Back in 2014, Bersin By Deloitte released the following infographic. We are now in 2018 and it is interesting to compare this infographic with some current practices and to be honest, it looks like some of these facts could have been written this year.

What can we learn ?

The modern learner needs mobile learning & just in time knowledge

In a digitalized workplace, learning has to be available everywhere, anytime, on any device, especially on mobile devices. Remember, since 2015, one year after this infographic was published, we officially know that more searches are now done on mobile than on desktop. If we cross that information with the fact that learners won’t watch videos of more than 4 minutes, you easily can understand why mobile learning is the new trend, as this tool is exactly designed to provide an easy and just in time access to knowledge.

One point to mention is that, even though this media is the most easiest to access, it still have its own limitations. You will probably not take a full course, such as a leadership certification on your mobile in the subway. But if you are looking for a short tutorials or a specific knowledge, that is probably the right tool.

Social learning takes the biggest part of the pie

Social tools allow learners to share together, even if they are in different timezones, countries and locations. It is not surprising to see that the modern learners makes an extensive use of social learning. Actually this is an amazing way of enriching your knowledge by sharing with a wider audience of learner as we will discuss in future posts.

The modern learner does not wait for his organization to provide him learning

The learning offer being very large, it is not surprising to see in the infographic that 62% of IT professionals reports having paid for their own training. To be honest I would not be surprised if in the future we see this number being generalized to all job families, not only IT. I really think that the shift will arise when social network will provide learning opportunities, such as what Linked In Learning is doing allowing professionals to manage a part of their development plan.

Last but not least the modern learner is overwhelmed!

This is not surprising that the modern learner is a busy worker, not only because of his work, but also because of the sollicitations he receives from collaboration tools (every 5 minutes in average). The conclusion…you have to catch their attention at the right moment, and provide them the right insight with the right media, nothing less and nothing more.

As we will discuss in other posts, the evolution of the learning technologies, especially with machine learning and algorithm will probably allow to make the knowledge sharing more precise, and just in time to answer the needs of modern learners. But in between, we will see new technologies that will probably focus on making the learning environment being more intuitive for learners, in order for it to be synchronised with their busy life. In the end, this provides a fantastic opportunity to adjust learning on demand based on the worker needs.

I believe this post can also be interesting to share and discuss on the Daily Post dedicated to Learning so feel free to discuss it there also.

I wish you all a nice day!