Building a learning organisation

The latest methods and technologies offer a range of opportunities for learning and development

The world is changing at a much faster pace than ever before. New technologies, an explosion of smartphone users, and constantly evolving social media have changed and will keep changing the way that people learn new things.

It is crucial to adapt organisational learning and development strategies accordingly. Organisations need to incorporate modern tools and techniques to enable their people to learn in the most efficient manner.

Mobile learning

The number of smartphone users worldwide continues to grow and mobile devices provide an excellent, accessible way to deliver content. Employees, like everyone else, spend significant amounts of time on their smartphones and use mobile devices to do most of their daily tasks, including learning new concepts.

The benefits of mobile learning include portability and flexibility of learning methods, as well as easy access to learning materials. Video learning materials can also still be delivered as bite-sized content to the learners when they need it.

Social learning

Social learning is not exactly new and the changes in modern workforce structures often make the use of social learning an integral part of learning and development.

Distributed workforces where internal social media networks for learning and development play a critical role in the seamless exchange of ideas, as well as increasing numbers of millennials — who are used to communicating mostly via social channels — in the workforce, bear witness to this.

Adaptive learning and VR

As technology advances, new doors are opening to create adaptive learning experiences. No two learners are the same and in adaptive learning the instructions can be delivered based on individuals’ preferences and inputs.

Virtual reality (VR), as one example, is about to change the training and development landscape. The concept of augmented reality can be used to great effect to create a real environment for teaching complex concepts. Game-based learning and gamification are another great way to make learning more engaging, memorable, and motivating, and the technology is already within reach for most organisations.

Learning trends and preferred (or most suitable) delivery methods may change and evolve over time. However, the need for organisations to help their employees to perform better in their jobs remains a constant. Ultimately, the role of organisational learning and development is to build training programmes that make employees realise their true potential and benefit the entire organisation as a result.

Wits Plus offers a part-time short course in specialised learning and development that will enable learning and development practitioners to plan and implement learning interventions that suit adult learners and to align practices with their organisational strategy.

About Wits Plus

Wits Plus, the Centre for PartTime Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, offers selected undergraduate degrees, as well as a wide range of short certificate courses.

Evening classes make all qualifications accessible to working people and busy entrepreneurs. Wits Plus also offers a range of online short courses that enable you to study wherever you are.

Certificates of competence are awarded to successful participants for both certificate and online short courses.