The L&D Professional's Dilemma

How often as practicing L&D professionals are we asked this question by someone trying to make a switch in their career – how do I get into the L&D space? Is there a course that you can recommend that will help me make a career in L&D? This question very often leaves me confused as I try to recollect how I have made a career in L&D. I started my career as an Articled Clerk who was trying to be a Chartered Accountant, which was the obvious choice after a Bachelors degree in Commerce. This often makes me wonder how many of us who are currently in the L&D space started off our careers knowing for sure that L&D is the career that we wanted to choose.

Another question that leaves me fumbling is when an existing L&D professional asks me about what course would you recommend so that I make a career in Technical Training, Behavioural Training, Leadership Development or Organizational Development. So, here I am trying to search for courses in these areas on Google and voila the efficient search engine that it is, throws up umpteen choices. But hey most of these courses are available outside India and at prices that would almost take away a good portion of my salary. Triumphantly I turn to the person asking me this question and list out these options to them. Pat comes the reply – please recommend something in India with an affordable Indian price tag.

Now I put my thinking hat on and wonder where the lacuna is? To understand the gap, I ask some of my counterparts in L&D in different organizations and it seems that they too share my concern. This opens up a Pandora’s Box and they start sharing other concerns that all of us might be able to relate to. I would like to list out a few of these:
· Is Kirk Patrick the only answer to measuring training effectiveness?
· Return on Investment – every L&D professional’s pet term. Is there a standard approach to measure ROI?
· If the amount spent on training is an investment, why are the training budgets the first ones to take a hit during crises?
· Is L&D an HR function? If yes, why’s it that some companies have a different L&D organization that doesn’t tier in to HR? If no, how do HR and L&D work collaboratively?
· Is the 80:20:10 principle the way forward? If yes, what’s the L&D professional’s role shaping up to be?
· L&D Consultants – the new role for people in this space? Is this a fad? If no, is there a standard approach that would help one be an effective consultant?
· Is Leadership/Managerial development a responsibility of L&D or HR?
· Metrics – what do we measure? Are there any standards?
· Why do the L&D professionals work in silos?

Is there a single correct answer to these questions? Probably not, however this throws open a huge opportunity for the community to get together and build a strong professional network that can act cohesively and share best practices or formulate an apex body that can define some standards. These thoughts helped us initiate Kinesis – The L&D Conclave.


Objectives:
help the L&D community in India understand the global trends and thus become truly world class
establish a credible apex body that establishes benchmarks, and trains people on the standards set
build a community that supports each other and grows over a period of time
contribute to the ongoing developmental research in the field of L&D and
sustain this as an annual event and limit it to L&D professional. Currently there's no such exclusive event for the L&D community

All of us have done some fabulous work within our organizations and through this forum if we can break our silos and share best practices, we truly have the potential to be reckoned as a world class L&D community. Here’s an appeal to all the passionate L&D colleagues out there – Join us in this effort, your support means a lot to us.