Why (Most) Corporate Learning Sucks
A brief intro
I have been in the corporate learning industry for 3 years and a bit — an awfully short time to make such rash judgement. But it’s true, corporate learning does suck. Now I’m not in the business of naming names and I don’t wish to see my name on the papers, but after working with 30+ big corps, I can honestly say there’s nothing that I want more than a structural revamp in the Learning and Development world. It’s time.
As a proclaimed millennial (Note: I’m actually a Gen Z, but all my clients seem to label anyone 20–30 years younger than them — or anyone youthful looking really — a millennial), I find the Learning and Development grossly underrepresented. It’s not exactly the sexiest department in the company, and it’s not where the brightest people are. It’s where the unwanted people are placed, or often the “transit” before retirement. No top talents, no fresh minds, as the L&D department would always have the last pick of draft. Super frustrating.
Trainings, trainings, and more trainings — the only solution to what is actually a crucial issue: competency gap. Isn’t it funny that any issues slightly related to knowledge and skills — often in them form of poor performance — are supposed to be magically cured by an 8-hour class on Effective Communication Skills? Or Selling? Or Finance for Non-Finance? Lol. Training is no panacea. Anyone who thinks that is simply naive, or ignorant. But I digress.
Learning in isolation
Anyway, back to the question. So why does Corporate Learning suck? And why has it been this way for so long with little to no disruption? The answer, IMO, is rather simple: it’s because people, *really important*, high-level people, think learning should take place in isolation. We’ve moved on past arguing whether learning is important to the business, as the average CEO would be bashed for saying learning is just another department. Yes, learning matters because the byproduct of learning is (hopefully) smarter people. And the hypothesis is that smarter people should somewhat lead to better productivity, or so I was told at least. The learning-to-business impact riddle has no easy answers — but that’s for another time. I once again digress.
OK, don’t get me wrong, these top level people are not complacent, at least not entirely. They strongly believe that people are the greatest asset of the organisation. So it isn’t a matter of why anymore — it has come to the point of how.
My hot take? Organisations think learning and working are two activities done separately. While learning is perceived to be impactful, organisations think there’s a strict sequential order to it: you learn, then you work.
Let me tell you once and for all: working is learning, and learning is working.
Here’s the thing, when learning is locked out of the ecosystem, penetration into the workplace would naturally be difficult.
We’ll talk more about this. This blog aims to explore the wrongdoings of corporate learning, and why the impact is much bigger that you think.
And of course, what we can do to fix it.
I’ll end with a quote from one my favourite books, Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella:
Entrepreneurs contribute to economic growth far more than the narrow word ‘innovation’ can convey,” he [Gordon] writes. And education, he further notes, is innovation’s closest cousin in fueling growth.
Take it easie
Heidi
