomes (HPOs). Fifty-seven percent of L&D providers report that their resources are clearly mapped and communicated to their internal customers. Again, HPOs are more likely to endorse this approach.

Percentage of L&D Providers’ Response by HPO and LPO.

Total HPO LPO

Are your L&D team processes and procedures aligned and integrated with business processes? (e.g., front line managers who work in the teams you support)

78% 85% 59%

Are your L&D team resources (e.g., people, technology, etc.) clearly mapped and communicated to your internal customers within all your initiatives?

57% 62% 54%

TABLE 1

L&D professionals must align their processes to support the rhythm of the business, and also ensure that internal customers are aware of available services. “


As business roles become more specialized, it is important to realize that a “one size fits all” approach will not work for L&D delivery. L&D providers need to create learning solutions based on the role (i.e., role-specific, individualized approaches to learning design and delivery). Of the L&D providers surveyed, 68% indicate role-centric approaches are “Very Valuable” or “Extremely Valuable.”

We are investing a lot in personalization by making sure that we know the learner and we’re offering them what they need, when they need it. One of the things that I’m seeing is a lot more focus on the interaction, the learning interaction itself, and then how those learning interactions need to be created in a way that people can participate. Because we’re teaching them how to think; we’re moving from a push to a pull type of approach. We have to make it easy for them to find and retrieve and interact when they’re ready.”


“


LEARNING INFRASTRUCTURE

To meet the demands of a continuous learning culture, L&D professionals must modernize physical locations including facilities and associated physical assets (e.g., equipment, office furniture, class rooms, supplies, etc.) that enables the L&D team and its output partners (training managers in the field) to manage and deliver learning services. High-performing organizations are maintaining the status quo for the number of classroom trainings while low-performing organizations are increasing the number of them (Figure 2). Instructor-led classroom training is the most common delivery method (Figure 7), but on-the-job training is rated the most effective (Figure 8). We surmise, if LPOs modernized their learning environments they would better realize the benefits of increased number of instructor-led trainings.

Providers’ Mean Rating of Learning Environment Effectiveness.

0 1Not At All

2Slightly Effective

3Moderately

Effective

4Very

Effective

5Extremely Effective

Conference/huddle rooms 3.01

Learning/Innovation lab 3.27

Classroom 3.65

Employee’s desk/workspace 2.97

On-the-job training 3.99

FIGURE 8


On-the-job training is rated more effective than classroom learning because it is more realistic; there is high fidelity to the environments that employees experience every day (Figure 7). Seventy-two percent of L&D providers indicate that a realistic training environment is “Very Important” or “Extremely Important.” However, in most organizations, classroom training is the most common, and realistic training environments are not available. Only thirty-four percent of L&D providers report that a realistic training environment is “Often Available” or “Always Available.”

Classroom training does have several advantages however, including a present, (hopefully) attentive audience for your content. According to Erin Behrendt, Learning & Development Facilitator, Air Systems, Inc. who describes the challenges with on-demand e-learning:

Everyone is so busy, and it’s a mindset shift to make time to sit through e-learning. Some people do a good job with making time for it, but it’s probably the minority in a lot of work environments. When you are face to face with someone, though, it’s easier to get into the learning mindset. The in-person environment is a signal that you’re here, and need to be present and focused for the training. With so many distractions at our desks, it’s a lot harder to get motivated and stay focused long enough to watch videos and complete self-paced learning.”

In any case, the L&D team members must watch and make changes to learning environment to ensure effectiveness. Eighty-nine percent of L&D providers have attended or watched a live training session within the last year. However, less than half (48%) of L&D providers can influence changes in learning environment “To a High Degree” or “To a Very High Degree.”

By high-touch, what I mean is literally, we go out to job sites as an entire HR team across the country to deliver solutions because we believe that the opportunity, even if it’s for an hour, to engage with employees becomes a really important part of the way we lead change in the organization.”

— DaviD j. DefiliPPo, eD.D., chief learninG officer, Suffolk conSTrucTion

The L&D team members must watch and make changes to learning environment to ensure effectiveness.

“

“


We’re shifting from teaching people what to think to teaching people how to think. A lot of the instructor-led delivery, both virtual and physical face-to-face, was in the ‘what to think’ space. But the ‘how to think’ space is more immersive, experiential, personalized, and collaborative. We’re doubling down and investing in system dynamic simulations that are replicated around a storyline, where in each level or round of the simulation you’re making decisions that impact the algorithm in terms of what happens next. We track all the decisions you make, and we give a mindset shift assessment, prior to and after. It’s not an assessment aligned to learning objectives. It’s really a survey to evaluate what the learner is paying attention to. How do they think?”


LEARNING TECHNOLOGY

Effective learning interactions require integrated hardware, software, and devices that enable the effective management and delivery of learning services. According to L&D providers, Learning Management Systems are rated as more useful (3.18 on a 5-point scale of 1: not useful at all to 5: extremely useful) to the L&D team than either Knowledge Management (2.41) or Communication Management systems (2.32). In addition, providers rate their L&D applications as useful in tracking and monitoring learning and delivering content, but less useful at reporting and analyzing, and creating and authoring (Figure 9).

“


Providers’ Mean Rating of L&D Applications.

The core focus of these technologies should be the learner experience. According to our L&D provider survey respondents, 52% agree that their L&D systems (like the Learning Management System and Knowledge Management System) are easily understood by the users. High-performing organizations are more likely to agree (38% LPO vs. 57% HPO). In addition, 69% of all providers indicate L&D technologies enable a high-quality learning (62% LPO vs. 71% HPO).

We need to be mindful that some eLearning experiences can be perceived as condescending by the adult learner. Not all learning should be a fun game where you’re popping bubbles of the wrong answers. We have to be aware of the audience and the content, and design experiences that help the content come to life. We also need to factor in everything we know about application of learning and reinforcement. We have to be mindful of our learner’s needs, their point in time, what workflow or outcome we’re building adjustments for, and what will resonate with them.”

— STacey GarDner, Senior learninG anD DeveloPmenT SPecialiST, microSofT

0 1Not Well

At All

2Slightly

Well

3Moderately

Well

4Very Well

5Extremely

Well

Track and monitor 3.09

Create and author 2.71

Report and analyze 2.82

Deliver learning content 3.04

FIGURE 9

“


L&D PEOPLE AND STAFF

As L&D is focused on making employees successful in their roles, they too must elevate their own professional skills and experiences to more effectively manage and deliver learning services. The perceptions by L&D providers of L&D’s current skills vary with respect to low-performing and high-performing organizations.

26% report L&D teams are “Very Well Equipped” or “Extremely Well Equipped” to achieve greater business impact (LPO 15% vs. HPO 30%).

31% report L&D teams are “Very Well Equipped” or “Extremely Well Equipped” to improve L&D services LPO (20% vs. HPO 36%).

41% feel supported “To a High Degree” or “To a Very High Degree” by L&D team management to receive training and skills to keep up with changing business needs (LPO 29% vs. HPO 47%).

In many L&D organizations, L&D team skill sets are not adequate for evolving to a new operating model. Better measurement skills and deeper understanding of business strategies are the top two most desired skills for L&D teams (Figure 10). To build skills, conferences and certificate programs are the most common learning opportunities for L&D professionals (Figure 11).


Percentage of L&D Providers who Report L&D Needs the Following Skills.

63%66%

58%

More qualitative measurement and evaluation skills

44%51%

33%

Iterative and collaborative instructional design skills

26%24%

31%

Ability to work with specialized labor pool to create effective

learning

Total

42%37%Stronger business relationships

for content knowledge56%

36%40%

38%Increased business acumen

46%48%

44%

Deeper understanding of business strategies

42%40%

51%Influencing skills

38%38%38%

Consulting skills

FIGURE 10

High-performing Organizations

Low-performing Organizations


Number of Training Courses L&D Providers Attended over the Past Two Years.

Our subject-matter expert interviewees share their recommendations for the necessary L&D skills in a modern learning function.

Strategic thinking is something that I’m always trying to tease out of people, because I think sometimes L&D organizations get somewhat tactical and caught up in checking through the boxes or academic instead of focusing on the practical application of the learning. Our role is to provide skills that make someone better at doing their job. Communications and marketing skills are necessary for L&D professionals. You need to be able to tell the story so people understand why the learning is important to their business outcomes. To provide the right learning we need to practice what we preach, like listening skills; asking the right questions, and providing the right frameworks that can be applied on the job to make them better in their jobs. It’s about having the skill to simplify things, to help people learn, retain, and apply the learning. We need to stay on track, be focused, knowing what the scope is, which means the role of an L&D professional is a lot of project management and relationship management.”

— nancy carlSTon, manaGer, leaDerShiP DeveloPmenT, The miTre inSTiTuTe

College/University courses within the L&D/HR field 4%6%40%50%

Publicly available seminars and workshops within the

L&D/HR field5%7%23%65%

Certificate programs within the L&D/HR field 7%12%59%22%

Conferences within the L&D/HR field 20%23%45%12%

0 1 to 3 4 to 6 7+

FIGURE 11

“


Learning and development professionals may need stronger coaching skills because we become coaches to the business architects and to the SMEs. We have to be able to ask instead of tell. Just like great coaches, we have to ask questions that get the right answers and help our SMEs and stakeholders discover the ‘aha’ moments. When L&D professionals are great coaches, everyone wins.”


I think that the thing that differentiates the average from the really, really good learning and talent and HR practitioners is people who want to win on behalf of the business. They’re taking big swings trying to push the business forward, working in a way that is demonstrating a strong capability and a strong sense of competition to be better, and not be—I’ll steal a quote—‘Not be the type of learning and talent practitioner that’s begging for a seat at the table.’ I want them forcing themselves to be at the table because they’re adding value.”


PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND REPORTING

As mentioned in the previous section, qualitative measurement and evaluation skills are the number one needed skills for L&D professionals. Learning service performance metrics must be actionable and well-defined and aligned with internal customer business objectives. This is hard to do as reported by our survey respondents on page 34.

L&D outcomes metrics should be the business metrics; this is the only way to secure alignment and value. Only 39% of L&D providers agree that adequate metrics are in place to understand the business impact, consistency, and quality of L&D outputs. But, this percentage is almost double for High-performing organizations (26% LPO and 44% HPO). In addition, the most used metrics are affective reactions to training and the least used are business ROI (Figure 12).

Learning service performance metrics must be actionable and well-defined and aligned with internal customer business objectives.

“

“


Frequency of Measurement (Providers’ Ratings; 1: Never to 5: Always).

Affective and attitudinal reactions to a learning experience 3.63

Employee engagement 3.28

Changes in behavior and attitudes on the job (training/

transfer)2.89

Increases in knowledge or skills or capabilities 3.3

Business performance scorecards 3.07

First 30-day attrition of new hires 2.86

Pipeline of future leaders 2.73

Bench strength of frontline managers 2.54

Onboarding “ramp up” success 2.61

2.39

2.38

Time to full productivity

Impact on business-level outcomes (ROI, Sales, etc.)

0 1 2 3 4 5

FIGURE 12


Customers of L&D believe there is a higher frequency of measurement and outcome reporting than providers indicate. Customers of L&D have high expectations for L&D services evaluation, but may not be aware of the current metrics in use. This is especially true for the following metrics:

Business performance scorecards: 43% providers vs. 65% customers rate “Often” or “Always”

Pipeline for future leaders: 28% providers vs. 49% customers rate “Often” or “Always”

Bench strength of frontline managers: 21% providers vs. 34% customers rate “Often” or “Always”

First 30-day attrition of new hires: 39% providers vs. 51% customers rate “Often” or “Always”

Impact on business-level outcomes (ROI, Sales, etc.): 16% providers vs. 31% customers rate “Often” or “Always”

The measure of L&D outputs and outcomes can be challenging. Our subject-matter expert interviewees share their measurement and evaluation approaches:

You certainly have to listen to your constituents. And we survey our users, not only at every offering. So even if it’s a 90-minute S.M.A.R.T. goal setting class, we do an evaluation at the end using Kirkpatrick’s scale trying to help folks see how they can apply not just what they learn immediately, but how it’s going to make a difference. What are they going to do differently, etc.?”

— carolyn cullen, learninG & DeveloPmenT manaGer aT univerSiTy of virGinia, cenTer for leaDerShiP excellence

“


We measure the utilization of our services. So what’s consumed and what’s used? We measure the satisfaction of those things by using the traditional four levels of measurement. And now that we have a talent management system, we’re able to do things like look at our per unit cost. So, the per unit cost of developing courses, the unit cost per hour of output of learning. Because some of the things that we do, we design our own courses for institutionally-specific things.”


We don’t do the Kirkpatrick Model of Measurement any longer. You can read a book called ‘The Halo Effect’ to get a sense for why we don’t do that. We actually do research up front and we don’t do anything unless the research says up front that we should, and then we actually don’t measure it on the back end. We don’t do job analysis. We don’t do job impact, or ROI. It ends up being fake math anyway and it suffers from the halo effect. We have a research team, and we do research up front to decide what we’re going to do.”


“

“


LACK OF STAFF AND RESOURCES

“We lack the resources to explore connecting outputs like SalesForce data to training initiatives. Feedback is anecdotal by observed behavior changes, check-ins, and team satisfaction scores, not by business results.”

“We currently have two people doing the job for 4000 employees. We need additional hands to develop the course evaluations and follow up.”

“We suffer from a lack of interest from the business, and a lack of ability on the part of L&D professionals.”

“We don’t have a tool to easily administer/compile these measurements and we don’t have the resources to try and manually do it.”

“We suffer from the lack of a stable and effective LMS, thus we are unable to pull out real-time data.”

NO BUY-IN AND ACCOUNTABILITY

“The metrics are in place at our organization, but the staff don’t always bother to use them; often saying they are ’too busy’.”

“We have a lack of agreement on what the metrics should be. We also have little accountability or substantive follow-up.”

“No one at my organization seems to care. We lack energy, competitiveness, and a desire to dive into the 21st Century.”

“We don’t have much buy-in from business partners to measure impact in our organization.”

POOR DATA QUALITY AND MEASUREMENT DESIGN

“My organization struggles with poor data integrity in HRMS, lack of competence, and low to moderate interest from leadership.”

“Our L&D is more in the responsive mode, covering a broad range of learning needs, so the sample pools are too small to measure in a consistent way.”

UNCLEAR BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

“Our upper management cannot make decisions about the goals of training, which makes it hard to measure.”

“The desired outputs for the agency don’t have firm metrics for success, so the L&D impact/outcomes can’t be adequately measured for business impact.”

“We’re striving to gain alignment at the C-level regarding which metrics are important to the business.”

“We are not tied closely enough to our customers’ business measures and/or customers don’t want to take the time to really help us measure effectiveness (e.g. we become order-takers because someone higher up told them to provide training).”

TRANSLATION OF INSIGHTS INTO ACTION

“We’re working on communication to management and leaders, and incorporating lessons learned from data to improve learning.”

“We are good at surveys, but feel we don’t necessarily have the right metrics to discover the true impact of learning, and it is hard to actually get this information.”

INABILITY TO CAPTURE BEHAVIOR CHANGE OR SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING

“We suffer from a lack of interest in the results once employees return to work. In my organization, our metric is equivalent to the smile sheet, which offers little to no value.”

“Implementation of Kirkpatrick’s Level 3 and 4 are difficult. I believe good metrics can only be implemented for highly business critical projects and need to be well planned.”

IN YOUR WORDS:What Hinders Your Ability to Establish Adequate L&D Metrics?


CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

As a result of rapid evolution within the business world, coupled with advances in technology, empowered customers, and the move to a digital workplace, learning and development leaders must re-think their approaches to understanding learners and delivering impact. While many of the functions have evolved around them, L&D leaders still rely on 50+ year old strategies, approaches, and models to help them evolve. Maybe it’s time to re-think the L&D function from the customer’s perspective.

Executive teams are adjusting their business strategies to respond to elevated customer expectations in almost every industry segment. In retail, consumers want more choices and they want faster service and better-trained associates to speak with. In IT, business buyers demand more complex solutions and services that more easily align to solve increasingly complicated business problems in new and innovative ways. In professional services, executive teams need to launch more comprehensive solutions that tackle workflow and process challenges in their client base.

In response to these elevated buyer expectations, many businesses are shifting their strategy. These shifts aren’t small—they are tectonic. Many of the shifts are driven from the top down with an operational focus while also improving the ability to execute. To L&D leaders, these shifts, coupled with industry and market forces, should not (and cannot) be considered business as usual. A new mandate is being levied on the learning function: either partner with the business to help enable the growth agenda, or be outsourced.

Understanding how and why L&D faces the current challenges to maintain relevancy lies in assessing the past to understand the present. From here, we can begin to understand why L&D hasn’t been successful in making the pivot to a more cross-functional way of working while being recognized as a value-added partner to business unit leaders.

There’s a huge opportunity available for the L&D function. With the change and complexity taking place inside organizations, CEOs need help from the L&D function to help people in all roles, across the organization, align to and drive customer-centric solutions. There is no other function currently able to equip those people in other roles to reach that level and definition of success. The bottom

Understanding how and why L&D faces the current challenges to maintain relevancy lies in assessing the past to understand the present.


line: L&D team members need to work together to figure out what our value contribution is to drive change and enable growth within the organization, while becoming a trusted advisor to the CEO and elevating the L&D function.

The Modern L&D Function Mandate

Align the L&D function and people to create more business impactHow? Drive measurable business impact through a new operating model that evolves the services function that will enable Customer Operations L&D to transform the learning experience.

Deploy more efficient L&D processesHow? Improve repeatability and consistency of essential Learning & Development processes to ensure adoption of learning content.

Create better and faster enablement contentHow? Transform and re-engineer the way we approach learning by creating, updating, and delivering learning content to be delivered faster, be more consistent, adopted, celebrated, and rewarded.

Improve business partnershipHow? Improve and tighten the collaboration and integration with partners (IT, business integration, product, and training managers).

As we engaged our Subject Matter Expert panel in a review of the data and findings, we asked them for their advice and recommendations. Throughout our discussion, one core theme emerged: L&D leaders and their teams need to create a more business-centric foundation upon which to build their success. The need for more business-centricity and strategic thinking was a central theme for our panelists, as they encouraged L&D leaders to set a unifying vision, gain executive buy-in, and engage in more transformational efforts.


Don’t jump to conclusions about what needs to be done until you really have that conversation with the business unit, and understand what they need to be successful. Engage in a more strategic discussion around their business and what they’re trying to do; not necessarily what you want to build. The Sales Training Team has worked so well with the business unit leaders that we’ve surprised people a little bit. In part, that’s because we’ve got a group of reasonably experienced people that know the business very well. So we know the right questions to ask. That would be my take-home message to anybody.”

— Tracy TibeDo, DirecTor of Global SaleS TraininG, chromaToGraPhy anD maSS SPecTromeTry DiviSion, Thermo fiSher ScienTific

“We have to get used to being uncomfortable, get used to being confidently vulnerable, and ready to show up to the business and to the SMEs not knowing everything. We need to be able to partner, ask questions better tomorrow than we did today, and deliver something differently tomorrow than we delivered yesterday. I think that L&D is a space where we like to prove that we did something well and hold on to it and keep doing what worked for us. When we show up from a modern learning perspective, we are speaking their language, asking their kinds of questions, and immediately demonstrate our investment in the outcomes. We need to reframe our definitions of great. I am not going to build a great training. I’m going to build the training that does something great for our business and our customers.”


“At Cigna we’re fortunate to have the support of our CEO, CHRO, and our senior most leaders for the work we do. If you don’t have the support of your CEO and your senior-most leaders for leadership development, if there is not a sense within the organization that leadership and talent and people are valuable, then no matter what skill you teach, no matter what you do, your investment will not yield the value it could with the support of the enterprise behind you.”

— Taryn STejSkal, Ph.D., DirecTor, Global Senior leaDerShiP DeveloPmenT & aSSeSSmenT, ciGna

PANEL RECOMMENDATION 1: Build Effective Learning,

Not Learning Deliverables

PANEL RECOMMENDATION 2: Run L&D as an Enablement

Business, Not an Order Taking Function

“


“It’s about really looking at the request and understanding is this talent development or an L&D problem to solve? Or is this something within the organization that’s a process revamp? That is helpful when we have been asking a lot of questions through our talent development business partners. We’ve often found that sometimes the leaders request—even though they’re requesting training—training is not actually, or learning is not the right fit for the problem that they’re trying to solve.”

— Deborah carTer, Senior manaGer of oPen clouD acaDemy, rackSPace

“Develop relationships, ask lots of questions, and be patient. Things don’t happen nearly as fast as you think or want them to. Buy-in and adoption of learning and development and continuous learning often require a paradigm shift that takes time to process and understand. Developing relationships with and finding champions in different departments and teams is critical for understanding the business and the business needs. These relationships will also open up lines of communication. The more questions that are asked and discussed, the better understanding you will have about where people are coming from, their concerns, and what they want. Likewise, others will know what you’re trying to accomplish. With mutual understanding you can get more support for initiatives, and you’ll often get it more quickly. Additionally, with a deeper understanding of the business and its needs, you can make a bigger impact by being able to make content and initiatives more relatable and relevant.”

— erin behrenDT, learninG & DeveloPmenT faciliTaTor, air SySTemS, inc.

PANEL RECOMMENDATION 3: Confront Reality with an Objective Analysis of the

Current State

PANEL RECOMMENDATION 4: Build More Internal

Consulting Capabilities


“I say to them, ‘Who have you talked to in the business about the solution? Who have you shown it to? Who have you gotten feedback from?’ That type of engagement has been a real differentiator for us because number one, people really appreciate to be involved and number two, the products are better. You can’t involve everyone, but if you involve a representative sample of folks it pays dividends. And then the last thing I would say, and again this may sound a little counter-intuitive given the fact that many organizations that try to scale try to scale for only the reason to lower their costs, but I think that the planning and the ability of the organization to deliver high-touch solutions is a real differentiator because the ability to touch the workforce makes them want to come back for more. And that’s another quote I use with my team a lot, ‘How do we leave people wanting to come back for more?’”


PANEL RECOMMENDATION 5: Build More Business Acumen Across the

L&D Team


From November 28, 2016 to January 13, 2017, a survey link was distributed via e-mail to questionnaire to opt-in members of HCI’s Survey Panel and electronic mailings. Oxygen’s staff distributed the same link to their customer database of L&D and talent management professionals.

To generate a 360-degree view of the L&D function, separate questions were asked of both L&D providers and customers/clients of L&D services (i.e., business leaders, line managers, and individual contributors). There was overlap between the two questionnaires, but the L&D and HR professionals’ survey was longer in length.

In total, we received 240 completed responses with 201 of those being L&D providers. Only 39 L&D customers completed the survey. The providers’ data was the focus of this report, but for a few questions we had exploratory analysis between the provider and customers groups.

In addition, to the survey data we interviewed nine subject-matter experts on this topic, including:

Erin Behrendt, Learning & Development Facilitator, Air Systems, Inc.

Nancy Carlston, Manager, Leadership Development, The MITRE Institute

Deborah Carter, Senior Manager of Open Cloud Academy, Rackspace

Carolyn Cullen, Learning & Development Manager at University of Virginia, Center for Leadership Excellence

David J. DeFilippo, Ed.D., Chief Learning Officer, Suffolk Construction

Stacey Gardner, Senior Learning and Development Specialist, Microsoft

Barry Shields, Sr. Manager Leadership and Team Intelligence, Cisco

Taryn Stejskal, Ph.D., Director, Global Senior Leadership Development & Assessment, Cigna

Tracy Tibedo, Director of Global Sales Training, Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry Division, Thermo Fisher Scientific

To supplement these methods, researchers reviewed relevant information from a variety of secondary sources, including academic journal articles, white papers, articles, books, blogs, and case studies. The results of the questionnaire, subject-matter expert interviews, and secondary sources form the basis of this research.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH


1. CIPD. (2015). Learning and Development 2015. Retrieved from https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/development/surveys

2. Oxygen, LLC (referred to as “Oxygen” throughout the report).

3. Bersin, J. (2016) Using Design-thinking to Embed Learning in Our Jobs. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/07/using-design-thinking-to-embed-learning-in-our-jobs

4. Filipkowski, J. (2015). Learning Unbound: Agile Employee Development. Human Capital Institute. Retrieved from http://www.hci.org/hr-research/learning-unbound-agile-employee-development

5. Bennett, N., & Lemoine, G.J. (2014). What VUCA Really Means for You. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you

6. Filipkowski, J. (2016). HR’s Role in Change Management. Human Capital Institute. Retrieved from http://www.hci.org/hr-research/hrs-role-change-management

7. For example, onboarding, ongoing development, assessment, and front-line manager enablement.

8. Only 27 L&D providers indicated that their L&D function reported to business leaders. The small sample size for this result reflects a trend in our data and not necessarily the population at large.

ENDNOTES

https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/development/surveys

https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/development/surveys

https://hbr.org/2016/07/using-design-thinking-to-embed-learning-in-our-jobs

https://hbr.org/2016/07/using-design-thinking-to-embed-learning-in-our-jobs

http://www.hci.org/hr-research/learning-unbound-agile-employee-development

http://www.hci.org/hr-research/learning-unbound-agile-employee-development

https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you

https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you

http://www.hci.org/hr-research/hrs-role-change-management

http://www.hci.org/hr-research/hrs-role-change-management


This survey had 240 completed responses, including 201 L&D providers and 39 customers of L&D services.

Number of Employees in Respondents’ Organizations.

Respondents’ Industries.

Industry Total

Financial Services/Real Estate/Insurance 14%

Business/Professional Services 12%

Manufacturing 12%

IT Hardware/Software 7%

Government 7%

Chemicals/Energy/Utilities 6%

Health care 6%

Education 5%

Non-Profit 5%

Retail 5%

Higher-Education 4%

Construction 3%

Media & Entertainment/Travel/Leisure 3%

Bio/Pharmaceuticals/Life Sciences 3%

Transportation/Warehousing 3%

Aerospace & Defense 2%

Healthcare 1%

Telecommunications 1%

Travel 1%

DEMOGRAPHICS

Number of Employees Total L&D Provider L&D Customer

Under 100 12% 14% 5%

> 100 and less than or equal to 1,000 31% 32% 28%

> 1,000 and less than or equal to 5,000 27% 26% 31%



> 50,000 8% 7% 13%

TABLE 2

TABLE 3


Respondents’ Location.

Total L&D Provider L&D Customer North America 74% 74% 72% Asia 10% 11% 5% Middle East/Africa 6% 5% 10% Western Europe 4% 3% 5% Oceania 3% 4% 0% Latin America 2% 1% 5% Eastern Europe 1% 1% 0% South America 0% 0% 3%

Respondents’ Seniority Level.

Total L&D Provider L&D Customer

C-level 10% 9% 13% VP-level 12% 12% 10% Director-level 25% 26% 23% Manager-level 37% 37% 36% Individual contributor 12% 11% 15% Independent consultant 5% 5% 3%

Respondent Seniority Level.

Functional Area Total L&D Provider L&D Customer

Learning and Development 50% 57% 15%Human Resources 17% 15% 26%Talent Management 13% 13% 15%Executive Management 5% 3% 13%Professional Coach Practitioner 3% 3% 0%

Sales 2% 2% 3%Workforce Planning 2% 2% 0%Business Unit/Product 1% 0% 5%Operations 1% 1% 3%Recruiting 1% 0% 5%Finance/legal/HR 1% 0% 5%HR Analytics 1% 1% 0%Line Manager 1% 0% 3%Marketing 1% 0% 5%Compensation and Benefits 0% 0% 3%

TABLE 5

TABLE 6

TABLE 4


Providers’ Client Group.

Client Group L&D Provider Business Unit/Product 19% Finance/legal/HR 18% Marketing 12% Operations 21% Sales 13% Technology 14% Unsure/Not applicable 2%

HIGH-PERFORMING ORGANIZATIONS VERSUS LOW-PERFORMING ORGANIZATIONS COMPOSITE

To better understand what L&D solutions work well or not, we used self-report data from the questionnaire to create a composite of high-performing organizations versus low-performing organizations. Respondents’ organizations who scored 4 or 5 on these items in Figure 13 were placed in the high-performing group (HPO, n = 139) compared to those with a 3 or below who were placed in the low-performing group (LPO, n = 55).

Mean Score for the Three Items in the Survey Composite.

We measure high employee engagement across the

organization.3.42

3.18

2.84

We have low rates of high-performer turnover.

We have a strong talent pipeline for business critical positions.

0 1 2 3 4 5

L&D Providers

FIGURE 13

TABLE 7


Oxygen designs and delivers enablement solutions linking business strategies to business outcomes. Our results-driven approach creates workflows that align with your CEO’s agenda for sustainability and growth.

Through our learning-based approach, we improve your team’s mindset, helping you move as one toward better business practices. We’re passionate about learning and continuous self-improvement, measuring progress at every stage and altitude.

We accomplish this by implementing frameworks, systems, and a host of tools on a variety of platforms that disrupt, provoke, and question. We work with you and your team to create performance breakthroughs; the kind that change employees, companies, and bottom lines. Learn more at www.oxygenexp.com.

We believe that strategic talent management is the only long-term, sustainable competitive advantage left today, and that most organizations around the world are struggling in this critical area. At our best, we change both paradigms and practices, and enable executives to make better, faster decisions than they could on their own.

HCI seeks to educate, empower, and validate strategic talent management professionals to impact business results through the acquisition of insights, skills and tools that are contextualized through research, practice, expert guidance, peer learning, and self-discovery. Visit HCI.org to learn more.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH PARTNERS

http://www.oxygenexp.com

http://www.hci.org/

Copyright © 2017 Human Capital Institute. All rights reserved.

Publication date: April 20, 2017 v.2

1130 Main Street | Cincinnati, OH 45202Facebook “f ” Logo CMYK / .eps Facebook “f ” Logo CMYK / .eps

https://www.linkedin.com/company/human-capital-institute-hci

https://twitter.com/Human_Capital?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

https://www.facebook.com/humancapital/

Documents

Modernizing Learning and Development to Enable the ...€¦ · SIGNATURE SERIES | MODERNIZING LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT TO ENABLE THE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE | 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY