This article originally appeared

in the 2012, No. 2, issue of

The journal of high-performance business

Talent & Organization

The learning enterprise

By Diego S. De Len, Terry Nulty and Geirean Marcroft

B
 ringing new and relevant skills to the workforce has never
been more important. To do so successfully, organizations
must absorb the best practices of internal and external
experts into their own knowledge base, connect people in
ways that will encourage innovation and turn the entire
enterprise into a learning team.
a ccenture.com/outlook

Every year, companies spend billions

of dollars on their enterprise learning
programsmore than $171 billion in
the United States alone, according to a
2011 report from the American Society
for Training & Development. Are they
getting their moneys worth?
Not according to the recent Accenture
Skills Gap Study, which surveyed more
than 1,000 employed and unemployed
US workers: Only 21 percent of respondents reported developing new skills
in the past five years through formal
training programs offered by their
companies.
This failure to deliver relevant skills
in a timely and consistent manner is
being felt on both an individual and
corporate level. For workers, frustration
is setting in: Our research shows that
although 55 percent of employees say
they feel pressure to acquire additional
skills, less than a quarter report theyre
getting the support they need.
For companies, skills shortages are
increasingly common. Despite growing
unemployment in many countries,
organizations from almost every
industry are struggling to find people
with the capabilities they need to
deal with changing technologies,
markets and customers.
If hiring needed skills is not necessarily
the answer anymore, then companies
must find ways to retrain the people
they already have, which in many
cases includes significantly upgrading
skill levels and training people to move
into roles with different capabilities. But
that doesnt mean operating in isolation
when it comes to capability development.
Quite the opposite: It means transforming
your entire organization into your
enterprise learning teamconnecting
people in ways that result in innovative
ideasand turning the best practices of
internal and external experts into your
own knowledge base.
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In fact, given the learning fields

potential to deliver consistent, expert-

driven, capability-based training to

critical workforces, combined with
new social media and collaboration
technologies, the time has actually
never been better for bringing relevant
skills to the workforce while also
encouraging the interactions that
generate innovation and increase your
organizational brainpower.

The social dimension

Most employees recognize that much
of what they need to perform better,
improve their skills and gain more
knowledge is around them all the time:
learning by observing colleagues,
receiving coaching from a supervisor,
having access to proven ideas and best
practices, as well as simply getting
on-the-job experience every day.
Seventy-five percent of workers
responding to Accentures survey build
new skills through job shadowing,
observing others and on-the-job
experience.
The challenge for companies is to transform the inherently ad hoc nature of this
informal learning into something with
more structure and rigor. Thats where
social networking and collaboration
technologies are now beginning to create
learning opportunities.
Social media is an inescapable presence
today. It would be hard to find a major
business thats not asking people to
follow it on Facebook, or that isnt
tweeting regular news about its products.
But its one thing to leverage the
enormous popularity of social networking to reach customers and
manage brand awareness. Its quite
another to integrate social media into
a core capability such as learning.
Sound easy? Its not.
What training professionals refer to
as social learning will be a force in
every organization, sooner or later. In
the words of Claudia Rodriguez, vice
president and head of Motorola Solutions
Learning, organizations are at a major
inflection point when it comes to the
use of social media and collaboration

Social media tools

have great potential
to harness the
experiential dimension
of the workplace.

tools in businessnot just in learning

but in everything a business does.
Gradually, social networking is becoming so ingrained in how we live
that it will also become ingrained in
the way we work, says Rodriguez.
The question is, how do we do it in
a way that advances the business and
also contains the risks? We are answering that question by providing more
robust tools that make collaboration
even more accessible and efficient to the
broader internal and external ecosystem,
while also educating users on how
to be effective and more accountable
social learners.
Social learning is not without risks
some perceived but some very real:
leaked information, learning programs
that might be inconsistent and
contradictory, productivity losses
and a candor in exchanges that may
not always be productive.
Consider the company that established
an internal forum akin to a Facebook
page. Direct reports to a senior executive
were asked to post their vision statements
for their organization onto his page.
One manager did so, but the executive
didnt like it. His responsevisible to
everyone in the entire companywas
that the managers posting wasnt a
true vision statement and would need
to be totally reworked before it would
be acceptable. Not something thats likely
to stimulate learning and the open
sharing of ideas again anytime soon.
Properly designed and managed,
however, social media tools have great
potential to harness the experiential
dimension of the workplace to deliver
relevant learning experiences that
reflect both proven expertise within a
function or industry and timely access
to an organizations best thinking,
wherever it might be.

Global learning
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A social learning solution developed

by Microsoftcalled Academy Mobile
is an internal platform employees can
use to share knowledge by creating and

posting audio and video podcasts. The

platform has been enormously popular,
with download traffic up 115 times in
its first two years.
Its value resides largely in how easily
employees across Microsofts global
organization can translate interactions,
meetings or timely personal insights
into content that can support better
learning, performance and idea generation. For example, using the platform,
virtual meetings can be captured,
catalogued, indexed and converted
to video or audio. Content is searchable, and learning programs are also
organized and catalogued by topic,
creating a kind of virtual curriculum.
The academy is available on workers
mobile devices as well.
The Academy Mobile platform is
especially valuable to employees such
as salespeople: It enables them to learn
rapidly about particular products,
solutions and sales techniques so
they can capitalize on an immediate
customer opportunity.
How does a Microsoft employee know
what content is more valuable than other
content? In part, through a ranking
system from the users themselves. The
ranking (from one to five stars) becomes
a means by which the best ideas rise to
the top because of their practical value.
Employees can also interact and ask
questions of content creators, generating
a dialogue that may become as important
as the original postingand offers another indicator of what content is hot.
The ability to rate content sourced
online will become increasingly important to effective enterprise learning. In
its totality, the Internet is the worlds
greatest source of learning but, to use
the clich, thats a bit like saying that
a fire hose is the greatest source of
drinking water.
A companys knowledge system might
well provide a search capability and
generate abundant content in response
to a query, but then what? Content

may be king but context is queen.

To provide value to employees and
enable faster routes to innovation,
a search engine needs to aggregate
results from a number of internal
and external sources and then, as the
Microsoft solution does, rank those
results according to how likely the
content is to support someones needs
and intentions.

Statistical evidence
suggesting that some
types of formal learning
are failing to deliver
value does not mean
that traditional
classroom training or
e-learning is inherently
out of date.

Technology optional
Not every company needs to develop
its own social media platform. Many
organizations will find that the social
networks already in use by consumers
have functionality that goes well
beyond what they can create in-house.
Rather than trying to introduce competing solutions, companies should
think about how to integrate commercially available (and popular)
social media technologies into their
own learning ecosystem. Using existing platforms like YouTube, companies
have ready access to rich sets of tools
that deliver learning in a format that
has already gained widespread
acceptance and popularity.
Social learning doesnt even necessarily require technology-based tools.
Coaching and mentoring programs
require planning and time from supervisors but little capital investment.
They can also support employees who
dont fit the typical knowledge worker
profile.

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For example, at Tiendas Aurgi, a chain

of automobile repair shops in Spain, a
new informal mentoring system helped
to quickly provide employees with
new skills. Those whose skill sets were
restricted to such tasks as changing tires
were able to get the personal coaching,
through a master-apprentice model,
needed to perform more complex
tasks, such as repairing clutches.
The program improved overall shop
floor productivity by more than 30
percent, which the company believes
will potentially lead to a 20 percent
increase in revenue.

The right blend

The point here, however, is not to
throw out everything organizations
know about learning and supporting
their employees performance and
replace it with a user-generated
social learning solution. The point is
rather to recognize where different
media and learning approaches are
most appropriate and have the best
payoff in terms of performance
improvementthen to blend or chain
these together for maximum impact.
The statistical evidence suggesting
that some types of formal learning are
failing to deliver value to employees
does not mean that traditional classroom
training or e-learning is inherently an
out-of-date delivery channel. Rather, it
is an indication that it too often delivers
learning experiences that are not timely
or relevant, and not linked to reinforcing
knowledge, and so the program does
not ultimately support an employees
ongoing needs. In other words, formal
learning isnt failing because its formal
but because its often poorly conceived
and delivered.
Its not uncommon to hear disparaging
remarks in the learning field about
how, in spite of all the innovations
in electronic and web-based learning,
as much as 70 percent of corporate
training is still delivered in the
old-fashioned way: an instructor in
front of a classroom. But the fact is,
formal channels are still the best way
to deliver many forms of training when
consistent knowledge and performance
behaviors are whats sought.
For example, what Accenture calls
an academy approach to learning
is a way to ensure that specific
workforces, such as finance, supply
chain and sales, get high-quality
and consistent knowledge to drive
common understandings and common
approaches to getting things done.
Learning is targeted to jobs and roles,
and designed to fill specific needs
and skills gaps. There is rigor to the

curriculum because, frankly, no one

wants different members of the finance
workforce analyzing a balance statement in different ways. Formal learning is good at thatbuilding common
skills, ensuring shared understanding
and making best practices available to
everyone at the same time.
Properly designed, this approach can
also be a way to improve relevance.
An academy, for example, offers content
tightly aligned to functional- and
industry-based competency models
and job frameworks so that learning
is tailored to real and relevant performance needs. Content can be continuously updated by an organizations
internal experts as well as by academics
and industry specialists.
The formal learning aspects of the
academy can also be augmented by
social media and collaboration opportunities, and other kinds of followon experiences to reinforce initial
training. Without that, the learning
program can stagnate and lose
relevance and credibility.
However, many organizations actually
block their employees from external
social networking sites; their collaboration platforms may be adequate
for internal use, but they are closed
systems and offer an inadequate link
to outside perspectives. By building
social media hooks into formal learning
solutions, an organization can leverage the biggest database of allthe
collective experience of people both
within and outside their own organization.
How can an enterprise harness the best
qualities of both formal training and
informal, social learning to turn its
entire organization into a corporatewide enterprise learning team?

Inventory your skills

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Companies rarely manage their workforce capabilities with the same rigor

they do their stock inventorythat is,

through careful assessments of what
they have versus what they need. Only
53 percent of employees responding to
the Accenture Skills Gap Study said
their employers document their skills.
Even those that do skills assessments
rarely go beyond a dump of basic
resume data.
An organizations strategic plans
should generate a list of the workforce
capabilities needed to execute business
strategy, as well as a monetary value
for each capability based on how critical it is to generating new revenues
or reducing costs. Then, as with a
well-managed supply chain, companies
should compare the skills and experience
they need with the inventory they
actually have.
The gap between the ideal and the
real can keep learning needs (and
budgets) in line because it will sustain
a focus on what people really need to
be competent and execute strategy.

Identify interdependencies
A related, but more difficult, task
is to identify the interdependencies
between competencies. No worker
operates in isolation. Everyone
depends on one another, and every
business function interacts with
others, so identifying the most
critical dependencies is important.
It can also be helpful in developing
the most useful social media-based
support tools, identifying which
parts of the organizationand
which learning sourcesneed to be
especially linked.

Locate pockets of expertise

The ability to identify particularly
valuable content or performance
behaviors and then rapidly get those
into training vehicles is especially
important to delivering on both
relevance and timeliness. Several

leading companies work to design

learning experiences for a particular
function based on what top performers
are doing, right now, to be successful.

The keys to harnessing

the best qualities
of both formal and
informal learning to
create a true learning
enterprise are relevance,
timeliness and
comprehensiveness.

For example, the Eastern European

unit of a major consumer products
company was looking to improve the
performance of its sales force. The
company was able to identify specific
behaviors of top-performing store
executives and field sales supervisors,
and rapidly embed those insights and
approaches into training activities.
Those activities were a blend of social
or informal learning such as coaching,
as well as e-learning modules and
instructor-led workshops and classes.

Create learning chains

It is important to leverage many
sources and modalities of learning,
and to offer a variety of reinforcing
experiences linked together over
time. This can improve retention,
reinforce knowledge and encourage
behaviors that support business goals.
This is an excellent way to combine
the best of formal learning techniques
with social learning as well as with
such related areas as communications
and coaching.
For example, one company with
a supply chain academy combines
formal training (both classroom and
online) with informal learning that
may come from Internet searches,
podcasts, YouTube videos, professional
research organizations, books and
journals, as well as internal resources.

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So a search for knowledge and

skills in a particular area does not
simply turn up a course to enroll
in or to take online; it delivers
comprehensive results that provide
information sources across a wide
range of internal and external media.
It is important that employees be
given a choice in the medium and
channel they use to learn, depending
on their location and need.

Create responsibility for

learning among employees
Employees need to understand that they
cannot be merely passive recipients
of training. One of the more positive
results from the Accenture Skills Gap
Study was the finding that more than
two-thirds of workers surveyed believe
they bear the primary responsibility for
their ongoing skills development. But
they also need to understand the current and future demand for their own
skills and the value of skills they could
develop, and then be proactive
participants both in their general
career development and in any specific
re-skilling they may need or be interested in.
Of course, the organization needs to
support employees and harness their
energy as they work to upgrade their
skills, helping them develop learning
plans and providing them with access
to expertise, often through the social
learning tools discussed here.
For example, global retailer Carrefour
has implemented a social learning
pilot at a number of its stores, involving
about 1,000 employees. The program
has enabled workers to identify skills
they wish to develop, and then find
experts to help them do so. Employees
identified a learning gap in a simple
database, then shared it with their
supervisors for approval. Once approved,
the need was posted, and experts
volunteered to work with individuals
to help them develop new capabilities.
Preliminary results have been
impressive, with the pilot stores
reporting a 267 percent increase in
sales of specific product lines.

Keep learning continuously

aligned with business needs
It is critical that organizations keep
an eye on how well learning is aligned
with business goals and needs, particularly as these programs grow. This can
be especially important when it comes

For further reading

Embracing the consumer IT revolution
at work, Outlook 2012, No. 2
Solving the skills crisis, Outlook
2011, No. 3
For these articles and other
related content, please visit
www.accenture.com

to dealing with social learning and

networking, which, because they are
still early in the hype cycle, may
engender an enthusiasm that needs to
be tempered by operational realities.
Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, vice president
and general manager of Learning@
Cisco, which delivers product training
and career certifications at Cisco
Systems, is adamant on this point.
As she wrote in Chief Learning Officer
magazine, Business needs come first,
social learning second.
To reach Ciscos global audience of
employees, partners and customers
with timely information and training,
the company created a social learning
environment called the Cisco Learning
Network. But the idea, as Beliveau-Dunn
stresses, wasnt the social learning
platform for its own sake; it was about
serving the needs of the business.
The development team spent considerable time upfront to understand the
business needs that the platform was
meant to address.
The drive to ensure ongoing alignment
with business needs has generated
innovative approaches at high-tech
company Motorola Solutions. As Claudia
Rodriguez explains, the audience for
learning at the company is extremely
variedemployees, channel partners
and customers. Its also global, but
organized into four geographic regions.
So in developing innovative learning,
Rodriguez has to balance and align
with different levels of priorities.
Globally, learning development leaders
are joined at the hip with global
business leaders to ensure that the
training strategyfrom new product
and solution introductions to service

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offerings and skills in sales and

marketingstays in lockstep with
business objectives. The regional
leaders in the learning organization
then validate these priorities with
their go-to-market colleagues and
adapt the scope and delivery timing to
best suit each regions specific needs.
Rodriguez and her team have
developed tools, processes and communications plans (formal meetings
multiple times a year, plus ongoing
engagement) to obtain input, prioritize
training development and drive
alignment at those two levels. Its
important to have one common vision
for training development not only
for strategy reasons but also for
management efficiencies. Notes
Rodriguez: I develop one list of
priorities that my head of design and
development can plan against from
a capacity planning perspective.
She concludes, At the end of the day,
what we get out of this governance
and planning structure is alignment
with all the right stakeholders, true
visibility to whats going on and then
ultimately even the ability to measure
the impact of all those key priorities
and validate that they are helping to
achieve the companys business goals.

Social learning represents a shift, and

a major opportunity, for organizations.
It enables the exchange and delivery
of timely, relevant knowledge and can
bring people togetherinside and outside
the enterpriseto generate fresh thinking
and potentially profitable innovations.
At the same time, its not the answer to
everything. The key is to plan the right
learning and collaboration solution

for the right need, and to blend formal

with informal to reinforce knowledge
and build new skills.
As they seek to harness brainpower
through social media platforms,
integrated with formal learning,
organizations should bear in mind
the same kinds of development rigor
and consistent delivery that has
brought them success in the past.

About the authors

Diego S. De Len is the global lead for
learning and collaboration offerings and
capabilities within the Accenture Talent
& Organization management consulting
group, and the lead for Talent & Organization in Europe, Africa, Middle East and
Latin America. He is based in Madrid.
diego.s.de.leon@accenture.com
New York-based Terry Nulty is the lead
for Accenture Academy, a suite of online
learning environments focused on improving
the skills of critical workforces.
terence.c.nulty@accenture.com
Geirean Marcroft is the lead for learning
and collaboration offerings and capabilities
within the Accenture Talent & Organization management consulting group in the
United Kingdom. He is based in London.
geirean.marcroft@accenture.com

Outlook is published by Accenture.

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please visit www.accenture.com

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