UNLEASH America preview: Dematic’s Casper Moerck

Editor Jon and Casper talk acceleration of digital learning adoption and look forward to next week’s show. For those of you who have tickets, see you in Vegas. If you’re looking to purchase tickets, this is the link you need.

Watch the video or read the transcript beneath, which has been edited for clarity.

+++

Jon Kennard: Okay, I’m joined on UNLEASHcast for a quick promo of a talk at UNLEASH America from Casper Moerck of Dematic. So without giving away too much, we just want to get a flavor of what you’re talking about this event coming up on the 25th and 26th of May.

Casper Moerck: Sure. Well, my talk is going to be a little bit about what we learned about digital transformation and L&D (learning and development) through COVID-19. I think many of us were already on the journey to digital transformation of learning and development solutions, when COVID-19 began. And then of course, COVID-19 accelerated that quite a bit.

And for those of us who were already on that journey, it in some ways was a welcome event that we finally we could get our businesses to say, ‘all right, well, I guess we’re gonna have to go virtual, I guess we’re gonna have to go digital’.

So for those of us who were prepared, it’s boosted our ability to assess what works, what doesn’t, for those of us who were not prepared, it was a hard pivot, it was hard work. It was difficult.

But in any case, I think we learned something from that hard transition about – what does it mean to be virtual? What does it mean to go digital? What works, what doesn’t, and we probably got, like 10 years of experience in one year. So that’s what my conversation rather than a talk is going to be about. Because I want to have a conversation with the audience. Talk about what what did you learn during COVID-19 about L&D, what worked really well? What have you realized is not going to work at all? And what do we do going forward, now that we’re – at least in some places of the world – able to go back into the office, able to be in a classroom? How do we make that blend? How do we make it work optimally for our learners in the future? That’s the conversation I want to have with the audience.

JK: Thanks, Casper. I’m really looking forward to it. And on a more general point, I’m wondering, it’s been an incredibly hard couple of years. And like you said, so much acceleration happened, do you think it’s actually in a good way, given learning and development a lot more visibility, because people have realized the importance of this. Not least, it’s accelerated what we can do with digital transformation and digital skills. But also, with the Great Resignation and things like that. It’s also underlined the importance of taking care of your workforce and realizing that they do value their own development and their own career paths.

CM: Yeah. It’s an interesting point, Jon, that while COVID-19 was a tragedy, that scourged the world, at the same time it it did push forward the agenda of digital transformation. And more broadly, the Great Resignation has really made everyone focus on talent management: What are we doing to stay attractive, whether that is to develop our employee value proposition, be more authentic, provide flexible solutions, and provide great learning and development opportunities for everyone who works for us? So in some twisted, bizarre way what has happened over the last couple of years has been a net gain [for L&D].

For those of us in L&D, even if it has been a bad thing for the world that we’ve been through COVID-19, and the Great Resignation is, it’s hard to say whether it’s good or bad, I tend to look at the glass half full in the sense that a lot of people are simply redefining what a good life look like for them. And that’s a good thing. And so in L&D, yeah, you’re right, it really has made us move forward much faster than on a path we were going down anyways, I think but much faster than than before. So that’s a good thing.

JK: Yeah, I think so too. And it’s at least a good thing to be able to take something positive out of a very disruptive last couple of years. For me, I just wanted to have a quick catch up and and see what your session was all about. For many people, I know that they really want to get back to face to face and seeing people, convening with people in the industry, be it HR and L&D, future of work and everything like that.

CM: Yeah, it’ll be fun Jon. Actually, you touched on something that I’ll be bringing up in my talk about human connection. Our brains were developed a long time ago – a couple 100,000 years depending on which neurologist you talk to. Digital communication over the web like we’re doing now was developed like five, ten years ago, at least, to an extent where you could use it. And the question that I’m challenging my participants or listeners to think about is – is the human brain even evolved to a stage where this type of conversation can fulfill all of the needs that we have for communication, learning and development?

That’s something I like to think about because some organizations are feeling like they can go fully to this virtual, remote and digital solution. I’ve challenged you to think about it differently and say, I don’t think that humans are built like that. So it’s funny you bring it up, it’s a question I’m going to ask the audience about; what do they think about that? So I look forward to the event in person though in Vegas. No other place is quite as exciting.

JK: Completely, completely. And also it’s a place that’s so much about events and human contact and interaction. It’s going to be fantastic. Casper, thanks so much for your time. Looking forward to meeting you. Brilliant.

CM: Likewise.

+++

For the full conversation – watch above…

Follow us on YouTube here