10 predictions for Learning in 2021

A few years ago with my peer and friend Mathilde Bourdat, we developed a ritual to write predictions on a blog for upcoming years. It wasn’t easy, of course - but as you can imagine, the funniest part of the exercise was to look back one year after in order to compare the hard reality versus the dreams we had listed together.

2020 was a year of a total unpredictable moments for learning professionals and the learning world in general. With my boss Sylvie Dangelser, my peers from the management committee, my precious team and the entire learning community at L’Oréal, we had to shift our activity like never before in order to react and respond accordingly. 

We have to drive our future more than ever and the best way to do it is to predict it. So, in the spirit of ritual, let’s try to drive 2021 with my 10 predictions for learning in 2021.

1. Learn, Share, Teach: we are all subject matter experts

I love this loop aligned on Bloom Taxonomy because it’s a strong process to ensure skills acquisition. You learn something (via easy steps) and then you start to share your learnings with your peers, your team (though you have to reformulate the key concepts, and transpose them in their reality). However, you also learn to become a teacher that forces you to master the subject and to put yourself in newbies’ shoes. In this time of budget reduction, it’s primordial to build and stimulate an ? internal teacher network ?, which could be a strong asset for the skills battle - especially if you have to transform thousands of jobs in a short period of time. 

2. Live, Foster the ‘Hybrid’, Be Digital: the mix is everywhere

Let’s do an exercise - Try to remember the debate that began more than 10 years on the efficiency of online learning compared to in-person training. This year under Covid pressure, we have shifted the system from 80 % face-to-face to 80% remote learning (live webinar, virtual classroom, elearning, video ...). And the main benefits was the scalability: one live webinar about TikTok has attracted more than 1500 learners in my company. This new format mix is for good, but keep in mind that the size of the content must be balanced: we cannot deeply transform people skills only with micro-learning.

3. Being Formal and Informal: the future is lateral learning

What we cannot track doesn’t exist! Learning from peers is a method that has existed since the last decade, even century (? compagnonnage ?). It’s time to make it real for the learner. We have to educate them to help in transferring what they’ve learned into daily practices (For more on how to do this, check out the Mooc ? learn how to learn ? from Dr. Barbara Oakley, a must have on the subject). Learning from the ecosystem could be the best way to avoid reproducing some big mistakes and to encourage collaboration. Peers, partners, suppliers, communities: learning is more and more lateral.

4. Take active Recommandations from managers and peers better than any AI

I had a prediction two years ago, which was the miracle of artificial intelligence to predict what you should learn - alas, it has never worked. Why? First, because the algorithms are working with a high level of quality on data and in HR we are not in our comfort zone to fill in the gaps of the system with accurate data. Secondly, it’s because we want to be and keep being unique. We need our ? personal learning influencer ?, somebody we can rely on and trust -they know us. My manager and my peers are the best to play the role of human-advisor.

5. We are ready to learn in the flow of work

It’s Josh Bersin’s favorite mantra since several years - he is absolutely right when he talks about how & with what we can reduce frictions to consume learning. Two clicks to watch a video is too much, for instance - employees ask for training at the time and place they need it, instantaneously. We have seen many providers working on the next new platform (using the famous Netflix style) but for me, the next generation of platform should be governed by the ? invisible learning management system ?. This means that it should be nowhere and everywhere at the same time, embedded in our daily professional hub.. I’m super interested to investigate the new Learning Teams App: that could be a game changer coming from Microsoft.

6. Learning assets must be shared between companies

In this era, we have time and the budget - this is the ‘now or never’ tentation to consider our company so special. This is huge - the consequences are as well, and they include the design of full custom learning courses. Last March, during the first week of lockdown with my peers, we called it the ? Learning activist ? group (20 international companies), we took the decision to share unilaterally and between our enterprises all of the learning materials curated for our employees. By doing this, we have saved a lot of money, but more importantly, we have saved time: we were able to share contents on remote management, distanced work ... immediately. As L’OREAL, we have also opened our elearning module ? safe together ? to a potential target of one million learners. The future is maybe a ? free marketplace of learning assets ? based on a simple rule: contribute to start benefiting.

7. Get Certified: it’s the best way to maintain employability

Try to remember the up and down of MOOC hysteria - at l’oreal, we took a bet 3 years ago - at the time, we were far from the rise of the moocs but it was the beginning of a successful journey. Our employees needed to upgrade their LinkedIn profile and we encouraged them to do it by adding their mooc certification to their profile. In this time of employment uncertainty, the number of learners on the Coursera platform has skyrocketed by 60% to reach 70 million learners. In this new ? expertise economy ? (thanks to David Blake and Kelly Palmer for their book), ? skills certification ? is the new currency to find a job, to join a new team and to contribute to a project.

8. Immersive learning room as as solution for travel ban

If you are working in a lab, a plant or a shop ... learning for you must be concrete. You should also be super comfortable with in-person training. The solution under the travel ban period is constructing an ? immersive room ?. Our learning team in China has launched this past december a virtual room where they can reproduce a real place such as research lab or even a production line. You can ? walk ? in the room if it were a real seminar and interact with the room to learn.

9. Rethink why we need to learn together

Even if I am a big fan of digital, I have to admit we are facing an online fatigue due to the hours of remote meeting for these collaborators who are working from home. Same as for work, we cannot shift to 100% only online. As newcomers, we need the real interaction with people to build our internal network. As executives, we need to collaborate on business problems to invent the future of the company. As marketers, we need to brainstorm without a predicted path to create the next product generation ... etc ... that’s a lot of work for every job and every topic. That will be the biggest challenge for 2021 - really understanding when we need to be together and when an online event is better.

10. New year, new skills for learning professional

Fostering a New learning paradigm there are needs in every new learning role. We have proved during the 2020 crisis that learning is an investment for a company and definitively not a cost. We have transformed our activity as fast as possible. We have learned new skills to pivot our jobs. But it’s just the beginning, the transformation is deep and new jobs are needed.

• Live webinars with thousands of attendees is not an easy task- sometimes, we have to act as a TV producer backstage and as a Show Performer onstage. We have to train our trainers, speakers, experts.
• Videos and podcasts are being mass produced and require youtuber skills for self recording and postproduction.
• Learner engagement tactics rely on Data analytics skills.
• Budget pressure forces us to act as Business manager to prove our impact.

It’s an exciting time for the learning community, we were ready for the change without any doubts on our added value for our people. 2020 was also an opportunity to demonstrate how can we support the transformation.

Next year in 2021, we will be in the very first row to partner with our employees and community to imagine the future together.