Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2013 - (Page 35)

OPTIMIZING WORKFORCE LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE B Y The increasing pace of business, with less tolerance for wasted time or resources, has resulted in products and processes being introduced even faster as the business world becomes increasingly competitive with minimal room for mistakes or false starts. In our knowledge-fueled economy, innovation, individual and organizational performances, as well as workforce productivity, are critical success factors to a company’s success. These changes in today’s business environment are forcing us to rethink how to effectively maximize workforce performance and productivity, maintain a skilled and knowledgeable workforce, and utilize our workforce to develop and maintain a competitive advantage. The characteristics of the workforce have also changed. Workers now have wider spans of control, fewer support resources, larger workloads and the need to be increasingly self-sufficient: M A R K B O W E R • Workers are responsible for much of their own training and development. • Workers actively seek the knowledge necessary to perform their jobs. • Just-in-time training, performance support, and self-service search are accepted and viable learning interventions that can be delivered directly to an individual workplace. • Workers generally “know what they don’t know” and will seek information in a style that best suits their needs. WORKFORCE LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE Traditionally, workforce learning and performance (WLP) identifies, develops, deploys and evaluates learning interventions for the purpose of improving individual and organizational performance. While other interventions are utilized, WLP’s primary deliverable has been instructor-led training and e-learning. In response to these changes, the stage is now set for WLP to draw from a broader portfolio of learning and performance tools. These additional tools come from the performance support and knowledge management disciplines. Historically, these functions have existed as three distinct disciplines with their own objectives and business presence — each function acknowledges the other and recognizes that there are elements in their discipline that overlap with other disciplines. However, we seldom see an integrated approach to learning solutions that integrates all three components to serve a common learning goal. WLP needs to draw on techniques and methodologies from performance support and knowledge management to develop integrated learning solutions that optimize the strengths of these functions to deliver learning in the format and availability that can make the most effective business contribution. The goal is not to replace instructor-led training and e-learning, but to optimize their impact by augmenting and reinforcing learning initiatives making them more effective in today’s workplace. Training Industry Quarterly, Fall 2013 / A Training Industry, Inc. magazine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ 35 http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2013

From Where I Sit: The Sustainability of MOOCs
Table of Contents
Ad Index
Guest Editor: Top Five Learning Technologies to Watch
We Need to Support Learning, Not Manage It
Supercharge Your Next Leadership Initiative
Boomers & the Technology Gap
Technologies to Manage Information Overload
It's Time to Invest in the 'Performance Zone'
Inroducing Simulation into Learning Technologies: Examining the Key Considerations
The Evolution of the LMS
Bringing Your Mojo to the Virtual Classroom
Merging Social Learning and Technology to Achieve Business Outcomes
Optimizing Workforce Learning and Performance
Badges: Bridging the Higher Education and Workforce Gap
Integrating Video into Training
Tools for Supporting Sales Coaching
Tweet Suite
Company News

Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2013