Here’s E-Learning Catalog X, Stop Asking Us for Learning!

For those of us who grew up in the 80s, or who have excellent taste in movies, scenes from Caddyshack with its many comedic stars will ring a bell – Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield to name a few. Remember the scene where Judge Smails walks off the golf course toward the refreshment stand with his spoiled grandson Spaulding, who asks for “a hamburger, no, a cheeseburger, a hot dog, a milkshake, and potato chips”? To which the judge responds, “You’ll get nothing and like it!”

Intrepid recently ran a survey of over 1,000 learners that seeks to understand learning priorities and opportunities from the learner’s perspective. One respondent summarized a key theme voiced across learners when describing the learning culture in their organization: “Here’s Lynda.com, stop asking us for learning.” Something is definitely wrong when learning organizations—like Judge Smails’ rebuke of Spaulding—regard learners as entitled nitwits who should stop demanding targeted, high quality learning opportunities that help them improve their skills at work.

Intrepid surveyed 1,033 learners to find out:

• What employees think are the most high-stakes learning topics facing their organization
• What learners see as the best modalities for delivering high-stakes training
• Their assessment of the effectiveness of their organization’s L&D culture
• How they feel about professional development opportunities for their growing careers

For the full details, we’ve got a great infographic and thorough executive summary of all the data which you can download here.

In this post, I want to draw attention to some of the open text responses to a few of the questions we asked. They reveal a real desire among learners for structured, contextualized, organized learning opportunities supported by their managers and the organizations for whom they work. Unfortunately, many learning organizations fixate on easy solutions like broad (yet shallow) e-learning catalogs which they throw in the general direction of their employees, and then wonder why no one uses them.

In this context, it’s not surprising to learn that nearly three-quarters of respondents to our research say that their learning culture is underperforming – typically somewhere between “meh” and “so-so.” 

There were a lot of learner quotes that reveal a rash of uninspiring learning cultures.

We need to pay attention to what learners are saying. When they say that their organizations are channeling Judge Smails (e.g., “Here’s a generic e-learning catalog, stop asking us for learning”), they are telling us that their organizations are more interested in checking the proverbial employee training box than doing the hard work to diagnose specific employee skill gaps, and then offering targeted, contextualized, and structured learning opportunities to develop those skills. Don’t get me wrong, making a lot of self-paced e-learning content broadly available can serve a purpose. But it’s a limited purpose, not a silver bullet, and it in no way solves the most pressing learning and business problems organizations face. Employees who question “spray and pray” approaches to learning catalogs are rightly questioning simplistic and ultimately ineffective learning strategies. 

So what exactly are learners looking for? When we asked what words they would ideally like their learning culture to embody, respondents came back with descriptions like the following:

This is great news. Learners intuitively understand what they need: things like guided learning experiences that are work-relevant, connecting new concepts to real-world environments, and the ability to practice and apply new skills. And this is especially true for the high stakes business challenges that learners highlighted as their top learning priorities: leadership development, interpersonal skills like communication, and mastering new technologies.

Our research is a refreshing reminder that learners are really smart, they know what they want, and what they are asking for is good for them and the organizations they serve. In fact, what learners are asking for is far better than the one-size-fits-all catalog solutions that so many organizations provide their people. Learners remind us that these short-cuts are insufficient, and it’s time for learning leaders to listen. Learners may want to watch Caddyshack on Netflix, but they are looking for far more than the “Netflix of Learning.”