Asli Derya is an experienced L&D manager with a history of working in retail and financial services industries. She is a member of the CIPD, a workplace mentor and currently works in EY as a digital learning manager, aiming to transform EMEIA Financial Services business learning offering from classroom/event based learning to blended, program approach, fit for future.

Asli, you are in the L&D business for almost ten years now. If you could travel back in time, what would you see as the most significant difference in corporate learning between today and ten years ago?

A lot has changed in the world of L&D in the past ten or so years. We can see this through the changing role of L&D in organizations, from being a “training” function to becoming more of a function that delivers strategic value, by being more in line with the business strategy, from the changing nature of the job titles, what used to be called a training officer/manager more traditionally is now replaced with Learning & Development roles and within that you find further specialisms from being a master facilitator to leadership development to digital learning…etc. Moreover, L&D challenges itself a lot as well to find its relevance in the business agenda. Corporations are now seeing “talent development” as a critical driver and also a key recruitment differentiator to attract talent to their business. This is perhaps also driven by the millennials entering and moving on with their careers in the workforce and having different parameters to what makes a job satisfactory.

There has also been positive growth in the online learning field with new job roles being advertised more and more every day as digital learning becomes more and more popular for many reasons. The level of e-learning that was available ten years ago versus what can be done today is a massive leap. Of course, this is also driven by the megatrend that is: digital, which impact several aspects of our lives.

Moreover, if you go forward ten years in time, what is going to change in the next ten years? There are many emerging technologies like AI-based personalized learning, VR, AR, chatbots... If you imagine a future from now, which trend or technology will have the most significant impact on learning and development?

I think e-learning will protect its place for a foreseeable future for being a popular choice as there does not seem to be a valid -and cost-effective- an alternative that can provide the same trackability features for many companies. This is sad as Tin Can/API type of systems can easily challenge this however does not seem to be that widespread yet. In the e-learning space, we will see more “video game” quality e-learning modules that are personalized based on the user’s decisions. We do see examples of these today; however, as learning does not get the big budgets the video games do, yet so this can at times be minimal. I think as the investment in human capital increases, this will impact the quality of the e-learning modules.

Besides, a Global Sentiment Survey, filled out by over 5000 L&D professionals, presented by Donald H Taylor found that Personalisation/Adaptive delivery, AI and Learning Analytics led the list by being seen as the “Hot topics of L&D in the workplace in 2019.”

On the other hand, Gartner’s L&D Innovation report found that future investment with AI and VR will be high, whereas appetite for AR and gamification is not so much.

In my ideal ten years fast forward of L&D, we would have learning experience platforms that are built and used like the apps we have on our phones, or like the activity tracker watches, we wear to track our health. It would track all our learning, it would be personalized, it would be social, and it would be bite-sized. Alexa style learning aids would be enabled, and virtual reality would be the leading way to deliver group courses.

The full report can be found here

In my ideal ten years fast forward of L&D, we would have learning experience platforms that are built and used like the apps we have on our phones, or like the activity tracker watches, we wear to track our health. It would track all our learning, it would be personalized, it would be social, and it would be bite-sized. Alexa style learning aids would be enabled, and virtual reality would be the leading way to deliver group courses.

On the one hand, there have been reports over the past few years that VR headset sales are not hitting targets. On the other, VR attracts so much attention -and investment too-. There is even a silicon valley start-up that exclusively focuses on VR-based training. Did you experience any successful implementations of VR on L&D recently? What do you think about the potential of VR in training?

I think VR is a bit like marmite for most people, you either love it or hate it! I personally still sit on the fence. VR has enormous potential, and this can be easily seen in the Strivr example you have given, however not everything is VR suited. VR in L&D would work in areas where you need to simulate real-life situations in a safe space. I can see the use of VR for engineering industries, for aviation, for medicine. Also, yes it can also be used for scenario-based learning, for example, negotiation skills where the participant is put in a scenario sitting across a client or pitching for a new client where presentation skills are vital. However, for scenario-based learning or where soft skills are put to the test, you do have other options like role plays, e-learning courses, or even face to face training, whereas it would be relatively hard to train a pilot without getting them sitting in the cockpit and feeling the real environment of flying a plane.

Moreover, let us face it; the risks involved are very different too. This is where I feel VR makes a massive difference in learning in high-risk situations. So for those high-risk situations, the investment required is worth it, whereas firms might choose more cost-effective options for training that does not necessarily involve life or death. So yes, I think we need to look at VR from the perspective of, what it is used for and if the costs involved would be justified by the benefits, as it is a costly option.

Thanks to consumer electronics and social media, the modern employee is said to have a meager attention span. Today’s learner can easily be distracted. How to let a learner focus on learning content is one of the biggest challenges of distant learning. What do you do to overcome this challenge?

I do not agree with the statement on attention spans getting shorter. Where we have a culture of “binge-watching TV shows,” I think the issue with the attention spans is more of a question of “what is keeping our attention spans?” It is true that modern life is ever more demanding and we are constantly bombarded by information left, right and center, and it can be overwhelming, so we learn to multitask. However, we are also capable of carrying out the very passive act on staring at a screen for hours if it is interesting enough. So how do we design learning that fits into these parameters? We focus on micro-learning, learning that is digital and can be consumed at any time, any place, any device. We create an environment where user-created material can be shared, like YouTube-style videos. Another area I found to help overcome this challenge is through an effective communications plan, and you can guide your learners through the sea of content that is available to them. By deploying some marketing and engagement tactics, L&D can keep the attention of the learner and increase the impact of learning.

Regarding your past successes and failures, can you tell us more, why do you think it is crucial? Also, what are the critical points of an effective communications plan for an L&D initiative?

The first key point for me is to have a plan but also be flexible. You need to understand your audience, how they interact with content and also understand the culture of the company -what do they respond to? These will enable you to flex your plan and act on how the audience is reacting to the comms you send out and utilize what works more. The ultimate aim for any communications plan in L&D would be to drive the consumption of learning. So the plan has to include some creativity, some cliffhangers, and hooks to intrigue the audience to sign up to the training (instead of just sending yet another invitation email). It is also important to push out communications promptly; otherwise, it has risked drowning amongst the sea of emails people get.

The below demonstrates the key considerations we make within our digital learning implementation.