The need and relevance of human capital transformation at the workplace is more relevant than ever now – with pressures of rapidly evolving technology. We now live in a the VUCA world (vitality, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). In this scenario, there is a definite premium on ensuring employees have the skills and knowledge to leverage evolving technology, They should be able to navigate through these times of ambiguity and uncertainty and be prepared to manage higher level of complexity while driving their performance. Learning and talent development play an important role in enabling and building new capabilities within organizations to meet these challenges and thrive in the VUCA world. According to Human Capital Trends research by Deloitte, Learning has to be a part of the Modern Workplace – integrated into the core ‘organizational ecosystem’. Training and Learning cannot be viewed as a one-time event in the yearly calendar – planning and preparing for it make organizations stronger and human capital rich.
The times are exciting for Training and Learning – and to start-off the year on an exhilarating note, we talked to Infopro Learning President, Sriraj Mallick on his perspective of how technology-led workplace training and learning is shaping up.
“To start with, let’s talk about the Learning Technologies Event 2020 that you attended last month. What are the top three trends that caught your eye in event this year?”
Learning Experience is something that is being talked about a lot this year. It is evident that innovative learning experiences impact engagement of the learner – with content as well as technology platforms. It was interesting to see a lot of innovative learning solutions being highlighted, delivering heightened learning experience for modern workplace learners. Business simulations, video-based learning content, short information nuggets, interactive job aids – solutions which are very similar to what we have been doing for our clients.
Another interesting trend that is gaining attention is Content curation. Utilizing existing internal as well as external content sources is the answer to the growing need for relevant learning content for workplace training. Content curation not only fills up the gap for relevant learning content but helps create learning journeys that empower employees to learn better as well as perform better.
The growing need for Learning Technologies to align to the needs of modern organizations becomes more and more evident. Most organizations that have implemented an enterprise LMS are not really satisfied with features of their legacy systems. Organizations are looking for a unified learning experience platform, that can give them a Netflix-like interface and act as a singular source of all content consumption. Modern learning platforms must have the capability to deliver personalized and adaptive learning. Features like AI-enabled recommendation engine or a learning coach is not a ‘good-to-have’ capability in your Learning Platform but a ‘must have’ now.
“What has been, according to you, the greatest achievement of L&D in recent years?”
Learning must be accountable. Training has to tie-in with business benefits, for it to be sustainable. The benefits of corporate training are undeniable but corporate leaders are now more focused on the business impact of L&D as well. Whatever be the organizational business goal, measuring the impact of learning initiatives on that business goal is imperative. The move to have intelligent analytics and metrics around learning impact is something that has been coming up for the last few years. And, that I believe, is the greatest achievement within the learning industry – L&D is becoming accountable for bringing in business benefits. At Infopro Learning we start our engagement with an “outcomes contract” which essentially is our way of capturing measurable business impact that we would like to achieve as a result of this learning program.
“Training is a reality for a successful organization. There are a lot of players in the industry, catering to the needs of workplace learning. What would be a differentiating value that organizations are looking for?”
I think L&D should drive the learning ecosystem just like organizations drive their commercial ecosystems. The way that organizations drive customer experience, L&D team should drive employee experience ecosystems. And this experience must change and align with the different stages that the employee goes through during his or her tenure within the organization. L&D is accountable for improving employee experience and empowering them during their entire work-cycle. An organization that helps L&D teams deliver sustained employee experience through training & other talent development and management tools is a clear winner within the industry.
At Infopro Learning we are building this ecosystem which combines learning and talent development together. We are providing our customers with training content, learning services and talent development platforms and connecting all of them seamlessly to align with an employee’s journey within an organization right from recruitment, onboarding to performance management, competency assessment to training, feedback management, coaching, support and offboarding
Watch this space for updates!
“Let’s talk about something that’s always at the top-of-mind for every organization when implementing a technology-led learning solution – Return-on-Investments of Learning. How does an organization derive the true ROI of Learning?”
While calculating the ROI of training, we must understand training cost is not just one cost. We must consider time of people associated with training, at every level – learners, managers and stakeholders. If training is not done right, learning cannot be applied to action or knowledge cannot be transferred to job efficiency – that’s a big cost to consider.
We believe that providing ROI of training is part of our deliverables for our Clients. Infopro Learning is the only organization that has an ‘Outcomes Contract’ drawn up to assess and align with business goals. We start every learning program by looking at the business goals and answering the basic question – What are the business benefits that will be achieved from this program? Is the training program improving sales, customer service or the net promoter score? Is the program enhancing safety and security of employees? Or is it reducing the time to proficiency?
With the outcomes in mind, we have demonstrated 30% to 60% cost efficiencies by delivering the right training content aligned as per different job-roles and responsibilities, so that learners do not spend unnecessary time going through parts of a training that might not be relevant to their roles at all! For our Sales Training solutions, we have demonstrated 6% to 18% uplift in sales conversions and an account growth of 12% to 15%. For a recent training solution created to train end-customers on a new software, the learners were able to gain proficiency on the software within 40% reduced timelines.
This is our view to achieve true ROI of Training – something that has a measurable, positive business impact.
“Lastly, what’s your vision for the next decade – where do you think we will be in the L&D space by 2030?”
I firmly believe that workplace learning and development in the next decade will be more and more business aligned. And Infopro Learning’s vision is exactly that – We aspire to create Learning Solutions designed to deliver measurable business impact or outcome.
We are on the track to be a full-service learning ecosystem provider – right from creating the appropriate learning strategy to the design, development and implementation of a learning solution. We are geared up to provide a unified learning experience – from content services to learning platform, that creates a sustainable Learning Ecosystem for forward-thinking organizations.
