The New L&D Operating Model
Typical of the emerging hybrid delivery model for L&D is a global financial services firm that created a project to explore which learning services were best delivered at the business unit level and which were best shared across the enterprise – and the organizational changes that were required to achieve this.
At this historically decentralized firm, both training staff and line managers believed that a great strength of training was its decentralization, its “closeness to the business.” At the same time, they found that such an embedded structure, without enterprise level vision, strategy, or planning, resulted in unacceptable duplication of effort, redundancy, and, therefore, cost inefficiency. They discovered innovative best practices existing in the business units, but no mechanism or structure to ensure that they were shared or leveraged across the company. They found virtually no enterprise level programs, services, or strategy to drive a unified employment brand or talent management approach that would help them meet their goal of becoming one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” As a result, they designed a new operating model with four key elements.
Business Unit Learning Services. Learning generalists, sourced from the business, were responsible for consulting with local business unit management, underswtanding human performance requirements, and translating those performance requirements into learning solutions.
Content Center of Excellence. A shared content center was responsible for design and development of customized learning solutions across the enterprise, organized by content portfolio (management development, sales, operations, etc.).
Shared Learning Services. A shared service center provided scale-driven administrative and infrastructure support services to the businesses (learner support, logistics, facilities, print/fulfillment, LMS support etc.).
Corporate Learning. A corporate center was responsible for providing learning strategies, frameworks, and programs that cut across the organization (e.g. leadership development, competency frameworks, etc.) and was also responsible for integration of learning with the HR and talent management functions and processes.
The client found that it could fund the establishment of the coprorate learning center with savings generated through shared services, and that additional dollars could be saved -- or reinvested -- by consolidating and reengineering training at the business unit level.
