The era of Omni-learning: Frameworks and practices of the expanded human resource development

Abstract

According to the ever-changing organizational environment, we also adopt an ever-expanding HRD in contents and scope. Focusing on the drivers of the recent HRD reforms, the growing demand for organizational agility and holistic capabilities of human resources is driving the need for change, and the pandemic crisis is pushing the revolutionary changes of HRD. Such trends of the expanded HRD can be characterized as a ‘march toward Omni-learning’. In specific, there are at least four noticeable and intertwined waves of HRD reforms toward Omni-learning: (1) embracing holistic capabilities such as benchmarking, modeling, forecasting, and backcasting (BMFB); (2) integrating working and learning by promoting on-the-job learning (OJL), on-the-life learning (OLL), and on-the-life training (OLT); (3) standardizing communication tools such as LMF (logic tree; multi-dimensional matrix/map; flowchart) and EEOSP (everything/everyone on the same page); and (4) diversifying communication space-time across diverse places (close; remote) and times (synchronized; a-synchronized). And all the HRD waves are commonly facilitated and promoted by technological breakthroughs of artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse. Beyond the current innovations of HRD, no one would be certain about the answer to the question “What’s next?”. But what is certain is that HRD will continue to be deepened and widened as long as human resources are needed to respond to the ever-changing organizational environment.