Take-Aways from Josh Bersin "We-learning" Webinar

I sat in on a webinar today run by Josh Bersin, CEO of Bersin & Associates, one of the major research firms in the areas of human resources and training and development. Over the last ten years, Josh has built up a large following thanks to his diligent research, careful analysis and prescient insight into the current state (and future) of human capital. His work is used by buyers and vendors of HRMS tools, learning management systems, talent management systems, collaboration suites and more.

Here are some of the key take-aways from the webinar, which was called "From e-learning to we-learning" and was hosted by SkillSoft, one of Vast Talent's content partners.

• Companies spend an average of $200 to $2,300 annually per employee on training and development. Josh also gave the example of the consulting firm Accenture that spends over $3,500 per employee on learning and development every year.
• The traditional training model is changing to put more emphasis on the process of continuous learning, rather than the learning intervention itself. That's the move toward "social learning" which takes advantage of the knowledge networks that already exist inside companies. This is a big evolution in the learning and development function of companies, which now have to adapt to smaller, more continuous learning.
• According to Bersin & Associate's research, the high-impact learning organizations out there are the ones that facilitate and enable learning throughout their companies. That means that the HR and L&D functions no longer do as much training and teaching as they did in the past - now they enable learning to occur.
• The training industry is worth $130 billion per year globally, with over $70 billion spent in the US. The shift to social learning is going to challenge a lot of the existing systems, players and thinking in this space.
• Just as the recession of 2001 drove the e-learning boom, the current recession is driving a more toward social learning. This reduces costs and allows re-use of content.
• The two keys to successful social learning are 1) your skills and 2) the architecture of the tools you use to support social learning. It's really imporant to consider your audience (motivation, behavior, existing systems) when designing your social learning infrastructure.
• Most companies actually have too much learning content, not too little. So the challenge for HR leaders is to make the existing content available and accessible to all employees, rather than spend resources in creating more content.
• The 3 main challenges to online professional communities, including social learning, are: utilization (making sure that employees actually make use of the tools and that they are user-friendly), activity (encouraging sharing and collaboration) and balance (between professional and social content). Companies should have a policy in place for how to deal with both internal and extension social media sites.

For help on designing your social learning strategy and infrastructure, contact Vast Talent today.