This is the reality of Digital Learning in 2023
David Perring, FLPI
Chief Insights Officer @ Fosway Group | People Experience Innovator
As we approach the release of Digital Learning Realities 2023 on 14th September, I’ve made a few notes about where we’ve come from, where we are now, and where the field might be heading based on our extensive Fosway research.
Where else can L&D get an unbiased view of what's really happening with learning innovation?
We launched the first realities survey, HR Realities back in 2014. It took us a couple of years before we then initiated the Digital Learning Realities survey that now is in its eighth edition.
The purpose for the survey was always to hold up a mirror about organisations’ priorities, their solution choices and the outcomes that buyers were achieving with different solutions and different providers, with a view to understand the trends behind why organisations were doing what they were doing, especially in HR and talent and learning.
What we were thinking about was to try to get a sense of what was really working, what was making a difference and what were the emerging focuses for organisations.
Forget the hype – look for the real trends
There are some large macro trends and you tend to hear about them as much through the conversations that we have with people as in the news stories that come up. What’s interesting is trying to get a sense of whether when people talk about this, is it just that news article that's hyping it up or is it part of a bigger trend? What we've managed to do is get a sense of that.
What we've seen are some significant changes in expectations since we started. To some extent tech was a foundational part of the employee experience before, but I would say over the years HR and learning tech has become even more foundational to the employee experience. It's difficult now to find organisations that aren't using some digital process by default. HR tech is a differentiator around the people experience.
We’ve seen a shift which has moved people from thinking ‘how do I manage talent, how do I manage learning?’ to ‘how do I enable talent and how do I enable learning?’ That sense of a shift to empowerment has been one of the most significant evolutions of the last seven years.
We’ve also moved away from just thinking about managing formal learning to being able to support total learning journeys which have an element of formal and informal and bridge out to people's skills agendas as well.
Great insights and intelligence are the bedrock of great decision making
We’ve reached a bit of a tipping point where that digitisation, the intelligence that we have around our workforce, is now quite a significant differentiator. The data that we have about our people is now foundational to the experience that we offer them, whether that's around their learning or their career direction. All those things come from what we know about someone: being able to service that personalised experience is probably the biggest shift, and people have been talking about it.
We have seen the growth of things like the learning experience platform as a reaction to the learning management system, but we're now moving into a new world where there's another level of personalisation and that's truly the exciting part. We're getting better at doing what we're doing and making it more targeted.
With our research we are trying to do that for L&D and HR professionals; Provide the insights and intelligence to accelerate and de-risk their strategic decision making and choices.
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If you want to get beyond the hype, you need independent expert research you can trust
The purpose of the realities research is to give a sense of what's really happening in organisations rather than the hype of what's being seen in the press or being launched via providers’ announcements and things like that. So, by trying to hold up a mirror, we see how organisations’ priorities are shifting and what strategy choices they are now making as a reaction to that.
If we look at recent years, the lack of availability of talent has had quite a significant impact on the importance of attracting and retaining workers - 97% cite lack of talent as their top business challenges (HR Realities 2022). That has started to shift the emphasis around the sorts of experiences that get offered to employees. So, then you start to make strategic choices around shifting towards a more skills-based organisation rather than being a role- and job description-based organisation.
These are the questions we’ve started to uncover with this year’s Fosway Realities Research, and they’re the questions organisations need to ask themselves in 2023 to excel at digital learning.
What's coming out this September?
This year we've taken the insights from our Digital Learning Realities survey to the next level. The first of five infographics, L&D Priorities, Strategy and Execution, will be launched next week on 14th September, and in the coming weeks we'll be rolling through the additional themes of:
The infographics will be available for FREE download from our site: https://www.fosway.com/research/next-gen-learning/digital-learning-realities-2023/
Importantly - a special thanks is deserved to all those of you who took time to participate in the survey. It's enabled us to expose the truth behind the hype and it benefits us all.
About Fosway
Fosway Group is Europe's #1 HR Industry Analyst focused on Next Gen HR, Talent and Learning. Founded in 1996, we are known for our unique European research, our independence and our integrity. And just like the Roman road we draw our name from, you'll find that we're unusually direct. We don't have a vested interest in your supplier or consulting choices. So, whether you're looking for independent research, specific advice or a critical friend to cut through the market hype, we can tell you what you need to know to succeed.
Talk to us today on +44 (0) 207 917 1870 or via [email protected] , or visit us at www.fosway.com