Management of time, as a resource, is an important determinant of business and corporate success. Customer satisfaction today is greatly influenced by a service or product offering that saves time. Anything that is cumbersome or time-consuming draws the typical reaction of: “Oh, come on! This is going to take a lot of time and effort. Who has the patience to wait for so long?”
Organizations such as Google, Amazon, Skype, and Flipkart are among the most valued organizations in the world due to the fact that they have been able to positively affect the factor of turn-around time achieved through quick results or responses. Google provides tremendous value through its ultra-fast search engine. Amazon and Flipkart create customer value around fast shipment of products. And Skype enables real-time communication at low cost. The consumer experiences are excellent, primarily due to the quick turnaround and objective value offering.
Along the same lines, learners’ expectations also are changing and there is a need to provide answers through timely learning experiences. The futurethink Innovation Research Institute, an innovation research and training firm, notes in its whitepaper on “Future of Learning and Development”:
“We have four generations at work, so we need to take a blended learning approach—one size doesn’t fit all anymore. Older groups still prefer the facilitated classroom sessions, while younger groups prefer online learning. However, the one thing that transcends all groups is that they are strapped for time and resources—so learning delivered in more focused and shorter bursts is key” (http://www.trainingindustry.com/media/2462010/futurethink.pdf).
“What is in it for me in the short run?” is a frequent question from a learner’s viewpoint.
L&D Solutions: Combination of Psychology and Technology
Business processes are in the spotlight for their flexibility to produce quick results. The Learning and Development modus operandi is also under examination, and this augurs well for the entire community. “Necessity is the mother of invention” is an old adage. With corporate mindsets changing, it has become imperative for the Learning and Development industry to go back to the drawing board and reinvent the rules of the game. In a nutshell, it is the combination of psychology from a learner’s viewpoint and technology that will define the next set of solutions. Psychology has posed questions, and technology will play a pivotal role in providing the solution.
Here’s a quick look at a few relevant solutions:
- Create learning nuggets. It increasingly is being perceived that people learn best in small chunks. From a cognitive viewpoint, this also implies easy recall and assimilation.
- Formulate a learning journey instead of a learning event. The continuous connection through a journey helps in implementation.
- Encourage learning through social media platforms. Do not be discouraged by the initial inertia. To this extent, take baby steps to motivate a collective push in terms of creation of a learning culture with access to social media that can be deployed for learning value.
- Provide real-time interventions and solutions against needs expressed. Need may be expressed by an individual or team. Delayed gratification has no meaning. It has to be done on a “here and now” basis. Social media can be an enabler in providing instant responses.
- Develop sessions conducted over technology-enabled and social media platforms. These offer tremendous collaborative value as they can influence the outreach and interfacings among large number of participants in one shot.
- Provide business value through clear understanding of needs and demonstrating results through dashboards.
- Explain the impact to the stakeholder at all stages of the learning journey. It is prudent to relate the impact discussion to the prior commitments made. This will enhance the learning consultant’s credibility and image in the eyes of the stakeholder.
The entire community must be energized to create noise in the ecosystem through action. The Learning and Development industry needs to metamorphose into an agile and pro-active outfit that is focused on the needs of the business and provides timely, objective value.
Gautam Gupta is associate vice president of Strategic Leadership Development at Wipro Ltd. (BPS Business Unit) in Mumbai, India.
