Human Potential
How Impactful is Your Organization’s Learning
“An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage” by Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO
The structure of organizations and jobs are changing as artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation and other digital capabilities are overwhelming the workplace. We can no longer be certain of the jobs we will be doing in the future or the kind of organizations we will be working in. It therefore becomes imperative for employees to constantly learn new skills and develop capabilities that will make them ready for the jobs of the future.
Fortunately, the same technology that is causing this upheaval in the world around us, can be a great enabler in maximizing the impact of learning initiatives. An intelligent learning solution that is flexible and convenient to use, supports interactive and intuitive learning experiences can transform the talent of an organization to be more productive.
Sadly, training in its current form, is most often viewed as an ‘interruption’ to an employee’s work. Enterprises regularly have shiny new courses designed to meet the demand of a business unit that is focused more on content than on competency and is driven primarily by organizational mandates than by motivation. We must remember that learning has no impact unless it translates into successful employee engagement and change in learner behavior which, in turn, furthers an organization’s business objectives.
The need of the hour is therefore to bring learning into the workplace as a continuous process that is convenient, relevant, and appealing enough to inspire employees to be self-motivated lifelong learners.
How can we seamlessly incorporate learning into an organization’s ethos such that it becomes a continuous structured process that is well integrated into the work of an employee? Where leaders are not just ‘sending’ people to get trained but where the organization fosters an environment of continuous learning, inspiring employees to self-initiate their own learning paths.
An Evolving Learning Experience for Maximum Talent Productivity
In business and learning, time is of essence. The success of an organization is determined by the ability of their talent to learn, unlearn, and relearn as business models and technology changes by the minute. Enabling learning at an individual’s own pace, place, and convenience frees the learner from the boundaries of classroom and time while optimizing productivity.
Employees have different learning needs. Some need only information, others need help with understanding. Hands on application of skills work the best for some, while simulations provide the necessary platform for others. Using machine learning and AI capabilities to identify the right mix of these needs to provide appropriate recommendations and tailor a dynamic and personalized path of learning for individuals based on their job roles, existing talent, and skill can make learning a very engaging experience, thus creating maximum learner impact.
It is important to recognize that learning can happen outside the training rooms. Collaborating with peers and interacting with subject matter experts can sometimes be more insightful than presentations. Similarly, it is important to look at a content curation approach that will help leverage the internal enterprise content and best in class external content and channels for more holistic learning. A learning program that offers a choice of different formats, learning mechanisms, and collaborative platforms can maximize learning effectiveness.
Infosys is reputed for its world class training infrastructure in all its locations with the highlight being the Global Education Centre, Mysore where approximately 14,000 employees can be trained. The Education, Training and Assessment team offers over 1500 courses for its employees and has been catering to the evolving learning needs for over 3.5 decades. With this background, Infosys developed the next-gen learning platform imbibing these learning principles and launched it for our employees in April 2018.
We have encapsulated the success of our learning platform and workplace transformation in a new next-gen business transformation solution, Infosys Wingspan, to help enterprises transform their existing talent into the next level of skill and productivity.
While we may put in place a learning strategy that takes into consideration all the above mentioned dimensions, it is important to understand that providing all the features alone will not help them drive their learning agenda. An objective-driven approach is essential to help learners stay focused on their learning goal. Analytics-based insights to assess performance and realign the learning path vis-a-vis the learning trends is something organizations cannot ignore.
Last but not the least, learning should be fun. As the poet Alfred Mercier said, “What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” Features like gamification, challenges, contests, choice of different plug and play modules can drive employees to seek more and more learning in different ways, motivating them to excel in their chosen field of knowledge.
