L&D: Making a start

Angela Bingham, Executive Director People and Capability at the Open Polytechnic, shares her predictions for learning and training in the future, and looks at practical steps organisations can take to embrace online learning.

Ihave built a career, as have others, on e-learning. We’ve watched the evolution of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 and now we’re on the cusp of 5.0 (I Googled it, and no-one has claimed it yet!).

Brief history

1.0 was about e-learning from a website with compliance and completion protocols, communicating messages to get a broad and consistent reach. 2.0 brought to the world Flash and interactives, and the realisation that there was a learner at the other end. Podcasts and videos created a learner experience. 3.0 blended the social construct with the behavioural models. 4.0 focused on the technology (responsive design, third-wall narration and quirky edu-tainment), and the authoring tools replaced code. 4.0 went on to challenge the learning management system demanding a learning platform, meaning learning record stores became more critical than a completion score.

5.0 is now up for grabs. My prediction is that there will be a demand for quick sound bites of learning that don’t take large amounts of time and money to build. This will require bringing together the designer and subject matter expert to enable asynchronous and synchronous learning. They’ll be in constant discussions and releasing learning in a similar way software is consumed, as a service (SaaS).

Wide-open spaces

If you haven’t produced online content before, it’s a big scary place. As a face-to-face facilitator or trainer, you are in control of the message, and you are probably adding the human element to your delivery. In our new worlds, this just isn’t possible. There are no more international experts flying in, and the days of trainers travelling town to town delivering training are over. So, come on over to the world of virtual learning. I promise you that you can add human elements, you can have control over your message, and you can develop learning that is palatable for learners. Here are four suggested actions to virtual learning, with questions to help guide your thinking.

Case study 1

Consider a small medical centre in a small city. Each month, the office manager delivers a health and safety briefing on information that is relevant and topical. The team looks forward to the briefings because it’s a break from the public; they can laugh, share and relax together. The team itself is a reflection of the community; most of the nurses are female and a good cross-section are Māori and Pasifika. Like many across the globe, the medical centre must continue throughout lockdown, including delivering training. Many of the support staff are working from home because the office space has reduced to share with the physio and dentist next door who had to find new premises.

My recommendations to the office manager are as follows.

1. Start hosting coffee catch-ups using Google Hangouts, and ask the team to join virtually. Book in the next one, a week later, to try an online fun quiz. These two simple tasks will give you a good sense of who can use the technology and link to an external site from the Hangout.

2. Take the briefings that you received from external stakeholders and break them into 10-minute sessions by using the questions: "At the end of this learning, you will be able to ... [insert specific actions or knowledge]". Keep it to one outcome per topic.

3. Change up each second session with a pre-recorded video that you create on your phone. These videos should be no longer than three minutes and allow seven minutes for a couple of questions and discussions.

4. For each third session provide some reading material or a link to a video and then host the Hangout to have a Q&A on the particular topic.

Case study 2

ABC is a large corporate organisation. The L&D team sits within the HR function. It is continually working on the production of e-learning modules that support sales staff, from product knowledge to compliance training. There is always a large backlog of work because product releases are happening all the time. Competition is tight across this sector. During lockdown, a significant amount of revenue was lost. The L&D team members are looking to show how they can position themselves as the organisation considers its options to downsize. The issues here are the team takes six to ten weeks to develop e-learning (from concept design to stakeholder sign off). Next comes the change management plan to implement the learning into the business, meaning the business can need a lead time of 12 weeks. The L&D team members know they get great results when they evaluate both the e-learning and the workshops. I would recommend the same steps to the L&D manager as I did to the office manager.

The L&D team decided to set up MS Teams to run e-learning modules. They started with the product enhancements (and decided to leave the new products to the traditional e-learning). These enhancement chunks consisted of a briefing sheet (linked to the product site), a ‘Stream’ session from the service experts, ‘Polls’ are to be used to replace the scenario-based learning, and each product manager shared a few discussion questions that prompted engagement through the chat channel; these were done in the quirky tone of the main e-learning modules. They are going to use ‘Stream’ to deliver the workshop components in short 30-minute sessions. The way they have structured MS Teams enables learning to be done in real-time or at a later time. They have approval from the Head of HR to try this model to continue to grow sales as the organisation assesses the viability operating model.

Wherever you are on your learning and development journey, it’s important just to make a start. That start may be easier to consume from a philosophy and principles place than a formalised strategy. Ensure your approach provides choice and control to the learners. And, finally, be absolutely crystal clear on what you want to be different after the learning event.

Angela Bingham He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata! He tangata! He tangata! Angela Bingham started as the Executive Director People and Capability at the Open Before that she held a variety of leadership roles, with an emphasis on learning and development. She has worked for Kineo (Pacific), ACC, Endeavour IT Limited, Rugby New Zealand, the Department of Internal Affairs and ANZ, among others. Angela has a strong people agenda, which she has developed from her degree in community and family studies from the University of Otago. Angela’s philosophies are that an effective leader works for the good of others with a firm foundation in strength-based conversations.