Chief Learning Officer - August 2007 - (Page 10)

best practices The Emergence of Talent-Driven Learning Josh Bersin Talent-driven learning is not new, but it is more urgent and critical than ever before. Corporations of all sizes are engaged in workforce planning and the development of HR strategies to deal with the war for talent. Recent research into high-impact talent management shows learning and development organizations now rank alignment with overall workforce development needs as their biggest challenge in the coming year. Although talent management is creating change within the HR organization, it is also driving tremendous change in corporate learning. One of the biggest transitions is the increased focus on talent-driven learning. It is not new, but talent-driven learning is more urgent and critical than ever before. Almost all learning programs and investments fall into one of two categories: performancedriven or talent-driven. Performance-driven programs have been the bread and butter of most learning organizations. They’re what learning professionals are most skilled at delivering, and they’re what most customers (sales, customer service, business units) want. Additionally, most learning organizations are structured to deliver performance-driven programs. Now, a second category of training is emerging in most organizations. Talent-driven learning programs are designed to address much broader and longer-term talent challenges such as leadership development, career development for engineers and cultivating midlevel managers. Talent-driven programs typically involve multiple learning initiatives and many learning elements, and they are customized by job, job level and competency level. Consequently, they are much more difficult to build. The programs typically take years to create and finetune, and they must be integrated into the company’s overall talent management strategy. Talent-driven learning programs present a set of unique challenges: • They are expensive and time-consuming to build. Wal-Mart’s new HR develop- ment curriculum cost millions to build and deploy. • They require a deep level of institutional understanding. The company must have a clear understanding of the desired competencies and skills required at many levels of an employee’s career. • They demand the use of a sophisticated learning management system (LMS). The system can track many types of learning activities such as e-learning, development activities and coaching. • They are hard to measure. General Motors has a multiyear skills and career development program for its dealer technicians. The program addresses many challenges, including quality, recruitment, retention and talent gaps, but the company has not found a way to measure its specific impact. Whether it is training for onboarding, leadership development, functional career development or technical career development, talentdriven programs are critical in today’s tight labor market. Dollars have to be shifted, technology strategies must be refocused and competency-based learning will be more important than ever. In addition to allotting time and dollars for talent-driven programs, learning executives also will have to tighten alignment with HR and become more knowledgeable about corporate talent challenges and strategies. The good news is that learning executives are qualified to be catalysts for this change. In many cases, learning executives have more business experience than HR executives and are used to thinking about organizations as a business through monitoring expenses and aligning programs with customers. Learning underlies every area of talent management. Those who recognize the shift and take a leadership role in their organizations will have the opportunity to be major influencers in the years ahead. August 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 10 Josh Bersin is the principal and founder of Bersin & Associates, and he has more than 25 years of experience in corporate solutions, training and e-learning. He can be reached at editor@clomedia.com. http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - August 2007

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