I was reading an article recently by Jeanne Meister discussing trends in corporate learning. She tracks trends in learning at different private and public corporations and institutions. I am always trying to find out more information about learning and trends in the corporate sector, which is how I ran across her article.
The article was very insightful and matched what I have seen with the companies that I’ve done training for over the past year. She narrowed down the learning trends to focus on five main features of learning for the upcoming decade: social, mobile, collaborative, engaging, and fun.
One of the statements that really made me stop and think was, “Employee engagement will continue to be a top issue on the dashboard for HR and Learning executives. The reason is simple: according to a survey conducted by the Corporate Executive Board, (CEB), companies with highly engaged employees demonstrate a 3-year revenue growth of 20.1%, compared to the 8.9% their industry peers will average.” Coming from a training background, I realized that training is one of the keys to keeping employees engaged. If employees feel abandoned, or left to fend for themselves to learn, they may lose interest and move on to a corporation that provides that learning environment.
In order to attract and retain the top talent that can help a corporation stay competitive, corporations need to promote a culture that engages its employees, encourages them to collaborate and learn from others, and has fun in the process. I believe that corporate training can be a key to creating that culture. If corporations do not stay on the cutting edge with their corporate learning programs they may not be economically viable.
One of the other points that Meister made in her article also seemed to hit the nail on the head. She stated that the group style learning model is slowly fading. From my experience, I am doing more one-on-one training in the past couple of years versus previous years. Many of my clients have told me that they do not have time to go to a regular class but need the customized, individual training at their desk or home.
I’m so grateful that Versitas provides the option for me to do all different kinds of training to meet the changing needs of our clients. We are also pretty good at incorporating another of the five trends into our classes…FUN!
