We all know that economic growth in SA has virtually flat-lined. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently confirmed that the SA economy would experience ‘sluggish growth in indicating a challenging year ahead. So what does this mean for the L&D Community in 2020? Below are some of our predications for this year, but also some areas we think attention should be paid to:

1.       Boosting of business confidence

Even though boosting of business confidence refers more to reducing economic policy uncertainty and restoring investor confidence we think a lot can be done to help employees dealing with these challenges both personally and professionally. We think emphasis will be placed on learning solutions that helps people to cope with uncertainty and actually builds resilience. We need to create hope despite the challenges.

2.       Making sense of digital learning

With pressure on cost savings we think that more and more companies will start to explore digital learning as a means to reach more employees quicker and more economical. Digital learning has been around for many years but we know the challenge is not only the technology – it’s about how to you get people to learn differently. We think more emphasis will be placed on defining and implementing digital learning strategies.

3.       Learning in the flow of work

As learning approaches changes we will get a chance to create more real-time L&D solutions that will happen within the flow of work. We think more and more emphasis will be placed on learning while work happens. We think for the L&D community this means solving the challenge of helping people to understand learning happens everywhere – not just in the class. Managers will start to play a lot more active role in creating and delivering learning content and experiences.

4.       Learning journeys and user experiences

Content is everywhere – but the challenge remains on how to contextualise it your organisational context. In 2020 we think more emphasis will be placed on creating shorter learning journeys that are more engaging – giving people what they need quicker.

5.       Upskilling and reskilling

Business leaders and employees are worried about how technologies such as robotics and AI could change jobs and how people should prepare to do them. Coupled with technically an economic recession the challenges concerning upskilling and reskilling would need to be addressed.

6.       Learning analytics We also think that in 2020 more and more organisations would move away from a traditional ROI perspective and start to explore learning measure that matters. Learning analytics in our definitions means measures and metrics that helps to make better business decisions or reduce risk. It’s about interpreting the numbers and making sense of what it means – not merely reporting on attendance and competence levels.