The future of corporate learning

Martin Moehrle
17 October 2022
 Dr.
Dr. Martin
Martin Moehrle

Martin Moehrle is a thought leader, management consultant and former global head of talent and learning at UBS and at Deutsche Bank. In 2015 he reopened his
management consulting practice. Martin has been advising numerous organizations, many of them Fortune Global 500 companies, on corporate transformation and
culture change, as well as on adapting their HR, leadership, talent, learning and DEI practices to the new realities of work.

Martin is also Director of Corporate Services at EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development), where he manages the value proposition for corporate
members and CLIP, the premier quality management system for corporate learning. In this capacity, he works with a great many of learning and development leaders
around the world and across industries on defining and achieving the next level of their functions’ path to excellence. In addition, he recently designed the RDHY
certification scheme for management innovation and organizational transformation.

From 2012 to 2015 Martin was Global Head of Talent and member of the HR Executive Committee at UBS, based in Zurich and leading all talent acquisition and talent
development practices globally. Following the financial crisis, he helped UBS to successfully rebuild its talent engine and to align its culture to the new realities of the
industry.

For many years through 2008 Martin was Chief Learning Officer, Global Head of HR Development, and member of the Global HR Committee at Deutsche Bank. He
assumed various HR executive positions and led many initiatives to transform Deutsche Bank into an agile, learning, global, and diverse organization.

Previously, Martin worked with Simon, Kucher & Partners Strategy and Marketing Consultants on market positioning, strategy formulation and pricing engagements. He
completed an engineering and a business degree at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and studied international economics and finance at the University of Paris I
(Panthéon-Sorbonne). He lectured on management and marketing at the universities of Bielefeld and Mainz and was Visiting Scholar and in the Ph.D. program at the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He received a doctorate in business from Gutenberg University Mainz.

Martin has been past and present member of advisory councils at Business Schools and HR think tanks (e. g. Wharton School, Uni. St Gallen, INSEAD, ESMT, Goethe
University, Frankfurt School), senior advisor to EFMD, founding member of ECLF and member of the executive board of ICEDR.
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The future of work is different!
Observation 1: from industrial to knowledge-based

▪ The modern enterprise is a mix of industrial and knowledge-based contexts

▪ There is a shift to the creative/ knowledge-based side of the equation*
▪ There is a time lag between mature and emerging markets

industrial context knowledge-based context

managing productivity via managing productivity via
flawless execution of workforce empowerment
prescribed work procedures and inspiration

power
organization individual

*) Drucker, Management Challenges of the 21st Century, 1982

Florida: The rise of the creative class, 2003 4
Goffee/Jones: Clever People, 2009
Observation 2: from predictable to unpredictable

organization

AS
Traditional talent Future talent
practices suppor- practices suppor-
ting ongoing S2 A2 ting agile busi-
employment and a nesses in dynamic
predictable future environments
SA

individuum

S = stable
A = agile
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Observation 3: from analog to digital

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 Observation 4: from office to hybrid
▪ The pandemic did away with many of our old assumptions, such as working from home is a hideaway and unproductive.
▪ There is general agreement that a hybrid model that combines office and remote work will become the new norm.
▪ Employers have to make it attractive and meaningful to come to the office, and they must be conscious of
- social cohesion and a sense of belonging
- inclusiveness and equality
- serendipity and innovation.
▪ Coming to the office must be meaningful, purpose-led and culture-building.

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Future of labor markets and jobs
from hands to heads to hearts…

In the recent past,

multiple studies got
published re: the
impact of automation
and AI on employ-
ment:
some are rather
pessimistic and
predict mass unem-
ployment, others are
more optimistic and
recognize oppor-
tunities for new job
creation – under
specific conditions re:
the adaptability of
labor markets
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 What ‘work’ might look like in the future

A new breed of professionals with more in common with Renaissance master artisans than the blue or
white collar workers
• proud of what they do and what they create
• working with passion and purpose
• creating a personal reputation and brand
Workers are gaining a stronger voice pushing the envelope on what’s possible and expected. 9
 The Rise of Talent Marketplaces

▪ Work becomes assignment-based rather than role-based

▪ Professional reputation becomes the means by which a person shapes a career
▪ Supply and demand side see what each other has to offer
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The enhanced role of corporate learning
 The magic square of managing human capital

Explore: prepare for tomorrow

doing
Agility: enable change Stability: strengthen culture
being

Exploit: deliver now

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 The magic square of managing human capital

Explore: prepare for tomorrow

doing
Agility: enable change Stability: strengthen culture
being

traditional focus

the space of
the known Exploit: deliver now

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 The magic square of managing human capital
the space of
the unknown
Explore: prepare for tomorrow

doing
emerging focus

Agility: enable change Stability: strengthen culture

being

Exploit: deliver now

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The emergence/ rediscovery of informal learning

industrial context knowledge-based context

▪ standardized jobs ▪ unique tasks and work
▪ Work organized around machines ▪ Work organized around humans

tangible value intangible

explicit knowledge implicit

formal learning informal

automation augmentation
 Formal vs. informal learning
Knowledge/ Defined Defined time Defined Defined target Defined Defined in the flow of
Type of learning skills domain learning location audience particpants structure/ with work
broadly defined objectives instructor (contextual)

In person x x x x x x x -

Digital learning -
x x - - x - x -
asynchronous

Community of
x - - - x - - X
practice

Buddy program - - - - x x - x

Formal Control by learner Informal

learning Control by corporate learning learning

encouragement (learning culture) / enablement (tools and processes)

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 Blending elements of formal and informal learning

Cohort-based Barcamps Community of

learning interest
Learning days/ Working out
weeks/ festivals Loud

Formal Control by learner Informal

learning Control by corporate learning learning

encouragement (learning culture) / enablement (tools and processes)

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 Social and workplace learning

source: Julian Stodd – The Social Learning Guidebook (2018) source: Charles Jennings and his 70:20:10 Institute
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Traditional roles of corporate learning functions

Shared culture and

strategic alignment

Accelerated growth of Enabling

talent pipeline transformation

Aligning skills to Governance of enter-

strategy prise learning space

high control/ formal

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 Emerging roles of corporate learning functions

Shared culture and

Strengthening the Promoting agility, client-
strategic alignment
learning culture centricity and innovation

Accelerated growth of Enabling

talent pipeline transformation
low control/
informal

Fostering human
augmentation
Enabling life-long Governance of enter-
learning, up- and prise learning space
reskilling, talent mobilty
high control/ formal
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Corporate learning‘s transformation journey
 The new world of digital age learning
Zoom and
Miro
learning on gamification Teams
demand social media/
learning
video-based simulations communities
learning Metaverse,
webinars augmented/
virtual reality barcamps
hackathons
mobile
learning/ MOOCs working out loud
apps … Adaptive
learning/
e-coaching/ personalization messaging/
e-tutoring blogging
blended
learning micro-learning
learning
badges analytics/ AI wikis
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Managing learning in the context of ubiquity of content

Community - Company-
generated specific
content content

User-
External
generated
content
content

informal learning formal learning

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https://efmdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/Corporate_Dictionary_EN_13.12.18_final.pdf 24
 ‚From learning provider to learning enabler‘

Being Inertia of
Content Learning managed as the legacy
curation culture a support organiza-
function tion

Lack of
Digital Too much
Learning new skills
transfor- Challenges* experience
bureau- Obstacles** and new
cracy
mation partners

Measuring
Lack of in-
Learning activities,
Agility analytics not
vestment
in L&D
outcomes

EFMD corporate member survey 2017 (published in EFMD Global Focus Vol. 12 Iss. 1, pp 46-49)
*) What do you see as the most significant future challenges in the corporate learning function? 25
**) What are the major internal obstacles to coping with them adequately?
Corporate learning as accelerator of digital transformation

Engaging leadership/ Closing the digital

mobilizing workforce skills gap

Rethinking work as
human augmented
intelligence

Unleashing
Promoting agility
innovation
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Engaging leadership/ mobilizing workforce

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 Closing the digital skills gap

https://www.digitalskillsaccelerator.eu

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Higher Education Digital Capability Framework | HolonIQ
 Unleashing innovation
Design thinking
• Building on the work of industrial designers to solve user problems
• Portfolio of methods and tools
➢ Customer journey mapping
➢ User pain points
➢ Personas
➢ Continuous interaction between designer and targeted user group
➢ Idea generation without judgement
➢ Solutions to combine technical feasibility, economic viability and
human desirability
➢ Design thinking to rely on the process, on multidisciplinary teams,
and on a variable space
➢ The process steps: understand, explore, prototype, test, iterate
Innovation labs and incubators
➢ Bottom-up innovation, combined with looking outside
➢ Open-source innovation
➢ Engaging and collaborating with Start ups
➢ Accelerating time to market

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 Promoting agility
Agile mindset
• Starting point: agile manifesto
• What matters: trust and empowerment,
collaboration, self-organization, cross-functional
teams, user experience and customer value,
experimentation, speed

Agile methods/ new ways of working

• OKR
• Scrum
➢ Sprints, Daily stand ups, Retrospectives
• Kanban
➢ Kanban-Board
• Lean
• Kaizen

New approaches to organizing work

• Work as a collective effort, not only the sum of
individual efforts
• Utmost transparency
• Talent marketplaces 30
Rethinking work as human augmented intelligence

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P. Daugherty and J. Wilson: Human + Machine, 2018
The EFMD CLIP Quality Framework

Corporate Learning Improvement Process (CLIP) - EFMD Global

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 Reflections on Public Service in Indonesia

General observations
▪ Globally, Public Service organizations have not the reputation to lead the way into the future of work and learning.
▪ Given their institutional grounding and governance, this is no surprise.
▪ But it has not to be this way!
▪ Public Services can significantly increase value for citizens by applying design thinking and digitizing their processes,
be they client-focused or internal.

Indonesians observations
▪ I got some insights into the world of State Owned Enterprises such as Pertamina, Telkom Indonesia, BNI, BRI, Bank
Mandiri, and PLN, and also into Bank Indonesia with ist close ties to the MoF.
▪ Given the growth opportunities, Indonesian Public Service organizations are very much focused on the domestic
market. Hence, learning from international experience is rather limited, which is a missed opportunity.
▪ Public Services seem to be very purpose-led, which is a big lever for employee attraction and retention.

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