Chief Learning Officer - January 2009 - (Page 54) • Knowledge management: Knowledge management also continues a steady upward trend, up three this year, and up six spots over the past two years. As knowledge management captures processes, skills and context that are lost when employees leave the company, it is becoming more important given the retirement surge of aging baby boomers and as the “war for talent” continues. Replacing key leaders in an organization has become more important in light of talent shortages and an aging workforce. Companies need a pool of employees from which to select leaders. Outsourcing in 2009 Nearly all training strategies have an impact in some circumstances, and no training strategy is overwhelmingly ineffective. So readers should take the assertion that outsourcing will impact training least in 2009 with a grain of salt. In a time of increased outsourcing in many areas of business, this activity was cited by 10 percent of companies as the area with the least impact on training for 2009. Part of the explanation for this showing is that only 5-10 percent of organizations outsource significant portions of their training organizations. This leaves 90-95 percent of organizations that will not see outsourcing as a meaningful activity. In general, companies feel the loss of control in outsourced arrangements — particularly around content creation and delivery — disconnects training from the company’s overall vision and business strategy. There also exists a sentiment that outsourced providers lack some subject matter expertise and provide a lower level of service than internal training departments. Only a quarter of companies report they will be outsourcing more of their training activities in 2009. Social Networking Requires More and Less Attention When asked which topics should be given more attention by the training industry, the top two 54 Chief Learning Officer • January 2009 • www.clomedia.com choices were knowledge management and informal learning. Given the high impact that these two activities have on training programs, this comes as no surprise. However, social networking was the third-place choice. Conversely, when asked what topic is overhyped and should be given less attention by the training industry, wikis/blogs was the first choice, and social networking was second. An equal percentage of companies selected social networking as an item to be given more attention as those that selected it to be “dropped from the radar.” For those companies that would like more attention paid to social networking, appealing to a younger generation of employees is a key factor in its importance. This ties directly to concerns over hiring talent and grooming the next generation of leaders. Social networking also is seen as another avenue for high-impact informal learning and one that should be managed proactively rather than haphazardly. Companies are not yet fully convinced of social networking’s impact, but it’s pervasive in our culture, and many companies feel it should not be ignored. On the flip side, those companies that see social networking as a topic to be given less attention believe is has “no real value” and is a “time waster.” These companies do not see social networking as an appropriate training medium. As a technology, it is not believed to be mature or structured enough to be effective in training. Similar criticisms are aimed at wikis and blogs: The content is opinion-based rather than factual, and oftentimes — especially for blogs — it is ineffective since the structure is loose and finding content is difficult. Predictions for 2009 Much about the upcoming year is uncertain, given the global economic environment, but 2009 will likely be a challenging year. Challenges from hiring and retirements will increase the importance of the training function, but only 41 percent expect budget increases, so training departments will have to do more with less. Overall, companies believe the outlook for the learning function is similar to industries overall: It will be difficult, but there will be positive developments in the way organizations leverage and align learning, use tools and refocus on providing value to the organization. CLO Cushing Anderson is program director of learning services at IDC. He can be reached at editor@clomedia.com. http://www.clomedia.com
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