As the pace of business accelerates, so too must an organization's operational response times. One of the best ways to do this is to start by increasing the speed of employee learning. Since the 1960s, employees are doing less rote work and more processing work, or work that requires ongoing education. The ability to learn new skills quickly has become critical to both personal successes as well as organizational successes. The ever-increasing pace of the business world is causing traditional methods of learning and development to approach the end of their usefulness. Specifically, most training focuses on the job that an employee is currently doing, and less on what they might need to do in the future. Instead of focusing solely on the content of training programs, forward-thinking organizations are prioritizing the facilitation of learning and creating an atmosphere of flexibility where employees can adapt to changes on the fly. Learning should be integrated into employees' everyday work, and training should be delivered precisely at the moment it’s needed. Simply put, employees should decide what they need to learn, and employers should provide them the means to obtain this training.
