Reduce costs & increase the ROI of learning with modularization

• 3 min read

learning with modularizationLet’s start this post by examining learning and development. It’s a fact that employees want to develop and managers want to develop them too, and that managers also want to retain employees. The issue we are seeing however is that sometimes employees don’t know what to do and often when it comes to training, employees don’t know how to apply what they’ve learned.

How does an employee apply what s/he has learned?  

People spend a lot of money on development – L&D budgets are up 15%, and employees receive more development than ever before. US corporations alone are spending $60 billion+ (2012 stats) on training. Logically all that T&D means the US should have the most talented and capable workforce – but is that what we’re seeing? Are we getting the most out of those training dollars?

Data shows that there are big returns if development is done well. Numbers suggest that when companies focus on development they see real business results. For example, recently the VP of HR at Stanford Health added development through their performance review processes and saw significant results. The outcome, depending on the business unit, was that the key business metric “patient satisfaction” improved by 50-80%.

So we’ve established that there are big returns if L&D is done well, but what about if it is overlooked completely? The costs of not fixing the skills gap is huge – we see a loss of revenue, loss of business to competitors, eroding customer satisfaction, delays in product development. Companies cannot afford to face the elephant in the room!

Jack Welch, the Former Chairman & CEO of GE sums it up well: “An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

How does training differ from development?

It’s important to understand the difference between training and development. Training is focused on employees being proficient in his or her current job, whereas development is focused on building for future career goals. This difference impacts who makes the decision, what training the employee receives, when training takes place, and where it takes place since companies push training whilst employees pull development. Alignment on this is critical! Alignment with business strategy needs to be communicated clearly with the learner, and the learner must see how developing will lead to an increased performance.

To be effective, development needs to be self-paced and learner focused, just in time, on learner’s own schedules, and just the right amount. Learners must be able to access the information when they need it (just in time) and complete it at their own pace, and choose the development that meets their needs. When these conditions are met learners are more engaged and take ownership of their learning. The results? More learning gets done and there’s greater retention (and application of that learning).

This is the benefit of technologies today –learning management systems for example allow learners the flexibility of accessing content at their fingertips when they are ready and in “chunks” (see below) on whichever devices they’re using (and wherever they’re using them). With the adoption of elearning using such technologies, companies experience a 21% cost savings, a 27% savings in study time, and a 32% faster training implementation time.

How can we apply that to learning?

By making it “bite sized” and modular – this means that long courses need to be broken up into distinct, independent and high value experiences. Nowadays business leaders are demanding modularization where development is focused on a specific need thus avoiding wasted time or energy on issues that are not a priority.

When it comes to personal development learners are demanding choice and a high level of employee engagement is the most important factor in creating a sustained change in behavior. A powerful way to do that is by making the journey unique to that individual (personalization) and doing so increases the value of the experience by making it more relevant and useful to the learner. The organization saves money by not wasting it on experiences they don’t need.

Ultimately, modularization of learning will reduce costs and increase the return on investment.

These points and more were covered in a recent Docebo webinar on the ROI of L&D, to view the webinar contact us for a link!

I will also be writing more about this topic in coming weeks so look out for future posts!