Learning and development (L&D): a technological check-in

A manager for the parent company of SurveyMonkey analyses technologies of the past, present and future.

“The minute I suggested introducing social media she lashed out while visibly hyperventilating,” said Harris (name changed on request), describing the experience of pitching social media as a new marketing tool to his HR manager in the USA. “Her reaction was pure fear.”

In contrast to Harris’ experience, the other end of the innovation spectrum holds companies that now expect Artificial Intelligence’s ChatGPT as a skill they seek in their new hires.

Inevitable rise of AI: opportunity more than a threat

The global news pendulum swings between either HR being too sedate or too gung-ho about technology. What is the reality of the one function that manages the only unique feature of an organisation - human assets?

A conversation with Manager Learning and Development Masood Pagnier from SurveyMonkey’s Parent company Momentive gives a crucial insight into the status quo of the field — the technological advances of the past, present and future.

“It’s going to be an interesting time, a scary time for a lot of people but where there’s scariness there’s also a lot of opportunity,” says Pagnier.

Is HR ever going paperless?

Paper had roped itself back on HR’s agenda primarily because of the legacy of remote working left by the pandemic. “We are on the cusp of big change in the way that we work and literally the wave has just started,” says Pagnier. “COVID was that wave to give us that push in flexible working and remote working.”

There is another catalyst to this change - the movement of companies scrambling to outsource parts of the function abroad (specifically India), and organizations are squaring in on becoming paperless as pre-requisite to this cost-cutting transformation.

Outsourcing also helps bypass a major hurdle to becoming paperless according to Pagnier. “The biggest obstacles are that a lot of legislation in the US or any other country for that matter requires you to have a digital and hard copy so that you can maintain that business continuity. The only obstacle would be legislation or governance mandating it.”

The perpetual headache of the LMS

The Learning Management System (LMS) has evolved over the years - from the basic e-learning modules to AI entrenched systems but the headaches remain.

According to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, many companies are aiming for a LMS switch as of this moment due to the increasing vendor dissatisfaction in the learning function.

“The funny thing is that I’ve done this three times in my career where we shifted from an old rickety LMS to a newer one,” says Pagnier.

He highlights a LMS that Momentive recently adopted that contains all the right ingredients for a smoothly functioning system: “The main area that LMS is trying to achieve is automating tasks that really should be automated. We recently made a switch to WorkRamp which is an excellent LMS but not for the reasons you might think. Apart from the fact they have excellent integration with slack, outlook, Workday and several other HRMS’; the user experience is great.

“I think that’s the main advantage - the automations and the integrations.”

The one lesson to be learnt in this post-pandemic era is that agility is key and the route to that is to always be listening to your customer. Pagnier lauds WorkRamp’s customer service. “They have a slack instance that we can access and there’s a channel on it called ‘Product Discussions’.

“We can share what we want from the product and they reply within a few hours saying okay this is on the roadmap and we can get back to you for example by Q2 2024.”

Surveillance or trust?

‘Mouse jigglers’ along with a host of other tactics provided by social media are popular ways remote employees are combating their boss’ production paranoia.

Last year, a Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) report revealed ninety-five per cent of respondents admitted to have “implemented new methods to track and report on productivity and performance metrics for remote workers, have a plan to do so, or are developing a plan now”.

Unfortunately, this translated to employees’ focus on seeming productive rather than actually contributing any value to their respective jobs.

Exponential growth of AI: need for global regulations to keep misuse in check

“The more important thing is building trust with your employees - doubling down on manager development, leadership development, and making sure leaders know how to build trust with their teams,” says Pagnier. “Focusing on trust is more important that surveilling your people.”

The real issue in remote working seems to be around employee engagement. “Engagement is a tricky one. When you don’t have that personal touch it’s really really difficult and you have to kind of force it to a degree.”

Pagnier recommends using tools like ‘Mmhmm’ – an immersive video app that is used to create virtual rooms, backdrops, and presentations during video conferencing calls – or even virtual escape rooms to make the whole experience effective and engaging.

However, he also highlights the limitations of technology. “Momentive is trying very hard to ensure that engagement exists online so it’s less about technology that we used and more about things like speed networking sessions - we use slack integration called Donut that matches you to random people around the organization based on the little assessment you do, or coaching with Imperative (technology platform).”

At the end of the day, nothing can replace human connection and thus the engagement that comes in hand with it.

“We have tried a lot of things but none of them are a replacement for the in-office camaraderie that you develop over time, because a 30-minute session with someone you don’t know is never gonna replace coming to the office for three months, seeing that person and they take out something you find interesting and it sparks a conversation.”

AI

Samsung has banned its employees from using ChatGPT, and Italy has a country-wide ban in effect. On the other hand, IBM expects themselves to pause certain HR hiring as they believe those roles can be replaced by AI.

Pagnier takes a balanced approach towards this controversial technology:

“Throughout time there have always been new technologies that have been introduced, where people have met it with skepticism, derision, fear, whatever you want to call it. At the end of the day, I see AI as a tool.”

“Certain trainings will always require the human touch. Career coaching for example, its all well and good to type what you want and the computer gives an answer. But when you actually have a conversation with somebody who asks the right questions and gets you to come to those Aha moments yourself - that is way way more valuable than just leaning on AI.”

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Technology will never take a uniform path in organisational development. It might take decades for its implementation, it might simply be a matter of evolution or it might just go into effect immediately.

Pagnier sums it best when he says: “Learning and development is ever-changing. We have to keep up with trends all the time.”

The article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Business Recorder or its owners