Learning and development (L&D) has already been able to steal the limelight in the corporate world. The past few years have seen a steady increase in investments in corporate L&D. Why? A common reason may be that as organizations are increasing their headcount, they are increasingly feeling the need for various skill and development training and other L&D programs.
There may be a possibility that even if the L&D budget in your organization is increasing, it may be possible that your L&D department is only doing its jobs as usual. Do remember that corporate L&D can serve as a catalyst in nurturing and developing a skilled and enthusiastic talent pool that can assist your organization in realizing its organizational goals and objectives.
Here comes an important question. How will ensure that the L&D department in your organization has gained the ability to live up to its potential? How will make sure that the chief learning officer in your organization is performing at par with your organizational expectations? Mind the following signs, the picture will be clear to you.
- Are all L&D activities in your organizations proactive or reactive? How is your chief talent development officer addressing the L&D requests coming from various departments? Better to say, is he/she capable of responding to all such requests? Do remember that if your chief learning officer is able to take a complete strategic view of L&D, the L&D department of your organization is proactive, then. A good chief learning officer or chief talent development officer must have expertise in the following subjects:
- Knowledge Management
- Curriculum Design
- Learning Theory
- Change Management
- Technologies comprising mobile learning, MOOCs, and so on.
Is your company’s CLO communicating with the top management as well as departmental managers on a daily basis? If not, it’s time to take a close look at your company’s L&D activities.
- Is your L&D department engaged in strategic planning? Believe it or not, a good chief learning officer should be an integrated part of the strategic planning team of each and every department. After all, who can avoid the importance of employees’ learning and development in ensuring organizational success? Further, when a chief learning officer or chief talent development officer gets actively involved in the strategic planning of every department of your organization, training will never be considered an afterthought but an important cog in your organization’s development.
- Is your team gathering and using various L&D metrics? If your L&D department is not banking on real metrics, it is then a warning signal. Metrics are the backbone of any dynamic L&D department. A capable chief learning officer or chief talent development officer should pay heed to Return on Investment on every training program as well as other measurements in order to show the management that all the learning and development initiatives are ultimately contributing to the company’s bottom line. If your L&D team is staying far away from such initiatives, then time has come for you to be extra cautious.
Learning and development are the driving forces behind organizational success. Therefore, you must ensure all the time that your company is making the full use of all L&D activities.
