Dive Brief:
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With all the new learning technology available today, what role should human resource practitioners play in the learning and development of employees? Traditionally, HR has been involved in onboarding new hires, so it’s not surprising that they want to remain involved in fostering a learning culture. HR is keen to the way human beings learn best, based on their personality and psychological background, making it natural for them to design learning modules that address these factors.
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Steffen Maier co-founder of Impraise, and a recognized thought leader in HR technology, writes at CMS Wire that HR can act as a gatekeeper, providing learning content and resources that meet business objectives.
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A report from the Global Human Capital Trends course from Deloitte and Columbia University revealed that, "79% of senior HR professionals now rank transforming their approach of designing learning as a high priority for meeting talent challenges." The report also demonstrated that 80% of learning occurs on the job through peer interactions, but that less than 1% of employees’ week consists of learning activities.
Dive Insight:
Design thinking, facilitated by HR, helps to create new and better ways of doing things from the perspective of learners. It honors the unique learning styles, background, and knowledge of employees at the same time as improving their overall experience, says Maier.
The Dean of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies, Jason Wingard, says that HR can curate content to incentivize learning goals, with skills that specifically meet company needs and give employees a sense of ownership of their own destiny.
HR managers must learn to be coaches too, even though they face the dual role of meeting KPIs and business bottom lines. Ask employees to rate how often they are being coached by managers and if this coaching is helping them.
Google is an example of a company that is giving employees the opportunity to own learning initiatives. 55% of their learning and development is administered by 2000 peer learners, where they have a large role in planning and training each other.
