Have you just wasted your entire learning or training budget on a learning Library?

One of the great ways to develop your staff is to have a learning portal, or learning academy site. A resource which contains lots of information and self-development activities for leaders, coaches and change agents in business. These learning libraries or virtual academies can be expensive to compile and maintain, so many organisations choose to buy these services for their employees. It can be a cost effective strategy for the provision of learning materials.

Are Learning Library’s all they make out to be?

Recently I have had access to arguably one of the worlds most acclaimed learning libraries, in fact it is claimed that:

“…placed in the top 20 business schools worldwide in recent Financial Times and Bloomberg BusinessWeek rankings, and …… has recently been awarded Gold in the Learning and Performance Institute’s ‘Learning Technology of 2014’.”

So why….why…why…..?

• Are the FIRST links as resources pointing to websites that ceased over 5 years ago?
• Why are they perpetuating the 7,38, 55% communications myth? – Albert Mehrabian
• Why are they using video case studies over 20 years old, when the case study suggests success… but the firms have ceased trading!!!
• How is this “World class” learning? What are we really offering our people?

Is this really insightful learning or are we just taking shortcuts to show that we are offering our people development?

Who is responsible for accuracy of the Learning Library content?

Who is at fault here? The Business School for not reviewing their content? The internal commissioning “professionals” for not checking the quality of the product, but looking at the product through rose tinted glasses believing the brand not the content?
Or is it something else?

Are we so under pressure to “do something” for the development of our staff and leaders, that we attempt to buy credibility? Is this a sign of laziness on both supplier and purchaser?

Learning Library suppliers really care?

Well some do. Not technically a “learning Library”, but the CIPD have a large number of factsheets, that are more extensive than some of the well-known paid for Business School services. As an author of two of their factsheets, I am approached at least once every 2 years to review and update the content, and to check validity of links and other comments.

How will you know?

Simple, look at the footer of EACH PAGE and see if there is a “last updated” or “last reviewed” date. Is that date in the last 2 years?
Look at book references. Is there a mix of old and new publications? You need both. Those published in the last 2 years and maybe some as old as 20 (especially for psychology or leadership), as often the founding principles were published long ago.

Do you have a learning library in your organization? Have you checked the validity of the contents?

I would love to hear your views