Tony Karrer's eLearning Blog on e-Learning Trends eLearning 2.0 Personal Learning Informal Learning eLearning Design Authoring Tools Rapid e-Learning Tools Blended e-Learning e-Learning Tools Learning Management Systems (LMS) e-Learning ROI and Metrics

Monday, March 09, 2009

Skills Training

Skills Gap

There's a great post by Catherine Lombardozzi - Learning 2.0 that discusses the skills that "many employees … well beyond school … could use help in developing … skills are different." She goes on to list out the skills and I think it's quite a good list.

When I combined this with a common theme across a lot of my writing and on Work Literacy:

I'm more convinced all the time that there's a gap in awareness and skills among Concept Workers. I describe this as the Tilde Effect.

Skills Training?

As I was thinking about this week's: SharePoint in Corporate Learning - Free Micro Virtual Conference and my presentation March 17 on Web 2.0 for Service Professionals, it made me start to really question -

Do Concept Workers need some kind of Skills Training to keep up?

Of course, I happen to strongly believe that various kinds of Skills Training is needed and that it is something that every Corporate Learning department should be doing. But, its a bit curious that we've not seen much more than presentations and scattered skills training workshops (Work Literacy Workshop). Maybe it's partly that I'm recommending fairly traditional learning (skills training) approaches? Maybe it's because employees will be able to figure this out on their own?

I'm going to be curious to see what is described during the SharePoint sessions. Most training associated with SharePoint rollouts are more aimed at features and functions and it is up to the individual to figure out how that applies to their work and work group.

I'm not so sure that really works. And I'm not sure that the pace of this meets the needs of organizations.

What do you think – should Corporate Learning organizations be planning Skills Training to help address this gap?

No comments: