Learning in the flow of life

How has dig­i­tal learn­ing evolved in recent years?

KB: The pace of tech­no­log­i­cal change along­side demo­graph­ic shifts in the work­place — with Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z all work­ing in one organ­i­sa­tion — has shaped how we learn, and dig­i­tal trends are evolv­ing to sat­is­fy this mod­ern-day learn­er. Microlearn­ing has become a core part of every organisation’s learn­ing strat­e­gy because it offers short, focused pieces of con­tent with action­able learn­ing objec­tives that slot eas­i­ly into the lit­tle time peo­ple have avail­able to learn.

Adap­tive learn­ing is also prov­ing trans­for­ma­tion­al, with AI algo­rithms that detect knowl­edge or skill gaps to deliv­er learn­ing activ­i­ties bespoke to each learn­er. Learn­ing per­son­al­i­sa­tion is fun­da­men­tal to the suc­cess of any dig­i­tal learn­ing strat­e­gy. The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach no longer engages learn­ers, who expect learn­ing to be aligned to their indi­vid­ual role and per­son­al devel­op­ment objec­tives.

What is involved in a suc­cess­ful con­tent-dri­ven learn­ing strat­e­gy?

KB: When com­put­er-based train­ing first emerged in the 1990s, organ­i­sa­tions were buy­ing huge libraries of con­tent and just throw­ing it at a wall hop­ing it would stick, which most­ly it didn’t. Dig­i­tal con­tent has improved over the past 30 years, but the most impor­tant thing is to con­tex­tu­alise it to indi­vid­ual learn­ers. It’s point­less hav­ing bril­liant con­tent unless peo­ple know about it.

Rel­e­vant con­tent also has to be avail­able to each learn­er. Get­ting the right con­tent to the right learn­er at the right time was once seen as a mar­ket­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty but con­tent cre­ation, deliv­ery and gov­er­nance are very impor­tant to the L&D func­tion now. Peo­ple don’t want to spend time learn­ing what they may or may not need well into the future. Fur­ther­more, through a well-defined con­tent learn­ing strat­e­gy, organ­i­sa­tions can cre­ate a frame­work that includes con­tent-rich media assets, meta­da­ta and rela­tion­ships between learn­ing assets, which all con­tribute to tax­onomised, con­tex­tu­alised and rel­e­vant learn­ing con­tent.

What does it mean to learn in the flow of work?

JDS: Learn­ing in the flow of work is about embed­ding small learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties into the work day by pro­vid­ing learn­ers with the right con­tent at the right time in the right for­mat. Learn­ing becomes seam­less, with­out any dis­rup­tion to the work activ­i­ty. It’s like hav­ing the [authors and pub­lic speak­ers] Simon Sinek, Stephen Cov­ey or Tony Rob­bins fol­low you around pro­vid­ing short bursts of advice. It pro­vides learn­ers with con­text, so they can imme­di­ate­ly apply what they have learned, and improves knowl­edge reten­tion and recall as the learn­ing is avail­able on demand and can be accessed mul­ti­ple times. At getAb­stract, we firm­ly believe peo­ple are increas­ing­ly learn­ing in the flow of life. When peo­ple search online for answers they don’t even realise that learn­ing is tak­ing place. It has sim­ply become part of the flow of life.

Where does com­pressed learn­ing fit into this?

KB: Josh Bersin’s research on the mod­ern-day learn­er con­firmed that employ­ees only ded­i­cate 1% of a typ­i­cal work week to focus­ing on learn­ing and devel­op­ment, which is 24 min­utes per week. Com­pressed learn­ing is cru­cial. The mod­ern-day learn­er is over­whelmed and con­stant­ly dis­tract­ed with emails, calls and the like, so if learn­ing isn’t com­pressed the aver­age per­son will have nei­ther the time nor the moti­va­tion to con­sume and retain con­tent. Social media plat­forms have con­tributed to much low­er atten­tion spans, so if you want to make learn­ing rel­e­vant, you need to give access to pre­cise­ly the right infor­ma­tion, in an action­able for­mat, and deliv­er it when and where it’s need­ed.

What are the key learn­ing chal­lenges as com­pa­nies adapt to the hybrid way of work­ing post-pan­dem­ic?

JDS: A pos­i­tive aspect of the recent chal­lenges has been the emer­gence of flex­i­ble hybrid work­ing and an increased empha­sis on men­tal health and well­be­ing. These changes have put indi­vid­ual learn­ers in charge of how they work and learn. Peo­ple are suf­fer­ing from dig­i­tal fatigue, so com­pa­nies are encour­ag­ing their work­force to take time away from the screen. The pod­casts or audio files they lis­ten to while walk­ing, exer­cis­ing or even gar­den­ing rep­re­sent a dif­fer­ent style of learn­ing. Mean­while, with the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of online meet­ings and the use of chats and vir­tu­al white­boards, learn­ers can be active­ly engaged regard­less of their loca­tion. L&D teams have had to adapt very quick­ly to embrace vir­tu­al learn­ing.

KB: The social col­lab­o­ra­tion ele­ment of learn­ing has suf­fered the most, due to hybrid and remote work­ing. It is well doc­u­ment­ed that we learn through inter­ac­tions with our coach­es, men­tors and peers, but dis­persed work­forces have made these vital aspects of learn­ing dif­fi­cult to achieve. The lack of social col­lab­o­ra­tion has affect­ed learn­ing per­for­mance. The dai­ly micro-inter­ac­tions we used to have with our col­leagues in the office are miss­ing. L&D teams need to come up with cre­ative and inter­ac­tive ways of main­tain­ing a social con­nec­tion between employ­ees, cre­at­ing an envi­ron­ment in which they can learn from each oth­er.

How is getAb­stract sup­port­ing learn­ers and organ­i­sa­tions?

JDS: As learn­ing increas­ing­ly hap­pens in the flow of life, not just at work, getAb­stract helps learn­ers make bet­ter deci­sions in both their busi­ness and per­son­al lives. We pro­vide access to the best busi­ness think­ing through mul­ti­ple for­mats at the point of need. Whether through read­ing, lis­ten­ing to audio files or watch­ing videos, getAb­stract pro­vides unbi­ased, action­able knowl­edge in a time­ly man­ner and builds a plat­form for curios­i­ty to pre­vail. Our com­pressed con­tent allows indi­vid­u­als to fit learn­ing into their busy lives and helps build dig­i­tal capa­bil­i­ties across teams, while also sup­port­ing a self-direct­ed learn­ing approach where learn­ers can devel­op at their own speed. Our pur­pose is sim­ply to make the world a bet­ter place, one deci­sion at a time, through access to rel­e­vant and action­able knowl­edge. In 10 min­utes you can learn some­thing new, keep up to date with the world and make things hap­pen!

For more infor­ma­tion, down­load getAbstract’s Con­tent First! guide for L&D lead­ers at hub.getabstract.com/content-first

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