Organisational Learning and Development: Who Trains the Trainers? Your team members can give you a lasting competitive edge, if they have the right education behind them.

People are the new competitive edge in business. Products or services can be duplicated and emulated by competitors but nobody can copy and paste the rich intangible assets of talented employees that perform in an exemplary manner.

Global leadership seems to have grasped this concept and are investing more in the learning and development of their people. And this investment isn't just the money allocated to the training budget. Research shows that time set aside for learning and development has quadrupled in multinational companies.

Blended learning solutions have yielded a wide array of new learning approaches and tools, including online learning, social learning and a renewed focus on workplace (or on-the-job) learning.

Individual leaders and experts from across organisational functions are significantly increasing their investment of time, effort and expertise in learning and development interventions.

With all this investment in organisational learning and development, leaders from all occupational areas and functional fields are being called on to step up their L&D game. Learning and development of people in the workplace requires a highly specialised and experienced skill set, which few L&D people even get to master during their career.

Who trains the trainers?

Who provides the learning and development required to drive occupational learning to the ever-increasing role-players in learning and development?

For a country plagued by poor education systems yet insistent on driving occupational learning, there are remarkably few accredited, quality tertiary level programmes that upskill people in the field of L&D. Most skilled, senior L&D professionals have done their time in organisations, complementing their basic HR diplomas with experiential learning.

Programmes are available that equip participants to facilitate, assess, moderate, and so forth but finding a programme that upskills professionals (whether leaders, technical experts or L&D practitioners) in the professional execution and management of organisational people development is a mission that not even all-knowing Google can accomplish easily!

The Wits Plus Organisational Learning and Development short course can be completed online through Wits DigitalCampus or part-time through evening classes.

The course offers the following benefits for organisational L&D stakeholders:

• The ability to analyse, plan, source and deliver quality L&D solutions in organisations.
• The ability to connect and engage adult learners, strengthening commitment to learning and the overall learning relationship.
• The ability to meet professional requirements for learning and development, improving the credibility of L&D and the overall involvement and collaboration of cross-functional leadership in driving a culture of learning.

You cannot teach a person anything; you can only make them want to learn. Make sure your L&D professionals and leaders know how to make people want to learn. Invest in the people who invest in people – the return on investment will be people who want to drive learning and people who want to learn.