The Business Side of Learning Design and Technologies

Shahron Williams van Rooij

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315519630
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Business Side of Learning Design and Technologies provides a ready reference with actionable tools and techniques for recognizing the impact of learning design/technology decisions at the project, business unit, and organizational levels. Written for early- and mid-career learning designers and developers as well as students and researchers in instructional/learning design and technology programs, this volume focuses on the business issues underlying the selection, design, implementation, and evaluation of learning opportunities. Using scholarly and practitioner research, interviews with Learning and Development thought leaders, and the author's own experience, readers will learn how to speak the language of business to demonstrate the value of learning design and technologies.

Part I
The Changing Practice of Learning Design and Technologies

DILBERT^© 1996 Scott Adams. Used by permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.

1 The Learning Design Profession

Your Job Is What?

Picture this. You are at a function, seated at a table with attendees from various organizations. Seated next to you is a colleague from your workplace who has just introduced himself to the woman on his right. You overhear the following conversation:

“So, what do you do?” the woman asks.

With confidence and pride, your colleague replies, “I’m an instructional designer.”

The woman stares for a few moments then says, “Sorry but what?”

“I design learning opportunities for the employees at my company as well as for some of our clients,” your colleague explains. “I develop online learning modules, job aids, things of that sort.”

“So, you develop training courses,” the woman concludes.

“Oh, it’s much more than that,” your colleague explains. “I develop a variety of solutions to learning problems.”

“Uh-huh,” the woman mutters, turning back to her salad. She takes a bite, and then begins chatting with someone else.

A Dilbert^© moment? No, but certainly a moment that probably sounds familiar. Our profession is not as well known to the average person as is, for example, school teacher or corporate trainer. Part of it has to do with the way in which our profession has evolved over time and part of it has do with the variety of contexts in which we work, as well as what we have learned and continue to learn about how adults learn. Changes in the working environment have also impacted how, when and what employees must learn and, thus, the scope of the instructional designer’s role. The biggest part, however, has to do with technology and how the dramatic developments in information and communication technology that have taken place since the 1990s have affected everything that we do.

The most common descriptor of our profession is instructional design or instructional systems design, with a rich body of literature focused on the theories, models, and processes that shape the development and delivery of instructional materials (Conrad & TrainingLinks, 2000; Morrison, Ross, Kalman, & Kemp, 2013; Smith & Ragan, 2004). Nevertheless, some scholars believe that the term instructional design is teacher-centric and grounded in the linear ADDIE model, preferring the term learning design as more learner-centered and focused on the innovative use of technology as part of the design of learning experiences (Koper, 2005; Sims, 2006). This book follows the research stream that deems the two terms to be interchangeable (Reigeluth, 1999), particularly since instructional design in theory and practice has capitalized on the affordances of technology to enable designers to create engaging, quality learning experiences in a variety of settings (Belland & Drake, 2013; Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012; Mao, 2014; Morrison & Anglin, 2012; Parchoma, 2014; Reigeluth, 1999). Consequently, you will see both sets of terms – instructional design and learning design – used throughout this book, with the former being used primarily in the context of discussions regarding research and theory, and the latter in the context of what employers and clients seeking designer services expect from the twenty-first-century designer.

To be able to clearly describe our field to others, we need to be clear about how the landscape of learning design and technologies has evolved, what factors have contributed to that evolution, and which functional titles/roles comprise the learning design and technologies profession. In this chapter, we will

• Examine how the workforce and learning for the workplace has changed since the mid-1990s;

• Review the various sources from which those in and outside of our profession get their information (and thus, their perceptions) about learning for the workplace;

• Identify the skills and competencies that designers need to possess in order to strengthen their employability in a rapidly changing environment; and

• Summarize some key take-aways for keeping the design function relevant in the modern workplace.

The Workplace Kaleidoscope

The Worker

Since the start of the twenty-first century, we have been noting the effects of the global economy, including the free movement of goods and services across borders, the expansion of transnational companies, the advances in technology shared across national boundaries, and labor migration. These same forces have also helped to alter the profile of the global workforce. Research conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Foundation in collaboration with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) (Society of Human Resource Management, 2016) identified four factors characterizing the global workforce through 2030:

1 The workforce is older, more gender and ethnically diverse, with increased interconnectivity.

2 Country of origin and ethnicity no longer determine where a worker is employed, particularly with the so-called developing countries producing as many (if not more) skilled workers and managers as the developed countries.

3 Working from remote locations no longer prevents employees from communicating with colleagues, with digital technologies enabling teams to collaborate across national boundaries and time zones.

4 Increased global connectivity means that workers can move around more frequently and can move for both permanent and temporary jobs.

These trends are clearly visible in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Toossi, 2016), by 2024, nearly half (46 percent) of the US labor force will consist of individuals born between 1979 and 2000, what has sometimes been called Generation Y or the Millennials, although there is no clear consensus as to what the exact cutoff dates are for the various “generations.” Furthermore, nearly a quarter or 24.8 percent will be workers 55 years of age or older, of whom a good chunk consists of Baby Boomers. This means that although you do have Boomers retiring, that retirement is not going at the breakneck pace that was once predicted due to a variety of factors, such as financial considerations and improvements in health. The remainder of the workforce will consist of what has been called the Gen X’ers, those born in the 1960s and 1970s, and the first crop of Generation Z, those born after 2000. Mirroring global trends, age is not the only diversity factor. By 2024, Hispanics are projected to be nearly one-fifth of the labor force, while nearly half of all workers will be women. In short, the demographics of the workplace are changing and will continue to change.

Learning and the Workplace

What does this mean for Learning and Development (L&D) professionals? The obvious question is: How do we offer relevant learning opportunities that address the needs of such a varied and diverse work force, particularly since there are always many exceptions to the generalizations regarding the learning preferences of generational groups? Do all of these demographic segments place the same or similar value on L&D opportunities? There are data to support the importance of L&D to employee satisfaction and retention. Gallup (2016) reports that nearly six in ten Millennials stated that opportunities to learn and grow are extremely important to them when applying for a job; however, only one in three strongly agreed that their most recent learning opportunity at work was “well worth” their time. In a 2014 survey of more than 3,000 US full-time workers conducted by Harris for Career Builder (CareerBuilder.com, 2016), nearly one quarter stated that they were dissatisfied with training and learning opportunities in their organizations, with more than a third of those folks planning to change jobs. Importantly, that number did not differ significantly when the data was sliced by age, gender, and race. This is certainly a heads-up that L&D opportunities do play a role in employee satisfaction and retention. It also affirms the need to apply sound design principles to address the needs of the multigenerational workforce (Williams van Rooij, 2012).

This is not to say that organizations do not recognize the importance of employee learning. The issue is: what kind of learning, where, and when. The 70:20:10 Model is a commonly used formula to describe the optimal sources of learning. Developed back in the 1980s by three researchers at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina (Center for Creative Leadership, 2016), the model holds that individuals obtain 70 percent of their knowledge from job-related experiences, 20 percent from interactions with others, and 10 percent from formal training and educational events. There has been some debate as to the exact percentages on the upper end, particularly when you get into the purpose of learning such as leadership development, which was the original inspiration for the model. Nevertheless, there is consensus that the smallest percentage for both immediate and long-term learning is the formal training event. And, how do organizations spend those training dollars? In a 2016 industry survey of more than 600 organizations in the private and public sectors (Training Industry, 2016b), instructor-led classroom training remained dominant (more than 40 percent of all training hours) among organizations with fewer than 10,000 employees. Only large organizations (>10,000 employees) had equal percentages of classroom and self-paced computer based training (33.8 percent and 36 percent, respectively). Given the costs associated with instructor-led classroom training, it is not surprising that employers tend to view training as a target for expense reduction when the going gets tough.

Another workplace trend with implications for L&D concerns the use of technology. Industry research firms, such as Gartner Group and International Data Corporation (IDC), see a growing trend in the use of mobile devices for work, whether resulting from BYOD (bring-your-own-device) mandates from employers or voluntarily for convenience. A 2014 survey (Gallup, 2015) of some 3,800 full-time US workers indicated that 96 percent use at least one type of mobile device on a daily basis. That usage is for work both during the regular business day and after business hours, as well as for personal use. Furthermore, eight in ten respondents liked the idea of being able to be plugged in 24/7, although only about a third reported working after hours on a regular basis. This probably reflects the idea of having the convenience afforded by mobile devices to meet family needs, attend school events, or make appointments during the day, knowing they can monitor email while out of the office or log on later to catch up with work, if needed. Yet, organizations have been slow in capitalizing on these everyday devices for delivering L&D opportunities, some citing security issues or control issues or oversight issues. The bottom line is that employees are using these devices as part of their work world anyway.

Summary

So, what does all this mean? We have a changing workforce that spans more flavors than commercial brands of ice cream. The workplace itself has gone beyond a physical place to a space where work and personal life overlap. Employees place value ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgmentsxv
• Introduction
• PART I: The Changing Practice of Learning Design and Technologies
• PART II: The Workplace Environment
• PART III: Demonstrating the Value of Learning Design and Technologies
• PART IV: Issues, Trends, and Opportunities
• Glossary
• List of E-Suite Views Contributors
• Index