Research shows legal sector how technology-enabled learning can prepare it for 21st Century business
* 9 out of 10 legal firms are looking to use learning technologies to improve their induction process and ability to comply with new regulations. 33% of legal forms are looking to technology to help inform customers and suppliers of new products and services. A new Legal sector spotlight report, '21st Century Learning for 21st Century Legal Firms', sponsored by Towards Maturity Ambassador, Commelius, focuses on key trends regarding learning innovation in the legal sector.
The Report takes an in-depth view at learning innovation in legal firms based and compares L&D practices within the sector to the approaches of others around the globe. Learning and development teams in the legal sector are embracing technology enabled learning and have high expectations of the benefits that it can deliver but there is still scope for improvement.
Nine out of ten legal firms are now using e-learning courses but social media strongly features in the mix with seven out of ten firms using external social media sites or internal enterprise systems such as SharePoint to support collaboration and informal learning. The research reveals that 85% of those surveyed firms are planning to allocate more budget to learning technology in the next two years (compared with 69% of companies in other industries).
Vicky Jones, MD at Commelius Solutions says ‘ This is very promising and suggests that these organisations are realising they need to e-enable learning for their staff if they want to join the top learning organisations and be able to face the challenges of 21st century business market.
She adds, “With today’s fast-paced, 24/7 work environment and increasing competition in the market being able to quickly adapt ones skills to the changing business conditions is key to making sure your organisation succeeds. Organisational learning culture is a crucial part of that success, and learning technologies play a major role in building that culture. Not embracing them poses an immediate challenge of becoming less competitive as a business so there’s no better time to start addressing this than present.”
According to the study, 78% of legal firms are fully aligning their L&D activities with their overall business strategy, compared with 59% of other industries. This comes as one of the biggest strengths of legal L&D professionals when it comes to implementation of learning.
Laura Overton, MD of Towards Maturity says, ‘The data in this report helps us to understand how L&D teams in the legal sector are using learning technologies and we map this against our broader benchmark data to give practical guidance on how to make more of learning technologies. With their strong focus on business alignment, the legal sector is in an ideal position to leverage the different learning tools available to them. By benchmarking with other sectors they can understand what works well, what doesn’t and what are the next steps to take.’
The report also looks at the way legal firms demonstrate value back to the business. Legal firms are more likely to agree that they regularly review their programmes and check that they support and enhance organisational goals (56% vs. 46%). Compared with the benchmark sample as a whole, the legal sector is not good at understanding how learning is applied. Only 25% agree that they collect information on the extent to which the learning points have been understood, (compared with 44% on average and only 17% agree that they track how learning points have been applied at work vs. 30% on average.
In the report, Tim Drewitt, Learning Technologies specialist at Eversheds, says, “It is important for us to understand the impact of learning, going beyond learning hours and completions but we need to do this without burdening everyone with complex return on investment processes. At Eversheds we ask 4 simple questions of staff as part of our evaluation process: How much of this learning will you use? How successful will you be as a result? How quickly will you use this? How is this helping you realise your potential?”
Laura Overton says, “L&D teams in the legal profession are well placed to reap the rewards of technology-enabled learning and many are already doing so. This report shows that when learning is aligned with the business, the business is willing to invest further in learning technologies. Legal firms must support business performance more effectively. As well as aligning with business goals, L&D teams must continue this engagement through gathering feedback, measuring effectiveness and communicating successes. They must have a deep understanding of learner requirements and behaviour to provide them with the flexible learning required by business. This does not necessarily mean investing in more technology but the right technology for the right job which also means investing in the right people to make it happen: the L&D team.”
The report can be downloaded www.towardsmaturity.org/21stcenturylegal
Contact:
Marnie Threapleton
Telephone: 0044 7548 667222
Email: marnie@towardsmaturity.org
Notes to editors – Key facts from 21st Century Learning for 21st Century Legal firms
The legal report draws on two data inputs from L&D professionals in the legal sector: Quantitative data from sixteen legal organisations contributing to the online Towards Maturity Benchmark Study over the 14-month period June 2012 to August2013 and qualitative data from an interactive workshop with eight prestigious law firms held in June 2013.
Technologies most likely to be in use in the Legal Sector:
1. E-learning courses in use by 93%
2. Surveys and questionnaires to help understand learning transfer 86%
3. LMS 81%
4. Internal/Enterprise-wide information services e.g.SharePoint79%
5. Virtual meetings (e.g. WebEx, LiveMeeting) 71%
6. External social networking or peer-to-peer sites (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) 71%
7. Rapid application development tools 71%
8. User-generated content 71%
9. Video conferencing 67%
10. Mobile 67%
Nine key drivers/trends were identified where 100% of legal firms are looking to technology to help them achieve the following:
1. Increase learning access and flexibility
2. Develop a better qualified workforce
3. Increase on the job productivity
4. Improve staff satisfaction to aid retention and motivation
5. Provide a faster response to changing business conditions
6. Increase the on-going sharing of good practice
7. Improve talent/performance management
8. Achieve greater consistency of learning experience
9. Increase volume of learning – reaching more people
Top Reported barriers to implementing an effective technology enabled L&D strategy for the legal sector are:
a. 67% reported cost of set up, development and maintenance
b. 67% report L&D staff lacks the technical skills to create content in-house
c. 58% say lack of high quality, attractive content to support gals
d. 50% report L&D staff lack instructional design skills
e. 50% L&D staff lacks knowledge of potential/implementation
Supporting flexible working patterns:
a. Only 14% specifically enable content for mobile devices vs. 35% in the main Towards Maturity Benchmark
b. Only 11% are using mobile application development tools compared with 24% as a whole
c. Only 14% are developing content that is platform-independent vs. 38% on average
Supporting talent strategies – despite a strong focus on talent management and continuous professional development, the sector is less likely to be using the skills diagnostics and competency management tools:
a. Only 7% use Skills diagnostic tools vs. 32%
b. 14% vs. 37% use Competency management systems
Many organisations are still failing to achieve the benefits that they seek but Top Learning Companies (as defined by the Towards Maturity Index™) continue to report significantly better results than average. They are:
a. Twice as likely to agree that staff put what they learn into practice
b. Twice as likely to agree that they have noticed positive changes in behaviour
The main 2013 Towards Maturity Benchmark Study, now in its tenth year, is unique and is the only annual longitudinal research to study how organisations use technology to deliver effective learning that directly impacts commercial growth. Data was gathered from over 500 learning and development leaders across 44 countries from June to August 2013.
The 2013 Benchmark Report: “The New Learning Agenda – Talent, Technology and Change” can be downloaded at www.towardsmaturity.org/benchmark2013