Valuable insights are emerging as to how to drive the transformation of learning and development in this sector and integrate it into the workplace and we have gathered them together in one place in our New SPOTLIGHT ON FINANCE REPORT, which can be downloaded at the foot of this page.

The SPOTLIGHT ON FINANCE REPORT provides an insight into the how the sector is developing their e-enabled learning strategy. We review the strengths and weaknesses of implementation practices, as compared with top learning companies who are achieving the highest impact from their implementation of learning technologies in the workplace.

Most importantly, if you are an L&D professional in the sector this report has been designed to help you to take action!

The SPOTLIGHT ON FINANCE REPORT for 2013 is availble to download free of charge thanks to one of our Founding Ambassadors, Brightwave who are also the sponsors of our Finance Benchmarking Group.

Benchmark with your peers today

If you didn't take part in the Towards Maturity Benchmark first time round, why not set aside some time to review your current learning strategy with peers today. Our new Towards Maturity Benchmark is now open and you can take part here.

If you would like to combine informal benchmarking with industry peers then we would also like to invite you to become a member of our Finance Industry Benchmark Group, an independent benchmarking network for senior L&D Professionals in the sector. Our next meeting is 11th June. Contact Marnie@towardsmaturity.org for more details.

Report Contents

Download this 38 report to discover about:

• Building the business case in 2013 - including key performance indicators looking at the impact on the bottom line, the impact on employeesand the impact on training efficiency
• Building skills and supporting performance and Talent in the Finance and Insurance sector  
• Exploiting technologies   
• Becoming a top learning company
• Hints and tips offered by sector respondents    

Download your copy of the Spotlight on Finance Report for free below. Please note that you need to be logged in /registered to download your copy. By downloading this report you agree for your email address to also be shared with Brightwave. (Please contact us directly for a copy if you do not wish for your email address to be shared).

A word from our sponsor

Next generation learning partner Brightwave is proud to support the work of Towards Maturity, whose values chime so well with our own, in the pursuit of raising the bar for learning innovation, best practice and business impact.

Over the last 10 years, Brightwave has been fortunate to work with many of the finance organisations contributing to this important study. They have a genuine enthusiasm to be among the pioneers of next generation learning – continuous, more personalised learning – that will deliver business results for an industry in the midst of change that surpasses that of almost any other.

As part of our ongoing commitment to the Finance Sector, Brightwave is delighted to become the Finance Industry Benchmark Group Sponsor ensuring that this excellent Spotlight Report, as well as follow up events, are made available to all. 

They uncover practical ways to encourage reflection back in the workplace and how to harness existing performance support systems more effectively.

Click on image to view video

Find out more about Towards Maturity Benchmark
Find out more about Ontuitive at www.ontuitive.com.

With thanks to QA Training who filmed this conversation as part of their Spring Series Event

TM - 10 years of valuable data gathering
Towards Maturity has been gathering data for 10 years, and Laura was keen to emphasise that the organisation is less focused on statistics than on the implications of those statistics and how they can be used to take action; identifying the behaviors and best practices that lead to success for the high performers in the study.

After highlighting some of the factors that are causing mobile to capture our attention – the high rates of adoption, the growth of BYOD schemes, and the need felt by learning professionals to integrate learning into the workplace – Laura concentrated on some significant barriers. These are mostly around the technology and coping with the wide range of devices that must be catered for.

The secrets of m-learning success
She then gave us six ‘secrets of success’ drawn from studying the behavior of top learning organisations, and with particular relevance to mobile learning and communications.

1. Embrace mobile as part of a mix
   Top learning organisations are more likely to embrace mobile learning but also more likely to consider it as just part of a wider mix of learning delivery methods in driving results.
2. Keep aligned to business priorities
   They tend to analyse the business problem before recommending a solution, and are seven times more likely to change and adapt programmes in line with changing business strategy.   
3. Understand your learning landscape
   These organisations are more aware of how people in their businesses are using technology for themselves: what devices and content they already use and what support they might need to enhance and increase their learning.  
4. Support formal learning
   They support the programmes that are really important to the organisation’s destiny – e.g. business skills, induction – more effectively with technology. They also train trainers more effectively to use technology in extending learning beyond the classroom.
5. Enhance performance at the point of need
   Performance support is a very critical aspect of learning with mobile. Top learning organistions are 6.5 times more likely to be proactive in this area.
6. Communicate and connect
   They are five times more likely to use technology to help learners find expert help inhouse, through social media but also using on mobile. They help staff share and problem solve with technology and are 34 times as likely to use it as a communications channel to learners alongside learning.

For a full report on LINE's event on mobile learning click here.

Image By jannoon028

With its rich history of scientific discovery and mechanical invention The Royal Institute offers a magnificent venue for the LINE event, whose strong theme is centered on mutual education and sharing ideas.This year mobile m-learning was at the event's heart, and this article captures the inspirational messages and evidence that has been collected internationally by four speakers on the value of m-learning.

1) Piers Lea – Driving value from mobile
One of the benefits of being the Chair of the event Piers was able to give a strong message to the delegates about mobile learning: it’s going to be worth your time to think long and hard about this subject!

Sometimes it can be difficult to cut through all the hype surrounding mobile learning and decipher fact from myth. So Piers started off by giving a number of key examples of successful results emerging from this key subject.

2) Laura Overton – Six secrets of m-learning success: turning mobile learning aspirations into reality
Laura Overton spoke of the six secrets of m-learning. Laura is MD of the learning innovation benchmarking practice, Towards Maturity, of which LINE is pleased to be a Founding Ambassador organisation.

Towards Maturity has been gathering data for 10 years, but Laura was keen to emphasise that the organisation is less focused on statistics than on the implications of those statistics and how they can be used to take action; identifying the behaviors and best practices that lead to success for the high performers in the study.

• Embrace mobile as part of a mix
• Keep aligned to business priorities
• Understand your learning landscape
• Support formal learning
• Enhance performance at the point of need
• Communicate and connect

3) Steve Barden – Driving value from mobile: getting the strategy right
Following Laura, Steve Barden talked about getting the strategy right: a learning strategy today must include mobile, but it needs to be considered as part of the blend. In fact Steve believes, perhaps contentiously, that no solution should completely delivered on one channel.

When it comes to what mobile is best at within that mix, Steve’s answer is communications, performance support and learning, in that order.

4) Katie Hart – From Inspiration to impact
Next on was Katie Hart, LINE’s Information and Usability Architect. Her role in the proceedings was to set our delegates three key challenges on the road to producing an app.

To read the full report from the LINE event download the report below.

Registered users of the Towards Maturity Research Community can download the report below once you logged on. If you are not a registered user please register here.     

Maintaining and building the skills of key customer-facing staff is critical in achieving this and OEMs are looking beyond the classroom to new learning models to address these skills more efficiently and effectively. We are launching a new study that investigates the progress that has been made in the last 2 years and to understand the impact that new learning approaches are having on business performance. Thanks to the support of Raytheon Professional Services, we are looking to launch a new industry benchmark report to support on-going innovation in the automotive sector in October 2013.

‘For some years we have been working on ambitious projects to roll out learning across all of our ever changing markets. However it is always useful to stop and make a check of where we are, what we can be doing better and what we might need for the future. It is important to review good practices both internally and outside of our own organisation - The Towards Maturity Automotive Benchmark helps us to do just that. The 2011 report provided insights into how we can become more efficient and effective and we are looking forward to reviewing our progress through our participation in the 2013 Benchmark.’ Sann René Glaza, Senior Manager, Customer Service Training, Toyota Motor Europe


Who is invited to participate?
If you are responsible for implementing a technology enabled learning strategy to support sales, after sales or technical training in your dealership network in Europe, we invite you to take part in this Towards Maturity Benchmark tailored to OEMs in the Automotive sector.

TAKE PART TODAY

What will the Benchmark cover?
This review explores the drivers, barriers, benefits and trends in the use of learning technologies to understand what is working well and what is not.

Benchmarking your progress and performance against other organisations in the sector can not only help you understand the scale of the benefits that you can achieve with learning technologies, but provide ideas on the actions you can take to become a top learning organisation.

How does benchmarking work?
By taking part in this study, you will be taking the first of 3 simple benchmarking steps REVIEW-COMPARE-ACT that will help you increase the value your that your strategy can  add to your business in Europe  :

1. REVIEW your current implementation strategy by taking part in this new confidential 2013 Towards Maturity Benchmark
2. COMPARE You will be sent a free Personalised Benchmark Report in August (value £300) with an in depth analysis of your implementation strengths and weaknesses. This will be followed by a specific Automotive report outlining benchmarks for the sector in October 2013.
3. ACT on your results – Those that benchmark don’t have to reinvent the wheel!

75% of participants completing the Towards Maturity Benchmark in 2012 said that their review provoked discussion or ideas on how to improve the impact of their learning services.

Your individual responses will be kept completely confidential unless agreed otherwise (for example in the use of a quote). We are inviting up to 10 participants to a follow up interview where we will be happy to answer any questions directly.

What will it cost? - Nothing!
This full Benchmark review considers 6 areas of your learning strategy and business model and, because it provides a unique opportunity for reflection, it will take 45 minutes to complete (longer if you use this as part of a team exercise). If you leave the study at any time, you can return at the same point at any time, provided you use the same computer.

This Benchmark offering is free to L&D professionals in the automotive sector who participate by 30th June.

What is the Towards Maturity Benchmark?
The Towards Maturity Benchmark is considered one of the most comprehensive independent reviews of how organisations are establishing successful e-enabled learning strategies in the workplace. Its performance indicators and effective practice benchmarks have been refined through the participation of 2000+ organisations since 2003 and are used byL&D organisations around the globe to track progress and improve performance. The study is constantly kept to date through wide industry collaboration.

Find out what past participants have to say here.

This independent study is being carried out by Towards Maturity, a not-for-profit benchmarking practice working with global L&D professionals, and builds on their benchmark research over the last 10 years with 2200 organisations.

When will I get the results?
Your Personalised Benchmark will be sent to you in August and a tailored benchmark report for the Automotive Industry will be available in October for you to compare your results with industry peers thanks to sponsorship from Raytheon Professional Services GbmH.

A word from our sponsor:
Raytheon Professional Services, a global leader in blended learning solutions is proud to support the work of Towards  Maturity and share its passion for helping organisations to improve the impact of learning technologies at work.

For over a decade, our automotive experts have designed, delivered and managed tailored learning solutions across thousands of locations, all over the globe. To date, we have delivered millions of hours of training — including product launch training for over 600 automotive introductions — to the world’s most successful organisations. The end result, time and again? Short-term sales, long-term customer loyalty and dealership profitability. In other words: Everything OEMs need to shift your business into the next gear.

Follow on progress of the benchmark on  Twitter: @RaytheonRPS and @towardsmaturity.org

Image by David Castillo Dominici

The Towards Maturity Benchmark is an internationally recognised, vendor neutral, longitudinal study that considers how organisations are establishing successful e-enabled learning strategies in the workplace.

Uniquely among research-based organisations in this space, TM leverages the wealth of data provided by its on-going Benchmark survey to establish performance indicators and an authoritative standard of good practice measurement, “The TM Index”, which have been refined through the participation of 2000+ organisations and 3000+ learners since 2003. The Towards Maturity Benchmarks are used by L&D organisations around the globe to track progress and improve performance. The study is constantly kept to date through participant input and wide industry collaboration. 

I am a busy L&D professional - How can the Towards Maturity Benchmark help me? 

The goal of the Towards Maturity Benchmark is to enable organisations to establish an e-enabled learning culture that contributes to business agility, effective change management and performance. Benchmarking helps L&D leaders to get there faster without re-inventing the wheel. 

However, the Towards Maturity Benchmark is not a survey – it is a 3-step performance improvement process for Learning and Development professionals looking to establish an effective e-enabled learning culture within their business.

1. Review your current implementation strategy by participating in this new confidential 2013 Towards Maturity Benchmark
2. Compare - You will be sent a free Personalised Benchmark Report in August (value £300) with an in depth analysis of your unique Towards Maturity Index 
3. Act on your results – Those that benchmark don’t have to reinvent the wheel!

75% of participants completing this in 2012 said that their review provoked discussion or ideas on how to improve the impact of their learning services.

What’s new in the 2013 Towards Maturity Benchmark?

The Towards Maturity Benchmark is designed to help you improve the organisational and individual impact of your e-enabled learning strategy. It is continually being refreshed as a result of an unique industry collaboration across Europe. 

• Taking part in the TM benchmark REVIEW process now provides a unique opportunity for structured reflection on 6 areas of your current learning strategy. 
• COMPARE your progress against 12 new performance key performance indicators (established through input of participating organisations over the last 3 years. These will help you build your business case, set appropriate targets and better engage stakeholders. 
• COMPARE your good practice performance benchmarks to help you identify action areas that will improve results. Two new benchmark indices will be introduced in 2013. Your Alignment Index will help you improve alignment of learning to business goals and your Engagement Index will help you to engage key stakeholder and manage change more effectively.

How much does it cost?

It will take 45 - 60 minutes to complete (longer if you use this as part of a team exercise). Your Personalised Benchmark report is valued at £300. However, if you take part before 12th July, the feedback you will receive will be FREE thanks to the support of Towards Maturity’s Ambassadors who share our passion for ensuring that independent advice is freely available to all. 

Where and when can I take part?

By clicking on this link today! 

When will I get the results?

Early participants will get their Personalised Benchmark in August, a full cross sector industry analysis will be available to all participants in November 2013. If that is not enough we also have made available 3 new In-Focus reports (topics include Mobile Learning, Aligning your Learning Strategy to Business and Helping individuals Practice and Perform) for immediate download at the end of this study.

We are looking to identify effective practices that really make a difference and to share them through a new report due to be published in July 2013.

Bookmark this page to keep up with the latest findings and to download the final study.

We know through our previous studies that over nearly 9 out of 10 of organisations are delivering some form of compliance training. Over 50% of those organisations are using technology to support their compliance related training but with variable success.

To date over 100 organisations have participated and early findings show that:

• 9 out of 10 want their compliance training to change staff behaviour and attitudes
• 3 out of 5 say that user reluctance to engage is one of their biggest barriers

This survey explores the drivers, barriers, benefits and trends in the use of learning technologies in compliance training to understand what is working well and what is not. It also explores the methodologies used for carrying out compliance training.

This independent study is sponsored by SAI Global and is being carried out by Towards Maturity, a not-for-profit benchmarking practice, and builds on their benchmark research over the last 10 years with 2200 organisations.

The award recognises QA's own use of social media to supplement its sales teams' learning and development - Illustrating that the company really does practice what it preaches when it comes to implementing successful collaborative learning platforms.

Keeping busy sales staff continually informed of new products and industry developments is critical for any organisation’s success. When those staff are located across the country it is vital they feel connected and are continuously learning. QA Training faced this challenge with their 150 sales professionals spread across the UK. Their staff like others also, are challenged by the speed of change - the rate of new product and service introductions is continuing to increase while the constraints on time to learn about them remains constant.

To help address these challenges, QA wanted to help sales staff to learn from each other and others across the business, to accelerate understanding whilst providing both a forum and growing repository of product and industry reference information.

Specifically, they wanted to:

• Enable the sales team to share knowledge internally and ask questions of each other
• Allow the Management team to be able to communicate key messages
• Improve service quality
• Remove the barriers of managing a geographically dispersed sales team

Whilst there was previously a shared network drive system in place, people were unable to interact with colleagues, contribute to discussions and rate documents. Closer collaboration within the sales force was required in order to meet the business goals.

QA began using social media to supplement their series of sales briefings and sales training courses. Social learning is a term often used by the learning industry but there is some debate as to what it means and how to successfully use it as part of a wider L&D strategy. It had to deliver valuable content and encourage knowledge sharing as well as making learning fun, engaging and easy to contribute to whilst maintaining an informal tone.

To read more about how QA acheived their success you can download the full story below.

Registered users of the Towards Maturity Research Community can download the report below once you logged on. If you are not a registered user please register here.     

The World of Learning Conference & Exhibition is the essential event for all learning and development professionals, delivering the most cost-effective methods and solutions for more successful learning results.

Now in its 21st year, the World of Learning is set to showcase the latest developments in L&D in everything from e-learning and mobile learning to experiential and classroom learning, as well as live workshops, one-to-one consultations, free seminars and its renowned annual conference.

This year’s conference features inspiring case-studies from L&D thought-leaders across a range of leading organisations.

Concession Rates

Towards Maturity Benchmark users receive a 10% discount on conference bookings and up to 30% off bookings before 28th June 2013! Book now for the conference at www.learnevents.com or call 020 8394 5171

It was great to see that the 15th CIPD Learning and Talent Development study consider, for the first time, social and collaborative learning, providing some useful insights into what is understood by the term social learning. For 70 per cent of participants, social learning meant group webinars, for 30 per cent it meant using online collaboration platforms such as Jive or Salesforce, and for others, it meant mentoring /peer-to-peer learning or just gathering around the 'water cooler'. The study also identified that three quarters of organisations are using e-learning (covering a wide variety of approaches such as mobile, social media, serious games, webinars, video, audio and online content libraries). 

One of the key observations from the report is that UK businesses are failing to realise the potential of modern technology to develop their workforce. They found that while the perception of e-learning has improved (twice as many organisations rate it as one of their top three learning practices in 2013 than in 2009), compared to on-the-job training (ranked in the top three by 56 per cent) or in-house development programmes (ranked in the top three by 48 per cent,) e-learning falls way behind in popularity.

My concern is that isolating the technology-related learning may not reflect the full picture of adoption or impact. In fact, when it comes to really understanding the potential new learning landscape being forged by rapid business and technological change, the report left me with more questions than answers.

In the 2012 Towards Maturity Benchmark Study we found that 25 per cent of formal learning programmes are now enabled (rising to 37 per cent in the top 25 per cent of companies). Technology is rarely isolated but embedded in the overall approach to in-house learning. For example, 50 per cent of organisations enable their technical, IT and industry-specific compliance programmes and more than 30 per cent of organisations are embedding learning technologies within their basic skills, leadership, induction and sales and marketing training. Organisations are also looking for new ways to use technology to support on-the-job training with 92 per cent looking to use technology to support the sharing of good practices and 66 per cent looking to technology to help them speed up and improve the application of learning in the workplace. I would agree with the CIPD study that we are yet to realise the full potential but I would also suggest that, used well, it is making more than a considerable contribution to the ongoing popularity of on-the-job training and in house programmes.

Despite defining e-learning as the use of technology to support, accelerate and develop learning, the CIPD report defined successful adoption in incredibly traditional ways, including completion rates with 31 per cent of organisations reporting that most employees complete the course. But for me, completion rates are not an indicator of success. For a long time in our own studies, we have deliberately not tracked completion due to the fact that so many organisations are using these tools to support just in time learning, providing the opportunity to for staff dip in and out as they need. Completion rates become more important when we are looking at compliance related programmes.

In the Towards Maturity 2012 study, we asked the question for the first time and found that organisations report a 64 per cent completion rate for compliance-related learning, rising to 74 per cent in top learning companies. Completion rates are not indicators of success, neither are the proportion of training time accounted for by e-learning, especially when one of the benefits of online learning, used well, is to reduce deliver time and time to competency. Surely we need to be looking at the impact of technology-enabled learning in terms of the value that the learning is adding back to business and the efficiencies that it brings to the process.

Our own studies concur with many of the CIPD results including the fact that the top challenge facing L&D professionals over the next two years is to integrate learning to support workplace change. But to achieve this, we have to consider the role of technology in enabling the wider learning and talent agenda, not just delivering completions on online courses. Learning and development professionals must consider how technology can support the wider talent, onboarding, apprenticeships, performance support and even learning evaluation challenges of today in order to prepare our businesses for change in the future.

Comparing  learning technology statistics from the CIPD 2013 report with the Towards Maturity 2012-13 study:

•  14% of organisations in the CIPD study report that they use smartphones regularly, frequently or occasionally (compared to 45% of TM research participants using mobile learning in it’s widest context of phones and tablets)
• 24% use serious games (compared with 20% in the TM study)
• 49% are using podcasts ( compared with 30% in the TM study – the TM study also investigates user generated content and the use of video)
• 75% using webinars (TM shows similar uptake)
• The CIPD study also  shares common findings with Towards Maturity  in that the use of e-learning is particularly common in the public sector, where 90% of respondents report using it and that the vast majority of respondents (91%) stated that they believe e-learning is more effective when it is combined with other types of learning and almost three quarters

The CIPD/Cornerstone report can be viewed here http://www.cipd.co.uk/research/_learning-talent-development.

Bridging the gap - the 2012-13 Towards Maturity Benchmark (including longitudinal trends tables from 2006 – 2013) can be downloaded at www.towardsmaturity.org/2012benchmark

This article was first published on Training Journal website