Study Shows That Most Companies’ Learning Ecosystems Have Room to Improve

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. & ROTTERDAM, Netherlands–(BUSINESS WIRE)–EdCast, in partnership with Hult International Business School, is pleased to launch the Learning Health Index (LHI) Report 2021 for the U.S., Europe & UK regions. In this edition of the flagship study, 50 leading organizations across 17 industries participated at executive leadership levels.

LHI 2021 captures key learnings, current and future trends, best practices and insights pertaining to learning and development. In these unique pandemic and post-pandemic times, agility has become a key transformation lever, and organizations need to adapt to bridge skills gaps to enable upskilling and reskilling.

The EdCast Learning Health Index study, first launched in 2020, and now deployed globally, is a practical and valuable tool to assess the health of learning and development in organizations. It uses a validated research approach to create a deeper understanding of learning health and to provide Learning & Development leaders with ideas on how to respond to the ever-increasing need for creating a shared culture of learning.

With an average LHI score of 61 (out of 100), the results suggest that despite executive sponsorship, investment in learning, the desire to create learning agility and align learning with business needs, most organizations have yet to unlock the potential of a healthy learning culture. With an ever-growing focus on upskilling, reskilling, and flexible career development opportunities for employees, L&D may find that cracking the learning conundrum may soon become a mission-critical priority. Download the LHI U.S., Europe & UK Full Report, here.

From EdCast:

“The findings of EdCast’s Learning Health Index Study reveal that there is significant room for improvement of the health of Learning and Development ecosystems across organizations,” said Karl Mehta, CEO and Founder of EdCast. “L&D needs to create the right ecosystems, the rich repositories of knowledge, and then let the learner take the center stage. The days of the event-centric, once-a-year learning programmes are over. Learning needs to be more ongoing and embedded in the flow of work.”

From Hult International Business School:

“We are delighted to partner with EdCast on this research, leveraging our expert faculty and worldwide network of Learning and Development leaders,” said Dina Dommett, Dean of Ashridge at Hult International Business School. “We have always believed that Learning and Development has the potential to profoundly change how we live and work, and it has never been more important to build a learning ecosystem that upskills our talent to meet the needs of tomorrow. The research reveals we still have a long way to go to fully realize the potential of our people and organizations, but we look forward to taking on this challenge of helping companies and professionals to thrive in the new world of work.”

Key highlights from the EdCast LHI Study 2021:

❖ Report reveals that only 4% of the 50 organizations surveyed are Ailing, 42% are Coping and 46% are Developing. This study further classifies only 8% of organizations as being Nourishing and 0% as Thriving

❖ The three industries with the healthiest organizational learning scores were Financial Services, Technology, and Professional Services. The industry which had the lowest rating across all dimensions consistently was Hospitality.

❖ A comparison of the quantitative data across the eight dimensions for each of the three regions reveal very close alignment between the regions, with all three rated as being in the Developing stage of learning health.

❖ The two healthiest learning dimensions from the combined results were that of Learning Strategy & Business Planning and L&D Portfolio.

❖ Impact & Measurement and Tools & Technologies were the lowest-rated overall LHI Dimensions

❖ These findings imply that the strategic aspects of aligning with business in creating a focused L&D strategy and portfolio are doing well, but that the implementation aspects such as ‘how to measure impact’ and ‘how to leverage tools and technologies’ are still in the early phases of development.

Download the LHI U.S., Europe & UK Full Report, here.

Methodology:

The Learning Health Index is an aggregate of survey scores across each of the eight distinct dimensions of learning health across a five-point scale. Using their individual scores, organizations can benchmark themselves against the overall market and/or industry they belong to and ascertain their competitive positioning. The survey identifies areas of excellence and opportunities for improving learning in an organization. Reviewing and assessing the scores on each of the dimensions provides an opportunity for organizations to take corrective action.

About EdCast

EdCast offers a unified talent experience platform designed to enable end-to-end employee journeys spanning learning, skilling and career mobility. Its award-winning platform is used internationally by organizations ranging from large Global 2000 companies to small businesses and governments. With EdCast’s platforms, businesses are able to attract, develop and retain a high-performance and future-ready workforce. EdCast’s offerings include its Talent Experience Platform, Spark for SMBs, Content Strategy & Solutions and MyGuide Digital Adoption Platform. EdCast is recognized as a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

For additional information, visit http://www.edcast.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Hult International Business School

Hult International Business School is a non-profit educational organization and the first triple-accredited Business School in the U.S. Ranked by the Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Hult offers programmes at undergraduate, post-graduate and executive education levels and awards joint US and UK degrees across its global campus locations in Boston, San Francisco, London, Dubai, Shanghai, and New York.

Hult EF Corporate Education leverages the above resources and those of the world’s leading private education firm EF Education First, to offer companies and governments an extensive pool of expert faculty across many different disciplines and an international community of learners. They offer professional development programmes and solutions across language and intercultural communication, leadership, executive coaching and core business skills such as strategy and digital transformation.

For additional information, visit http://www.hultef.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Download the LHI U.S., Europe and UK 2021 Full Report here.

Contacts

Reena Chawla (PR@edcast.com)