Uber and Airbnb are the two fastest growing companies on the globe. They represent the best in disruption, innovation, lean operating model; using the technology available to hyper-connect our world with a mobile click. The concept of these two companies is to combine smart-phone connectivity with huge real-time data on supply and demand.
What happens if we apply this exciting concept to today’s demands in L&D . . .
- Deliver customised, just-in-time, easily accessible learning interventions and support on a continuous basis.
- Assess and prepare the organisation for skills needed in a complex and volatile global environment influenced by the focus of social, mobile, analytics and cloud
- Do more with less . . . less time, less resources, less funding.
- Become part of leadership to build an agile and continuous learning organisation
- Enable our networks to do the work
- Think like our Millenials and Generation Z’s, curious, exploratory, and possessed of a growth market.
- Deliver learning interventions that are relevant to the workplace and customised to it.
This landscape is scary, but exciting. None of these things will happen in L&D if we continue to sit in our comfortable offices designing courses, managing training calendars, ticking the boxes for training days used, indulging in continuous TNA’s. Results and returns on investment in training are continuing to disillusion business leaders. They agree training is needed, but where is the value?
L&D practitioners need to look at business performance and their role in enhancing this in the most productive way and technology is providing us with a way to redefine workplace learning and our role in the greater scheme of things. The four points below are key areas in which we can optimise technology to make our training as effective as we want it to be.
With the Urber model there are some things we can do to “uberise” learning and development.
- Take a mobile approach : Just as a ride is just a tap away on the Urber mobile app, making learning just as accessible and instant. People today are increasingly dependent on their mobile devices. Learning will be no exception as opportunities become more available. L&D needs to change its focus from designing one-size fits all courses to consulting to individual learners, their managers and HR, and make learning impacts available on the mobile devices of their choice. Today’s team members want the freedom to pick and choose what they want to learn, where and when.
- Make learning customised to the learners’ comfort zone : Create learning experiences that relate to the organisation and the actual environment where the learning will be implemented. Young people today lose interest in a talking head video of a person on the other side of the world and would much prefer an interactive experience with an environment they are familiar with. Make your learning exciting, use gamification principles that involve and challenge the learner. Today’s learners want pro-active, not passive learning.
- Build a Culture of Feedback : Uber relies heavily on the ratings provided by users as well as the drivers. This ensures that the standard is maintained more effectively than any policing or management could do. L&D can do this using the rating of the learners’ experience, and of the engagement of the learners. A culture of feedback encourages transparency, highlights inefficiencies, and helps make improvements in ongoing processes. Today’s users are comfortable in giving their feedback about all manner of things from products to services and they will support the intention to make things better.
- Be Determined : To uberise your L&D service must come with a service-mindset. It is a revolution opening up a new way of engaging with learners. It requires a learning eco system.
The world of L&D has dramatically changed and there is a call to action for us to meet this change. We can no longer continue to design courses in isolation for skills that are becoming redundant; it’s time to embrace a new set of skills in ourselves as well as the workforce.