Respected learning and development academic Martyn Sloman, has claimed that L&D professionals need a “new mindset” to develop more learner-centric training solutions over the next decade. Mr Sloman suggests this will ensure employees are focused on learning the more specialised skills they will need to be effective at increasingly technical jobs.
Sloman, whose new e-book L&D2020: A Guide for the Next Decade will be published in September, made the comments in a speech to L&D professionals at learning technology supplier e2train’s user group meeting, held recently at Claridge’s Hotel in London.
According to Sloman the next 10 years will see a shift in balance of the learning and development professional’s skill set towards greater business understanding, change management, organisation development and use of new technologies.
Quoted in TJ Online, Mr Sloman continued: “At the most basic level, learning and development builds organisational benefits by enabling them to offer higher value products and services,” he said. “The challenge is how to do it in practice in the context of the organisation. Hence the profession needs both a new mindset and a new skill set which is designed to meet individual rather than collective needs.”
e2train business and development director Martin Belton backed Sloman’s comments. He said: “The more widely learning is available through free channels such as YouTube, the greater the need for learning professionals to understand and identify what isn’t available but still critical.”
He said that inevitably meant there would need to be a greater focus on individual learner demands.
“We are also seeing a move toward learning professionals adopting ‘guerrilla’ corporate learning tactics. That means using local intelligence to deliver tailored learning where it will have the greatest effect rather than just creating all encompassing learning programmes designed around meeting blanket learning objectives,” he concluded.
