According to Gartner research, companies are currently spending an average of $1,200 per employee on training per year, and 86% of business leaders think that employee development is critical to driving business outcomes moving forward. And this is no surprise when you consider how quickly L&D is becoming the most innovative department inside any organization.
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As it becomes even more innovative, and critical to a company’s success, here’s what you can expect L&D to look like in the not-so-distant future.
Learning Becomes Even More Automated, Timely, Agile, and Personalized
With the help of technology enabled with artificial intelligence and machine learning, mobile platforms and apps, and cloud-based platforms, L&D departments are becoming even more automated and agile. Learners will have access to tailored “in-the-moment” support and learning experiences and content whenever they want.
And they will be offered even more personalized learning experiences that are customized to their personal career trajectories, interests, and goals—at a moment’s notice.
What’s more, a learner’s experience with various agile and automated platforms will become even more engaging, simple to use, and streamlined.
Learners Will Pull Learning Content on Their Own More Often
Learners have already started to search for their answers online and will continue to do so at greater frequency in the future. If you have the appropriate learning technologies in place, you won’t have to “push” content out to your learners via e-mails, notices, events, handouts, etc.
They will instead be actively pulling learning content from their own devices, apps, and platforms. So, you’ll want to ensure they have access to a variety of learning content that suits their individual needs and interests 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And to keep up with this demand, L&D departments will begin to curate content in even greater frequencies.
Read the following resources for more insight: “How to Optimize Your LMS for Content Curation” and “Best Practices for Curating Content for Your LMS.”
Learning Becomes More Decentralized
Moving forward, more organizations will adopt a culture of learning and will “work to learn” instead of “learn to work.” And this means that L&D professionals will begin to adapt to and own an ecosystem mind-set, which will impact every facet of a business.
Essentially, workplace learning will become a part of everyday work activities and projects and will be easily accessible at any time. It will no longer be simply something that employees go to one location for or do when they get time outside of regular work hours.
Videos Will Dominate Available Learning Content
According to one Cisco study, 80% of all Internet traffic will be video content by 2019. Learners will demand more video content and will expect it to be available.
For more details and insight, read “Why Your Training Materials Must Include Video Content in 2018,” “Embracing Video-Based Learning Content in the Workplace,” and “5 Elements Each of Your L&D Videos Should Have.”
If you want your L&D efforts to be successful in the not-so-distant future, be sure to keep the above information in mind as you develop your L&D strategies, approaches, and plans.