| |9 March 2020HIGHERReviewfort of learning concepts. The trend is fast catching up even in primary and secondary education though the gene-sis of that has been from adult learning needs and styles.Integrated Learning: Learning of concepts integrated with applica-tion of same on some identified prob-lems has gained more acceptances in Corporate learning. It has improved the stickiness of concepts plus added the applicability to problem solve and thereby clearly assign ROI to various integrated learning programs. The impact felt is clearly higher than the non- integrated programs.Making Learning Interactive: This ensures more engagement and motivation in continuing the learning / courses and helps to self check on absorption of understanding Adapting New Technolo-gies: Popularly referred to as gam-ification of learning ­ Social compe-tition and exchange has proved to be a high engagement factor influencing adult learning.Online Assessment Tools: These have helped in creating greater self-awareness in the leadership jour-ney at various levels and, especially form a base for an executive education program.Availability of Various Cer-tifications to Bolster Niche As-pects of Education: This trend has caught up over the years and the need of the professionals to keep pace with the changing domain knowledge has prompted various professional acad-emies to market education by way of certified courses as a key to skill build-ing. From the Corporate lens, above trends have emerged in last few years and they have provided a strong impe-tus to higher education.Based on my personal experience of last 26 years of hiring in the corpo-rate world, a large chunk of it is based on management professionals stepping out of various business schools there is a changing landscape in terms of tal-ent needs. Whilst in the earlier years, the expectation from the industry was to employ an entry level professional with some fundamental understand-ing of various organisational functions that has now become hygiene. Various new skills are sought after and broad-ly the demand of data scientists, pro-fessionals converting digital trends into business models, Digitization for creating unique customer and employ-ee experience and in demand. Deep skills in technology areas like biotech, fintech, actuarial services, cleantech applications have grown in demand in last 2-3 years.Apart from building the above technical talent pools, the ask on the HR teams is to scale up the incoming management talent into leadership roles quickly. Lets look at how the education institutes are responding to this need.Some of the ways in which the business schools are responding to this demand is by way of organizing student exchange programs and wid-ening the global experience of our stu-dents subjecting them to international standards of education and make them compete internationally.Some of them have introduced simulated learning while others en-courage taking up live project/part time work with organizations. Anoth-er novel practise that is taking some shape is in the form of offering cor-porate mentorship and is see more in premier business schools with a limit-ed batch size. The crux of the transi-tion from a management professional to a leader has to go through a funnel of customised assimilation guidance and coaching and that need is being addressed by mentoring.Largely, the world is converging to serve the needs of an individual in a customised fashion whether it's in fashion industry or catering to one piece of desert being served from a favourite shop-platformization of service has helped in a big way. In conclusion, the days of customis-ing education to cater to the needs to individual/ industry are not far away. With the advent of platforms in e-commerce industry, content be-ing made interactive and learning in byte size formats coupled with on-line/ offline mentoring and coaching may bring this customized futuristic approach to higher education close to reality.The crux of the transition from a management professional to a leader has to go through a funnel of customised assimilation guidance and coaching and that need is being addressed by mentoring
< Page 8 | Page 10 >