What is Worth Learning?

Learning is at the center of my universe. I believe deeply in the value of education, and I wake up in the morning excited to learn what’s happened during my sleeping hours. I regularly absorb curated sources: blogs, on-line publications of all sorts, podcasts; you name it, I take it in. I’m a learning junkie. So questioning the value of learning tears at my heart.

But I have many coaching and organizational clients who want my advice on learning and development issues. Individuals seek my input on whether or not, for example, they should go back to school to further their careers. Organizations too are often looking for counsel on training curricula and employee development programs. As discomfiting as it may feel to question a value I hold so personally dear, in my professional role I need to assess the benefit of all kinds of learning in today’s work world.

Let me share my own working definitions of a couple of work-related terms and some fundamental assumptions. Are training and development identical? To my way of thinking, they are related, but not the same. Training is typically a process followed by employees to deepen or acquire work-related knowledge or skills. It is an “outside in” process that provides information to support better job performance in roles within the organization. 

Development differs from training in two major ways: first, development is a more open-ended and internal process. It is a step forward in an individual’s understanding of the world, or some aspect of it. Development can be encouraged by certain experiences (including training); if and when learners have the motivation and readiness to integrate that learning, they will experience shifts both in their perception and the desire to take on integrating their learning.

The value to an organization of offering employee workshops on appreciating the contributions of all individuals, for example, is, however, less obvious. And it is more difficult to assess. Clearly, content (about laws related to equity perhaps) can be absorbed and that intake can be tested. But whether an employee believes that appreciating the individuality of others is worthwhile and opts to put that value into use in their job is more difficult to evaluate. It is hard to determine if exposure to content has resulted in appreciating or valuing something that an individual has been instructed in.

This kind of learning is perhaps hybrid: part of it can be considered training and that part can be tested for proof of learned outcomes; and yet other aspects of the exposure to the concepts presented around appreciating the value of individuality are perhaps more reasonably classified as development. Elements of the fresh experiences (including introduction to new content) accumulate over time and raise awareness that, at some point, may become internalized and emerge as a newly held attitude or understanding. When that happens, the results of development can be quite wide-ranging—and a high reward strategy for organizations. 

Unfortunately, current trends in employee training indicate a skewing away from enthusiastic, wholistic investments in employee learning. For example, Harvard Business Review (November-December 2024) reported that, in the area of artificial intelligence, the perceived wisdom around AI has shifted: instead of AI taking away jobs, it is now expected that it will be used to enhance people’s performance at work. The implication is that, for employees to be retained, they must reskill, that is, be taught to use this new technology. HBS research on over 1000 Chief Human Resource officers from 200+ companies in the US revealed that 86% of organizations surveyed had piloted a reskilling program and 82% of companies indicated they were eager to continue. Yet only 56% were actively implementing reskilling! 

Why the hesitation? The research cited several possibilities, but a leading contender to explain the reluctance to pursue reskilling was that more than half of employers did not or could not calculate their return on investment. At least on the surface, it would appear that investing in the benefit of employee training---even in this high value arena---was not sufficiently compelling to outweigh the "risks" of the cost of employee learning not meeting the challenge of paying off in measurable ways. 

Given the tension to cut costs while training needs to increase, those seeking data to address seemingly contradictory pressures might look to a recent Gartner report that parsed training offerings for content that offers the surest bang for the organization's buck. According to their research, focusing training on the "core skills" currently required for a given job has five times the impact on performance than instruction in "emerging" skills. The message here is that training for immediate needs is the surest way to recoup on an investment in employee learning. This finding resonates as well with our knowledge of how adults learn: we know that adult learning is a "use it or lose it" process. 

So, in terms of concrete results, training in the key capabilities needed right now is most likely to be both put to use and will remain. But in terms of retaining employees, that strategy runs counter to what employees tell us they want to learn: only 25% of employees prefer training in core skills over learning new ones. It also puts training for future projected workforce needs on the back burner, which runs the risk of organizations encountering a reality that they were being pennywise and pound-foolish when this choice is viewed in the rearview mirror a few years hence. A conundrum, to be sure.

At the far end of the training/development offerings spectrum, a few highly enlightened organizations take a very broad approach on how employees select development opportunities. They give very free reign to workers to choose a seemingly non-work-related development goal, reflecting the organization's belief that development produces a kind of growth that is not an obvious cause and effect undertaking. These sorts of choices often prove to be extremely beneficial for multiple reasons, many of which may not have been anticipated. 

At a technology organization I worked with, an engineer opted to begin music lessons as a personal development goal. There was no obvious link between that goal and her work, but neurological research suggests that the brain wiring of technical people and that of individuals with strong musical aptitude are highly correlated. (In fact, those of us who work with career preferences have long noted that engineers and those in similar vocations are frequently closet musicians!) Can an employee prove that learning a new instrument will improve her job performance? Likely not, but it can be a wise investment for the organization for a number of reasons: supporting an employee in composing a life that is rewarding and fulfilling encourages loyalty and good will; sharpening a technical brain with regular exercise tied to learning new skills and concepts likely helps keep her sharp and engaged; the capacities for innovation and discipline, developed in this new pursuit, can also be put to use in tackling challenging work tasks with freshness and energy. Is it a sure thing? No, for that employers should invest in tangible, testable employee training. But it is my experience that when organizations invest in development, they often get far more in enhanced job performance than they paid for it.

In sum, for the most expedient organizational sure-thing results: invest in training in immediately applicable core job skills. Hedge organizational bets with some balancing of core training with training for anticipated enterprise needs. For the long haul (employee engagement and retention as well as employee growth into encouraging strategic thinking, willingness to take risks and pursue higher level goals and growth) take a gamble and invest in your employees' development. You may not get the outcome you were expecting: you may well get much more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                          

 

 

 

 


ADDITIONAL BLOGS THAT COULD BE OF INTEREST