Gen Y Workforce Helps eLearning Take-up in USA

Despite some differing numbers, two widely regarded and independent reports on the US training market conclude that 30 percent of employee learning last year occurred online.

After years of investing in content and integrated delivery infrastructure, organisations are beginning to see those investments pay off in a dramatic increase in the use of technology enabled learning. As more and more employees use online tools, organisations are seeing costs rise slightly.

These are the key findings from two pieces of reaseach that guage the state of the US training market. The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and Bersin & Associates carried out the reasearch in 2007 and released their reports in January 2008.

Both reports highlight the part played by shifting demographics in corporate America. The younger and more tech-savvy Gen Y-ers are filtering into the workforce and are comfortable and eager to use online tools and platforms to to aid their professional growth and development.

Gen Y Issues will impact UK Defence Sector

At a recent conference - over 200 senior engineers from the UK Defence sector received a presentation from Atos Consulting on how changing demographics and the future generation of employees may shape their plans and strategy over the next 5-10 years. Using electronic voting machines - 73% of delegates felt the issues discussed will have a sigificant impact on their future plans.

Atos Consulting's Marc Humphries commented, "I was impressed by the increasing awareness some of the audience had about the issues they are facing. Some organisations already have research teams looking into this area - and others were already experimenting with Web 2.0 collaboration technologies and serious, immersive games."

Use of Web2.0 technologies in the work place

The debate on Web2.0 technologies and whether they are a useful tool or a distraction and a waste of valuable working time is on-going. Marc and I have talked in the past about the importance of integrating these types of approaches into the workplace, considering the preferences of the 2012 generation. After all, facebook and wikis are part of their day to day life anyway. My colleague Scott McArthur http://mcarthursrant.blogspot.com/ contributes his views to this interesting article from Personnel Today on the topic. http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/article.aspx?liarticleid=43764&printerfriendly=true

What do you do? Ban it? Use it? T-mobile opted for the second route, incorporating Facebook and recruitment successfully. The publishing company Informa use their 'Transformed Careers Island' to allow employees access information about job functions, competencies, skills gap - as well as play football. Whichever camp you belong to, one thing is for sure: blanket approaches are unlikely to provide the answer, so what could these technologies can do for your organisation now and in the future?

Wikinomics in Action at MIT

Last night I attended a post graduate lecture given by Professor Eric von Hippel at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He was talking about the challenge of breakthrough innovation compared to that of incremental improvement. It was fascinating and engaging stuff. He talked about new models of user co-creation. Later on, I decided to revisit my roots and attend some under grad lectures on Electrical and Mechanical engineering. Professor Lester Walker of MIT gave a great performance explaining why I am lighter when travelling down in an elevator and heavier when the elevator takes me up a few floors.

Okay - so what's the deal? You've probably guessed that I was attending these lectures remotely. I was in the UK watching videos of these MIT guys in action. I also downloaded all the lecture notes, mid term papers and model answers. So what...

What stopped my in my tracks is that since 2002, MIT has published 1,800 courses from its under graduate and post graduate programmes absolutely free of charge on the internet.

MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) programme appears to be a living embodiment of Don Tapscott's ideas in his 2004 book Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. One of the finest educational establisments in the world is happily sharing the content of nearly all of it's faculties courses. All of that intellectual capital is now available free of charge to every citizen in the world who can access the internet. MIT actively encourage other establishments to use their material to assist and shape their curriculum. Individuals can self teach or enrich their current studies. High schools can create lesson plans that prepare students for college.

And that, of course, is what Wikinomics is all about. What you share and give out for free - you will get back more in the long run. MIT will no doubt get more applications from potential students because of this initiative. OCW will extend their academic network and get all sorts of people collaborating together. MIT are also attracting sponsorship for OCW thus creating a new income stream.

But don't take my word for it - look at the site on http://ocw.mit.edu/

Young entrepreneurs - the new 'cool'

Recent research from Barclays Bank shows there has been a 15% rise in business start-ups among those under the age of 25.

"Young people can bring sky high levels of ambition and 'out-of-the box' creative thinking. And these are characteristics we have found to be perceived as critical to entrepreneurial success," said John Davis, marketing director for local business at Barclays.

This MSN article by by Emma-Lou Montgomery, talks about 5 hot UK entrepreneurs.

First Baby Boomer to Retire in USA

On a recent trip to the US a front page article on the complimentary hotel newspaper caught my eye. Kathleen "Kathy" Casey-Kirschling - described as the nation's first baby boomer is retiring and has filed to collect her Social Security (state pension) early at the age of 62. School teacher Kathy was born at 00:01am on January 1st 1946. She is on the leading edge of what the Social Security administration refers to as a "silver tsunami," nearly 80 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964 who will qualify for Social Security over the next two decades. The first ripple of that tsunami, more than 3 million Americans, turns 62 next year. Like Casey-Kirschling, about half are projected to choose early retirement. Those who remain in the work force will qualify for full benefits when they turn 66 in 2012. The article contained some interesting facts:

• When US Social Security was created in 1935 - for every retirement benificiery there were 42 working people paying in
• In 2007 - this ratio had reduced to 3:1
• By 2020 - it is estimated that the ratio will be 2:1. Each couple will in effect be responsible for supporting one senior citizen

Interesting stuff - but what does this mean for the world of work? Well, it's impact will be increasingly felt in both public and private sectors. Research by Bersin Associates reveals that in the US, 50% of senior managers will retire from the top Fortune 500 companies within the next 5 years. Other research shows that NASA could loose up to 50% of its workforce to retirement. If organisations are not prepared for this then thousands of man-years of experience, expertise and knowledge will walk out the door. Organisations need to start thinking about this issue now.

I wrote about this here in a previous posting http://Generationxynext.blogspot.com/2007/09/when-is-your-organisations-next-dec.html

The Baby Boomer Generation - Old, Smart, Productive

There is a popular assumption that we slow down as we get older. Medics used to believe that once muscle strength was lost for example, there was little chance of regaining it. Later research by Walter Frontera and Maria Fiatarone proved that this is not true. They have established that age doesn't matter and you don't have to loose muscle strength as you grow older. Furthermore, even if you have lost it, you can regain it through simple resistance training.

We've been focusing a lot on generation Y and I felt the need to re-address the balance a bit. Are we saying that we need to focus totally on the young, bright things? No, definitely not. The most important thing is to play to individuals' strengths - no matter what their age. Mature employees bring experience, maturity, energy and focus.

I found this article most interesting. It describes how rather than being an economic deadweight, the next generation of older Americans is likely to make a much bigger contribution to the economy than many of today's forecasts predict. An analysis by BusinessWeek finds that increased productivity of older Americans and higher labor-force participation could add 9% to gross domestic product by 2045, on top of what it otherwise would have been. (This assumes, for example, that over the next 40 years better health and technology reduce the productivity gap between older workers and their younger counterparts.) This 9% increase in gross domestic product would add more than $3 trillion a year, in today's dollars, to economic output.

Much like the muscle strength, research suggests that boomers will have the ability - and the desire - to work productively and innovatively well beyond today's normal retirement age.