I’ve written four or five times about the need to critically assess our learning support across these three specific lenses:

• Awareness – reminding people about something they know or had forgotten
• Acquisition – supporting people with new information and knowledge
• Application – creating space and support for people to put activity into practice

I am constantly reminded how learning and development seems to think that acquisition is the most critical element. Most people, most of the time, don’t need to learn new things; yes it’s a sweeping generalisation but it’s scarily true.

It’d be very interesting to understand what people want from a demand perspective and how the proportions across the three ‘A’s might be. It’d be more interesting to seeing what the offer is that learning and development supplies and whether this proportion is similar to the demand. As much as I’ like to think we’re in the same ball park, I have a fear they will be some distance apart.

What do you think? What ‘learning’ do people want and does the way you design your offer reflect this?