Five key themes for L&D to focus on in 2024

New year, new opportunities.

To help L&D teams in this new year, I created a list of five key themes to focus on.

1. Artificial Intelligence
2. Learning in the flow of work
3. Social learning & communities
4. Skills and a skills-based organisation (SBO)
5. Proving Value and ROI to Execs

Theme 1 - Artificial Intelligence:

I wrote the guide below to help L&D teams understand AI and it's use. In 2024, understanding AI and managing it strategically will be key.

To get all the details you need, check out the guide here (preview below).

It has three parts to it,

1. AI is NOT a learning strategy, it's an Enabler

2. Four key use cases of AI for learning teams

3. Where are we going... My observations on the future of AI

Here is a snapshot of how I see AI shaping workplace Learning in 2024:

• Content creation will be quicker, smarter and more accurate than in its current state (as the model trains and retrains itself).
• Skills will be smarter and more accessible across enterprise systems and skills will often be added from a “source of truth - SOT” into an external system delivering upon the AI-based skills intelligence from the SOT. Skills in the flow of work will become the norm and the demands from HR/Talent/Learning teams will be higher from vendors/providers.
• Search will be smarter, and our demands for search will be higher. For learning teams, this is critical as learners’ needs and demands for accuracy and speed will increase. If learners can’t find personalised content recommendations quickly, they will disengage.
• Virtual assistants/chatbots will become smarter and more personalised. It’ll become a learning coach and learners will demand more from the chatbot. The experience people have with ChatGPT will be the expectation from the learning chatbots, and it’s critical for vendors that the AI engine/brain is intelligent enough to provide a personalised and curated learning experience in a quick manner.

Next week, I will publish a full resource list on AI for learning teams so stay tuned!

Theme 2 - Learning in the flow of work

In 2024, I see headless”/embedded experiences/learning in the flow of work becoming the norm.

Learning tech will shift to flexible, modular architectures for highly tailored experiences - embedded in the tools learners are using day-to-day.

Why is this the case? 1) System fatigue is real, 2) demands from learners are higher than ever, 3) time to spend on learning is lower than ever, 4) technological developments are allowing this more and more.

Statista ran this study called identifying the “Average number of software as a service (SaaS) applications used by organisations worldwide from 2015 to 2022”.

In 2015, 8 systems were the average for a company. In 2022, this was 130. Think about that, your employees, customers or partners are using 130 systems in their corporation on average.

Today, learners want information within their “flow of work”, meaning barriers are removed to access key things they need everyday.

They want to learn at their own terms and at their own pace. They want more time to learn, as not to spend time moving between all of their systems.

If you want to go deep into this topic, I wrote this article on it (preview below).

Theme 3 - Social learning & communities

Communities of practice or learning communities are becoming more important than ever. People learn from people and building learning experiences that allows people to interact, share ideas and learn together will be table-stakes in 2024.

I love this topic, and have written two articles on it,

See this one on Social Learning from a research perspective? -

This one on how Customer Education + Community is merging into one discipline,

Customer Education aims to educate and certify a customer with a baseline understanding of the product.

Community aims to engage the customer in dialogue and conversation around the product.

The goals are the same, engaging customers about a product, but the means of getting there is different.

That's why they belong like PB&J and this will become the norm in 2024.

Theme 4 - Skills and skills-based organisations

In 2024, more and more HR/Talent/Learning leaders want to build a Skill-Based Organisation (SBO).?

This describes a shift in the way we think and go about work from thinking about job titles to looking at individual skills.?

Or as Bersin calls it, we are moving from “Career 3.0 Your Work as Your Career” to “Career 4.0 Your Skills as Your Career”.?

AI will shape skills, as shown in theme one. More and more organisations are moving to become a skills-based organisation. This is hitting L&D now more than ever, and I have spoken to lots of learning leaders recently who are faced with this task.

This is why I wrote the article below about skills tech, what is needed, how learning systems can support, and the rise of talent/opportunity marketplaces like Fuel50 and skills intelligence systems like Eightfold .

Also adding some of my favourite resources on building a skills-based organisation below?????

Deloitte - An operating model for building a skills-based organisation

Bersin,?Building A Skills-Based Organization: The Exciting But Sober Reality

McKinsey,?Taking a skills-based approach to building the future workforce

Theme 5 - Proving Value and ROI to Execs

90% of CEOs believe that learning is a business solution, but only 8% report that learning is impacting the business.

How do you build learning projects that changes this trend?

In the guides below, I give a six-step guide to building successful learning projects in uncertain times. I also write about three essential components for project success.

All of this is written through the lens of enabling learning teams to expand their influence and grow the 8% shown above.

If you can't quantify ROI and impact, your learning budget will get the axe from the CFO ????

I see the following as critical for learning teams in 2024:

Working jointly with your sponsors. If learning is a vehicle to achieve revenue goals, you need to ensure you are helping that to take place. If your sponsor fail, so do you.

Demonstrating the impact and ROI of the issues you are solving. This is constant with your sponsor, and needs to be done concurrently (ideally month or quarter-specific metrics).

Being an effective storyteller with data. Learning data is great but your ability to provide causation and subsequently translate this into the language of your sponsor and your execs is vital. If they don't constantly see your value, your influence diminishes.

These two guides below are built to help you demonstrate ROI & Impact.

1) How to build a Successful Learning Project during Uncertain times

2) Protecting Your Learning Budget During Uncertain Times

?? What do you see as the biggest themes for L&D in 2024?

?? Which of the articles is most useful for you as a learning practitioner?

?? What should I write about next in 2024?

Would love to hear your thoughts ??