he push paradigm. It consists of learning content (mainly) and possibly some learning experiences that are designed by L&D professionals for the use of others.
Adding learning to work by blending
This expansion of blended learning into the workplace can be termed ‘adding learning to work’. We intentionally add learning-focused activities into the workflow.
A number of researchers and practitioners have categorised the process of extending learning into the workflow as ‘adding and embedding’ or ‘embedding and extracting’. The categorisation below brings together some of the ways in which this happens.
Adding learning to work occurs where intentional learning-focused actions are taken to extend formal away-from-work courses and programmes back into the workplace. Most leadership and management programmes use this with work-based assignments, linked action learning, and other techniques.
The key point is that ‘adding learning to work’ is achieved through intentionally designed activities that are linked with a formal learning intervention.
Blended learning almost always falls into the ‘adding’ category. It is learning-focused and based around dependent learning models.
70:20:10—Beyond the blend
By contrast, the 70:20:10 model is based on the concept of utilising both push and pull learning to achieve greater impact, shorter time to performance, sustainability, increased innovation and cost constraint.
A 70:20:10 approach spans all four of the categories above – adding, embedding, extracting and sharing.
A 70:20:10 approach also encompasses Jane Hart’s interdependent and independent categories (above).
It is important to realise the 70:20:10 strategic model emerged from a view of modern adult learning that is wider than ‘blending’. 70:20:10 draws on the fundamental changes that have occurred, and are continuing to occur, in the workplace. Work is becoming more complex. We work more in teams and rely on others to get our work done more than ever before. Experiential and social learning are becoming more critical day-by-day as agents of development.
In response to this wider view of adult workplace learning, and to these changes, learning and work must, by necessity, merge.
This evolving view of modern workplace learning includes:
A re-focusing away from Taylorist views of management as a scientific discipline and the need to standardise for efficiency towards approaches to support the need for agility, innovation and speed.
An acceptance that ‘best practice’ (i.e. one single best way to achieve optimum outcomes) is increasingly irrelevant in our complicated and complex working world. The focus is moving towards ‘good practice’ (i.e. practices that work well for our context but may not be appropriate in other contexts) and ‘emerging practices’ (i.e. practices that we develop retrospectively as we seek to improve).
An understanding that a ‘curriculum’ mindset – where plans for standardised learning pathways are defined for standardised job roles and standardised career progression – is increasingly irrelevant in a world where a culture of continuous and flexible development is required to keep ahead.
The knowledge that competencies (i.e. ‘satisfactory’) is what people should enter our organisations with, but that capabilities (i.e. ‘potential’) are what we need to help develop.
The realisation that with the intangible value of organisations out-stripping the tangible value, people (the largest intangible element) need to be seen and treated as co-creators of value. What is in the heads of workers has never before been more important for organisations to survive and thrive.
We still have a long way to go to break the learning=schooling mindset, to increase the impact and efficiency of learning, and to build cultures of continuous development embedded in work. But we’ve made some good starting steps.
The 70:20:10 reference model can certainly help us expand our concepts and practices to support a better workforce development approach when it is used wisely and as an agent of change and not followed slavishly as some ‘rule’.
Blend