Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire CIPD branch ran an event in March discussing the future of learning and development. Due to a bereavement in the family I was unable to attend and requested the slides from the facilitator.

Now I’ve had the opportunity to look and review the information contained, it appears that some of the facts were taken from the joint research report published in April 2016 by Towards Maturity and the CIPD, In-Focus: Preparing for the Future of Learning.

The facilitator asked the below questions:

How are L&D Integrating learning and work?

How well do L&D understand their customers?

The presentation explains L&D understand the end customer very well, internal customers quite well. As a whole L&D understands the department better than the learners and this is improving as HR is embedded into business.

Are L&D thinking digitally?

There were 19 attendees at this event and the majority thought so,  Yes – 9, Maybe – 4 & No – 6. It appears there is a diverse level of digital input at organisations and there were a wide range of thoughts on this subject;

• Online learning for high volume needs designed for different levels,
• All moving to digital with resources and internal content all online,
• Full suite of blending learning– elearning, virtual reality, webinars & podcasts,
• Very limited tech in the business,
• Currently introducing LMS,
• Too dependent on users,
• Tick box exercise, not interactive.

Are L&D ready for change?

My mentor attended this event and has informed me;

“It was interesting to see where other organisations are in terms of L&D. Level 3 & 4 evaluation is seen as  a key driver for businesses when it comes to managing budgets and questioning spend – is it fit for purpose.

Discussion topics included;

• the drop in popularity of eLearning,
• the increased popularity of Virtual-room training,
• how mobile phone will feature as a main learning/training tool.”

As I missed the interaction from the group it would be great to know your thoughts and see what you think the future holds for L&D. Please leave a comment or contact me directly;