As one of the most established events in the UK’s training and learning industry, World of Learning is an excellent opportunity to hear from thought leaders and chat to L&D leaders from a wide range of different sectors.
This year, we were part of a broad line-up of exhibitors taking to the floor of the NEC in Birmingham, UK, where we enjoyed some interesting conversations and insights across the two days.
Several consistent themes cropped up in the course of our discussions. From our perspective, it seems that more and more companies understand the far-reaching benefits of investing in learning and development. However, they’re also meeting inevitable challenges along the way. Here are a few key points we talked about.
World of Learning 2018 L&D challenge #1: Investing wisely
The learning industry is full of evolving technologies, all offering different potential features to companies. With so many options on the market, it can be easy to fall into the trap of chasing after a single feature or product in the hope of discovering the next big thing.
Some organisations make choices driven by a fear of being left behind, clouding their thinking about what any tool or technology can really bring to them.
This is why it’s so important to have a strong overarching learning strategy. Having a clear plan and understanding exactly how and why new technologies are being implemented in your business leads to well-informed decisions and long-term results.
This also requires technologists within companies to have a good grasp of the increasingly complex range of technologies on the market. These might include:
- Social and informal learning tools
- Video learning
- Augmented reality (AR)
- Artificial intelligence
Procuring best-of-breed tools can lead to the pace of learning inside an organisation being accelerated, as long as the vision and reasoning behind their use is well thought-out. For example, while virtual reality (VR) has impressive potential, there is little point in investing in it without a focused plan for how it will be practically applied.
World of Learning 2018 L&D challenge #2: Finding long-lasting learning solutions
Many organisations at World of Learning 2018 were exploring single-point learning solutions to solve an isolated challenge or improve one element of their learning. From our conversations, there was a wider feeling among these companies that a more joined-up approach to finding solutions would give them much more value.
Most sectors are going through a time of significant change, while at the same time moving at greater speed and becoming more complex. At a time of increasing globalisation, organisations at the event consistently recognised the importance of learning in helping people adapt and keep up with the pace of change. Clearly, the way forward is to align people, technologies and business objectives alongside the right blend of solutions.
World of Learning 2018 L&D challenge #3: Building internal skills to create great learning
The design and implementation of world-class learning solutions cannot be achieved by an internal team alone. World of Learning 2018 gave us the chance to explain to visitors how we empower our clients’ teams with the exact skills they need, working collaboratively to develop internal capabilities.
We set out our belief that it’s vital to meet organisations where they are, mapping our unrivalled capability and capacity precisely to an organisation’s strategic goals.
Everyone we met at World of Learning 2018 had different needs in specific areas or departments. They were enthused by the possibilities of calling upon the expertise of any of the people and organisations within our group, all of whom are leading experts in their fields. Some of the areas that were of interest to our visitors included:
- Our in-house moving image team of directors, scriptwriters, editors and producers
- The cutting-edge games design studio provided by our partners at PRELOADED
- The award-winning authoring tool from our partners at gomo
Learning success stories at World of Learning 2018
Recent reports such as Deloitte’s performance management maturity model have articulated how companies who value performance, people development and technologies are leading the pack. At World of Learning 2018, we saw evidence of this.
Organisations are clearly seeing significant returns on their investment in learning, linking their programmes to business objectives and enhancing results across their workforce. We look forward to continuing these conversations and hearing more success stories.