LEARNING MYTHS BUSTED

From the desk of Marcia Dresner...

“If we only had a ‘seat at the table’, we would be able to really make a difference."

The 8th Annual Benchmarking Study (the CorpU Study) surveyed about 200 learning organizations. The companies represented varied in size, industry, and locations, and the learning organization varied by organization structure, age, and something we call “stage of learning transformation”. There are four stages: Beginner, Early Stage, Valued Partner and Strategic Function. Although the overall data is often sufficient to refute a myth, it is the answers of the Strategic Functions – defined as the L&D organizations that are viewed as a strategic enabling function for the business, repeatedly delivering quantifiable business benefits, with expanding budgets and programs – that we look to for confirmation.

Myth #1: The head of L&D has to report to the CEO for learning to have a “seat at the table"

In all but the smallest companies, the head of L&D does not report to the CLO, but instead reports to the head of HR (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The head of learning is most likely to report directly to the CEO in companies that have fewer than 2,500 employees.

Either that says that L&D is not a strategic partner in most companies, or that this reporting relationship is not as important as the myth suggests. I believe it is the latter and the data for Strategic Functions confirms it. Over 60% of Strategic Functions report to the Senior Vice President for HR and fewer than 10% report directly to the CEO. Anecdotally, many of the most respected learning organizations use this kind of reporting structure. 

That, of course, raises the question of what L&D needs to do to achieve its status as a strategic partner. It really comes down to communication and paying attention to what really matters. Creating a governing board of senior executives and business leaders to ensure that L&D understands the company’s long and short-term strategic plans is a start. Another aspect of that communication is using collaborative mechanisms to determine what learning interventions are critical to the business. This is something that Strategic Functions do better than any other group (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Strategic Functions are twice as likely as L&D organizations at other stages of development to use each of these methods.

For more information, members should look at the 8th Annual Benchmarking Report chapters on Alignment and Governance and Roles and Responsibilities.

Myth #2: Business leaders believe L&D measurements

The CorpU Study indicated that 58% of companies are increasing the pressure on L&D to show the value of their efforts, and some companies are adding capability to do just that. The issue raised by the research, however, is that management may not be listening (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Only 28% of organizations claimed that management is “willing to accept estimates of value,” and then only if conservative estimating methods are used.

This is a bit of a chicken and egg issue. Management in companies with Strategic Function L&D groups score better on this question with 48% saying that management accepts their numbers. But which came first – strong measurement capability that produced believable numbers, leading to their status as Strategic Functions, or the fact that they are viewed as a strategic asset so the numbers are credible. I suspect the former.

For more information, members should look at the 8th Annual Benchmarking Report chapter on Measurement.

Myth #3: The most strategic learning organizations are those with a strong centralized L&D group that is responsible for the planning, design, development and delivery of learning

This is another “if only” issue for L&D. The group handling some of the company-wide training  is frustrated by a sense that there needs to be more consistency and planning around learning, and feels that learning would just be “better” if there was a single point of control for everything. The research shows that this isn’t what’s happening, and that L&D organizations are evenly divided among decentralized, federated and centralized models (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

The really important finding is that there really isn’t anything like a “pure” implementation in any of the categories. The designations, while convenient, simply represent ideals and not necessarily reality. When asked how many additional L&D groups there were in their companies, 31% of centralized organizations said that 2-5 additional groups operated in their companies.  Even more dramatic evidence comes from the question about number of learning staff assigned to a “central L&D group” (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Staff percentages vary by the configuration of the L&D organization, but the distinctions are not absolute.

In centralized L&D groups, only 49% reported that 91–100% of staff is assigned to them, with the others reporting varying smaller percentages. On the flip side, 22% of decentralized learning organizations report that 91-100% of learning staff report to a central L&D group, showing further that the categories are not implemented according to strict divisions.

For more information, members should look at the 8th Annual Benchmarking Report chapter on Roles and Responsibilities.

Other Myths?

The learning field is full of myths and half-truths. (So is every field of endeavor, but that’s beyond our scope!) The goal of CorpU’s research team is to provide you with facts that enable you to move beyond the myths to grow your learning organization into the strategic force it should be. If there are any other learning “truths” that you’d like to see us explore, please let us know. Your suggestions could form the basis for another article like this one, or even suggest some promising new avenue for our research. 

Contact me at mdresner@corpu.com or research@corpu.com.

Marcia Dresner, CorpU Senior Research Analyst