Using Models to Manage Strategic Learning Investments

Gone are the days of technologies looking for a problem to solve. Today, technology investments must be strategic and driven by an organization’s business focus. However, not everyone fully realizes the strategic importance of technology investments to a successful learning initiative. While the human element is still the core component of the process, technology can accelerate the human impact on the initiative’s value. To maximize employee development, it is critical to harness the power of technology to drive bottom-line results.

It is clear that learning can happen without automation. Why, then, is technology at the core of so many successful learning initiatives? Technology affects the learning process, changing the way people learn and approach learning. For organizations seeking new ways to gain competitive advantage and maximize employee productivity, learning has become a corporate imperative, especially since the advent of technologies that allow businesses to demonstrate measurable results.

Learning and HR executives face the daily challenge of keeping up with the technologies designed to enhance performance and efficiency. Fortunately, it’s not a matter of determining which technologies are viable and which are frauds, as the market for learning technologies is fairly mature. Rather, the question becomes, “Which technologies are you prepared to rally around and implement to strategically impact the way learning drives business value?” The answer to this question varies based on the organizational maturity of your learning culture.

It is important to understand the role learning plays in different organizations and the needs that the learning initiatives fulfill. By defining and understanding these elements, you can gauge your organization’s learning maturity and ensure that the key technology investments you make are strategic.

For organizations like Grant Thornton, learning is a well-established driver of competitive advantage and a market differentiator that sets the organization’s world-class team of accountants apart from others. Grant Thornton reaps the rewards of an effective learning program, dubbed Grant Thornton University, through customer loyalty and employees’ subject-matter expertise. Based on the business value of learning, the company has made investments in both the program and the necessary technologies. In fact, the company is committed to becoming a “continuous learning culture,” according to Chief Learning Officer Bob Dean. The movement toward achieving this objective can be directly correlated to the company’s evolution along the learning organization’s maturity model.