Outcomes that Matter: Learning in a More Complex Public Service

As the Public Service adapts to a faster and more complex world, learning must do more than transmit knowledge. It must help public officers interpret complexity, exercise judgement, practise new behaviours and apply what they learn in the workplace. This has required trainers to design learning more deliberately across different modalities, even as learners juggle competing demands and increasingly fragmented attention. 

Six leading CSC associate trainers reflect on how learning has changed and how their own practice has evolved in response. Drawing on their collective experience across different fields of public sector work, they discuss changing learner expectations, the possibilities and limits of technology, and what it now takes for learning to make a meaningful difference at work. 

What are your observations about how learner behaviour has shifted over the years? 

Shroff: 

Officers are coming in more time-poor, more attention-fragmented, and quite frankly, more tired. The energy in the room at 9 am on a Monday is simply not what it was 10 years ago.  

Learners’ needs have also become more practical and more personal at the same time. Practical, because the work has grown more complex — more cross-agency, more publicly scrutinised, more politically nuanced — they want frameworks they can use, not theories to admire. Personal, because the line between work and life has blurred and they bring more of themselves to the room than they used to.  

A decade ago, a common question was “How do I manage this stakeholder?”. Today, it is often “How do I keep going?”. Now we build in purposeful pauses for reflections and spaces for officers to bring their real situations into the room. The most useful learning often happens in these spaces and discussions.

Ganesan:  

What has remained remarkably consistent is that participants want answers to a few fundamental questions very quickly: Why am I here? Why is this important? Why is it important now? Why should I listen to you for the next few hours? 

Today, learners are perhaps more willing to ask those questions openly. People recognise the importance of continuous learning, but they are also juggling demanding workloads and competing priorities. Time spent learning is time away from work and its operational demands. Facilitators have to be much more intentional about establishing relevance from the very beginning. 

I spend more time helping participants connect the learning to their real-world challenges, demonstrating practical application early, and creating opportunities for them to see immediate value. My goal is not just for participants to enjoy the workshop; it is for them to leave feeling that their time was well spent, that they gained something useful, and that they can apply what they have learnt back at wo

Yip:  

Adult learning principles remind us that people learn best when they can connect new knowledge to real problems they are trying to solve. Learners' fundamental needs have not changed much; the desire to grow, to address workplace challenges, and to acquire knowledge and skills relevant to their context. What has shifted is the environment around it. Learners today are busier than ever. In virtual sessions, multiple browsers are open, and the inbox is never far away; in face-to-face settings, work does not stop just because they are in the classroom.

This makes two things critical – establishing relevance early and designing engaging learning experiences. We need to quickly establish a clear connection between what they are learning and how it helps them perform better. When it is aligned, they become more willing to question what they think they know, unlearn assumptions that may no longer serve them, and engage with new ways of thinking and doing. When we design learning that is engaging enough to leave no room for distraction, with activities and conversations that can spark discussion, the energy in the room will be compelling enough to hold attention. 

We have moved away from the idea of learning as mere content download to something more active and applied. Theories and information are readily available online; what learners cannot easily access on their own are the best practices, lived experiences, and insights that emerge from participating in the activities and conversations in the room. That is also where social learning is valuable. 

Prakash:  

I think learners are now looking for more applied and contextualised learning. I often hear from learners that they not only want to know the theories, concepts, or frameworks but also how these can be used in government settings at work. They value the war stories and actual case studies that can help them navigate workplace realities.  

I do my best to bring the concepts I teach to life, illustrating what works and what may not by sharing many of my own government experiences as a policy officer, middle manager, and director in service. Learners appreciate when theories connect with the realities of public service work. 

Menon:  

Today’s officers are not passive recipients of knowledge. Many are among the ‘digital native generation’, given their familiarity with constant connectivity, immediacy and information abundance. They operate in an environment shaped by social media, generative AI, open-source intelligence and constant public scrutiny. They are accustomed to ambiguity, competing narratives, and dialogues rather than monologue, participation rather than prescription, and accelerated feedback loops.  

As a trainer, this means one can no longer rely on institutional authority alone. Credibility must be earned through relevance, intellectual rigour, and authenticity. 

How can learning experiences be more meaningfully designed to suit learner needs? 

Yip:  

Outcomes are what I focus on, and to do that, both modality and the learning experience are important. What is the right modality? How do we design the learning activities to achieve the intended learning outcomes? Modality sets the stage. A virtual session can have powerful scenario-based discussions, and a face-to-face workshop can be passive and forgettable. It is more about whether the learning activities within it are designed to serve the learning outcomes. That requires thinking through what participants need to experience, practise, and reflect on, and how to sequence those moments. 

Learning experiences should allow learners to address the gap between knowing and doing. The goal is not solely to impart knowledge, but to enable participants to solve problems and perform better at the workplace. This means application-based learning where participants work on real challenges rather than abstract concepts. When people can connect what they are learning directly to a problem they are experiencing, the knowing-doing gap narrows considerably.  

Take simulating difficult career conversations, for example. Participants bring their past experiences into the room, practise having those conversations, and work through the discomfort in a safe environment. Struggling over a real work problem together in a safe space is far more powerful than being told what a good career conversation looks like, because participants get to exercise and build muscle memory and confidence. 

Technology can deliver some content efficiently, and it will only get better at that. What I don't think it can replicate is what happens when we bring people together.  The unplanned moment when someone shares a struggle, and others quietly nod because they have experienced the same thing. The camaraderie that builds when a group works through something difficult together. The shift that happens when a peer says something that resonates with the rest. As the AI landscape expands, one of the most valuable things we can offer could be the power of social learning. 

Prakash:  

Practitioners need to be grounded in understanding the lived experiences of government officers in today’s context, actively listen to what they share in classrooms, and curate the curriculum accordingly. It is key to bring in our own experiences to demonstrate applicability in government. In addition to being the teacher, practitioners should also take on the role of a student to learn from the learners themselves and constantly evolve the materials and delivery. 

Today, the reality is that most of the content and frameworks can be learned online with the help of AI. So, I take it as a personal challenge to design experiential activities to see how I can convey my teaching points. It also gives me an opportunity to tap into the participants’ wisdom, sense where the learners are, and debrief accordingly. After the debrief, I then share the theories or frameworks. For instance, one of the activities I like most is taking learners on a walk through a rental community to help them understand the lived experiences of citizens, to bridge policymaking with the actual needs and aspirations of citizens. 

Ganesan:  

Whether online or in person, I now place greater emphasis on participation, practical application, and creating space for every learner to contribute. Participants become active contributors to the learning experience instead of just passive recipients of information. When programmes are designed with greater participant involvement in mind, more opportunities for reflection and application can take place. 

What has surprised me about the move to digital learning is that it has improved some aspects of learning. Participants who might have spoken less in a physical classroom often find their voice through chat discussions, polls, and small-group activities. This has challenged many of my assumptions about how learning should happen, and has changed how I facilitate even today. 

Menon:  

In many respects, the integration of technology has significantly improved the learning environment. Disseminated materials can be updated dynamically for each cohort. With collaborative digital workflows, participants can upload draft speeches onto shared platforms for collective discussion and critique. The classroom then turns into a live editorial workshop where entire paragraphs are dissected in real time — structure, tone, sequencing, rhetorical devices and political sensitivity. 

The speed and efficiency of feedback loops have improved dramatically. Post-course feedback reaches lecturers within days. That helps me regularly recalibrate aspects of my delivery and materials in response.

Shroff:  

The deeper challenge is helping officers slow down enough for real learning to happen at all. Reflection takes time and a quiet mind, and both are in short supply. Today, 10 minutes is the new hour. With phones, hybrid distractions, back-to-back meetings, the bar for keeping a group genuinely present has gone up dramatically.  

Part of the work now is creating the conditions for learning before the learning even begins – quietening the room, helping people land, creating psychological safety and giving them permission to step out of execution mode. I have had to also be more disciplined about pacing – with fewer slides and more open questions. I sometimes spend the first 20 minutes of a workshop helping people simply arrive. That used to feel like a luxury; today it feels like the foundation. 

How has the role of the trainer shifted towards cultivating judgement and discernment in learners? 

Deden:  

Earlier in my career, much of my focus was on helping leaders solve problems, achieve specific goals and develop certain leadership capabilities. Over time, my work has become more systemic and contextual. I now pay much greater attention not only to the individual leader, but also to the teams, organisations, stakeholder relationships and wider environments within which they operate.  

One development that I have found particularly impactful has been the growing integration of systemic thinking into my coaching work. As leadership challenges have become increasingly interconnected, helping leaders understand the broader systems in which they operate often creates more sustainable change than focusing exclusively on individual behaviours. 

Yip:  

Rather than answering questions from my own perspective, I now start from the assumption that participants bring not just a great deal of wisdom but also the ability to think critically and to problem-solve together. My role is to create conditions that draw that out. I do add my own perspective, but deliberately after their sharing; to summarise, reinforce, and highlight what matters most. When participants hear their own insights validated and built upon, it's quite different from when I simply lead with the answer. 

We need to be clear on what training can and cannot solve. Most organisational challenges require multiple levers; learning and development is one, but things like culture, sponsorship, processes, and policies all play a role.  

Take career development as an example. If we want managers to have meaningful conversations with their officers, training is necessary but not sufficient. There must be psychological safety, an open culture that respects officers' personal needs, opportunities for growth within and across agencies, and leaders willing to release people for development while balancing organisational and team needs. 

Ganesan:  

The challenge for practitioners will no longer be access to knowledge. Knowledge has never been more available. What matters more is helping people develop the judgement to know what to do with that information. That means placing greater emphasis on critical thinking, discernment, communication, collaboration and the very human skills that technology cannot easily replace. 

I've learned to create the space for participants to learn from one another and apply ideas to their own context. The pace of change is unlikely to slow down. Our role is not simply to transfer knowledge, but to help people navigate uncertainty, make sound decisions and continue learning long after the programme has ended. 

What remains the most vital challenge in learning and development today? 

Shroff:  

Today, the unspoken question is: did it make a difference? This is a much harder bar to meet. It means we must design backwards from behaviour change.  

A single workshop is rarely enough on its own — what actually works is a programme that strings together check-ins, action learning sets, peer coaching, manager involvement, and time for application in between. We need to measure different things, not just “I enjoyed the trainer” but “I tried something different at work, and here is what happened”.  

It also means accepting that not all effective learning is comfortable. Some of the most impactful sessions I have run were the ones where participants left a little unsettled. I remember a participant saying he felt less equipped after a leadership workshop because he realised how much he did not know before that and now felt consciously incompetent. 

Ganesan:  

Effective learning used to be measured largely by classroom engagement. If participants enjoyed the session, contributed actively, and gave positive feedback, that was often seen as success. Today, the bar is much higher.  

Learners and organisations want to know, “What can I do differently because of this programme?”. There is greater emphasis on workplace application, behaviour change, and measurable outcomes.  

Deden:  

The most important capability for practitioners working with the public service will be the ability to support leaders in navigating complexity while remaining grounded in purpose and service. Technical expertise and leadership skills continue to matter, but equally important will be the capacity for reflection, perspective taking, systems awareness, learning agility, experimentation and meaningful collaboration across boundaries. 

Since around 2015, and particularly following COVID-19, I have seen a growing number of very senior leaders participating in coaching programmes. The conversations increasingly extend beyond the individual leader to workforce constraints, digital transformation, innovation, AI, geopolitical uncertainty, organisational resilience and employee well-being.  

Earlier leadership development efforts often focused more heavily on acquiring new knowledge, frameworks and skills. While these remain important, there is now a much stronger emphasis on sense-making, adaptability, reflection and the capacity to respond thoughtfully to complexity. 

Yip:  

We need to ask ourselves harder questions about whether learning interventions have shifted mindsets, strengthened practices, and improved performance over time. That means developing not just skills for today's challenges, but the attitudes and capacity to keep learning and adapting as things change. 

The real question is whether anything changed at the workplace. Did the manager have that career conversation with their officer after the training? Did it go well? What can be improved? How does developing that skill now set them up for future growth? Acquiring knowledge is easy, whereas shifting behaviour in the workplace remains challenging.  

There is a growing expectation of just-in-time learning — the idea that learning should be as close to the moment of need as possible to have the most impact. But ‘just-in-time’ looks different for everyone. Some learners come in anticipating a problem; others only engage fully once they are already in the thick of it. Effective learning must account for that range of readiness rather than assuming everyone is at the same point. 

Effective learning is also about how we multiply good effects. Particularly in the public service, it is about scale. I have been more deliberate around how we build mental models within individuals, groups and, over time, the whole of government. 

For instance, some managers have never experienced a great career conversation themselves and have no reference point for what good looks like. Research reminds us that talent for great management doesn't come naturally to most. Those who do it well are often the most intentional, not the most naturally gifted. Without a shared way of thinking, such differences play out across teams and agencies.  

The aspiration is that over time, a common approach and mindset will gradually shape how managers — and how public officers — think and act across the system. That is a much higher bar and requires more than training alone to get there, but it is also where the multiplier effect lies. 

Anuradha Shroff is Director at Anu Shroff Pte Ltd. Anu is a corporate facilitator and certified organisational coach, with more than 10 years of experience working with senior public sector executives and private sector leaders. Her areas of expertise are facilitation in strategy, leadership and public policy programmes, and coaching of executives who aspire to take the next step in their career and life. She also offers corporate retreats for organisations who want to take a holistic view of well-being as a strategy for employee engagement. 

Brigitte Deden is an Executive & Leadership Coach at Skipping Stones Business & Leadership Coaching. She is a highly experienced professional coach and coach supervisor who combines more than a decade of executive coaching with a strong business background and more than 15 years in international business consulting. She has the presence, energy and acumen to partner senior leaders and executives as they navigate the growing complexity of today’s environment and balance the demands of their stakeholders. 

K U Menon is a Senior Consultant at the Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI). For over a decade, he headed the National Resilience Division responsible for emergency planning and organising nation-building programmes. He began his career in Research with the Ministry of Defence at Tanglin in 1978. Prior to his deployment to the then Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), he was a Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies with a special interest in the security of small states. After his retirement, he continued to be engaged on a part-time basis by MDDI. 

R Jai Prakash is Founder and Principal Consultant of Soci.Train. He is a social change consultant passionate about inspiring and facilitating social change through innovative and collaborative solutions that address complex social issues and challenges. With over 20 years in strategy, policy, operations, and senior leadership experience, Jai has been instrumental in advancing policies and developing services for persons with disabilities, youth at risk, and families in need. Jai set up Singapore’s first Social Service Office and had served as Director of Child Protective Service at the Ministry of Social and Family Development. He has led national strategic communication and engagement efforts for social and educational issues. 

Roshini Ganesan is Manager and Partner at The Change Business. She has been in the corporate training business for 25 years and has trained in more than 10 regions (including United States, Australia, China, India, Japan, Mozambique), skilling people in several areas like business presentations, emotional intelligence, and communication. Roshini has also been actively involved in the design process of workshops in the areas of customer service and communication. She has extensive experience in training personnel at a range of levels, from interns to managing directors, across a variety of industries, including finance, manufacturing, hospitality, and government agencies. 

Yip Ghenglai is Co-founder of Morph Consulting, a seasoned facilitator and career strategist with 12 years in public service and corporate HR leadership, and 10 years of designing and facilitating learning interventions across sectors. She holds a Master of Learning & Professional Development (Distinction) and is a certified Emergenetics®, Five Behaviors®, and Everything DiSC® Associate. She specialises in engaging employees, managers, and leaders on career development and transition, manager effectiveness, and team effectiveness. 

Back to ETHOS Issue page