Key Insights Learning Technologies 2019

Having attended Learning Technologies at Olympia for many years it’s both refreshing and exciting to be exhibiting at Excel this year. The shift to a larger venue certainly represents where the Learning Technology industry is heading, with a growing number of L&D professionals attending who were keen to be inspired and discuss their organisation’s learning challenges.

Our two days were well spent attending some of the thought provoking seminars, visiting stands, networking with industry peers and chatting with delegates. We noticed a real shift this year in the challenge and significance of culture change, how vital it is that learning is self-driven and what difference this can make to achieving business goals.

Here’s our top five insights from our time at Learning Tech 2019…

Snapshot

We go into more detail below however here’s a snapshot of the 5 key insights we picked up at this year’s Learning Tech event:

Developing a growth mindset
Creating a learning culture
Long term thinking
Inspiring a workforce
Learning analytics

Growth Mindset

A key theme which emerged from Learning Technologies was growth mindset and how it can be implemented within an organisation. Our growth mindset expert Sarah Baker and Learning Technology Consultant Dan Nolan presented a seminar about how Virtual College has implemented growth mindset within their organisation - the seminar recording will be coming soon.

Here’s 5 ways you can implement a growth mindset within your organisation;

Embrace challenges

Be goal oriented

Inspire a culture of learning and trying

Don't be afraid of failure

Encourage open learning and collaboration

By being open to challenges and encouraging collaboration, organisations can embed a culture where employees have a safe space to learn and try new things therefore encouraging a growth mindset. For more growth mindset resources click here.

Learning Culture

The idea of embedding a learning culture is becoming increasingly important, L&D teams are no longer looking to just deliver training but want to see employees actively seeking to learn and get involved in training and development programmes.

Similar to growth mindset, in order to adopt a learning culture organisations must encourage continuous learning and improvement. Putting the learner first and working with them to establish learning objectives is a great way to promote a learning culture.

We recently published an article on the 5-hour rule - the idea that we should take an hour of our week days to do some directed, purposeful learning, using the time to either learn a new skill, read, practise, reflect, determine goals or experiment. Organisations can benefit from adopting a similar practice to help encourage a learning culture.

Long term thinking

Learning Tech also presented us with a shift in organisations from short-term training objectives to a more holistic long term plan. Every organisation has different needs when it comes to learning and development and by planning for a longer time frame and building in objectives which align with organisational goals you can start to look at training as an important vessel for your business.

Ensuring staff are trained to do their job is the basic requirement but by encouraging them to continuously learn, pick up new skills and get actively involved you benefit from enhanced job satisfaction, a positive learning culture and a growth mindset within your organisation.

Inspiring a workforce

Rising high on the L&D agenda is the notion of ‘inspiring a workforce’ in order to get them to engage with learning and development. There were lots of seminars and talks discussing different ways in which you can motivate your workforce to actively get involved and become inspired.

Here’s 3 takeaways we picked up in order to help you inspire your workforce;

Provide access to inspirational thought leaders
Set realistic goals and dedicate time for review and feedback sessions
Invest in leaders and managers

Inspiration comes in all forms and the L&D world is rife with motivational speakers, thought leaders and experts. Tap into this expertise by allowing employees access to TedTalks and webinars to help become them inspired.

Setting goals is also a key indicator in helping to inspire a workforce - often organisations set goals but don't provide adequate time for feedback and review, this is critical to help foster a positive learning culture and inspire employees to continue learning.

Investing in the right people to lead teams is also crucial - Learning Tech 2019 highlighted how inspiration within organisations usually comes from the top. Employees see leaders and managers as mentors and learn from them so they are key in helping to inspire.

Learning Analytics

92% of senior leaders and executives believe that they are not seeing the data which shows the impact of learning and effectiveness of learning and development strategies. As L&D professionals are increasingly required to prove the ROI of learning we saw a shift towards learning and performance powered by data and analytics.

Many of the conversations at Learning Technologies focused on impact data, measuring learning impact and the ROI from training. When developing learning and development programmes ensure you have clear goals set and the data collected can be used to measure the impact of your programme.

To discuss how we can help with any of the key insights above and tailor a personalised learning and development programme for your organisation contact us.