10th Anniversary Foreword

Claire McCartney

Adviser: Learning, Training and Development
CIPD

This year marks the tenth anniversary of The Training Manager’s Yearbook and interestingly coincides with the CIPD’s tenth Learning and Development Survey, an annual survey of approximately 600 CIPD members. So what trends have emerged over the past few years in the field of learning and development? Claire McCartney explains.

Trends in Learning and Development - Growing importance of talent management

Our survey results have found that more than half of respondents undertake talent management activities, although definitions and formal strategies remain fairly elusive. There is a high level of belief in the contribution of talent management – over 90% agree that activities can positively affect an organisation’s bottom line. Talent management appears to be a future-focused activity, with the most common objectives being growing future leaders, developing high-potential staff and achieving strategic goals. The vast majority of respondents choose to focus their resources on select groups of employees – namely, high-potential and managerial employees, with inclusive ‘whole workforce’ approaches to talent management almost non-existent.

Further CIPD research Talent: Strategy, Management and Measurement, in 2007, clearly shows that for those organisations that get talent management right, there are a number of rewards. The value of a tailored, organisation-wide talent management process is that it provides a focus for investment in human capital and places the subject high on the corporate agenda. It can also contribute to other strategic objectives, including:

• Building a high performance workplace
• Encouraging a learning organisation
• Adding value to the employer of choice and branding agenda
• Contributing to diversity management.

A strategic approach to talent management can therefore provide a host of tangible benefits that cross over into other areas of the business.

Better skills

Employers rate interpersonal and communications skills as very important. While these, along with management skills, are abilities that organisations feel are essential to their success, new recruits are often found to be lacking them. With employers’ focus now on higher-level skills, they feel that the Government should be responsible for raising the level of more-basic skills among young people.

Importance of the line manager.

The role of line managers is highlighted within our research as crucial to the delivery of learning and development and the responsibility for determining learning strategies. The majority of organisations have created new programmes to develop the role of line managers over the past two years, and there is a strong belief that the emphasis on line managers’ responsibilities for learning and development will continue over the next five years.

E-learning

Although e-learning has grown and is expected to do so further, with the public sector leading the way, its effectiveness as a stand-alone tool is not yet proven. While many think of it as the most important development in training in the past few decades, only a small minority believe that it is the most effective learning and development practice. A need remains to use it to complement other learning methods, such as classroom-based learning, with nearly all organisations believing that e-learning is most effective when combined with other forms of learning.

Coaching

Coaching appears to be the ‘shining star’ of the portfolio, with many employers believing it to be an effective tool. It is most widely used in management and leadership development and in general personal development. Despite an apparent dip last year, the use of coaching has increased, and is now approaching levels previously enjoyed.

Impact of the economic downturn

Something that none of us can fail to notice is the current economic backdrop. This is not the first time that we have experienced the issues that come from such a gloomy economic climate and no doubt will not be the last. While Learning and Development is recognised as an enabler of high performance and productivity in an upturn, when times get tough this budget is often the first to be scrutinised and cut.

According to our survey, the public sector is likely to be particularly affected by worsening economic conditions, with nearly half of organisations in our latest survey cutting their training budget. Funding for training in private and voluntary sector organisations is expected to be more resilient. Larger organisations are also more likely to anticipate a poorer economic climate, which will again impact on the funds available for training.

Our response

With more organisations starting to feel the economic pinch in 2008, professionals must take care to target investment in this key area and to measure and report its benefits wisely. It is more important than ever to be clear about the benefits different programmes and initiatives bring and ultimately how they benefit the bottom line. This will help to resist the pressure to downsize development activity.

The tighter economic climate might mean that organisations place a stronger focus on developing talent internally before looking to recruit externally. It might encourage thinking around more creative development initiatives and ways of doing more for less without compromising on quality. It might also mean involving more stakeholders in the process such as senior managers as coaches. All are likely to bring benefits.

Those organisations that take a long-term approach to learning and development are likely to reap the rewards in terms of sustainability and the recruitment and retention of talent, and are likely to bounce back significantly faster than their competitors.

Claire McCartney

CIPD Adviser: Learning, Training and Development

www.cipd.co.uk

Claire McCartney is currently the CIPD Adviser for Learning, Training & Development. The Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development publish the Learning & Development Survey every year. The most recent edition can be viewed here.