In the near future, companies will be spending more on their L&D departments than ever before. Their goal? Becoming more agile. In 2017 alone, global spending for L&D and training reached $362 billion.
Due to rapidly changing technologies, markets, industries, workforces, communications, employees’ skills acquisition, etc., L&D departments no longer have a choice in whether they want to become more agile. They’re naturally becoming more agile and learning how to adapt, or they become extinct.
Here are some of the most noticeable ways organizations’ L&D departments are becoming more agile.
1. Mobile Learning Outlets
As more employees own mobile devices and smartphones and bring them to work, more organizations are adopting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategies and policies. And L&D departments are capitalizing on those strategies and policies to bring on-demand learning content to the fingertips of their employees at all hours of the day.
Many L&D departments are beginning to rely on mobile apps and optimized platforms to distribute, evaluate, and analyze their learning content. They’re learning to adapt their L&D strategies and content to the behaviors and needs of their on-the-go employees.
2. Peer-Supported and Social Learning Opportunities
According to research highlighted in Harvard Business Review, a majority of the $70 billion spent in the United States on training expenditures each year is now going to peer learning platforms.
On such platforms, employees can share comments and notes with one another, as well as engage in video chats and real-time messaging. These platforms offer a more agile way for employees to communicate and learn from one another as they’re completing everyday work tasks and while they’re engaging with more formal learning content and courses.
3. Automated Learning Tools and Systems
Learning management systems can now predict what type of content learners want to engage with and when they’ll want to engage with it. And they can be programmed to automatically share such personalized learning content with each learner.
Such tools allow learners’ experiences to be more personalized and customized, making them more agile and relevant, especially when the learning content and experiences are tightly connected to an organization’s goals.
4. Continuous Learning Opportunities
Because everything in every industry changes so rapidly nowadays due to technological advancements, organizations must continually upskill their current employees to remain agile and competitive, instead of spending a lot of money hiring talent that will soon be obsolete, or risk losing their current workforce.
Such mobile and automated technologies as those mentioned above have made continuous learning possible, and agile L&D departments realize this and utilize such technologies. Employees are beginning to demand continuous learning opportunities at work, and so are entire industries, because they’re becoming more and more necessary for everyone’s success.
Now, the only way for your L&D department to remain truly agile is for it to develop and implement continuous learning opportunities for its organization’s employees.
As you’re currently revamping or looking to improve your L&D programs, keep in mind all the ways you can and should remain agile, too.