THE LPI RESEARCH COMPANION · HR Realities 2017-18 - Fosway Group L&D Where are we now? 2017-18 Learning Benchmark Report - Towards Maturity As a learning professional, if something

The LPI Research CompanionIssue No. 8 - December 2017

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THE LPI RESEARCH COMPANION

Guiding you through the maze of L&D research

Issue8


Research, research, research!There are so many organisations issuing research into L&D trends and topics that it can be hard to keep up.

Where do you start? Which reports have the data you’re looking for?

This is where the LPI Research Companion can help, by cutting through the noise and giving you the most relevant highlights and action points from the very best research the L&D industry has to offer.

In this issue we look at the following reports, published recently:

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THE LPI RESEARCHCOMPANION

The 2017 State of Digital Transformation - Altimeter

Learning Technologies: What Managers Really Think - GoodPractice

HR Realities 2017-18 - Fosway Group

L&D Where are we now? 2017-18 Learning Benchmark Report - Towards Maturity

As a learning professional, if something catches your eye we would encourage you to explore these reports more fully.

So let’s delve in...


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Research company Altimeter researched 528 digital transformation strategists and executives leading change within their companies. Respondents were from companies with more than 250 employees and across a variety of industries. They were based in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

This is the third report on digital transformation from Altimeter. Like the previous two it looks at how organisations are investing in digital strategies, what’s working and what’s getting in the way of progress.

So what’s driving digital innovation? According to the research the top five drivers are:

• Evolving customer and employee behaviours and preferences (64.6%)• Increased competitive pressure (54.2%)• Growth opportunities in new markets (46.0%)• Proactive investment to fight disruption (36.9%)• Lack of expertise, literacy and understanding of digital trends (20.3%)

Interestingly for L&D, the number one driver relates to both customer and employee digital preferences. This reflects the impact of consumer technology on employees’ expectations of learning technologies.

Organisations are attempting to address this, with 62% looking to modernise employees’ skill sets for a digital economy with new training programs. However only about half are investing in new digital talent.

More importantly for L&D are the top challenges for digital transformation. The number one factor holding back digital transformation is low digital literacy or expertise among employees and leadership (31.4%).

THE 2017 STATE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Altimeter

About the research

Eye-catching findings

(contd.)


This is followed by transformation being seen as a cost (30.9%) and company culture (30.5%). It is worth noting that lack of staff resources is an issue for 30.1% as are human factors such as politics, egos and fear (23.7%).

These are significant challenges and all of them can be influenced by the L&D team. Indeed, many of the respondents are already doing so through a range of approaches:

• New training programmes to modernise legacy or aging skills sets (62.1%)• Investing in new expertise and job creation (52.8%)• Employee recruitment of desired digital talent (50.85%)• Reverse-mentoring programmes (35.6%)• Creating a culture of empowerment and innovation (29.2%)

The researchers note that companies that are successfully digitally transforming the customer experience are also doing the same for the employee experience.

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What to act on

The fact that low digital literacy or expertise among employees and leadership is the number one challenge when it comes to digital transformation is clearly a big red flag to L&D. This is where learning teams can have a big influence.

The report highlights the types of learning interventions organisations are adopting. It also reveals that organisations that are succeeding at digital transformation are the ones that have created cross-functional teams to explore digital innovation. This enables organisations to try out smaller projects. These teams receive executive support and resourcing too.

If this type of team does not exist in your organisation, then there is the opportunity to make it happen. There is no reason why L&D cannot be the digital catalyst in your organisation.

http://www2.prophet.com/2017-state-digital-transformation

THE 2017 STATE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONAltimeter


This is the third instalment of a trilogy of research reports that explore how managers learn. The research of 521 managers at British companies with more than 500 employees looks at managers’ perceptions of learning technologies. Carried out by GoodPractice, in association with ComRes, the report explores what technologies managers find useful, how accessible they find them and which ones they turn to when facing specific workplace challenges.

This report provides some surprising data that will challenge how you approach managers’ learning.

For starters, managers perceive face to face learning as the most useful form of learning (92%), followed closely by coaching or mentoring (90%). The report authors suggest the reason for this is most likely familiarity with these methods of learning. What is surprising is that 86% of managers say e-learning is useful in helping them do their jobs, making e-learning their most useful learning technology.

Rather alarmingly for a profession looking to embrace digital technologies, only 62% of managers consider virtual classrooms to be useful. Online groups and networks are even less popular (44%). Mobile apps are the least likely to be rated as useful (43%).

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About the research

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES: WHAT MANAGERS REALLY THINK GoodPractice

(contd.)


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GoodPractice also asked managers to rank how useful technologies were for helping them do their jobs. Again, face-to-face training came top with 54% saying it is very useful. This is followed by coaching/mentoring (47%), e-learning (32%)and online groups and networks (22%).

The research shows that face-to-face training is found to be useful for all ages with 89% of managers aged 16-34 finding instructor-led face-to-face training courses useful, rising to 97% in the 55+age group.

However, this story is flipped when it comes to apps, with 65% of younger managers finding mobile apps useful versus 19% of older managers.

The research also provides interesting insights into the usefulness of learning technologies according to seniority, with more senior managers having a far more positive approach to learning technologies than their less senior counterparts.

This data provides a snapshot of how managers perceive learning technologies and what technologies they find useful. If you do not have this kind of information about your managers then this research will provide you with plenty of actionable insights.

The biggest take-away is to fully understand managers and how they perceive learning. It will come as a surprise to many that e-learning is held in such high regard. Knowing that, how would you design and develop learning for managers? More importantly, this research shows just how much work needs to be done to make learning technologies accessible and useful to managers. Remember, these are the people who can hugely influence the learning agenda in your organisation.

What to act on

http://www.goodpractice.com/ld-resources/learning-technologies-what-managers-really-think/

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES: WHAT MANAGERS REALLY THINK GoodPractice




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More than 600 people were surveyed for this piece of research and of those, 66% were from organisations with more than 5,000 employees and 94% of respondents were from the EU. The aim of the research was to understand HR’s view of the future of work.

HR REALITIES 2017-18Fosway Group

About the research


Despite its HR focus, this research has a strong learning and development flavour. When asked to share the most important factors as to why people want to work for their organisations, respondents said the top reason was, employees are always learning new skills. Hold that thought - people want to work in your organisation because they feel they can develop their skills. Other determining factors include when employees have the opportunity to be involved in varied projects and when employees have high levels of autonomy, personal responsibility and risk taking

Although employees want to join organisations to learn new skills, employers say the priority for attracting and retaining talent is the employer brand and being a great place to work. In fact, a company’s approach to personal and professional development is seen as the fifth most important priority for attracting and retaining talent.

In fact, only 41% of respondents report that their approach to personal and professional development is very influential in attracting or retaining talent. Clearly there is work to be done to overcome this mismatch between employees’ desire to learn and employers’ focus on the employer brand and being a great place to work.

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What to act on

Whether your L&D sits inside an HR team or not, this data provides a wake-up call for all organisations. Respondents to this survey know that gaining new skills and providing career progression is critical for potential new recruits. But this has not converted into organisations prioritising personal development as a part of recruiting and retaining talent. That has to change.

It has been said that learning should, could and will be a key differentiator for organisations and this data bears that out. The questions is: what is your organisation going to do to bridge the divide between what employees are looking for and what you provide?

HR REALITIES 2017-18Fosway Group

When asked how advanced their approaches were to their organisation’s employee value proposition, respondents highlighted employer reputation, product innovation and the employer brand as the most advanced approaches. Only 20% said their approach to personal and professional development was advanced. Worse still were approaches to career progression and succession and talent management, both languishing at around 10%.

The report authors make the point that too few organisations are differentiating their employee value propositions around career progression and talent management, despite being important reasons for choosing to work for an organisation.

http://www.fosway.com/research/next-generation-hr/hr-realities-research/


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The Towards Maturity Benchmark is a longitudinal research programme that has been running since 2003. Each year, L&D professionals are invited to take part and self-assess their use of learning technologies and its impact.

This report provides a first look at the data from the 2017-18 benchmark. A total of 702 L&D professionals from 653 organisations took part. The bulk of respondents (56%) were UK based, 17% were from mainland Europe, 12% Australia/New Zealand and 7% US/Canada

L&D WHERE ARE WE NOW? 2017-18 LEARNING BENCHMARK REPORT, NOVEMBER 2017Towards Maturity

About the research


The research provides a useful snapshot of where organisations are at with their learning technologies and how much they invest in them. In those organisations that participated in the 2017–18 Towards Maturity Benchmark Study, just 22% of their training budget is being spent on learning technologies. That said, 69% of organisations indicate that the proportion spent on technology will increase in the next two years.

Despite the hope for more investment, the report authors warn that the increase which two-thirds of the sample have consistently anticipated in each of the last five years has not materialised. The overall proportion of the learning budget spent on technology has stagnated.

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So what technologies are organisations using? Top 5 technologies are:

• E-learning 89%• Learning management systems 89%• Live online learning 89%• Communication tools 79%• Surveys 78%

Mobile devices are sixth (74%) but only 16% of organisations that use mobile devices are using apps to specifically support performance at the point of need.

Benchmark respondents report that cost of set-up, development and maintenance is the number one barrier to implementing new technologies (66%), followed by lack of skills amongst employees to manage their own learning (65%), reluctance by line managers to encourage new ways of learning (58%) and lack of skills amongst L&D staff to implement and manage technology-enabled learning (53%).

Alarmingly, the level of benefits reported as a result of using technology have dropped over the last three years. Benefits related to learning efficiency and those related to business improvement, such as improvements in productivity, have decreased.

The report authors suggest that this may be due to the fact the greatest impact of introducing technology comes early on and then decreases as the technology becomes established and more commonplace. That said, L&D professionals might expect to see sustained improvements in performance over time if the technology was effective.

That said, L&D professionals might expect to see sustained improvements in performance over time if the technology was effective.

They also have increasingly high hopes for what learning technologies can achieve. For example, increasing self-directed learning (83% in 2015 vs 96% in 2017, integrating learning into the workflow (80% in 2015 vs 93%) and driving business innovation (80% vs 92%).

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These hopes for technology are reflected in the types of L&D skills organisations are keen to develop. These include being able to facilitate collaboration (75%), data analytics (70%) and digital content development skills (66%).

What to act on

There is a trend running through Towards Maturity Benchmark research which is that there is a growing chasm between L&D’s aspiration for what learning technologies can achieve and what is actually being achieved.

It is a concern that the level of benefits reported as a result of using learning technologies have dropped and that investment in technology remains a challenge. Working with IT teams to make the case for new learning technologies is now more of a priority than ever.

It looks from the research that improving digital skills in the L&D team and across the organisation could see the biggest impact as a lack of skills amongst employees to manage their own learning, a reluctance by line managers to encourage new ways of learning and lack of skills amongst L&D staff to implement and manage technology-enabled learning are the biggest barriers to success.

This could be the biggest opportunity to making digital learning work - to develop the skills of all employees so that they are comfortable using new tools and can see the value in doing so.

L&D WHERE ARE WE NOW? LEARNING BENCHMARK REPORT, NOVEMBER 2017Towards Maturity

https://towardsmaturity.org/2017/11/27/ld-where-are-we-now/


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These reports highlight a significant issue for L&D: that digital skills need to be developed in most organisations. Only when employees and managers have the skills to use learning technologies will the see the benefit and value. Only then will employees advocate for learning technologies - in effect becoming advocates of the L&D team.

But the work has to start with the L&D team. How can a team advocating the use of learning technologies be seen as credible if they themselves do not have a good understanding of how the technology works and what performance challenges it could overcome?

These reports provide the clarion call for developing digital skills across the business. The problem is that it is a lot easier to talk and strategise about digital than to do it. But doing it is exactly what L&D teams must focus on, and quickly.

CONCLUSIONS


(C) The Learning & Performance Institute

Learning & Performance InstituteInstitute HouseMercia Business Village, Torwood Close Coventry CV4 8HXUnited KingdomTel: +44 (0) 2476 496210

http://www.thelpi.org

Produced in December 2017

This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by Learning & Performance Institute (LPI) at any time.THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT.

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THE LPI RESEARCH COMPANION · HR Realities 2017-18 - Fosway Group L&D Where are we now? 2017-18 Learning Benchmark Report - Towards Maturity As a learning professional, if something