Like other HR technology categories, the learning and development (L&D) space has been changing over the past few years, says Dani Johnson, co-founder and principal analyst for RedThread Research, a research services firm in Woodside, Calif.
New dimensions have been introduced, including a better conversation about skills, and a change to complement the employee experience with individual learning budgets and employee dashboards, said Johnson, who speaking at the HR Technology Conference & Exposition in Las Vegas.
The L&D focus has changed, he said, towards directed career planning and selective skills academies, employer-led marketplaces, more coaching and mentoring of junior employees, and the return of the single platform of learning.
Johnson outlined three major trends to follow in 2023.
Doing More with Less
Investment in L&D technology has been “an embarrassment of riches” in recent years, Johnson said, even during the pandemic.
“While this is great for vendors and for their customers, the money train will probably slow down,” he said. “VCs [venture capital firms] is slowing down, and many of the smaller vendors we’re talking to are having trouble finding funding, especially in later rounds. More mature vendors are starting to tighten their belts or implement layoffs. This will start to change what products they develop going forward. “
Consolidation is the other response to the investment slowdown. “Consolidation means fewer options,” Johnson said. “Or things can get more complicated. If the technology you’re using or planning to use is suddenly sold to a vendor you couldn’t have chosen, that would be interesting. On the other hand, the options may increase; the searchers of LXP [learning experience platform]for example, but still require a more traditional learning management system can do the same.”
He added that several prominent L&D technology vendors have gained improved functionality with recent acquisitions, including Cornerstone’s purchase of EdCast; ServiceNow buying skills platform Hitch; and Microsoft Viva buys Ally.io, a goal tracking software startup.
All About Skill
The conversation about reskilling and upskilling has been going on for several years now, but during the pandemic, it exploded, Johnson said. “Stories have emerged of employers quickly identifying who has what skills and then moving those people to other parts of the organization where they are needed.”
Johnson said L&D professionals should be concerned with the emergence of skills technology because skills are the foundation of learning in an organization. “Understanding skills allows organizations to segment the skills needed for specific roles, identify transferable skills across roles, rethink roles, and create more that flexibility and mobility for employees,” he said.
Johnson says that in the past, the focus of skills technology was simply tracking employee skills.
Since then, two exciting channels have emerged: skills academies and opportunity marketplaces.
He said that before the pandemic, learning options for employees usually let them choose from a wide range of content. “The trend is to provide a smorgasbord of things and let people choose what they want to pursue,” he said. “It’s a Netflix-of-learning experience. Organizations want to create a signal through that noise, especially with the increasing burnout people are facing. Academies of skills have emerged since then. to teach people specific skill sets to support business strategies and functions.”
Opportunity marketplaces—digital platforms that match people with related projects, gigs and full-time roles, as well as coaching and other development opportunities—have garnered a lot of attention among last year. “Almost half of the L&D skills vendors we spoke with said they have opportunity marketplaces,” Johnson said. “They may look different, but these technologies provide opportunities to learn on the job, in the workflow. Opportunity marketplaces help to create skills data faster; encourage those employees to explore and find their happiness; and provide the organization with information about the skills that their employees have, want and need,” he said.
Employee Experience
As with other human capital management, employee learning and development has been impacted by the focus on the employee experience. Johnson points to three ways this calibration manifests itself in L&D technology:
- More user-generated content . “It used to be that companies hired large companies to create learning courses,” he said. “Some vendors now allow employees to create their own content. For example, Elucidat provides guidelines and approvals to help employees, especially subject matter experts, develop things that will be useful.”
- Individual study budgets. With technology that supports visibility into learning budgets at the individual level, employers can finally see how much is being spent on learning, Johnson said. “Historically, organizations spend up to 1.5 times the budget on learning, and the L&D department doesn’t know about it.”
- Employee dashboards. “In the past, L&D information would flow to managers and stay there,” says Johnson. “Sometimes the workforce gets that information and sometimes they don’t. Learning data is now being shared with students, and that’s good. They want to go and where they can go with what they already know. them.”