This Is Your Moment

Frontline seems designed to correct the bane of L&D's existence - anyone in the organization can put anything on a slide and send it to the entire company as "training". Depending on the training creator and their level in the organization, that "training" is now official - for as long as people can locate it. SMEs will always create training. There's no way to stop it and part of the reason is because the reach of L&D is limited. 

However, I have two very large concerns: one about Frontline and one about the reframing being discussed for L&D professionals. First, I agree with SarahSterner-66​ about Frontline and the new products costing jobs. Executive leadership at the vast majority of American corporations view L&D as a cost center the company needs for compliance. When cost reductions are needed, L&D is the first department on the cut list. Arguably, part of this view is self-inflicted because even as executive leadership has moved toward data-driven decisions, L&D has struggled to produce quantitatively measurable learning and/or show that information effectively to executives. Basically, leadership at most companies view L&D as an obligation and if they can fulfill that obligation with one person and an AI, that's a done deal. The perpetually low salaries  and increase in contract roles for instructional designers to create specific training support this. To some degree we have put ourselves in this situation because even if we can point to the numbers showing our training works, we aren't telling the right people in leadership in words that they understand or care about. 

Which leads to my second concern. Both the opening and closing keynotes talked about L&D professionals moving to become strategic advisors, leveraging the technology to increase the reach of our expertise. This idea is being shared across many platforms in the industry. What is not being discussed is if the majority of executives believe L&D is an obligation that provides little or no value to the company, how exactly is an L&D professional or team supposed to convince said leadership to change their view? I have been designing and delivering quantitatively measurable training for almost 15 years - most of that for sales teams at international companies - and have pointed to the numbers showing this training impacted the bottom line this way at executive meetings. Yet, the view persisted that L&D didn't cause the change. The learner must have done something different, the customer conditions changed, any number of reasons it wasn't due to training. 

So, if AI assistance can extend L&D expertise (Frontline) and we can become strategic advisors in organizations where leadership really wishes L&D wasn't necessary and that same AI can grant that wish, how are L&D professionals supposed to explain to executives that AI doesn't replace us? This is especially true in small to midsize companies where there is often one or two people doing all the L&D work, constantly fighting the SME-created training and "we need that yesterday" battle. No one has yet provided steps, suggestions, or a plan for how to convince executives L&D actually not only has value to the company but, if leveraged properly, can increase the company's overall value.