HyperLearn - Post-Conference HR consulting services | Leadership assessment

1. HYPERLEARN Post-Conference Whitepaper BUILDING RESILIENCE How do leaders rise post-COVID: A virtual event for HR Leaders in partnership with World Vision AUGUST 05-06, 2020

2. Post-discussion reflection on acceleration of the hyper learning era Author/s: Harpreet Kapoor, Lokesh Nigam Roundtable Panelists: Kacy Wang, HR Director APAC, Qualcomm Meinar Siagian, AVP HR Head - corporate, PT Asuransi Cigna Johnny Loke, Head - Retail L&D, RHB Bank Novita Sasongko, Head - HR, Amalan International Kristine Marisse Perez HR Manager Learning Experience, CIMB Bank

3. DISCUSSION SUMMARY: The panel shared some interesting insights on the way learning is shaping and changing the newer times powered by more self-driven and self-reliant behaviors, that are becoming a reality in the digitized world. Add to this, there are additional variables pertaining to the new skills that emerged quite suddenly on the scene, given the global pandemic, that started earlier this year. The pandemic has brought a breakthrough shift in the way people perceive and conduct work related activities. Surely this is a new and evolving situation, that requires new skills for each one of us. The panel discussed on some interesting and deep insights, pertaining to the overall learning ecosystem. As a first, due to the mostly self-driven nature of learning, that has been evolving at a rapid pace, with the advent of search engines in late last century – content personalization has been evolving, to support both individual performance and growth. Personalization and availability of blended learning solutions, at the time of application is one of the most important drivers of modern learning. Secondly, the performance-led design of learning ecosystems, bringing together organizational and external knowledge to people, for enhancing their in-role performance, and to make it autonomous has been a key shift of focus. Micro-learning and peer-learning and coaching is evolving at a rapid pace, to ensure resource availability at the time of delivery. Anytime, anywhere learning is the third most important evolution, which points to the disjunctive nature of learning delivery need going forward. It is no more a linear classroom or even e-learning architecture that matters, but the asynchronous natural learning process, which is being sped up through digital means. Finally, it is important to note that from a trainer and teacher-based architecture, the learning of the new times is more learner-led. Strategy, design and architecture of learning content is more and more learner-led than trainer or teacher-led.

4. A few of the greatest shortcomings of the “teaching” and “education” era, that have often led people and individuals to, at times, a learning disability has been a three-fold and erroneous approach to learning: 1. One size fits all design and content dumping practice, set in the industrial revolution era to cater for manual and repetitive activities. 2. A linear learning design, graduating people from one standard to other of a systematic learning path. 3. A teacher-led discourse, set in the system of what teacher wants to teach, not what learner wants to learn. These three attributes of learning design, which pretty much has remained unchanged in the last three centuries has done many a good and was relevant for a time that required a bureaucratic, command and control approach to work and managing businesses. With the advent of Digital Technologies, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, we have already observed a shift in the way people work and learn. In the past 40 years, mankind has created a zillion times more content than all the human past put together. The servers over the world are brimming with information, that can be used for learning and growth, instantly. At such a pace of information forming and distribution, the above three practices have already died their natural death. We as learning, training and teaching professionals may choose to disagree, but few of our learning practices do anything but trigger a thought in the minds of your consumer, the learner.

5. The only great practice from the past that still works wonders, is personalized coaching and mentoring. In fact, this is the fastest shaping field, as we will find more and more people signing up for personal and one-on-one learning sessions with gurus, rather than attend a corporate program. A personal coach or mentor has historically been and continues to be the one most effective way of learning and growth. If internet is bringing a revolution, it is bringing here – personalized one-on-one engagement with one’s mentor, rather than the factory and mass program approach to learning. It is therefore safe to assume, that whether off-line or online, mass classrooms will have very limited role to play in learning – limited to information gathering. Learning is an intensely personal process, created, led and consumed by the individual. The learning professionals can at best hint to a direction, while coaches and mentors may trigger enquiry and mold the direction of reflection in an individual, both important to the learning activity. The future of learning is in the twin pillars of self and coach: 1. A mentor, coach or guru-led learning path based on individual’s interest and growth need 2. Self-driven, self-led and self-determined learning to meet the day-to-day skill requirements for work or life applications (viz. solving business or technical problems at work, cooking at home et al) Therefore, the sooner we stop relying on mass education and generalized content, the better for a corporate. Because, such resources are anyway available to the learner, and mostly for free, on platforms like YouTube, Google, Wikipedia et al. In such a scenario what is now going to be the role of learning professionals? What is the role of content developers? What is the role of the learning technology providers? What is the role of educational institutions that train the young minds for corporate readiness?

6. As we interacted more on the hyper-learning acceleration with some great minds across the Southeast Asian region, we got some great insights on this evolution, as they are happening. Kacy Wang from Qualcomm shared about, the trends she has been observing in her organization. She spoke about how at Qualcomm, they experimented with leaving the design in the hands of talent, which worked well. She said, “the new things that we experimented with during the pandemic to support our people with new learning and that worked well, was to have people design what is needed. For instance, we let people design for creative thinking and managing stress during these times and then have content designers aligned with people to design content for the need.” She further spoke about the virtual coaching initiative that helped people mitigate the stress & well-being related issues that the workforce may be facing. As we look deeply at her words, these are not just one-off initiatives, but the definite trend towards, one-on-one mentoring and self-directed learning, that more and more organizations are adopting to kickstart meaningful learning for their talent. What’s therefore needed, is not a lot of investment on generic content, but an attitude of empathy with our customer, the learner, to design what’s best suited and provide them with more opportunities to interact with experts & mentors who can further accelerate their self-directed learning. “Let people design what they need, and align the content designers to them.” – Kacy Wang, Qualcomm

7. Humans observe, and they learn. Human mind is continuously taking information from the outside world, to form judgment, opinion, and learnings to either change their existing world views or come up with new ones. This involves a complex process of people interacting and connecting with the environment as well as other people around. emotional bond, as well as triggers the phenomenon of observational and social learning. Meinar Siagian, at Cigna, Indonesia spoke in detail about this phenomenon. She spoke about, how Cigna is trying to create a digital ecosystem that help the employees connect with each other ensuring live sessions and webinars let people engage and draw from each other by being connected socially, though in a virtual manner. She spoke about communities and how they are really helping people develop new skills. She said, “At Cigna, both formal and informal learning communities are communities we have the leadership talks where senior leaders share their experiences and insights. External speakers help build external perspective and provides exposure to the workforce. Cigna has informal learning communities on several topics such as, health, lifestyle, as well as personal development. These communities may not be just about business but are both about the professional and personal growth Communities are a very integral part of the social learning process and having influencers drive the communities is a very important aspect that organizations leveraging upon. Communities, help shape the minds, in an asynchronous manner, harnessing the way that people learn in real life – asynchronous observation. are continuous learners, they This creates an there. For formal “Cigna has formal and informal communities that help with professional and personal growth of our people.” of our people.” have started – Meinar Siagian, Cigna

8. One of the important aspects of self-directed learning is to form and shape a content strategy that pulls people to utilize the resources. Content is at the core of the ongoing transformation in learning. Content that is relevant, linked to performance, and easy to consume is the mantra organizations are leaning towards. With a huge amount of content being created and (usually) dumped on the learner, organizations may be doing an injustice to the learner. Content strategy needs to be deeply investigated and planned to serve the real learner need. Johnny Loke, from RHB Bank, gave us insights on how content is being curated to help the learners in their journeys. He spoke about the way organization is leveraging Workplace by Facebook for people to curate the internal content in the form of videos, that are readily available for learners when they need it. While experts the internal content, there is a shift in content consumption, mostly to digital. In such a scenario, a mix of internal and external content and the knowledge management have been enabling the learner to consume the content as they need it. He said, “our internal and customized work-specific content, and the Workplace by Facebook has enhanced organization’s social learning experience. While our practices may be like other organizations, providing simple content to people has really helped enhance their experience.” The simplicity and the ability of the content to be used at the time of need, is directly proportional to the adoption of such content. The more relevant the content, and simple in its presentation, the more will be the consumption of such content – even if it is just a simple check list. Simplified content and simple delivery interface, enhances people’s experience.” – Johny Loke, RHB Bank

9. Skills, directly associated with work outcome and the performance therein is critical to organization’s learning agenda, and often the most neglected one. Organizations that focus on technical and problem-solving skill building have shown a lot of resilience and grown consistently, be it Toyota or Samsung – which have disproportionate focus on technology and work-related skill building, that further builds autonomy. Novita Sasongko from Amalan International highlighted this aspect in the requirement to build technical skills and capabilities by building certifications and training at each departmental level. She spoke about how learning is everyone’s agenda in the organization and how line managers participate in building the certifications and learnings to enhance technological capabilities in their own functions. She highlighted, “We are looking at business strategies, and see what we need to achieve and accordingly design certifications & training. Each departments’ focus area is being looked at in designing these certifications & trainings.” “Certifications and trainings are closer to the function and business needs. Letting departments design their priorities is key” – Novita Sasongko, Amalan International

10. Having self-driven people in an organization immensely depends on the leaders, managers and organization’s ability to engage talent and provide a psychologically safe place to work and contribute. Organizations having an energized talent, are at least 10X more effective than their counterparts. Companies that create happy, committed and a hungry workforce have a distinct resource and capability advantage, key to winning in the global competition. Kristine Marisse Perez from CIMB Bank highlighted this aspect profoundly, that they are driving in her organization. She highlighted quite a few critical factors, that she has been working in her organization to drive learning effectiveness. She said, “Learning is supposed to be fun. We trust our employees that they are going to do work as supposed to be done. Employees are not robots. We cannot expect them to do something without explaining them why they need to do it. Our role is to encourage learning. Providing flexibility in learning is our focus – we are human beings, we have different productive hours, different learning styles. I personally prefer byte sized learning. So, we decided to focus on giving each of them a different way of learning. And we ask employees what the best way to learn is for them and try to provide them such opportunities.” Sooner we realize all of us are adults at work and not a herd, the better for organizations. Autonomy is a value that can work wonders for organizations and create a highly differentiated value for the customers. There are tons of case studies on the subject and each one points to the fact – that providing more self-directedness makes employee judgment better. “Learning is supposed to be fun. We trust our employees that they are going to do work as supposed to be done. Employees are not robots.” – Kristine Marisse Perez, CIMB Bank Finally, measuring learning ROI is something that most organization leaders have continuously struggled with. The better way of looking at the ROI is not in the value addition or dollar return but is in the time to competency. How quickly are we enabling people to perform autonomously? The faster this rate the higher the value add to the individual as well as the business. Businesses deploy several tools, like Meinar Siagian spoke of learning goals with KPI’s, while Novita Sasongko spoke about micro-learning and resource availability in the flow of work. It is quite important to see what content we are promoting – as Kacy Wang said, “There is not much difference in the type of platform but the content and what is needed for the business needs to be looked at.” Practical direct insights, that link to business outcomes is the future of learning as per Johnny Loke as he said, “Reduce theories and make things more practical. Theories are good to have but people should be able to apply their learning immediately or as soon as possible. It drills down to how well the content is designed.”

11. Conclusively there is an evidence, to accelerate hyper learning culture, we need learning and HR professionals as well as organization leaders to bring it closer to individual’s specific needs, preferences and professional needs in performing their roles better. What is increasingly been observed, and what remains as a definitive recommendation to organizations, looking to transform learning we recommend the following based on research our experience, and the conference speakers’ inputs. 1. Before building platforms, and content strategies or libraries, learning and development leaders should engage with businesses on creating a competency approach and determining resources that have a direct impact on meeting business and individual’s performance objectives. Start with outcome first and determine the value of training in meaningful business terms – as time to autonomy and full competence. 2. As a rule, value simplicity - emphasize agile and shorter sessions or "course-lets" delivered where and when needed, rather than longer sessions that take employees out of the field for extended periods of time. 3. Make learn an important component of work. Further, capitalize on both online and off-line social communities that are included with corporate learning systems to allow employees to engage and learn from each other. 4. Ensure internal or external experts are available on demand, to upskill people. The experts should be available on demand, for specific performance related issues and as agile coaches rather than elaborate coaching programs. Building hyper learning infrastructure requires a change in the way training and education is currently viewed, and organization & learning professionals should gear up their portfolios to drive deeper changes in the learning ecosystem in years to come. While we set to change, we should keep in mind the new workforce is already more used to hyperlearning, than we think, based the way they have been used to learning. So, fasten the seatbelt and embrace this welcome change!

12. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: lokesh@kognozconsulting.com Lokesh Nigam is the Co-Founder & Director at Kognoz Research & Consulting. In his 20 years of management consulting experience he has worked intensely in Change, Employee Experience, Organization Transformation, Transformation and Leadership Development. Lokesh brings deep expertise in areas of strategic workforce planning, strategy mapping and deployment, organization set-up, Digital HR transformation, talent management development with a consulting track record of advising global and Indian clients, across several industry verticals including Oil & Gas, Engineering, Manufacturing, Pharmaceuticals, Banking & Financial Services, Conglomerates, Information Technology, Services and Family Led Enterprises. Digital HR and leadership harpreet@kognozconsulting.com Harpreet Kapoor, CEO of Kognoz Talent Solutions is leading Talent, Learn & Engagement consulting, products and solutions for ASEAN Region. She has over 10 years of experience in working deeply in the areas of HR transformation, Organization Design, Learning & Development, Talent Management, Engagement, Well-Being with a holistic approach on developing practices, policies, and digital enablement.

13. ABOUT THE SPONSOR: www.kognozconsulting.com Kognoz Research & Consulting Private Limited: We love what we do and work with passion in driving real-time change. At Kognoz, we help transform people & businesses through our research-based consulting solutions. Our expertise includes, agile organization redesign, culture change, digital-led HR transformation, employee experience & leadership development. Design thinking, digital enablement and agile-based implementation form the core of our methodology, powered by a communication and dialogue studio that draw from real-time strategic change methodologies. What is new with us: Kognoz Talent Solutions, our digital arm launches two flagship platforms this year: • HiperLearn, a micro-learning platform and content studio • Immerz, an employee immersion and culture enablement platform www.rockbirdmedia.com Rockbird Media is an international event expert that offers premium events and business solutions designed for C-level executives — the most influential members of an organization — to facilitate powerful interactions, benchmark strategies, and unlock innovation. It is our mission to create events that help our partners connect, engage, and evolve in the ever-changing global business landscape. It is our vision to enable a world wherein decision-makers and leaders are more dynamic and open to communicate. www.worldvision.in World Vision is the largest child-focused private charity in the world. Our almost 40,000 staff members working in nearly 100 countries have united with our incredible supporters to impact the lives of over 200 million vulnerable children by tackling the root causes of poverty. Through World Vision every 60 seconds…a family gets water…a hungry child is fed…a family receives the tools to overcome poverty. Motivated by our faith and guided by our deep experience and expertise, we are a Christian humanitarian, development and advocacy organization devoted to improving the lives of children, families and their communities around the world and creating lasting impact that will live on in generations to come. We serve all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.

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