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and more about practical tools and gaining experience that speaks for i t sel f. Acquiring knowledge that is outdated, while taking on debt, is not what business education should be,” he adds.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