Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 - (Page 78)

Training in the 21st Century: Everything Old Is New Again BY ED COHEN As companies tighten their belts in response to tough economic times, CLOs are getting squeezed. Being forced to do more with less, today’s learning leaders are ﬁnding new ways make learning and training more effective and efﬁcient by designing programs that maximize value while minimizing cost. hen the economy stalled in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the mandate for CLOs everywhere was to ensure their people were trained as efﬁciently and inexpensively as possible. Most learning organizations rose to the challenge by taking advantage of then-new technologies such as video discs and computer-based training to decrease classroom time and cram as much nonessential content into preand post-work as they could, saving only the most valuable content for the classroom. Best-practice organizations also focused on more clearly deﬁning performance objectives tied to training. Then, they cut out everything that wasn’t explicitly focused on helping learners achieve CLO EVENTS those objectives. Find out more about how learning In the years that followed, organizations are transcending the trend toward optimitraditional employee development zation continued as new at the Spring 2009 Symposium, technologies emerged. We “Beyond Boundaries: Learning’s cut travel from our budgets Impact Across the Organization.” by using real-time webinars For more information, visit clominstead of face-to-face trainedia.com/events/Symposiums. ing. We moved entire learning programs into self-paced e-learning modules to minimize the need for classroom time. And we began employing rapid-authoring tools to streamline our course-development processes. W that there are few cuts left to make in training departments. Most of the ﬂuff already has been shaved, and as an industry, we have learned — some of us the hard way — that you can’t always reduce the amount of training and expect to save money in the long run. Whether you are teaching someone accounting or how to use a medical device, there is a threshold investment of time and resources necessary to teach someone to do something. Condense beyond that, and learning and retention are imperiled. Thankfully, there aren’t many CLOs who are caving in to current budgetary constraints by slashing training time or cutting programs from their curricula. Instead, some are implementing better and more efﬁcient ways to manage the processes that feed into and support employee learning and performance development. Learning on a ‘Need to Know’ Basis It is in this arena — process automation and optimization — next-generation learning, performance and talent management systems are of distinct advantage to CLOs. One of the ways that such systems help companies reduce costs is by automating the process of determining what employees know and what they still need to learn. Within learning programs themselves, for example, an integrated talent management system can eradicate the need for the time-consuming hard coding that used to be required to attach instructional objectives and assessment questions to courses and educational documents. The system can automatically attach both components to courseware of all kinds. Then, based on a learners’ performance on a given Back to the Future Here we go again. Times are tough, and CLOs are facing renewed pressure to reduce costs and optimize learning. The problem this time around, however, is 78 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • December 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com/events/Symposiums http://www.clomedia.com/events/Symposiums http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial The Future of Learning CLO Profile Learning Opportunities Embedded in Social Networking ManTech Leverages Knowledge Management Approaches for Social Networking Agility Training for the Learning Organization Creating an Agile Organization With Learning 2.0 2008 Learning In Practice Awards Corporate Social Responsibility: How Can Learning Contribute? Union Fenosa Corporate University: How CSR Education Impacted the Bottom Line Training in the 21st Century: Everything Old Is New Again Zions Bancorp.: Connecting the Dots Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

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