CLO to CEO????

Organizations these days require people, who can have a very good understanding of the way the business is headed, can comprehend the situation and understand its impact on workforce and adequately train them to deal with the same. All the organizations understand the need for a Chief Learning officer. In most of the big corporate enterprises a CLO is appointed to enhance the overall capability of the workers. The demand for such people has increased rapidly and studies show that duration of CLO’s stay with one organization on an average would be 12 to 18 months.

This exit is not only because of higher demand and more money, there is a positive and negative connation to this phenomena. CLO’s leave sometimes because they are unable to impact the culture of the organization. The C (Chief) in the work CLO is sometimes only for namesake, their role is restricted to that of a training officer. It has been observed that most often there do not have the authority to take decision or to implement it and sometimes unrealistic expectations are placed on them. A learning officer’s job is to see that he trains the people and improves each in their respective job. But they have a limit and cannot influence beyond a certain extent.

The positive side though is that there is headhunting going on to get good CLO’s and anybody who is good at his job can always move to an organization that pays more or offers challenging assignments. Another change that is witnessed is that CLOs are being promoted in the corporate level. This is because of the skills that they have, they can create strong and efficient workforce that can contribute in increasing the productivity of the organization. They can move ahead and become chief operating officers of the organization. In time they can move up and take up the role of a CEO. Even though such opportunities can arise not every CLO is equipped with the skills needed by a CEO. So there is a need for such individuals to engage in activities that would enable them to develop the required skill and also get the necessary qualification and experience that would make it possible for them to take charge of a business enterprise and run it successfully.

Contributed By:
Dr. Shalini S.
(Globsyn Business School - Ahmedabad)