ASTDNY Welcomes You to 2010 With Our Theme: Manage Your Career Here!
As the economy continues to unfold in unexpected ways, the Learning & Development community reveals itself as the sentinel species and is greatly impacted. Here at ASTDNY, we know the needs of our membership and we are committed to becoming your resource for career advancement in these challenging times. The theme of career management will be present throughout the year in our monthly programs, special interest groups and community volunteer events.
ASTDNY is uniquely qualified to be your mentor in the field of L&D. Our board of directors is comprised of experts in leadership development, instructional design, facilitation, e-learning, coaching, consulting, and career management from such industry giants as American Express, Moody’s, and Hess. Our hundreds of chapter members are even more diverse representing all industries both public and private from business to academia, profit and non-profit. As a whole we offer the community a vast networking platform, provide industry benchmarking, and form a stable environment in which to collaborate with like-minded professionals.
The 11 members of the executive board of ASTDNY met for its yearly retreat on Saturday, January 9th and spent the day together strategizing how best to serve our community for the next 10 years. This meeting was no ordinary meet and greet. The board members traveled from as far as Connecticut to spend the day fully immersed in strategic planning at Brooklyn’s historic Loralei Bed and Breakfast. That unique environment allowed us to engage in a ‘Futuring’ activity that yielded 4 possible outcomes for the Learning & Development community over the next 10 years. I have listed the results here so you can see where our profession may be headed. The board produced long-term plans to address each of the possible outcomes:
Future Outcome 1: Shift from Classroom Training to Virtual Learning.
In this outcome, the L&D community will be faced with learning new technologies that facilitate online learning since classroom training has fallen out of favor. Reasons for the decline of the classroom might be a broader distribution of the population away from urban centers, fear of travel due to terrorism, increase in quality of virtual reality simulations, and a substantial shift in the definition of psychological presence.
Future Outcome 2: Shift to Government Model of Employment
This future scenario suggests that government becomes the major underwriter of training programs due to an overwhelming demand for compliance and regulatory training, an increase in the number of city agencies, and a sharp rise in military and law enforcement training
In this outcome, the L&D community will be challenged to quickly assimilate local, federal, and international government expertise, as well as domestic and international legal matters.
Future Outcome 3: Shift from Full Time to Temporary Employment
The shift from long-term employment to temporary assignments as a working model is already upon us and all signs point to an increase. The average worker will change organizations every few months and training managers will need to plan for two constituencies; those employees who require training for longer tenure, and those who need to learn quick “assembly line” tasks. In this scenario, the bulk of training will be produced by very nimble and versatile vendors as opposed to legacy-type corporations.
Future Outcome 4: Shift from Ad-hoc Training to Business Partner
The L&D community will welcome this very desirable outcome because it means that training has earned its rightful place at the senior management table as a business partner. Metrics will have been crafted that accurately reflect the training impact. As a result, training organizations will enjoy robust funding from both public and private sources. The elevated status of the learning function will provide an unprecedented interest in industry vertical markets such as healthcare, manufacturing, and agriculture.
My purpose in sharing these possible future outcomes with you is to illustrate that ASTDNY is proactive and versatile in its service to the L&D community. If the last few years are any indication of our need to be ready for anything, then we must create a more robust community of practice by building professional associations of longevity.
Ten years is not so very far away. We will go there together.
Lance Tukell
We have seen a need among our corporate clients for learning content which align to specific organizational needs. Corporations are looking to partner with learning organizations to move away from Ad-hoc training.