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The rise of hybrid work, global teams, and the demand for anywhere-anytime solutions have transformed learning and development. Most forward-thinking organizations are looking at navigating a growing skills gap and are trying to supercharge reskilling and upskilling initiatives and meet the learning needs of a hybrid workforce.
The focus on continuous learning has also increased since robust learning and development programs become enablers of employee engagement. The workforce looks at employment opportunities with organizations that are focused on skill and professional development.
As such organizations need to ensure that they curate professional and skill development opportunities to align with the employees’ goals as well as the organization’s business goals.
But how can organizations achieve this?
Enter learning in the flow of work!
Why do we need learning in the flow of work?
If you were hungry and wanted to eat a homemade pizza, for example, it is unlikely that you would sign up for a comprehensive Italian cookery course. By the time that gets over, you will be ravenous and might want to eat something else entirely!
Similarly, signing up for a course and setting aside time to take on the modules no longer works for skill development. When was the last time people had that much time at work?
Today we use Google to answer our questions as learning in the flow of life becomes a norm. A YouTube video here, a tutorial there. The internet is now the infinite information library.
Research shows that in today’s work environment, employees have less than 1% of the time available to dedicate to learning activities.
Employees who spend time learning at work are 47% less likely to be stressed. They are also 39% more likely to feel productive and successful and 23% more willing to take on more responsibility and put in discretionary effort.
Corporate learning needs to remove the barriers between learners and learning content.
Employees no longer want to spend time searching for information. They want information to find its way to them.
What is “Learning in the flow of work”?
“Learning in the flow of work”, is a term coined by Josh Bersin in 2018. This concept ensures that employees access the right knowledge at the right time to support their learning goals without any significant disruption in their workday.
Learning in the flow of work ensures that training is impactful, engaging, and easily accessible. This concept also drives better learning outcomes since the training is contextual to the learner’s professional, as well as skill development, needs.
The hybrid work paradigm has created an environment where employees need immediate access to learning resources to support their workflows. As the employee workday gets increasingly cramped with deadlines, responding to emails and messages, attending meetings, and completing documentation, employees get few opportunities to singularly focus on enhancing existing skills and learning new ones.
HR leaders follow the 70-20-10 framework as L&D directly contributes to on-the-job performance. Data collected between 2017 (pre-pandemic) and 2020 (post-pandemic), reveals that on-the-job training (OJT) and on-the-job coaching (OJC), dropped from 86% to 77%.
Data also revealed that “50% of those learners who received some form of sync learning found their training to be highly effective”.
Learning in the flow of work caters to an anytime, anywhere model of learning and hence also becomes a crucial enabler of continuous learning. This becomes an essential point of consideration since the traditional ‘push’ approach to learning is no longer relevant. If L&D teams want good learning outcomes then they need to stop deciding what, where, and how employees should learn.
The learning in the flow of work concept ensures that learning content is accessible to all hybrid employees. It supports on-demand consumption in a time and device-agnostic manner. Learners can customize their learning paths and gain access to uniquely curated content influenced by learner objectives.
But how can organizations bring this format to their workforce?
The answer lies in LMS.
The concept of learning in the flow of work is best enabled using a learning management system or LMS platform. Robust LMS platforms deliver just-in-time learning resources to the employees when they want to learn, within their workflow.
As working and learning are becoming increasingly bound together, LMS platforms facilitate learning and development in the flow of work by providing a centralized hub for organizing, delivering, and tracking learning content.
Organizations can deliver self-paced courses, assignments, assessments, and other learning materials to the workforce according to their needs. They can leverage LMS platforms to deliver a diverse range of information to enhance skill development and application.
LMS platforms can offer tutorials, webinars, in-app guidance, microlearning, gamification, video-based learning (VBL) interactive video-based learning (IVBL), and more to alleviate cognitive load, improve learning outcomes, and drive talent management.
The learning on the flow model also supports the 70-20-10 Model for Learning and Development and ensures that employees’ learning plans are seamlessly integrated with the work they need to do. It also aligns learning programs to become contextual to both business and career goals.
Further, LMS platforms help organizations conduct clear need and gap analysis to plan their learning and development plans and programs to enable learning in the flow model. They can help organizations track competencies across different skills close the gap between online and on-the-job training (OJT) clearly identify gaps between the actual and potential performance of a company and provide the means to fill the gaps.
LMS platforms provide access to a huge information repository that employees can access to address task-related challenges at work and help employees learn performance-improving knowledge that delivers tangible results in the workplace.
To sum it up
With the focus on skill development increasing, organizations realize that learning now has to be continuous as markets evolve, technologies change, and new business models emerge. Continuous learning becomes imperative to remain adaptable and ahead of the curve. Organizations need to ensure that they can enable the same at speed to drive competitiveness.
Enabling learning in the flow of work is also assuming strategic importance as the value of ‘experience-driven leadership development’ increases. Today, most forward-thinking organizations need this model to best manage talent, prepare leadership pipelines, develop employees and future leaders, and advance business goals in a shape-shifting and disruptive business environment.
Connect with us to see how our AI-powered LMS platform can help your organization drive continuous learning with learning in the flow of work.
You may also like: 5 Major Benefits of Training and Development in the Workplace
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