How People Learn at Work via @degreed #LifelongLearning #58

I've been reading about interesting research carried out by a company called Degreed who I had not heard about before, but have been around since 2012. Degreed claims to be the first company to provide a lifelong learning platform to track all learning, not just degrees and other formal qualifications. Sounds like an interesting idea, long overdue - as part of their launch statement states "Imagine if your diploma actually measured EVERYTHING you have learned!". The research I mentioned above backs up what their mission is. This research was a survey of 519 respondents in the USA, mostly Millenials (57%) and Generation X (42%) - just 1% were Baby Boomers (that's me!).

The "HOW THE WORKFORCE LEARNS IN 2016" report shares some interesting results from Degreed's research. Almost 85% of respondents said they "learn things for work by searching online at least once a week. Nearly 70% learn from peers or by reading articles and blogs every week, and 53% learn from videos in any given week". Another really interesting find was that workers "spend about 1% of the average work week (37 minutes) on their employers’ training", but that they "invest 3.3 hours a week on their own". We don't confine our learning to "offices, shops, factories and warehouses—or to “normal” working hours". A whopping 85% of people in the survey said they learn at work - no surprise, but get this: "67% do so on personal time and 18% are learning during travel or commutes". Here's a graphic from Degreed showing how we learn (according to their survey):

Image source: HOW THE WORKFORCE LEARNS IN 2016

The breakdown above is interesting, though not surprising - web search and video are now central parts to our everyday learning. As you can see, most types of learning are "self-directed" and are more frequent. It makes sense for both learners and employers to try and capture all of this. Degreed recognises that there is no single path to expertise - we become experts in our chosen fields through many different paths. Degreed integrates many different sources under a single platform - it would be interesting to see this . Here's a flavour of what they do: