2020: The year of disruption

I think we will all be happy to put 2020 behind us. COVID-19 has claimed more than 320,000 lives in the U.S. alone and disrupted the economy, our lives, and learning along the way. Even here, though, some good has come from the disruption. And we’ve had some positive disruptions, like the SEC rule mandating human capital disclosure.

The impact of COVID on learning has been massive. Organizations had to shift overnight from instructor-led training to virtual ILT supplemented by more e-learning and more portal content. Some learning could not be converted immediately, so learning opportunities and consequent productivity gains were lost. Since this conversion was unplanned and immediate, the quality of the new VILT was poor, often no more than PowerPoints from the ILT. However, participants appreciated the effort and were happy to have some learning rather than none.

The good news is that learning departments did rise to meet the challenge, demonstrating that they are strategic partners helping the organization weather the COVID disruption. Learning leaders have worked closely with the CEO and other senior leaders to provide the necessary training but also to provide guidance to leaders on how to manage remotely. This is actually a huge win for many L&D departments and has dramatically increased their credibility and stature.

Moreover, just as the pandemic has caused us all to reconsider our work-life balance and the possibility of working more frequently from home in the future, it also has forced us to reconsider the mix of ILT versus VILT, e-learning and content available in your portal. This reconsideration is actually long overdue. Many organizations had little to no VILT before March. Now they have a lot, and the quality of the content is slowly improving as it is redesigned for a virtual environment. VILT offers significant savings in travel and facility costs and, if properly designed, may often be able to accomplish the same objectives in less time. I don’t see any chance of organizations reverting to the pre-pandemic model, which relied so heavily on ILT.

There is also an opportunity here to think even more broadly and radically restructure your learning. Many organizations going into the pandemic had extensive onboarding and basic skills ILT programs. Some went on for a month or more with a few lasting three, six or even 12 months. Is this really the best way to learn? And how much of the content will be remembered and applied?

Instead, why not use this opportunity to restructure the learning entirely? Reduce ILT or VILT at the beginning to just the basics that participants will need to get started. Supplement this with additional VILT or e-learning combined with performance support in the workstream at the time of need. For example, following the initial (now shortened) course, participants might take a short VILT course or e-learning module every month for the rest of the year. And this would be combined with performance support, which is easy to access and provides them just the tools they require at the time of need.

Last, let’s not forget the SEC’s new rule mandating human capital disclosure. Over the coming years this transparency will spread to all types of organizations and radically alter the expectation of both investors and employees for information on important human capital metrics like diversity, pay equity, leadership trust and employee engagement. By 2030, people will wonder why this type of information was not always available. Disruption is coming, and there will be no going back.

So, take this opportunity as you plan for 2021 to continue to think outside the box, just as you have been forced to do this past year. Don’t go back to the old ways, even when offices reopen. Double down on new ways of learning and embrace the opportunity to publicly disclose your important L&D and HR metrics.

Best wishes for the holidays, and may everyone be healthy and safe.