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Knowledge@Wharton is the electronic journal of the Wharton School, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania.In the mid-1990s, a new C-suite title was born when General Electric CEO Jack Welch dubbed Steve Kerr the company's "chief learning officer." Since then, CLOs have sprouted up at major firms in several industries. But what does this new breed of "learning leaders" bring to the table that traditional human resources departments and employee training programs do not? How does an increased emphasis on learning improve an organization? And do new technologies, like distance learning, simulations and online portals, enhance or impede work-based education?
To answer these questions, Knowledge@Wharton spoke with Ed Betof, former vice president of talent management and CLO at Becton, Dickinson and Co., who is a senior fellow and academic director of Wharton Executive Education's Executive Program in Work-Based Learning Leadership; Mike Barger, vice president and CLO at JetBlue University; and Ann Schulte, vice president of global learning at MasterCard Worldwide.
Below are excerpts of the conversation:
i>Knowledge@Wharton: Historically, human resources departments have been in charge of programs that enhance employees' skills, such as on-the-job training and tuition reimbursement. Why is there a need for a separate role that's wholly dedicated to learning?
Ann Schulte: Well, I think that in the environment that we're in today, identifying the skills and the competencies that are necessary for an organization to be successful is a critical first step. Once those competencies have been agreed upon at a strategic level by the organization, the learning department and the learning leaders can come in and provide a variety of different interventions.
In the old days, as you referenced, when training existed in the HR department, a lot of times those interventions were limited to a class of some sort. Today, we talk about all different sorts of ways to help employees build their skills and become continuous learners, so that they can continue to contribute to the strategic goals of the organization. ...
Ed Betof: One thing that I would add is, in addition to addressing the skills, knowledge and talent needs for today, the chief learning officer and the functions that they lead are responsible for anticipating and working with other leaders in their organizations to anticipate the skills, the knowledge, the talents necessary next year, three years and even five years, possibly even beyond, depending on the type of organization. So, it should be just about impossible now, going forward in very contemporary organizations, to have a strategic business plan without a strong talent and talent learning element -- not just hanging at the end of that plan, but integrated into the fiber of the strategic plan.
Corporate Universities
Knowledge@Wharton: What is a corporate university, exactly? And is this a growing trend?
Schulte: ...A lot of it is virtual. When we talk about the Corporate University, we are not talking about a training center, or a set of dedicated classrooms, or what have you. It's more conceptual; it's a learning portal, if you will, that provides access to a tremendous amount of resources beyond just classes. There is on-line learning, there are collaborations, there are links to outside partnerships, academic institutions and the like, that are all intended to provide knowledge that is necessary at the moment the employee needs it.
Mike Barger: I think the Corporate University philosophy allows corporate leaders to be able to emphasize the importance of learning to the success of the organization. A Corporate University doesn't necessarily mean that it's a centralized or a de-centralized function. In our case, at JetBlue University, it is a completely centralized function, which means everyone that does training at JetBlue all live under the same roof -- not necessarily in the same geographic location, but all under the same "departmental" roof.
What that allows us to do is to have a very common educational philosophy. It allows us to cross-pollinate faculty. So, in our case, we can have flight instructors teaching flight attendants and customer service people. And having this centralized approach or common approach to education allows you to really connect with different work groups, which is one of those key business challenges that organizations are dealing with today -- that is, trying to get different work groups to work better together. That is something we can accomplish better in the Corporate University environment.
Knowledge@Wharton: In many cases, employees are offered particular education options, like tuition reimbursement, but it's more of a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. This seems to be an entirely different situation. Not only are people performing their job functions, they're being asked to factor in education. How do employees view this -- is it a perk, or an added pressure?
Barger: ...I think that as individuals come into the Corporate University environment, they expect not only to get knowledge or skills but they expect to receive some sort of developmental opportunity that will really contribute to their ability to succeed on the frontlines.
Schulte: ...What we are seeing is that for a lot of our employees, this development and the company's willingness to provide them opportunities to develop and grow their skills and learn continuously is very important to them. It's not something that they feel we are making them do; it's something that they look forward to and are appreciative of the opportunity to continue to grow their careers and their personal capabilities.
Measuring Success
Knowledge@Wharton: How do you measure the success of these kinds of programs?
Barger: ...As businesses define their strategic objectives and they align those objectives across all of the business functions of the organization, the learning function has a responsibility to hold up their end of the bargain and support the strategic objectives of the company. And, to the extent to which they do that, this will define how effective they are.
Betof: That question, which is one of the most frequently asked questions, cannot be answered in one way. You really need to take a look at different populations, different needs, and different ways that learning leaders structure their work. Let me give you a specific example of one way you can address it: Just about every company today reports that they lack bench strength. Some -- in fact, I would say many -- report that they lack not only bench strength, but they lack incumbency strength at the leadership level in their organizations.
So, a learning leader in many organizations either has responsibility for, or partners with those who oversee, the overall development of leadership talent in the organization -- through succession planning, through job challenges, through movement into new roles. If you take the supply of leadership talent today and for tomorrow and you begin to measure progress in bolstering that pipeline, you can say with some reasonable degree of confidence that the combination of efforts that company is taking -- through job assignments, through its careful succession planning, through its learning efforts -- begins to show definite improvements in both the quality as well as the quantity of the talent that you have in those leadership ranks. That would be one way. But, you'd have to break that down into various learning challenges in answering a question about measurement.
Is Technology Improving Learning Programs?
Knowledge@Wharton: Economist.com has had an ongoing debate about whether new technologies, such as online portals and distance learning, enhance education or impede it. What's your take on this?
Schulte: I feel pretty strongly that they enhance learning. Technology is an enabler; it's not the learning in and of itself.... We have a global population that we try to reach, and it allows us access to people that we couldn't reach face to face in a much quicker fashion. It also allows us to do things such as simulations -- a lot of things that we can practice, which we would not be able to do in the operational environment, are enabled by technology.
Barger: I think the key is not using technology for technology's sake. One of the significant changes in learning over the last couple of decades is that we now deliver learning more in the context of the environment that these people are going to be working in when they're doing their day-to-day jobs. Pilots, for example, are going to train in simulators that represent the real thing about as well as you can.
We're going to use other technologies in the classroom and out in the workplace that are going to simulate the work environment. There's not a particularly clear line between the training environment and the work environment. So, when they move from learning and into the execution of their day-to-day jobs, it's a very comfortable transition. I think that in that context, technology plays a huge role in helping folks get comfortable with the kinds of tools that they are going to have available to them when they're operating day to day. ...
This summary was drawn from a longer transcript. To read the entire conversation,
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