In a time of continual change and innovation, it is important for companies and educational institutions to keep the knowledge and skills of their staff and students up to date.
Improving Engagement and Performance
Companies nowadays scramble to keep their staff motivated (not only the millennials) and flexible to keep up with customer demands. At the same time schools struggle to get their students ready for the ever changing job market.
On the other hand, organisations who are committed to Learning and Development (L&D) see a rise in engagement, performance and participation of employees and/ or students. What makes the difference?
Make learning meaningful
A holistic approach is needed to make learning meaningful and effective. This approach makes learning a process of continuous self-improvement, explicitly recognizing the social context of learning and teaching, while meeting the needs of the individual for formal learning.
Mix to Fix | 70:20:10
An effective strategy is to align learning, organisational structure (and culture), technology to design a learning program which contains a mix of formal and social learning. A good starting position can be found in the 70:20:10 framework by Charles Jennings, a leading thinker in this area.
- 70% Experience [social]: Learning from on-the-job experiences and challenging assignments, where there is time for practice, project reviews and community activities.
- 20% Exposure [social]: Learning with, and through relationships with other people: (Reverse) mentoring, coaching, using (organised) internal and external networks of professionals (communities of practice).
- 10% Education [formal]: Learning comes from formal, structured courses and programs: Trainings programs, workshops, seminars, e-learnings and courses.
Design for the needs of the people in your organization
In a fast changing world, continual innovation is the only sustainable differentiator. This continual innovation requires continual learning (or life long learning).
From working on several L&D projects (financial institutions, schools, airliners, retailers or educational publishers), the 70-20-10 as a ratio is situational. It is important to recognise that, in reality, the ratio of informal to formal learning varies with the context in which learning takes place, especially when it comes to meeting your organisational goals.
But whether you work for a company or educational institution, design your L&D or learning programs with a focus on the (future) needs (skills or knowledge) of your employees or students. Mix formal and social learning, to fix the ever changing demand for skills and knowledge. Mix to fix.
Martijn
Martijn Nahumury ǀ + 31 (0)6 47 318 304 ǀ Follow MFN Advies on LinkedIn | Photo credits: BMH Foto & D. Verbeek
