Libby Webb draws on a recent report about the Learning Experience Platform.
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Now that xAPI ensures learning activities can be tracked and automated across many touchpoints, almost anywhere at any time, the impact on the expectations and needs of learners is clear.
Much like we’ve come to expect seamless, data-optimised, multi-channel experiences in areas like retail and entertainment, research shows us that our learners are becoming frustrated with the outdated, administrator-driven LMS structure that falls greatly behind the capabilities of tech present in other areas of their lives.
This issue is understandable considering that identifying and closing skills gaps whilst maintaining an engaging and effective culture of learning remains a key challenge for global, L&D-conscious organisations.
The answer here lies in L&D’s rapidly evolving tech offering; with a key recent example being the emergence of the Learning Experience Platform (LXP), a more advanced, data-savvy and flexible version of the traditional LMS format designed to assist and encourage employees when discovering engaging, relevant and meaningful learning opportunities.
Enter the Learning Experience Platform
A tool that incorporates personalised learning, virtual reality and AI-driven chatbots in addition to organisational resources and content, the LXP offers modern, data-driven, self-directed learning that is unique for each individual user.
Organisations today need to realise that learning occurs everywhere all the time – not just in the learning platform.
A term coined last year and since frequently heralded by leading industry analyst Josh Bersin, the LXP is a fast-growing trend that works to curate and aggregate content, create learning and career pathways, build on skills development, and provide users with highly personalised content recommendations at the time of need.
The LXP offers many advantages over its predecessor, including smart recommendations embedded into a self-directed learning structure, employee-driven and impact-focused learning experiences to name a few.
As Ben Betts writes in the recent Guide To Learning Experience Platforms, the LXP has earned relevance through the following realities:
The Relevance of the LXP
The evolution of workplace learning
If we look back to the 40s, training opportunities were first implemented when skilled workmen were enlisted by the armed forces and factories were left unmanned. In the 70s, a wave of compliance-based training programs were put into place – e.g. health and safety, good practice programs – but these had very poor ROI.
Entering the technological era, digital transformation ensured the installation of digital learning opportunities. But as time went on, learning professionals soon realised that compliance-focused workplace training was not enthusing learners to get involved.
Organisations today need to realise that learning occurs everywhere all the time – not just in the learning platform. Meetings, shadowing a colleague and even informal chats in the break room count.
Not only is the LXP built with an exclusive range of features that allow the learner to take control of their own, individualised learning journey, it also accounts for all types of learning and rewards learners for all the learning they’re achieving.
The productivity problem
Despite all the industries innovation in workplace learning over the last decade or so, not much has really changed in ‘macro’ terms.
Since 2004, productivity in the US, Western Europe and Japan has been significantly below previous trade. Where productivity growth once consistently averaged 2% (and sometimes above), for almost 15 years it has been closer to 1% (and since 2010, often below the 1% mark).
And here’s the thing – the digitisation of the workplace should have made labour hours more productive than was previously possible. As digitisation took over and access to knowledge through the Internet proliferated, it was anticipated that productivity would soar.
In reality, it would seem we are all working longer, harder and faster than ever before, yet concerningly, it’s no longer making a significant difference.
We now have easy access to new digital tools, but this does not mean they are well used, understood or embedded in businesses. The real benefit of the LXP is that trainers can have as much, or as little, input as required by the learner.
The ‘experience’ layer sees learners taking control of their learning journey, participating in activities that are fundamental to the skills they lack/require for their job role, moving workplace training away from the content heavy courses previously adopted by the LMS.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Described by Elon Musk, the key problem we face for unlocking human potential is the lack of bandwidth between us and our computers. Via the Internet, we have access – or potential access – to unlimited, instant information, but our means of getting to it is currently confined to interfaces tapped by our fingers.
In computing terms, the process of having a thought, getting to a device, typing out a query, looking for a result, processing the information and then, finally, using it, is a slow one. The world’s knowledge is at our fingertips, but not at the tip of our tongues or actions.
The next frontier of human-computer interfaces will, therefore, come at the frontier of this interface…incoming the Fourth Industrial Revolution. When we’ve reached the point of simply thinking a thought and having the answer supplied instantly by the Internet, only then will we have truly transformed our brain power.
To be enhanced with technology has already happened in our lifetime. Take a look at the hands of your fellow commuters on your way home this evening. We’ve all been sucked in by the commercialisation of technology – we’re always wanting something faster, better, smarter.
And so we find ourselves prepping for a revolution – one in which immediate access to knowledge is the fundamental differentiator. It’s safe to say, this is going to change a thing or two about how we do business.
If you’ve only recently been introduced to the term Learning Experience Platform, you can download the HT2 Labs Guide to Learning Experience Platforms
About the author
Libby Webb is a content writer for HT2 Labs