Towards Maturity is a UK-based but global initiative looking at organizations use of technology for learning. While not as well known in the US, they’ve been conducting research benchmarking on what organizations are doing and trying to provide guidance as well. I even put their model as an appendix in the forthcoming book on reforming L&D. So I was intrigued to see the new report they have just released.
The report, a survey of 2000 folks in a variety of positions in organizations, asks what they think about elearning, in a variety of ways. The report covers a variety of aspects of how people learn: when, where, how, and their opinion of elearning. The report is done in an appealing infographic-like style as well.
What intrigued me was the last section: are L&D teams tuned into the learner voice. The results are indicative. This section juxtaposes what the report heard from learners versus what L&D has reported in a previous study. Picking out just a few:
- 88% of staff like self-paced learning, but only 23% of L&D folks believe that learners have the necessary confidence
- 84% are willing to share with social media, but only 18% of L&D believe their staff know how
- 43% agree that mobile content is useful (or essential), but only 15% of L&D encourage mlearning
This is indicative of a big disconnect between L&D and the people they serve. This is why we need the revolution! There’s lots more interesting stuff in this report, so I strongly recommend you check it out.
Hi Clark,
As somebody who implemented the underpinning survey behind these results in a previous organisation (in fact we were the first!) I’m very pleased that you have written this post and brought Towards Maturity’s work to the attention of a wider audience.
I had great success with the survey and it brought me an incredible wealth of data to help inform our people development strategies.
Whilst all of the data was valuable, for me the most critical aspect was that they were *our* results and not the results of some ‘off the shelf’ research. This was priceless in terms of being able to convince stakeholders (and doubters!) of our shift from traditional L&D thinking based upon *our* people’s feedback.
One thing I would add to your blog (well the title really) would be that although there is, on the surface of it, a leaning towards ‘eLearning’, the depth of questions contained within the survey allow respondents to reflect and respond across the entirety of their development area, technology enabled or not.
If any of your readers would like to read about the process I undertook in terms of deploying this survey, you can find a series of blog posts here.
http://tayloringit.com/category/learner-survey/
Craig
Thanks, Craig, valuable insight. I recommend people go read the implementation posts!