Learning and Development 2020 - Interim findings February 2008

IES ran a project with Training Journal looking at the future of learning and development, with a time horizon of 2020.

The project was run in two main phases: first looking at the outside world to see what trends and discontinuities might impact the world of L&D over the coming years.

The second phase aimed to look at the implications for L&D practitioners of these possible changes (as well as possibly looking at what some leading organisations were already doing to anticipate the future developments).

The work consisted of IES drawing from a range of sources to identify 37 broad trends or developments that might change the future work and learning landscape. These have been grouped in the areas of society, work and business, brain and mind, and technology. Some are natural extensions of some of the trends already affecting L&D, whilst others aim to look a little further out. The 37 trends are described in this document.

Since anyone who tries to predict the future is almost always wrong, these trends and themes are designed to be provocative and stimulating rather than predictions of what will actually happen.

It is easy to forget that if we look back just twelve years, most of us didn't have ready access to the Internet or the powerful mobile devices that we now rely on. At the same time, the rapid development of home working and portfolio careers has yet to emerge at the rate predicted at that time.

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