2009 September Training News and Notes
By Liz Wheeler
Industry News and Notes
Training Priorities and Spending Misaligned
Over the past year, corporate spending for training and development has declined by 11 percent, reflecting the across-the-board cuts most companies have had to take to weather the recession. However, new research finds that companies are not making best use of remaining training budget dollars. While two-thirds of training budgets continue to go to traditional and costly formal training programs, such as structured online courses and leader-led classes, 64% of business leaders believe it is informal learning programs which drive the greatest business value.
The misaligned spending leaves limited dollars for informal learning, such as coaching programs, knowledge sharing, social learning, and mentoring-all of which have significantly higher business value and are much more cost-efficient to employ. Research also shows that organizations which adopt informal learning generate higher operational business performance and also have greater adoption of training. These findings are detailed in the recent research study, High-Impact Learning Practices: An Operating Guide for the Modern Training Function, published by Bersin & Associates.
"We believe the disconnect in spending is based on several primary factors," said Josh Bersin, president. "Most learning organizations haven't yet developed the skills required to fully implement and leverage the various types of informal learning.
"The shift from traditional training to informal learning requires organizations to retool and develop new skills, add new technologies, and reorganize resources. Our research shows that learning organizations with expertise and skills in areas such as knowledge management, information architecture, community management, and performance consulting outperform those still focused on traditional training solutions."
"In order to stay relevant to business, learning organizations must make this shift as quickly and efficiently as possible. Yet, most learning organizations are just beginning to react and have a long way to go," said David Mallon, primary analyst for the just-published study. "Learning organizations have to arm their staff with new skills, reprioritize investments, and educate business unit management. In many cases, they must change the very definition of learning within the enterprise."
The study, which took more than 18 months to complete, is designed to provide training managers with a detailed guide to modernizing and transforming programs, practices, and tools.
Holding Heavy Objects Makes Us See Things As More Important
Gravity affects not just our bodies and our behaviors, but our very thoughts, writes Ed Yong in his blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science. "That's the fascinating conclusion of a new study which shows that simply holding a heavy object can affect the way we think. A simple heavy clipboard can makes issues seem weightier - when holding one, volunteers think of situations as more important and they invest more mental effort in dealing with abstract issues.
"In a variety of languages, from English to Dutch to Chinese, importance is often described by words pertaining to weight. We speak of 'heavy news, 'weighty matters' and 'light entertainment'. We weigh up the value of evidence, we lend weight to arguments with facts, and our opinions carry weight if we wield influence and authority. These are more than just quirks of language - they reflect real links that our minds make between weight and importance."
Yong then, in layman's language, summarizes a study by Nils Jostmann from the University of Amsterdam which demonstrated the link between weight and importance through a quartet of experiments. In each one, a different set of volunteers held a clipboard that either weighed 1.5 pounds or 2.3 pounds.
"The extra 0.8 pounds were enough to make volunteers think that a foreign currency was worth more money. Forty volunteers were asked to guess the conversion rates between euros and six other currencies, indicating their estimate by marking a straight line. Those who held the heavier clipboard valued the currencies more generously, even though a separate questionnaire showed that they felt the same about the euro."
For a training exercise where you really want participants to give it some thought, this might be an experiment you want to try.
For Yong's complete blog entry, click here.
