What the Future Holds for A Chief Learning Officer

The rising significance of CLO in companies across industry verticals has made the job profile a crucial differentiator in terms of the amount of the growth a business can achieve in a certain timespan.

In the future, with new technologies and business strategies originating every other day, the responsibilities of a CLO (Chief Learning Officer) are only going to increase in companies across industry verticals.

As per a recent report published by Deloitte under the subject – “Global Human Capital Trends”, CLOs must be an integral part of each employee’s learning experience.

They should implement and deliver learning programs that can make employees reinvent themselves by developing deep skills in their respective job profiles.

As a matter of fact, each company in the Top 50 of the Fortune500 Companies has got a CLO to help promote learning and development in their respective organizations.

Who is a CLO?

CLO is a senior managerial position in a company, where the chosen person is responsible for strategically driving the learning management for the entire employee base of the organization.

As things are changing quickly in this digital world, and so is the technology, someone is required to make an organization keep track, and adapt to the rapidly changing trends.

This position majorly demands managerial and leadership skills that are required to make workforce sync with changes in technology and the quickly-evolving work methodologies.

5 Critical Factors That Will Define the Role of a CLO in the Future

Keeping a Constant Eye on Future Trends

A learning officer of the future, while designing and formulating new learning programs for its employees, must understand how these programs fit the future needs of the company, and the current industry trends.

Frequent Changes Are Considered Normal in Today’s Times

The CLO in the current times must be flexible enough to adapt to the changes happening every now and then in terms of constantly evolving technologies in an industry domain.

He needs to continuously make changes to the learning programs as per the latest update in that specific industry vertical. Besides, the learning should be formulated in a manner that is easy to digest for the people receiving it.

Anticipation of The Perfect Learning Methodology for Different Generations

Generation Z is entering the workforce, while Gen X and Baby Boomers are preparing to leave. This means the majority is formed by millennials in the present times, and in the next course of time, it will be generation Z.

As per a recent finding, by the year 2025, about 75% of the workforce in the US will consist of millennials.

For now, the biggest challenge for a CLO is to formulate a learning program that can help employees from each generation perform to their maximum potential.
However, this is also a fact that different generations have different preferences for learning in terms of how they like to receive learning, and in what form of learning suits them.

For instance, millennials connect the best with digital learning. However, the generation of baby boomers prefers instructional learning in the form of face-to-face communication.

Performance-Tracking to Justify the Adopted Learning Program

With each day passing by, organizations across the world are becoming more lean and agile in terms of output received out of the work performed by their employees.
Learning officers need to make sure that each resource is contributing to the business growth while producing the optimal meaningful work. Here, the skills of a CLO come into play, regarding how efficiently he/she can track and manage employees’ performances.

Employee Retention, Engagement, and Development

Under the ambit of chief learning officer jobs, come the three crucial responsibilities - employee engagement, development, and retention.

For being able to successfully manage all three work duties, a CLO should focus on the individual needs of employees, and their career growth plans. Learning programs must be implemented and imposed on employees in a manner that offers them flexibility in learning at their own pace.