A New Training Paradigm: Learning as a Platform

The world is becoming digital, and digital is changing the world. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than within the workforce. Digital technologies allow businesses to become more agile, and agile organizations require adaptable workers. At the same time, new talent increasingly wants more flexibility and dynamism in their career development.

With the average tenure in a job being 4.5 years, and the half-life of a learned skill being only 5 years, linear career paths and functional silos are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of companies and workers in the digital age. In order to be effective, the modern work experience must deliver continuous, always-on learning and development.
Rather than helping employees to progressively climb the ladder, it’s about helping them to continually evolve and amass a “constellation” of capabilities and experiences that are woven together by the meaning and story given to them by the individual. Amid these forces, the learning function can’t remain the same.
Companies and their learning departments have not traditionally been set up to provide a seamless, interactive, and iterative learning experience. It’s time to recast the role of the learning organization to support an agile, digital business. At its core, this implies embedding learning more deeply into the DNA of the organization.

Learning as a Platform

Corporate learning is in the midst of a sea change. Companies and employees are searching for something that is dramatically different from the status quo. On the one hand, people want their learning experiences on the job to match or exceed those they enjoy as consumers outside of work. They want digital experiences that mesh seamlessly into the work they do, the technology they use, and their human interactions. And, they want these learning experiences to be useful in expanding an ever-evolving constellation of capabilities and accomplishments.
This constellation represents their careers and it is “the stuff” of which résumés are made. On the other hand, companies need better performance, capability, and speed from their talent. Organizations and workforces are changing in ways that can seem uncertain and complex. Everything is digital, markets keep getting disrupted, and the competition just keeps coming.
The corporate learning function is under pressure to deliver more capable, more engaged talent, faster. How can chief learning officers (CLOs), together with senior executives across the business, meet these escalating expectations?
In our view, the answer is not better training programs. It’s a complete transformation of the role of learning. Simply put: the answer is creating a new kind of learning platform to deliver real value to people and to the business. And by “platform” we don’t mean a technology platform—though the new breed of learner experience and other solutions certainly contribute. We mean a “platform” that comprises an entire ecosystem.
This ecosystem is made up of strategies, processes, and tools that integrate so seamlessly into the business that the learning function itself becomes invisible—not because it is less relevant but because it has become interwoven into the fabric of the organization. And, from this new “undercover” vantage point, the learning function is empowered to deliver more value than ever.
In part two of this article series, we’ll uncover more about this new training paradigm and discuss the three dynamics of learning as a platform.
Learn how to incorporate new L&D trends and techniques into your employees’ career constellations by joining Terry Patterson—of Deloitte Consulting LLP—at Workforce L&D, November 15-16, 2018. Patterson will be presenting the session: L&D Game Changers: VR, Microlearning & Other Learning Technologies Have Shaken Training to Its Core—Now What?. Click here to learn more, or to reserve your spot today!

The article originally appeared on the Deloitte blog, here, and was compiled by the following authors: Michael Griffiths, Principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, mgriffiths@deloitte.com. Josh Haims, Principal of Deloitte Consulting LLP, jhaims@deloitte.com. Terry Patterson, Senior Manager at Deloitte Consulting LLP, tepatterson@deloitte.com. Lindsey Straka West, Manager at Deloitte Consulting LLP, linwest@deloitte.com. Meriya Dyble, Director of Learning Reimagined at ATB Financial, mdyble@atb.com. Debbie Blakeman, Vice President of People & Culture at ATB Financial, dblakeman@atb.com.