Modernising Learning – Live trends from the 2014 Towards Maturity Benchmark

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[youtube width="635" height="357"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xpDtsI8bLw[/youtube] Each year Towards Maturity conducts research into the use of technology to drive change in training and development in businesses and organisations.  learndirect supports this work as a Towards Maturity Ambassador.  In this article Laura Overton, managing director of Towards Maturity, looks at some of the themes emerging from this year’s research. After ten years of analysing the behaviour of top performing learning companies, the team at Towards Maturity have got a great handle on modernised L&D strategies which really deliver results.  Each year L&D leaders from private, public and not for profit businesses use the study to reflect on their current learning approaches. Their personalised feedback helps them to compare approaches with peers in order to identify priority actions for the year ahead. So far more than 250 L&D professionals from 25 countries have taken part in the 2014  study, 81% are in senior L&D leadership roles. And we are starting to see some interesting insights: 1. It is clear that expectations of L&D leaders are higher than ever before as we look to deliver bottom-line value to business, rather than just courses. For example:

• 95% of the sample so far are looking to improve talent and performance
• 96% are looking to improve sharing of effective practice
• 94% are looking to speed up the application of learning back at work
• 92% are looking to respond faster to business change.

2. Modernising learning is high on the agenda, but at the moment, less than a third of businesses are achieving their goals in these areas. Currently, the data shows top learning companies continue to out-perform their peers. 3. Technology is playing an important part in the modernised learning agenda with 90% of L&D leaders currently using elearning courses and  84 per cent some form of live online learning. In the past it has been clear the technology itself does not guarantee success but the extent to which L&D leaders align to business need and design interventions which deliver value. It appears we may have a way to go as only three in five benchmark participants agree that their L&D  team activity is fully aligned with the strategic goals of the organisation and only one in five are creatively blending the opportunities for staff to share, learn