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We become aware of a void as we fill it.
Before Microsoft announced its integration of ChatGPT into Bing earlier this week, I did not miss AI in our daily digital lives.
Now, it is hard to unsee the usefulness of AI anymore.
AI suddenly became highly valuable to the average consumer. I use AI for writing every day, as so many others too. The sheer volume of posts, tweets, and videos explaining how to utilize ChatGPT demonstrates the vastness of the knowledge gap that needed to be addressed.
Similarly, consider the automobile industry’s lack of technical skill training.
The car industry’s need for technical skill training is at an all-time high and crucial to survival, and car makers are releasing learning investments (which are still falling short).
One would expect learning service providers to respond to increased demand. In this piece, we’ll look at the landscape of learning providers who specialize in automotive technical skill training.
Automotive learning suppliers are not ready for the challenge yet
The common viewpoint in automotive for any non-manufacturing training is this: Let us source the required capabilities. Let us find an expert agency to help us through the process.
If you try it yourself, finding a provider with a solution is quite tough.
- The learning industry’s supplier landscape is fragmented and heterogeneous, with few having relevant experience in the automotive industry. Furthermore, the automotive industry is changing at a rapid pace, and learning suppliers are not leading the way.
- Automobile manufacturers have been at the forefront of technical skill learning for production workers, including virtual reality and augmented reality. However, this competency does not apply to white-collar skill training in areas such as software, battery technology, data science, and so on.
- Most technical skill training took place in a classroom environment that was supplied locally. COVID has moved most of this training online. As a result, many service providers are investing in their own platforms. The proliferation of new platforms poses integration and security challenges for automakers.
As a result, L&D and Purchasing spend a significant amount of time evaluating and integrating platform suppliers, only to discover that none of the vendors supply a comprehensive solution for the technical skill training requirements.
However, this creates a classic “Kansas City Shuffle.”
While L&D and learning providers are focusing in one direction, the void exists in another.
What is needed is technical skills training relevant to the future work of white-collar workers.
What is needed are learner-friendly, context-based, high-quality content microlearning sessions that drive engagement and completion rates. Think of an Amazon data strategy & management training designed for automotive managers and employees, delivered 24/7. Including direct access to practitioners and experts.
This is what I was looking for 4 years ago.
In February 2023, it still doesn’t exist.
This is the void I cannot unsee.
Filling this gap is self-evident: Both learning providers and L&D have to redirect their joint focus, where the learning demand is painfully high.
Let manufacturing training have its own way.
Reinvent how technical skill training is delivered into the daily working context of knowledge workers in the automotive industry, because this is where the future value creation stems from.
Both industries, Automotive and Learning, will eventually discover how big the void for white-collar workers really is.
But the challenge for us is even bigger.
Attention is a finite resource – everyone only has so much of it.
Managers and senior personnel serve as role models and multipliers of learning.
They set up the agenda, communicate and explain, and drive and make decisions. Managers are critical in re-skilling their teams.
A professional, on the other hand, is skilled at filtering information.
Every manager is constantly flooded with ‘white noise’ information, such as meetings, emails, presentations, and social media.
The attention economy has proved itself in business.
Each person who is healthy, productive, and successful has developed sophisticated filters. This is how big organizations function and how people deal with the battle for attention. Furthermore, for each executive, manager, or employee, the daily expanding information tsunami serves as a regular workout for these filters.
As a result, these filters must be passed before learning can occur. A learning designer understands this since it is their job.
For example, if a learning item is not relevant to the current working context, the lesson is captured and suppressed by these filters.
Relevant material, produced and provided in the context of a learner, is the blank spot for each L&D expert and learning provider in the automotive industry till 2030.
The days of knowledge overload are over.
Old news to you?
Then you are an L&D specialist in your own right.
Most businesses have the technology to supply context-driven learning 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And this is a necessary condition for what follows.
What is missing, however, is leading content and compelling learning designs that promote completion rates. Because of the magnitude of the task, managers are rarely targeted by L&D for technical skill training.
Keep in mind that only material that is important to becoming more productive, thriving in your profession, and being acknowledged will pass the filter.
The days of flooding the market with knowledge to make up for a lack of technical skill training are gone. Learning must become much more meaningful and efficient.
Create a ChatGPT-like buzz.
The answer is to find the greatest, most relevant content and to design learning experiences that fit into the flow of work. Use learn technology to “sell” this learning within your key people’s attention economy.
Once your organization’s opinion leaders provide ‘social proof’ for the value of your learning program, the ‘avalanche of knowledge’ will transform into a ‘technical learning buzz.’
ChatGPT is proof of this. Suddenly, millions of individuals spend hours learning how to use artificial intelligence to become more efficient, knowledgeable, and successful in their daily lives.
Learning automotive tech skills has all the ingredients to create a same buzz. This has happened several times in history. This is what made car companies big.
Once this happens, you won’t be able to unsee the void in automotive technical skill training anymore.
