Self-serve learning is not a thing of the past

How access to the right content can support squiggly careers

A bone to pick

We recently attended the iVentiv CLO summit in London, and had a great day sharing insights with fellow L&D and HR leaders. The topics ranged from taking a look at L&D’s biggest opportunities in 2023, to how technology can help to scale your skills strategy, and we even ventured into the realms of geopolitics and coaching with our peers. It was a brilliant, thought-provoking event (thanks iVentiv team and Doug Scott!).?

But I’ve also got a bone to pick with a bold statement that was raised during one of the sessions:

“No content should exist on a platform unless it is tied to supporting or upskilling a particular job role or function.”

The reasoning, the person continued, was that no one will be going out of their way to search for content they *might* be interested in, and that as L&D teams we are kidding ourselves if we think that’s happening. Ouch.

The problem with this is two fold

Employees definitely want to know how they can develop in line with an organisation's expectations and progress within a role. Clear pathways and directed content can help with this, and being able to work towards goals and be held accountable to them is also another huge part of this. But alongside that, how are you feeding those individuals who have a natural curiosity and want to be able to access things that they might not necessarily have been pointed towards, or those who want to move into alternative departments or roles?

I ended up in a bit of a vicious circle here thinking about how organised platforms would be (in theory) if everything that was on there was only relevant to particular roles and particular audiences, and what that experience would be like as an end user Vs how annoyed I’d be by not having any flexibility! If I joined a company and was immediately able to start developing that would be the dream, right?. Or is it…?

In reality, what’s missing from this picture is two fold: the fact that humans don’t always like to be told what to do, and we generally have a lot of that little thing called curiosity. And secondly, the fact that you can’t predict what roles people will want to move into based solely on the position they’re currently in. Personal development is not linear. It’s squiggly.?

Creating a connected and curious environment

Curiosity is a fundamental ingredient to innovation. Jeff Boss called this out in his Forbes article ‘The power of questions’: “Nothing has such power to cause a complete mental turnaround as that of a question. Questions spark curiosity, curiosity creates ideas and ideas (well, good ones) lead to innovation…”. My point? If you remove the ability to be curious, what damage is that doing longer term?

In CIPD’s 2021 Learning and skills at work report there was a call for organisations to harness a wider learning environment, and this remains a valid point of focus today. Creating a sense of connection and awareness across your departments or functions, and leveraging collaboration to feed into skills development is key here. One way to do that is to provide specific routes for personal development, but another is to allow visibility to all employees of what those routes and skills look like for others. At THRIVE we know how important this second part is to allow you to identify potential development opportunities for yourself, but you’re also able to replicate a learning journey of well-respected peers or mentors.?

Overall, I think there are three important points to make here:

Firstly, if you know what problems your people have then you can start to identify objectives and work toward acheiving or supporting them. That’s the easy part, right…?! (Hint: it’s not).

Secondly, how do you encourage curiosity at work if you only link content to a specific job role?

Lastly, what type of culture are you trying to create by solely linking learning to job role progression?

Squiggly careers, skills and content

That last point is a tricky one, because yes all learning should (in theory) lead to a shift in performance, but this could happen in a more organic way - through searching or being recommended content that isn’t necessarily prescribed to you. Self-serve learning is one way to provide people with autonomy and choice over what they do at work. Pre-defined pathways are another. But to completely lose the first option in favour of a more rigid approach seems counter intuitive to the way many of us learn at the moment of need and develop in our careers.

Change, uncertainty and possibility are the new normal, and Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis recognised this when they coined the term ‘squiggly career’. If we think about the new generation of people joining the workforce, they’re no longer set on progressing through a hierarchical structure, but are more invested in work that aligns with their values and personal mission. By taking a rigid approach to role development (and removing alternative access to content outside of this) you’re automatically boxing people in to a set of predefined standards.

Some skills are more relevant to certain jobs than others, but when it comes to power skills you’ll see them represented cross-functionally and organisation-wide. In reality, there is no need to tie these down to individual roles and by making them department-agnostic you’re allowing people the chance to identify their transferable skills. Most significantly, learning admins will be able to see who is uspkilling in what, and ultimately start to identify trends, for example: “If X develops in Y skill, they’ll actually be a great future fit for Z role”. How exciting would that be?

What do you think?

Should content be pre-determined and restricted or available in a more flexible and adaptable way??

Share your thoughts here.