The current learning landscape requires a more bespoke, strategic and tech-enabled approach, say AHRI’s Future of Work experts.

In today’s fast-paced environment, HR and learning professionals face the challenge of staying abreast of technological advancements and translating them into effective learning and development strategies. This complexity is compounded by the need to rapidly acquire new skills while maintaining compliance and cost-effectiveness.

AHRI’s latest research report, Shaping the Future: How Learning Helps Us Embrace Unprecedented Change, created in partnership with Melbourne Business School (MBS), aims to demystify these challenges and shed light on the evolving landscape of learning. 

Below, two members of AHRI’s Future of Work Advisory Panel and Dr Nora Koslowski of MBS offer their thoughts on elements of this report and share advice on how to put these learnings into action.

Learning needs to be co-designed with employees

By Dr Nora Koslowski, Chief Learning Innovation Officer at Melbourne Business School

Given the possibilities offered by technology and by the data available, learning pathways can now be much more personalised to an individual employee’s context, experience, knowledge and preferences. 

I recommend that L&D practitioners build pre-assessments of employees into their learning programs. This could be a self-assessment of knowledge or confidence in a topic area, or a task they have to complete which measures their level of competence in a skill area. 

Based on the outcomes of this pre-assessment, L&D practitioners can then offer learning pathways that are appropriate to the level a learner is at. 

Similarly, the context of an individual’s role and likely career path can be taken into consideration. For example, if an organisation is rolling out a learning program about a topic, such as data analytics, the actual learning pathway for someone who will only require surface understanding should vary from someone who requires deeper expertise. 

And lastly, the personalisation of learning methods should be considered. With the abundance of content available, and in different modalities, consider giving employees a choice about whether they go on a learning pathway with an emphasis on video content, reading, audio or practical tasks.

Learning isn’t a calendar of events; it’s an organisation’s sensing mechanism

By Dr Ben Hamer, futurist and AHRI Future of Work Advisory Panel member and board director.

Some organisations see learning as an overhead rather than an investment, which is why it’s seen as an easy cut. But by working with and influencing our friends in finance, we can do something as simple as shift where learning sits on the balance sheet to protect it, and, in doing so, send a massive signal to the organisation about the value and importance of investing in our people.

Part of demonstrating the value of learning is in who we hire and the skills we look for. In my experience, there are too many people in L&D teams who do administrative work such as coordinating vendors and managing a calendar of events. We need more instructional designers to help create and curate impactful training. 

We need our learning professionals to be consulting with other functions to help not only respond to current skill gaps, but anticipate and plan for emerging skill gaps. 

This means sitting down with people who work in strategy and workforce planning teams to make sure that a learning and skills lens is brought to the table.

Part of creating a learning ecosystem is recognising the role that individuals play in taking ownership of their own upskilling and reskilling as part of the equation. We think about it a lot as formal learning, but there’s so much more available. In fact, it’s the microlearning opportunities that are best for us. 

We need to spend 15 per cent of our working week upskilling and reskilling just for our skills to remain current. So think about how you can listen to a podcast on your way to work, watch a quick YouTube video on how to perform a particular function in Excel, for example, or ask a colleague to explain a particular concept or topic to you, such as how to write good prompts for generative AI.

AI should augment our learning practices

By Peter Burow, Founding Partner at Neuro Group

AI has enormous potential in the field of learning. It can deliver learning content in a contextualised way, personalise the learning experience according to the individual, and allow for dynamic interaction with vast amounts of content. 

By ingesting large amounts of content, paired with automated support that employees can access at their convenience, AI eliminates the inflexible ‘carwash’ approach of traditional learning. This presents a rare opportunity for learning professionals to reimagine their roles and embrace the transformative potential of this technology. As AI takes on the task of content delivery, learning professionals can focus more on the human aspects of learning. 

While AI can make learning content accessible, flexible and dynamic, it’s the role of human learning teams to link learning with people’s aspirations, engage people in understanding the deeper meaning behind the content and translate content into insight and wisdom that drives lasting capability uplift and behaviour change.

By leveraging technology and neuroscience, learning professionals are freed up to explore and design genuinely transformative experiences that tap into the innate human capacity for growth and change.

The full Future of Learning report includes five insights in total and goes into more depth, including practical applications. Download now and find out how you can contribute to enhancing your organisation’s learning functions.