top 5 learning trends of 2013

Whitepaper

5 TrenDSWHAT yOu NEEd TO kNOW

THIs yEAR

2013 lEARNINg TRENds:

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www.sumtotalsystems.com2013 LEARNING TRENDS: What You Need To Know This Year

IntroductionWith the beginning of 20 13, the landscape for enterprise learning

solutions is incredibly fluid and fastpaced. The trends that are driving

technology everywhere — data, mobile, cloud, social — also apply

to learning. How are these trends changing the learning community?

What are the opportunities that you should focus on first? We’ll

highlight five ideas that your learning strategy must address.

Learning has never been more vital to the success of the modern enterprise. Whether

you’re talking about a large global organization or an emerging local business, these

entities will need to embrace learning and development as the best way to confront

talent challenges. The skills and leadership gaps that exist in most organizations can’t

be addressed through recruiting. The answers will come from you and your peers in

learning functions.

“In 2013, learning leaders will solidify their role as a conduit to business success — not

through better program design but through better learning infrastructure, information

access, and adaptable learning opportunities for wider audiences,” said Stacey Harris,

vice president of research and advisory services at Brandon Hall Group. “Over 20

percent of organizations stated that learners needed to connect with learning resources

on a daily basis to effectively perform their job, and we think this number will continue

to rise rapidly in the coming years.”

Learning can’t exist within its own silo. It’s vital to connect development to performance,

succession and other talent, HR and workforce functions. You also need to work with

your executive leadership, HR and line managers to put development at the center of

every people function.

To help you in your people development planning, SumTotal wants to highlight these

five key trends in learning technology so you can future-proof your strategy.

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unDerSTanD ThaT InTegraTIon IS esseNTial To aNalyTiCs.TreNd #1

Two market trends that you need to understand

clearly are the rapid integration in the market

and the almost exponential growth of workforce

data. Data consolidation has been activated

as companies have come together to create

an integrated talent management approach

with learning connected to performance,

compensation, succession and recruiting. Many

companies are attracted by the ROI potential —

organizations with effective integration of learning

and talent systems are three times as likely to have

strong employee results and 100 percent more

likely to have strong business results.1

Another benefit of integration is better data that

improves workforce analytics. Integration of talent

and learning technologies with other business software can yield insights about your

workforce that can lower people costs and benefit the bottom line. Over 40 percent

of organizations looking to replace their LMS were searching for improved reporting

features — the No. 1 replacement concern.2 If your boss isn’t asking you about analytics,

expect that to change this year.

embraCe mobile learNiNG.TreNd #2Mobile learning is here, but you shouldn’t be afraid of it. It has never been easier to

engage your people on the job and on the go. Many businesses have done a great job

of offering truncated and just-in-time mobile courses and job aids for their employees

to use on the go. It’s part of an enterprise-wide movement. In a recent survey by IDG, 69

percent of CIOs said mobile technology adoption is their most critical priority.3

As great as the current mobile programs have been for employees out in the field and

those without online access, courses have had a rather flat delivery — until now. For

example, text messages (or SMS) within mobile learning can engage users for more

What you need to know: Not all integration is the same. You

may see a product demo that shows

a similar user interface, but is there

real integration? In most cases, no.

While an integrated user experience

is important, appearance may be

deceiving. At the code layer, many

integration challenges still remain

— challenges that you won’t see

until you are faced with a difficult

implementation and expensive data-

mapping challenges. Partner with

IT to ask hard questions about how

“integrated” a suite of software really

is. Also, ask about implementation

and professional support.

1. Bersin by Deloitte. Pillars for Performance: Integrating Learning and Talent Management. To purchase the report, visit http://www.bersin.com/practice/Detail.aspx?id=14842&s=Talent-Mgmt.-Systems

2. Brandon Hall Group. LMS Trends 2013.3. http://www.enterprisecioforum.com/en/whitepaper/mobile-higher-priority-cloud-or-big-data4. http://clomedia.com/articles/view/mobile-learning-the-next-evolution

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Ways You Can Leverage Mobile Learning in Your

Organization:

• Provide job aids and quality operating procedure updates to employees who don’t have access to a workstation.

• Offer technical/clinical/service employees who work in the field access to information on the job and at the moment of need.

• Enable workers who travel consistently, with learning and training resources.

• Keep your sales team up-to-date with the most current marketing slicks and technical specifications for all your products.

What you need to know: You don’t need to sacrifice

functionality and data access to

benefit from mobile. As adoption of

Software as a Service (SaaS)-based

learning increases, the best systems

include a familiar user interface

regardless of platform and are

drawing on easy-to-use features

from the consumer world. Another

important feature is ease of ability

for users to upload content they

create and for managers to push

coursework to employees in the

field.

DeveloP ConTenT forrapid deploymeNT.TrenD #3

Rapid content creation continues to be on the forefront

of trends in content development. Solutions that are

quick, inexpensive, simple to create and easy to deploy

or modify are must-haves for those generating e-learning

content. One emerging trend is integrating social media

and social learning into e-learning courses. For example,

embedding a link to a social learning source, such as a

wiki or blog, is included within the course. Other trends

include adding more scenario-based learning and

creating shorter courses, spanning five to 15 minutes,

instead of the 30- to 60-minute courses of old.

One idea that is new to content development draws from the world of Web development:

designing for mobile first. In a world where people are rapidly replacing desktops and

laptops with tablets and smartphones, you must design user content to account for

screen size, ratios and resolution.

What you need to know:

Think mobile and social

first — this is how users will

consume, interact with and

generate their own content.

Also, because of the move

to mobile, you will need to

account for HTML5. Is your

learning content ready for iOS

mobile devices that don’t play

Flash-based content?

effective training. Leveraging one of the most basic elements of mobile technology to

respond to polls, surveys and questionnaires is a great way to increase participation,

making an investment in mobile learning even more worthwhile.4

4. http://clomedia.com/articles/view/mobile-learning-the-next-evolution

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Turn learnIng InTo a revenue driver For your orGaNizaTioN.TreNd #4

We may have entered the aftermath of the Great Recession, but every department is still

expected to contribute to cutting costs, increasing efficiency and driving revenue. One

way to contribute to all three is to adopt extended-enterprise technologies to serve

content to external audiences. In a recent survey, over 53 percent of learning functions

were already gearing some of their learning toward external audiences.5 These training

audiences include customers, distributors and other partner organizations — frequently

in sales and compliance-related training that is industry-specific.

SaaS-based learning systems make it easy to develop and deliver training on demand.

You can develop and deliver education and information to audiences outside your

organization and:

• Increase sales by delivering up-to-the-minute information and supporting sales enablement

• Accelerate the adoption rate of new products and services

• Improve productivity and information-sharing with external partners

• Deliver certification programs and share knowledge

• Eliminate excess training costs while accelerating time to market

• Improve customer satisfaction

• Reduce effort, time and training costs


Extended-enterprise technologies are

a great way to turn learning content

you already have into revenue. When

evaluating options, focus on easy

administration. You should be able

to manage secure coupons, price

content flexibility, change navigation

and pages easily, and set up portals for

different audiences (such as potentially

competitive channel sales partners).

Also, make sure that your technology

choice supports easy purchase by credit

card and purchase order and invoice.

5. Brandon Hall Group. 2013: New Year and New Directions.

uSe DeveloPmenT To DrIveTaleNT reTeNTioN.TreNd #5

No matter where you are in the world, there is one unavoidable truth — the people who

are most essential to your success are in short supply but great demand. The critical roles

in your organization may be a skill specific to your industry, or it could be as ubiquitous as

a mid-level manager. No matter where the skills shortage is pinching your organization,

recruiting isn’t the solution. The answer is retention. Hang on to your best people.

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How do you do it? First, you must understand

which roles are critical to your success and

find skills gaps. Succession tools can help

you assess your bench strength. After you

understand your areas of risk, you can target

development for high-potential employees in

these areas. You can even use development

to show valuable employees that they have a

future and a career path with you. It gives them

an incentive to stick around.

Don’t Take Top Talent for Granted

Various surveys show that 45 to 50 percent of

top performers are always looking for a new

job. Don’t assume your company is any different.


Succession isn’t just for the C-suite.

All of your leaders and critical roles

should be in your succession plan. Also,

remember that without a development

plan behind it, a succession plan is only

a list of names. Make employees active

participants in their career development,

and give them the training that helps

them gain the knowledge and skills to

be the top performers and leaders of

tomorrow.

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ConclusionThis is an exciting time for learning technology. Critical workforce needs and advances in

technology mean that learning professionals are at the forefront of the most important

talent challenges. With the right technology, you can know that you are up to the task

and ready to deliver.

As the market leader in enterprise learning, SumTotal can help you address your

learning challenges and make the most of the latest industry innovations.

Why choose us?

1. We offer an industry-leading learning solution, next-generation mobile technologies, and cutting-edge delivery of content and extended-enterprise solutions.

2. We’ve taken a different approach to product and technology integration. While everyone else is still talking about product integration, it’s a reality with us today. And no one in the industry can match our ability to integrate data with other HR systems; other enterprise systems, like CRM and POS; and even popular third-party sites like, salesforce.com and LinkedIn.

3. Our learning solutions are completely integrated with a suite of talent and workforce solutions.

4. Our professional services teams are committed to your success — before, during and after implementation.

5. We put your people first. We’re all about learning and development. We’ll help your people be their best.

TakIng learnIng To The nexT level

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CONTACT us TOdAy

We’re ready to partner with you for new learning solutions. For additional information,

send an email to: [email protected]

AbOuT suMTOTAl

SumTotal Systems, LLC, the largest independent provider of integrated HR solutions,

is increasing the performance of some of the world’s most successful organizations,

including AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN[ADR]; London: AZN), Amway (KUL: AMWAY), and

Seagate (NYSE: STX). Providing the industry’s only Talent Expansion Platform, SumTotal

helps organizations improve and expand their employee talent and become great places

to work. SumTotal’s people-focused applications, available on premise and in the Cloud,

enable in-context, just-in-time development designed to advance employees’ skills and

knowledge. For more information or to request a demo, please call +1 (866) 768-6825

(US / Canada), +1 (352) 264-2800 (international) or visit www.sumtotalsystems.com.

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top 5 learning trends of 2013

Technology