How Can Learning and Development Survive Recession?

Learning and development and Human Resources leaders are returning to the basics as the economy fluctuates and uncertainty remains. Francesco Mantovani, Director Global Learning Technologies and Innovation at Procter & Gamble, is talking about building a strong learning ecosystem, personalizing L&D, and embracing experimentation and technology.

Mantovani will be a speaker at the HR Exchange Network Corporate Learning EMEA event. Tuning in will mean seeing him explaining the importance of empowering employees with the kind of learning opportunities that are a good fit and align with business goals. Recently, Mantovani shared his insight with HR Exchange Network: 

WATCH: Corporate Learning EMEA

HREN: What is the learning ecosystem?

FM: The system is the set of all the tools that an organization is using to ensure that the right content can go to the right learner. This is a short definition that doesn't tell the truth. There is a lot of stuff in an ecosystem that is not [about] learning at all. It's just other tools that you need to use. And there are many tools that are not for the learners; they are for the people who create the learning through distributed learning and so on. Artificial intelligence (AI) that creates videos from a transcript, for example, is part of an ecosystem. Learners never see the AI; they just see the video idea and that makes it part of the ecosystem.

HREN: One of the trends that we've noticed is the rise of the individual in Human Resources. In learning and development that has translated into this idea of customizing the experience for employees. Why is personalization so important now? 

FM: The main reason is about time. Whenever you ask somebody why they don't take advantage of learning opportunities, the answer that people will give to you is that they don't have time. This is not true. People are making a lot of time for other stuff, right? When they are at home, they are playing Fortnite, or they are reading books, etc. So, why not take time for learning?

The reason is that, whenever they land on a learning experience, usually most of the experience is useless. They know it already. It doesn't apply to the job, or it doesn't make sense for them. Or it is beyond their competence and proficiency. So what happens when you customize or personalize the learning experience is that the people get what they need, at the right time. So, they understand that it's been created for them. In this way, they think the time is well allocated, and well spent. It makes sense for them, and they invest the time.

The second reason why it makes sense is because of the investment of time for the employer, who creates the content, and the employee, who studies it. Then, you start to create problems on wellbeing because people are spending too much time on learning. In reality, you simply need just one insurer to understand exactly, what is the right thing for them.

HREN: Why should people tune into your session at the HR Exchange Network Corporate Learning EMEA event? Do you think people should tune in to your session? What should we promote about it?

FM: Because I have already made all the mistakes. This is very helpful, right? If they listen to what I have done, they will avoid ending up in the hole.

So, that's how I've been finding myself. We have been doing a lot of experiments in the past three years. We try to explore many things, including AI. We try to understand if our assumptions on things, like personalized learning, [are correct], so that people will learn all the time because they will find always the right thing to learn. Is it true? Can it be done?

If anybody is on the track to improve and change their learning technology map, the ecosystem, they could save some time, if they listen to our part in what we have been doing.

HREN: What are some of the challenges in the learning and development space that you expect in 2023?

FM: Let's start with the most important one, the economic context. In my experience working in learning for more than 15 years, one of the first things that leaders decide to cut [in a recession] is learning. It's easy. Most people think that if employees don't do learning for six months, nothing will happen. They still will be the same people. It is complex to explain the truth to them. They will not lose what they know, but they will lose something that is much more important, which is self-efficacy.

They will lose the self-esteem in their own skills. And this is proven by several studies. It will lead to a lesser performance. How much budget will be taken from learning is one expectation. 

The second element of complexity will be the skills. Everybody will be fighting for the skills. What I know about the market is that growing skills takes time. Buying skills on the market is much faster and easier. A lot of times when leaders don't see the results in learning coming fast, they stretch the resources to buy the skills from outside as if these were two fungible things. They believe, 'I can buy so that they don't have to grow.' It doesn't work that way, but it's super difficult to explain to them. Whenever you buy a resource from the market, you still must train this resource.

The third thing is that we have seen technology disrupting a lot of industries. Now, this will happen at 10 times the speed. The first reason is because the economic crisis will bring an enormous amount of mergers, and some markets will disappear. This will create some disruption. I'm thinking about supply chain first. The other reason is because the more that AI becomes available, the more disruption we'll see.

This is going to create a different mindset of how to use learning tools, and what is the right learning for people. Most importantly, people will be requesting skillsets that were not put on the self a few months ago.

HREN: Is there anything else you'd like viewers to know? If so, what? 

FM: I think that one of the big lessons that we have from the decades of working in learning is that most of the time the problems of learning are in the foundations. How is this built from scratch and what do you measure in? That makes an enormous amount of difference. Don't be fooled to think too much about trends, fashion, and technology. People should start thinking about, 'What do I want to measure? What is going to tell to my leaders that I'm going to be successful?'

Don't miss Mantovani's session or the others at the Corporate Learning EMEA event. It's free to join.