FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 37

ON TOPIC
their mental energy. If somebody
wants to leave early because they’re
doing an evening class two nights
a week, that should be facilitated,
as easily as taking a lunch break,”
she asserts.
A myopic resistance to people
taking 20% time off the job has
contributed to negativity around
spending the Apprenticeship Levy,
she believes. “But that time out of
the office gives people space to
think about what they’re learning
and also how they might implement
it,” she says.
Proof that people are happy to
learn in their own time can be found
in the popularity of MOOCs (studied
by 101m students in 2018, involving
900-plus universities and 11.4K
courses, according to figures from
Classcentral.com). Being free and
open to all is naturally part of their
appeal. Costly MBAs and executive
education programmes are not
accessible to many individuals, nor
to burgeoning start-ups wishing to
invest in their people. “An MBA can
cost £100K,” points out Daniels.
“There’s almost a moral piece
around how you reward people and
facilitate learning.”
This desire to ‘democratise’
learning is embodied by recent
entrants into the professional
learning market. Jolt, for example,
which expanded into the UK this
year, provides an eminently
affordable ‘NMBA’ (Not An MBA)
programme, imparting “practical
knowledge that helps students to
do their jobs better, the day after
learning it”. Participants pay a
monthly subscription of £175 and,
with the entire diploma programme
taking around two years, could
complete it for less than £5K.
Tal Shmueli, regional director, UK,
explains that Jolt’s product is
“experiential, up-to-date and
student-centric – less about social
signalling, and more about practical
tools and gaining experience that
speaks for i t sel f. Acquiring
knowledge that is outdated, while
taking on debt, is not what business
education should be,” he adds.
Jo l t ’ s p ro g ra m m e of fe r s
complete flexibility (learners can
book ‘stackable sessions’ as they
need them) and its teachers are all
working professionals from the
frontlines of industry. While they
teach remotely, students are
present on campus in intimate
cohorts of 14, practising ‘intentional
learning’ and networking with
peers. Their profile tends to be
“high achievers”, aged 25-35.
The programme is CPD-
accredited earning graduates a
diploma rather than a degree. But
Shmueli believes its value is
comparable. He explains that the
programme was developed with
input from a committee of
There’s almost a moral piece
around how you reward
people and facilitate learning
O
Top MOOC providers in
2018, by registered users
Coursera
edX
37m
18 m
XuetangX 14 m
Udacity 10m
FutureLearn
8.7m
(Source: Classcentral.com)
graduates from 12 of the world’s
best business schools (including
INSEAD, Wharton and London
Business School), tasked with
designing an MBA that addressed
all their core profe s sional
requirements. “They came up with
a programme that looked very
different from the ones they
themselves participated in. That’s
is why we called it ‘Not an MBA’,”
he explains.
Jolt is now promoting its B2B
offering, which is proving popular
with start-ups: firms can subscribe
to learning packages on their
people’s behalf, buy a retainer, or
install a ‘Jolt Box’ in their boardroom,
turning it into a learning hub.
With L&D recognised as a
growing driver of employee
engagement, such investment
may pay dividends in terms of
recruitment and retention. Other
affordable models adopted by
scaling firms include taking the
challenge of L&D in-house –
developing courses “for the
people, by the people”, in the case
of software company Onfido (see
case study, p36).
Overall, the picture presented
is of a thirst for professional
learning being addressed (at last)
by innovation across the education
landscape. Offerings are being
developed to suit dif ferent
budgets, aims and learning
preferences; creativity is rife. Only
one thing is certain: professional
learning has become something
you do, not something you have.
November – January 2019 // 37