Earlier this year I attempted thinking around improving the learning culture and modernising digital approaches in Human Resources, where I am based. This led me onto developing a strategy for this as one didn't exist and I strongly felt that it was needed, to make our intentions clear and guide the development and progression in this area. Overt time I collected and refined my thoughts and resources. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened and pressed the pause button for a short while.
After the university had settled into some sort of rhythm and the initial chaos had passed, I had an interesting discussion with my manager and lobbied this strategy as a timely piece to capitalise on the situation and reinforce the need for such clarity. They encouraged me to refine this further and discuss it with my colleagues who agreed that it was very much needed.
The strategy eventually became a project based around 'embedding blended learning' which was prioritised as a major initiative for Organisational Development (a department under Human Resources where my role is situated) as a key enabler of a different learning culture within the university. In advance of the first meeting, I shared my paper I had developed as a precursor to what we want to achieve with blended learning and give a base for the discussion. I have kept the title as it was from it's conception, which is broadly named as a digital learning and skills strategy. It is aimed at Human Resources as an overall department and features blended learning and links to other key project areas. It's not a final document and is still very much in development which you can see is not fully completed, but shows the direction that is taking shape. It will develop further as we continue to meet and get this into motion.
