The fall and rise of the corporate academy

Conference Chair, Donald Taylor, questions: "For years corporate academies were all the rage - until it was discovered that they didn't work terribly well. Now they are resurgent, but in a very different form - so what are the right systems to support learning in organisations?"

Learning Technologies has invited two experts in the field: learning market analyst David Wilson and Nuffield Health's Group L&D manager Harvey M Seale, to discuss corporate learning infrastructure at this January's conference."

In the first of the two sessions, David Wilson, Managing Director of the learning-market analyst Elearnity, will illustrate the ways organisations have changed in their use of systems and have come to understand what really works. David Wilson will present his findings on how the way that large organisations run L&D has changed over recent years. David Wilson said: "that change is typified by the rise of corporate academies, but academies are not new and many organisations created academies five years ago that no longer exist, or have changed beyond recognition. What are academies, and why did they decline only to rise again as a benchmark model for organisational learning?"

In the second session, Harvey M Seale will outline his experiences from his role as Group L&D Manager at Nuffield Health: a business faced with critical learning requirements to ensure financial and medical compliance.

Harvey has combined technology, processes and people to create a true learning infrastructure at Nuffield Health. He has the role of ensuring 15,000 employees over 250 sites take clinical and financial risk reduction seriously. "No small task," according to Harvey, who has avoided the cheap - but ineffective - approach of 'next button' e-learning, and added: "instead we've put in place the technical infrastructure, processes and communications structure to make this crucial learning part of how the company operates. From creating courses to ensuring the right learners are automatically identified and kept informed, we've made this vital learning part of our culture and far more than a bolted-on administrative task."

The 'Learning' infrastructures'' session takes place on Wednesday 25 January 2012, from 11:30 - 12:30. To book places for January's conference, visit the Learning Technologies Conference programme and bookings web site.