eLearning - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 25) opment, as it makes learning a go-to enabler in both pre-hire and post-hire talent initiatives. For example, an online learning portal can demonstrate to passive candidates the organization’s commitment to its employees’ professional development. Structured learning programs can get new employees up to speed quickly and help socialize them into the organization. For established employees, software can suggest appropriate development activities based on performance reviews. And succession management programs can benefit by establishing a development culture and improving “bench strength” — both through learning. This has a direct impact on the ability to fill key vacancies internally and strengthen the management pipeline in terms of qualified successors. ALIGNING OBJECTIVES Aberdeen’s Best-in-Class organizations look toward learning and development to align their workforces with business objectives. The most common means to achieve alignment is tying learning programs directly to individual development plans, which allows workers clear line-of-sight into what they need to achieve success. This is especially critical in the retention and development of those employees that the organization deems as “high potential.” Other means for aligning objectives are linking development plans to individual career paths and measuring learning against the organization’s objectives. PROCESS Nearly one-half of Best-in-Class organizations have implemented a well-defined process to identify specific knowledge gaps that can be resolved through learning. This ability is essential for two reasons: to create and/or provide learning that targets these specific gaps; and to create and assign accurate development plans that can then link directly to the learning resources. Though the geographic spread of the enterprise workforce poses numerous barriers, many good organizations make workforce collaboration and sharing a priority. Also, with the pending retirement of seasoned workers, it grows increasingly more important to provide a means for them to share proven knowledge and expertise with younger, high-potential workers. This is an area where Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and communities of practice can play a significant role. In fact, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of Aberdeen’s Best-in-Class organizations plan to use Web 2.0 tools in their learning and development efforts by the end of 2009. ORGANIZATION Today, nearly two-thirds of all organizations offer structured, company-sponsored learning to executives, managers and exempt and staff employees, as well as hourly workers. In many cases, similar learning initiatives are provided to their direct-sales organizations, customers, indirect-sales organizations, partners and vendors. A critical element to the success of integrating learning with employee performance management is defining specific career paths that workers can pursue at all pares the organization for more focused recruiting when no internal candidate surfaces to fill an existing vacancy. TECHNOLOGY Assessments and learning management systems (LMS’s) are popular software tools for learning and development. Assessments help determine knowledge, skills and leadership gaps that must be filled. LMS’s are an ideal complement to assessments in that they allow workers to access learning that is specific to their needs and also tracks workers’ progress against the learning needed to address their gaps. Especially in the areas of performance management and workforce compliance, this combination can play a vital role — and during uncertain eco- levels of an organization. According to Aberdeen’s research, 95 percent of Best-inClass organizations will have this capability within 12 months. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Two critical steps to integrating learning with talent management are to take inventory of all existing learning resources (content, modes, tools). This step reduces redundant spending by identifying existing technologies that can be further leveraged across the organization and that can connect the enterprise. Similarly, “core competencies” that are critical for success in specific job roles must be inventoried. A competency framework not only provides direction for targeted development plans and insight into workforce readiness and respective learning gaps that must be filled, but also pre- nomic times like these, they also become increasingly more important. Supportive technologies revolve around prescriptive learning (like performance management and gap-analysis tools), organization alignment (like balanced scorecard dashboards) and collaboration (like synchronous Web conferencing and Web 2.0/social networking tools). When asked what delivery modalities will see the most growth during the next fiscal year, the top responses to Aberdeen’s question were: 1) asynchronous, self-paced online training; 2) synchronous online training; 3) ILT; and 4) informal social networks and Web 2.0 technologies. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT By reviewing or assessing the performance Elearning! December 2008/January 2009 25
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