Learning Conversations

I don't normally write directly about the company I work for (Capita Learning & Development). I value my independence too much for that.

But, there are times when we put out stuff that's worth talking about. Today's a case in point.

We've just published a research report (embedded below), based on the opinions of senior decision makers among the UK’s largest 500 firms.

Here are some of the findings.

• The majority (70%) of business leaders fear that inadequate staff skills are the greatest threat to their ability to capitalise on the recovery.
• More than two thirds of business leaders admit that their under-trained workforce is struggling to cope with expanded job remits following waves of job cuts during recession.
• ... as the economy moves out of the downturn, two fifths (40%) of leaders estimate that at least half of employee skills risk becoming obsolete.
• Over a third of leaders (36%) lack confidence that their employees have the skills required to deliver the firm’s upturn strategy, with close to half (46%) casting doubt on their L&D department’s ability to provide these learning services.
• Over half (55%) claim that their firm is failing to deliver the necessary training for recovery.
• Around half fear for their company’s ability to respond to surges in demand (51%), retrain and redeploy people where required (47%) and identify where current skills are becoming obsolete (49%).
• More than two thirds (67%) of business leaders are concerned their employees are struggling to cope with expanded remits following job cuts.
• More than half (52%) describe their L&D function as slow to respond to the changing requirements of their business during economic turbulence.
• As strategic objectives have evolved, close to half (46%) of senior managers report no significant change in the training delivery to their workforce. Going forward, almost as many (43%) expect no significant change to L&D delivery over the next 2-3 years.
• The vast majority (82%) of leaders lack confidence that their firm’s L&D strategy and delivery are aligned to the company’s operational strategy.
• Half (50%) believe that their L&D function is stuck in a ‘business as usual’ mindset.

You could argue that this data is simply designed to point people towards Capita Learning and Development. That might be partially true. Even so, it's quite clear that L&D in general really isn't hitting the spot where businesses are concerned.

Perhaps that might be because we still have the mind-set that "learning" is a commodity that we deliver. We provide training to meet perceived training needs. Every performance problem is seen as solved by a training intervention.

Perhaps L&D needs to rebrand - towards performance consulting... Often performance problems are more around culture, systems, processes and communication. Solve those, and you won't need to provide training in a lot of cases.

Is there still a place, in today's complex and rapidly changing market, for a learning and development function that just sees itself as a provider of training?

Learning to Change: executive summary