the analyst’s corner
Longer lasting More than mere portals…? What makes academies a success? David Perring
to deliver business alignment and more holistic development strategies. However, many have seen their academies initiatives wither and die. So, in an age which is increasingly about creating a balance portfolio of work-based, formal and collaborative learning, and where academies would appear to be the perfect mechanism to enable this, what lessons can be learnt from those successes and failures? And what makes them more than pretty branded portals to a learning offering?
C The Keys to Success
With academies success is by no means guaranteed, unfortunately they have a mixed track record and often come and go with surprising regularity. Where do they stick, where do they find the cultural alignment, the impetus and traction to survive the swing of the corporate pendulum? Academies seem to experience longevity and impact when they are:
n Genuinely owned and driven by stakeholders From our research, it is imperative that engagement with academies is aggressively driven with business leaders. Engagement with line management in all areas is fundamental to their success. In the most effective academy structures, line manager engagement is fundamental to underpin development.
orporate academies have been an established trend in enterprise learning. Many organisations have adopted them as a strategic vehicle
n Grounded in real task orientated capabilities/ competencies. This means ensuring the content and competency structures are deeply aligned to Academy members working roles. These can be core capabilities shared across a range of business units and be functionally specific to a particular academy, such as retail sales or customer service. n Quickly Deliver Value. Rather than boiling the ocean, academies must focus on delivering real value early and tangibly impacting the organisation. Developing success stories of helps build a halo effect and binds long term commitment. So, it is essential to measure the academies impact. n Deliver more than formal learning and resources. One of the most interesting impacts of academies is the way they can enhance the learning ecosystem – the balance between formal, work-based and collaborative learning. Successful academies often deliver training as part of the longer term learning blend that builds proficiency – not just delivers knowledge and skills. Where they are successful they typically provider short easily consumed modules in coherent learning paths, with more choices for how and where learners can learn. They mix learning channels and increasingly have a mobile presence which enables them to be present in people’s day-to-day workflow. n Strong governance and visible leadership. Consolidating resources and maintaining content quality are a significant challenge for academies and this becomes an issue of governance. Governance has the dual effect of ensuring relevance and
accuracy, garnering engagement and ensuring operational alignment. It also reinforces the fact that the responsibility for driving the academy forward belongs to business leaders and expert communities not HR. The visibility of senior sponsors contributing to the Academy is part of the impetus that gives academies traction. Executive input into both formal and collaborative learning provides credibility and acceptance. n Measuring and communicating impact. Another key aspect of success is measurement. Whilst all academies recognise the importance of the measurement and impact discussion, in most cases this recognition has historically failed to result in significant activity, and what activity there is, happens late and therefore often leads to inconclusive results. Some academies in our research indicated they struggled to prove real value in the early days, and that this undermined their ability to build momentum and make the academy long lasting. It’s here that the tie in to on the job assessments has often been crucial.
… academies can be an ideal vehicle to bring together meaningfully all of the various learning modalities into a place that gives them a valid context, which would otherwise be missing.
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Useful framework While there might be differences in the approaches taken, there seems to be a consensus to most academies core offerings, with many organisations using similar terminology and approaches, built around competency frameworks, role mapping, and targeted learning solutions. As such, academies provide a very useful framework that brings real context to work-based, collaborative and formal learning. When many struggle to realise how to bring to life a 70:20:10 approach in their organisations academies can be an ideal vehicle to bring together meaningfully all of the various learning modalities into a place that gives them a valid context, which would otherwise be missing. For many they appear as a portal but they do offer so much more when they are well executed.
David Perring, Director of Research, Fosway Group @DavidPerring
e.learning age june 2015
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