MICHELLE EGGLESTON SCHWARTZ, CPTM
Learning must be thoughtfully considered throughout the employee lifecycle — from preboarding to onboarding to professional development and career transitions. Many employees have a desire for growth and want to see their skill sets evolve as they progress in their careers. Training professionals have an incredible opportunity to nurture this development by ensuring training programs are available to support employees at every stage of their career journey.
Since every individual’s interests, goals and aspirations are unique, supporting an employee’s learning journey can be challenging. Learning and development (L&D) must work to identify the skills and experiences necessary to perform job roles and make that information visible to employees. Connecting learning to internal career mobility enables employees to grow at the company and stay longer. And in today’s job market, organizations need to invest in their people or risk losing them to the competition.
Leaders play a critical role in the development of their employees. Creating development maps can help employees identify their career goals and create a roadmap to achieve those goals. Listening is an extremely powerful tool — listening to the challenges of employees, listening to their passion, listening to their wants and needs. All this information can help managers advocate for their employees, recommend them for
new opportunities and give them the support they need to grow.
The cover story for this issue of Training Industry Magazine examines the integral role of onboarding in shaping the employee experience. This introduction to the company is incredibly important in helping the employee feel a sense of belonging and generate excitement around the work they will be doing, which is necessary to improve employee engagement and retention. This edition also examines topics on amplifying role-based skills training, experiential and mobile learning, and leveraging training to connect employees across the business.
I hope this edition of Training Industry Magazine provides you with some tips and insights to create learning experiences that allow your employees to grow and transform at every stage of their career journey. Leveraging employee passion can unleash limitless potential for the organization. How we channel that passion is going to be key to success.
As always, we love to hear your thoughts, so please reach out to our team and let us know how you’re channeling the passion of your employees through learning.
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM, is the editor in chief of Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of “The Business of Learning,” the Training Industry podcast. Email Michelle.
LEVERAGING EMPLOYEE PASSION CAN UNLEASH LIMITLESS POTENTIAL FOR THE ORGANIZATION.
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SHAPING THE EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE
By Vivian RohlederOnboarding is a crucial opportunity to determine your team’s learning paths.
HOW CONNECTED ARE WE? RECLAIMING OUR CONNECTEDNESS THROUGH L&D
By Neha Trivedi, CPTML&D can help employees foster greater connection in today’s workplace.
TIME TO FLIP THE SCRIPT ON EVALUATION
By Carol CohenChange your approach to the Kirkpatrick Model and improve your evaluation.
COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE: THE SECRET SAUCE
By Stephanie BaronCommunities of practice can help your learners improve skills, collaborate and stay engaged.
MAXIMIZING ENGAGEMENT IN DIGITAL BLENDED TRAINING
By Maggie ShibleyLeverage the flexibility of online training while keeping the engagement of live events.
THE WORLD IS MOBILE. IT’S TIME FOR L&D TO CATCH UP.
By JD DillonMeet your learners where they are with deviceagnostic training content.
38 42 44 48 52
WHAT’S IN THE METAVERSE FOR US? CREATING AN IMMERSIVE L&D STRATEGY THAT BOOSTS HUMAN CONNECTION, SKILLING AND COLLABORATION
By Tiffany VojnovskiIt’s the ideal time for L&D to carve out a space in the metaverse.
BRIDGING THE SKILLS GAP: HOW CUSTOM eLEARNING DEVELOPMENT AMPLIFIES
ROLE-BASED SKILLS TRAINING
By Phillip Carmichael, Jr.Supplement your in-person training with engaging, customized eLearning.
USING EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING TO TAKE YOUR L&D INITIATIVES TO NEW HEIGHTS
By Benji WittmanEnliven your training with inspiration from the outdoor education sphere.
NEURODIVERSITY AND DIGITAL LITERACY: CONTENT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES TO CREATE INCLUSIVE TRAINING
By Wade SiersTake your learners’ differences into account when designing digital training.
FILLING THE GAPS IN YOUR SALES TRAINING INVESTMENT
By Russ SharerEnsuring the effectiveness of your sales training means choosing the right KPIs.
L&D must be thoughtfully considered throughout the employee lifecycle.
Support your hybrid and remote leaders by focusing on these key areas.
Improve your training’s impact by leveraging new technology.
Enhance your leadership onboarding by reviewing these common challenges.
The shift from “diversity” to “cultural” training could have a dramatic impact on training results.
Turn down the heat on burnout with these tips on cultivating learner connection and purpose.
By
Srini Pillay, M.D.The metaverse has the potential to impact employee well-being in key ways.
By Julie Halloff and Mikaela FaustKeep up with the latest in the training industry by reading news from the last quarter.
By Sarah Gallo, CPTMCEO
Ken Taylor ktaylor@trainingindustry.com
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Michelle Eggleston Schwartz meggleston@trainingindustry.com
SENIOR EDITOR
Sarah Gallo sgallo@trainingindustry.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Mike Allen mallen@trainingindustry.com
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Amanda Longo alongo@trainingindustry.com
DESIGNER
Mary Lewis mlewis@trainingindustry.com
DESIGNER Kellie Blackburn-Gibson kblackburn@trainingindustry.com
DESIGNER Alyssa Alheid aalheid@trainingindustry.com
JUDI BADER, CPTM
Senior Director of Culture, Learning and Development Willy’s Mexicana Grill
MICHAEL CANNON, M.ED. Vice President, Global Learning and Enablement Rimini Street
BARBARA JORDAN, CPTM
Group Vice President, Global Learning & Development Sims Metal Management
CATHERINE KELLY, MA, BSN, RN, CPTM Director of Learning Programs Brookdale Senior Living
SHIREEN LACKEY, CPTM
Senior Management and Program Analyst, Office of Business Process Integration Veterans Benefits Administration
SCOTT NUTTER
Principal/Owner Touch & Go Solutions
DESIGNER
Cassandra Ortiz cortiz@trainingindustry.com
ADVERTISING SALES sales@trainingindustry.com
Training Industry Magazine connects learning and development professionals with the resources and solutions needed to more effectively manage the business of learning.
MATTHEW S. PRAGER, CPTM Executive Training Manager U.S. Government
MARC RAMOS Chief Learning Officer Cornerstone OnDemand
KELLY RIDER Chief Learning Officer PTC
DR. SYDNEY SAVION Global Learning Futurist Google
KERRY TROESTER, CPTM Director, North America Sales Training Lenovo
NATASHA MILLER WILLIAMS Head of Diversity & Inclusion Ferrara
KEE MENG YEO Adjunct Professor Grand Valley State University & Davenport University
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"Our partnership with TTA provided immediate help with creating and delivering a fundamental leadership training program and creating a 5year roadmap to stand up the L&D function ”
"Partnering with TTA has enabled us to offer customized and effectively timed skill development training across our entire organization "
Devra Schachter Senior Specialist, Learning & Growth
"Their support and collaboration have made this Learning & Development goal easier (and faster) to operationalize and as a bonus, we've developed genuine relationships with not just TTA but their facilitators as well ”
Chris Cassell Director,SalesDevelopment Operational Excellence (AMS)
" We were looking for an instructional designer but got much more regarding instructional strategy, project management, change management, and design thinking, and this project won a 2022 Brandon Hall Award for Excellence in Sales Performance "
"I'd recommend TTA to anyone who's moving fast and wants to ex their learning and development ”
ChrisBarker Director of Consumer Education
"They provided a full stack of talent, from an experienced project manager to savvy technical producers to energetic facilitators We trained thousands of new customers together, consistently earning high Net Promoter Scores TTA made it easy to work with them from the beginning, with smooth contract negotiations, regular meetings with their team, and ongoing check-ins to ensure continued success "
“ Working with TTA is so easy! We were candid with our expectations, the skills needed, and the deliverables we expected –they did not disappoint! They provided us with skilled professional instructional designers who worked together as a uni ed team ”
Mindi Gascho Adoption Director, LearningLeadership development programs are crucial for the growth and success of individuals and organizations, especially in today’s rapidly changing business environment. The pandemic has accelerated the shift toward remote and hybrid workplaces. Considering this, leadership development programs can help leaders acquire the necessary skills to effectively lead their teams and organizations.
effectively and collaborate with them even when they are not physically present. Leadership programs now more than ever need to focus on how to use technology effectively, how to build relationships with their teams and how to facilitate virtual meetings that are productive and engaging.
2. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is essential for leaders in hybrid workplaces. Leaders need to be able to understand the emotions and motivations of their employees and be able to respond appropriately. They must recognize and address conflicts and build trust and respect among their teams. A key part of any hybrid leadership program needs to help teach leaders how to improve their emotional intelligence and how to use it to create a positive and productive work environment.
allows them to be productive and efficient while navigating in-office and work-from-home scenarios.
5. Technical Skills
Understanding how to use different technologies, such as video conferencing and collaboration tools, to improve communication and collaboration is no longer a “nice to have” or reserved for the administrative support staff but a prerequisite for any modern leader.
The hybrid workplace presents new challenges and opportunities for leaders. On one hand, remote work has enabled leaders to leverage technology to connect with their teams and improve collaboration. On the other hand, it has made it more difficult for leaders to create a sense of unity and teamwork among their employees. Effective leadership development can help leaders overcome these challenges and become even more effective leaders than before.
The following are key areas that leadership development programs should focus on to help leaders succeed in hybrid workplaces:
1. Communication and Collaboration
Leaders need to develop the skills to communicate with their teams
3. Adaptability
Hybrid workplaces require leaders who are highly adaptable. They need to be able to adjust to the rapidly changing business environment and to quickly respond to new challenges and opportunities. Leadership programs can no longer rely on general skills but instead need to teach leaders how to think creatively and to be more agile, so they can effectively lead their teams through times of change.
4. Time Management
Leaders need to be able to prioritize their tasks, and to balance their work and personal life. A successful leadership program can teach leaders how to better manage their time and how to create a work schedule that
At the end of the day, leadership development programs play an essential role in the success of leaders in hybrid workplaces. By focusing on key areas, such as communication and collaboration, emotional intelligence, adaptability, time management and technical skills, leaders can acquire the necessary skills to lead their teams effectively, even in challenging times.
Organizations that invest in equipping their leaders with training focused on how to lead in hybrid environments will not only see an improvement in their leaders’ performance, but they will also be better equipped to navigate the rapidly changing business environment.
Karen Massey, MA, BCC, is the director of learning and development at Bumble Bee Foods. She is a global learning and development leader, speaker and executive coach, who has dedicated her career to aligning innovative solutions with business and people strategies, with expertise in senior leadership, organizational development, change management, executive coaching and talent management. Email Karen.
LEADERSHIP PROGRAMS NEED TO TEACH LEADERS HOW TO THINK CREATIVELY AND TO BE MORE AGILE.STELLA LEE, PH.D.
This year hasn’t been a walk in the park. With rounds of tech giants’ layoffs, relentless inflation, continuing supply chain disruptions and a potential looming recession, organizations are feeling the burn. Executives and decision-makers alike are reacting by trimming spending, scaling down project investments and cutting budgets. As we are well aware, learning and development (L&D) budgets are usually the first to be cut. In times of economic uncertainty, how can we continue to prove our value?
Below are some tips on how we can take advantage of a variety of technologies and tools to drive impact.
The popular chatbot ChatGPT is everywhere and the world is already abounding with use cases for this recent development. Chatbots and other virtual assistants can indeed help automate some of our work processes, generate ideas, write content, create examples and analyze data.
For example, to automate workflow, ChatGPT can conduct post-training surveys, collect and convert data and analyze the results. If you are planning to write scenario-based learning content, ChatGPT can be used to brainstorm different scenarios and you can refine it to suit your specific context.
Do keep in mind that while chatbots can be used for many tasks, they are not a substitute for human judgment and expertise. Consider it a powerful tool that can aid your work, and the final decision should always be yours.
Creating training material from scratch is not always feasible. Luckily, there are an increasing number of quality resources available, both free and subscriptionbased. Curate content by adding comments, context and examples to the material. If you work with subject matter experts (SME), collaborate with them Rather than writing content for an online course, ask your SME to examine the material and add insights and perspectives that are relevant to your organization.
consultant: “There is a need for people in the training field to take a more performance-focused orientation and become performance improvement technologists.”
To get started, consider the array of tools that your organization might already have in place or approaches that you can quickly adopt, including searchable knowledge-based platforms, mobile apps that are designed for task-specific guides and references and collaboration tools that allow team members to collaborate or to coach others and share best practices.
For example, if you work in the energy sector and are sharing a blog post about leadership communication styles, you might want to comment on what type of communication styles are needed for leaders to talk about the shift to clean energy and how staff is impacted.
To connect learning to application, performance support is key. To demonstrate that L&D is more than classroom facilitators and course providers, place more emphasis on performance support and create ways to complement training. To quote Guy Wallace, a performance improvement
Data is everywhere, but much of it remains unutilized. Use data you have and can collect to help inform decisions. For example, data analytics can shed light on what type of learning and performance support interventions to focus on. It can also help us review which resources need to be revamped. Keep in mind that while data is an important tool, it should be used in conjunction with other factors such as the business context and employee feedback.
While the road ahead might be slightly bumpy, L&D can show resilience, maintain visibility and demonstrate that we continue to be a critical and strategic partner in the organization.
Dr. Stella Lee has over 20 years of experience in consulting, planning, designing, implementing and measuring learning initiatives. Her focus is on large-scale learning projects including LMS evaluation and implementation, learning analytics, and artificial intelligence applications. Email Stella.
L&D CAN SHOW RESILIENCE AND DEMONSTRATE THAT WE CONTINUE TO BE A CRITICAL AND STRATEGIC PARTNER.
Perhaps it’s a matter of semantics, but consider that every company, everywhere, needs to move on from the notion of employee onboarding and reframe their efforts as onboarding leaders.
That adjustment by no means translates to deemphasizing the necessary grounding in functional or technical expertise or required human resources (HR) and cultural orientation. It simply means that today, regardless of what you are being hired to do, a dedicated element of any effective new employee onboarding needs to be intentionally dedicated to leadership.
SAM SHRIVER & MARSHALL GOLDSMITHWhy? Because in a global work environment that is increasingly being defined by inclusivity in action, leadership is key! From day one, employees are challenged to help solve problems. In large part, these problems are the natural consequences of disruptive change that present themselves with everescalating complexity, each of which has the potential to produce rampant uncertainty. Our world (more than ever) demands that we not only care about leadership but that we also cultivate it as soon as possible.
What are the kinds of leadership challenges new hires can expect upon arrival? Here are three to consider:
1. The Modern Workforce
Employees entering the workforce these days are different. We have not only universally accepted that reality, but we have also embraced it. When those employees arrive, they are increasingly working from “wherever,” on schedules that often reflect their personal work-life balance priorities.
The more organizations appeal to individuality, the more attractive they will be to those seeking employment. Conversely, the more an organization caters to individuality, the higher the probability that conflict (of one sort or another) will rear its ugly head. From day one, employees need to be armed with the skills to actively listen to others (peers and supervisors), acknowledge and respect different perspectives and actively contribute to a resolution that prioritizes the achievement of stated objectives.
2. Change Leadership
For the most part, we have come to grips with the reality that we don’t manage change — it manages us. In response to that insight (and, again, quite literally from day one) employees need to recognize the implications of surviving, and thriving, in a dynamic environment
Change leadership is a peoplecentered approach that is fueled by transparency. It requires that employees at all levels embrace agility. And new hires need to know that embracing agility is messy. In essence, it translates to
people, regardless of tenure or seniority, confronting unforeseen circumstances collaboratively and iteratively from a foundation of trust. In that regard, new hires need to perceive themselves as leaders the minute they walk through the door.
3. Performance Leadership
Traditional efforts to manage performance initiated with a manager documenting the performance goals of those on their team. It was then fueled by the frequency and the quality of the feedback and culminated with a formal appraisal from the manager that focused upon what had been accomplished, as well as how those results had been achieved.
In a world increasingly engulfed by the unexpected, hitting performance targets is a function of ongoing communication primarily initiated from “the bottom up,” as opposed to from “the top down.” Managers and employees continue to align on performance goals, but employees play a far more prominent role in both contracting for a leadership style on an ongoing basis and assessing the degree to which objectives have been achieved.
Perhaps in fairness, organizations have always hired leaders. They simply no longer have the luxury of waiting two or three years to start treating them that way.
Marshall Goldsmith is the world authority in helping successful leaders get even better. Sam Shriver is the executive vice president at The Center for Leadership Studies. Email Marshall and Sam.
IN A GLOBAL WORK ENVIRONMENT THAT IS INCREASINGLY BEING DEFINED BY INCLUSIVITY IN ACTION, LEADERSHIP IS KEY.
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DR. KRISTAL WALKER, CPTMDiversity training has been around for decades, but recent events have sparked conversations around its efficacy. The recent tragic death of Tyre Nichols reminds us that we still have a great deal of work to do in balancing the scale of justice. Could it be that diversity training is falling short of its intended impact because the term “diversity” itself has been overwhelmingly associated with minority groups rather than an umbrella term to truly describe our differences?
Could it be that non-diverse groups are experiencing diversity training fatigue and need something more relatable to their personal experiences to fully buy in? Could the lack of sustainable results be attributed to something as simple as how we name our training?
The answers to these questions might spark an opportunity for learning leaders to modify our approach to training design, including the naming conventions we use to draw in our training audiences. Let’s dive into the shift from “diversity” to “cultural” training and how this change could have a dramatic impact on training results.
Traditional diversity training is often treated as a “one-size-fits-all” solution, with no personalized or tailored content to address specific groups. This lack of customization has led to many participants feeling like their individual struggles are ignored. This is true for both minority and majority groups.
For minority groups, diversity training often seems to be more focused on reinforcing the need for change, rather than creating a safe space to
cultivate great discussion and learning from each other. Majority groups, on the other hand, often report feeling attacked. As such, diversity training can cause people to become either defensive or resistant, both major obstacles to meaningful conversation.
Cultural training, on the other hand, can be tailored to a specific organization’s needs, such as talking about the company’s culture and how different employees work together. Cultural training seeks to go deeper than just the surface level of diversity. It focuses on creating an understanding of how different cultures impact our workplace and lives. This approach allows for a more holistic view of differences. It encourages active participation from all participants, regardless of background.
Furthermore, this approach avoids placing blame on any one group but instead looks at the challenges from a collective perspective. It also offers an opportunity to discuss the importance of understanding and respecting different cultures to have a better work environment for all.
Refining training to focus more on cultural competence rather than diversity might help learning leaders deliver five unique benefits for training constituents:
1. Encouraging open communication and an exchange of ideas between all participants, while respecting each other’s uniqueness.
2. Going beyond physical or skin color differences and focusing on values, beliefs and customs that make us unique individuals.
3. Creating a safe environment for participants to discuss their unique experiences.
4. Encouraging and celebrating diversity within an organization, rather than just tolerating it.
5. Helping employees recognize potential biases and enabling them to take proactive steps to ensure that everyone is heard and respected.
While the benefits might seem plentiful, making the shift might require additional work. For example, learning leaders may need to redesign their training programs to include more interactive activities that promote cultural intelligence. Additionally, they may need to develop new resources, such as videos and case studies, that depict a variety of cultural perspectives. In the end, shifting from diversity to cultural training might help learning leaders create more comprehensive programs that can lead to better results in the workplace.
Dr. Kristal Walker, CPTM, is the vice president of employee wellbeing at Sweetwater. Kristal is also a facilitator for Training Industry’s Diversity and Inclusion Master Class Email Kristal.
A LACK OF CUSTOMIZATION HAS LED PARTICIPANTS TO FEEL LIKE THEIR INDIVIDUAL STRUGGLES ARE IGNORED.
BY VIVIAN ROHLEDER
Employee onboarding is a high-stakes challenge. Engagement, new hire turnover and performance all hinge on establishing a robust employee onboarding program. Onboarding is the optimal time to set expectations for employee performance, engagement and contributions to the organization’s strategy. As learning leaders, we have an opportunity to capture all the tangible and intangible program outcomes, incorporate them into the onboarding objectives and use them to shape the new hire experience.
From the onset, new hires need clarity regarding the purpose and goals of onboarding, as well as a roadmap of how they will gain the knowledge and skills to meet expectations set around performance, productivity, collaboration and communication. It is not enough to know where we are headed: We also need to know how we will get there. When onboarding fails, it is often the result of a disconnect between its objectives, the plan outlining how those will be met and successfully communicating this to new hires. Not having welldefined program objectives can negatively impact
relevancy and impair the content, as well as hinder learners’ motivation to participate.
New hires are a captive audience, optimistic and eager to forge a successful career at the organization. While communicating program details may seem inherently obvious or overly simplistic, addressing the purpose of onboarding with new hires will ensure their investment in the process. Emphasizing the professional benefits and outcomes of the onboarding program will generate engagement, participation and accountability from new hires.
Compelling onboarding objectives will define the new hire experience by focusing the program’s purpose and outcomes. These objectives will guide and inform all components of the onboarding program, ensuring relevance and cohesiveness. Well-established onboarding objectives, in turn, inform the team’s metrics to evaluate the new hire experience and guide continuous improvement efforts. The result is an impactful and engaging onboarding experience for participants.
Newly hired employees require a re-recruitment effort to reaffirm they have taken a positive step in joining the organization. We must consider that they have made a leap of faith in deciding to accept the employment offer and are now reevaluating their new employer. To successfully integrate new hires, onboarding must aim to confirm that the organization is the correct fit by showcasing all its benefits, people and positive energy. This can be accomplished by weaving the workplace culture, communities and groups and shared values throughout the onboarding program, communications, support materials and interactions with employees. Part of the effort includes training and offering support to all roles involved in executing the program to meet this challenge.
Onboarding is the ideal time for new hires to envision their career growth and professional development journey at the organization. Discussing career paths available with new hires allows them to align their professional goals and adjust their expectations for career progression at the organization. The onboarding program needs to showcase a roadmap for career growth and development opportunities to instill a vision of what employees will gain during their tenure. It is never too early to begin shaping employee career paths.
The onboarding program must create enthusiasm around the organization’s mission and strategy. Generate excitement toward what the organization is set to achieve by sharing the long- and short-term business goals. Through onboarding, connect the new hire’s work contributions to the larger mission and business strategy. The first interactions with the onboarding team, manager and colleagues must match a new hire’s level of excitement.
Celebrate organizational and team achievements and past successes and share the thrill of joining efforts with new hires.
New hires are eager to jump into work and begin performing in their role. This is the ideal time for managers to communicate team goals and help shape the new hire’s objectives for the year. Managers collaborate with their new hires to establish performance goals, check-in structure
and evaluation cadence aligned with the organization’s performance and recognition process.
Ensure new hires feel supported from the onset and have opportunities to offer and receive feedback early in the onboarding process. Having a strong relationship with their manager will create role engagement and employee satisfaction. It will also offer a channel for new hires to raise flags and offer feedback that can be used to correct their onboarding experience. This may require providing managers with specific guidance, materials and support to fulfill their role in integrating new hires into their teams.
Most of the energy toward the role will be driven by the manager and the team. Some onboarding objectives should include integration into the team, capturing how the team collaborates, walking through established processes and welcoming the new member into workflows and projects. Aim to instill a sense of belonging and inclusion in the team. Offer guides and materials for teams to use during their induction
Create compelling onboarding objectives to immerse new hires in the training experience. Examples include:
• Reaffirm the organization is a great place to work by showcasing its benefits, culture and core values.
• Generate excitement toward the organization’s achievements, mission and goals when welcoming and inducting employees.
• Encourage a sense of belonging to the organization and the team by forming connections and guiding networking opportunities during onboarding.
• Create role engagement and satisfaction by establishing performance goals, management check-ins and an evaluation cadence.
• Integrate new hires into their team by highlighting established processes and workflows and creating a welcoming environment conducive to achieving team targets.
• Guide the consumption of learning, resources and activities for new hires to accomplish during onboarding.
New hires need clarity regarding the purpose and goals of onboarding.
efforts aimed to standardize the activities and tasks they perform.
Onboarding offers an opportunity to strategically build a connection network for new hires. This begins the moment an employee accepts the offer. The first effort is expanding the network beyond the recruiter and hiring manager to a group of trusted advisors that can support and guide the new hire as they begin working. This group of advisors encompasses representation from critical groups such as human resources, information technology (IT), payroll and other functions involved in onboarding. Their objective is to become a resource, directing new hires to information or contacts when needed.
The next step is to grow the relationship network to include team members, collaborators and cross-collaborators. These connections guide new hires as they navigate internal workflows and best practices. The final extension of the relationship network includes opportunities for relationship-building with other new hires, employees sharing commonalities such as working in the same location, mentors and even randomly paired connections. This effort aims to engender a sense of belonging to the organization and to the team. A new hire space or community platform can be leveraged to execute this program objective.
A critical measure of success for onboarding is the ability to form connections for new hires and guide networking opportunities. These connections and relationships encourage a sense of belonging, offer support and guide the new hire’s integration into the organization.
Learning organization-specific knowhow can take a substantial amount of time. Address this by designing a plan to acquire critical knowledge during onboarding. This can include milestones
at 30-, 60- and 90-day marks revolving around organizational, team and system learning, as well as performance expectations. Share the learning plan and milestones with new hires so they can track their progress throughout their onboarding journey.
In addition, communicating sample developmental opportunities will frame the goals new hires set out to achieve. Goals such as developing an internal relationship network with collaborators, gaining a better understanding of business units and their work and obtaining a certain credential are common among new employees. Finding a way to acknowledge or celebrate the achievement of these milestones is a powerful motivator to continue meeting these targets. The onboarding program conclusion can culminate in recognition of the new hire’s efforts and achievements and can include a certificate of completion or a gift.
A successful program guides the consumption of learning, support resources and activities for new hires to accomplish during their onboarding. To manage their intake, point new hires toward a central hub where they can access timely communications and announcements, onboarding materials such as guides and checklists and relevant learning paths. Some learning will be easier to manage and promote; however, there may exist ad hoc learning that varies by team or role. Capturing and standardizing these learning experiences will offer a more consistent new hire experience across the organization.
One of the most important goals of onboarding is to reduce the time it takes for new hires to become fully productive in their role. As a result, onboarding efforts must identify and quickly remove the roadblocks hindering new hire performance. Often, these revolve around organization-specific processes, culture and knowledge. We must leverage the onboarding connections, learning assets and resources available to guide new hires in navigating this cultural knowhow and offer solutions to bypass and overcome obstacles they face.
New hires are eager to soak in all incoming information and intrinsically motivated to complete onboarding programming and activities. They want to make an impact through their contributions and showcase their value right away. Emphasizing the benefits to new hires by linking these to their success at the organization will further compel them to remain engaged, learn and participate in the onboarding process. Shaping the employee onboarding experience and creating compelling onboarding objectives will result in higher employee retention, engagement and satisfaction.
Vivian Rohleder holds M.A. degrees in organizational development and counseling and focuses on the intersection between learning and organizational development. She leads global learning and development functions aimed at building inclusive learning programs. Email Vivian.
Onboarding efforts must identify and quickly remove the roadblocks hindering new hire performance.
These are unprecedented times in history, when such large numbers of workers have the ability to work remotely and efficiently. While some companies may be able to move their workforces back to the office, the question remains around whether all employees can be — or will ever be — moved back into prepandemic work arrangements.
While the move to remote and hybrid work has allowed businesses to continue innovating in the face of rapid change, there is an ever-increasing problem that we must address if we want to retain and engage workers over the long term: employee connection.
During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when organizations quickly shifted to remote work, the immediate focus was on how to connect workers through technology — with little space to think through the impacts of removing physical human interactions. Many companies are limited when it comes to imagining connectedness in the workplace. For many, it means centralizing employees, assets and business services on one platform —
By Neha Trivedi, MA, CPTMbut failing to consider the element of human connectedness.
The changes to the technology and approach to remote work are problematic from a learning and development (L&D) lens, when simultaneously, there is a movement across industries to promote humancentric workplaces. The whole point of a human-centric design is an increased focus on employee satisfaction.
However, many organizations fail to recognize the importance of human connectedness. To complicate matters, there is so much uncertainty for workers as a result of organizational upheavals, rapid transformations and geopolitical and social events, that mental health issues have been on the rise.
social media, etc.) allow social interaction and a broader awareness of others over distance and time. Whether these forms of communication can truly replace faceto-face interactions, however, is still up for debate.
Connectedness can be physical, emotional or cognitive. Mediated communications (via technologies like phone, email, text, instant messaging,
While there are great benefits of working remotely like schedule flexibility, time and cost savings with no commute, etc., remote workers continue to struggle with loneliness. Whether widely reported or not, there are workers that miss the social interactions that one just cannot experience when working from home. There is anecdotal evidence of this just from the past year as events and venues opened up post-pandemic. One thing that was loud and clear among in-person event attendees was the sense of feeling more connected in the physical presence of others. The ability to have face-to-face conversations or the sense of belonging and connection seems irreplaceable, even if remote work is here to stay.
Since the pandemic, most professional and personal relationships have changed. Lakshmi Rengarajan, a
workplace connection consultant, stated, “For a long time, we’ve probably taken for granted the ability to see our coworkers every day and maybe didn’t realize how valuable that was ... I think teams will be a lot closer when they’re able to move back into the workplace.”
However, she also argues that connection is not purely about socializing and human interaction. Therefore, it is important to note that physical proximity does not equal connection. “We think of connection through a personal interaction,” Rengarajan says. “But connection is something everyone experiences differently. Connection is being seen, heard, appreciated and acknowledged.”
Red Thread Research has found that organizations with higher levels of connection are:
• 5.4X more likely to be agile.
• 3.2X more likely to have satisfied customers.
• 2.3X more likely to have engaged employees.
The key point here is to recognize that while having employees on a single platform and using the same technology and tools will enable connectivity — it will not enable connectedness.
How employees connect to each other, their teams and the organization is critical and requires attention. This is specifically relevant as well with all the recent attention to human-centered leadership, which is meant to put people first.
L&D teams have strong opportunities to influence and drive connectedness within organizations that have largely remote or hybrid work models. While there are a variety of approaches and steps that may be utilized to establish a more connected remote workforce, there are ways to start this process quickly for more immediate results.
The first step is to establish an understanding of the levels and types of connections that exist. Per Betterwork’s research, there are three main workplace connectedness profiles:
• The close friend: This group cultivates strong friendships. They form holistic bonds with the people they work with, both in and out of the workplace.
• The friendly colleague: For this group, friendliness is an acceptable level of connectedness, with some easy banter during breaks, but nothing that goes too deep.
• Strictly professional : This group keeps things professional with coworkers. They don’t need or want to share about families or hobbies. They are satisfied if they can smile and wave when they come and go from the office or meeting, and their role is understood by those they work with closely.
Going beyond the three main profiles shared in the research, a case can be made for workers who maintain all three of these types of interactions on a continuum with their co-workers depending on their level of interaction, shared experiences, tenure with the company, mutual feelings and other factors. What’s clear is that companies need to pay attention to
Using the same technology and tools will enable connectivity — it will not enable connectedness.
how their workers are interacting and engaging and whether they feel a sense of belonging.
Per RedThread’s study, there are four different aspects of connection at work, forming two spectrums, which may influence what type of effort is used to foster that particular connection:
• Emotional vs. intellectual connection.
• Forming a new connection vs. deepening an existing connection.
These four situations may then be applied across three main buckets when applied to organizations. Building connections within these buckets fosters connections in different ways.
• Connections within teams allow individuals to contribute effectively to the team, build organizational agility and encourage belonging, trust and acceptance.
• Connections across teams help to boost collaboration, build organizational agility and enhance a sense of community and belonging.
• Connections within the organization enable organizational agility, employee engagement and customer satisfaction along with helping to satisfy workers’ needs to be part of something meaningful.
Learning professionals can focus on promoting a flexible and connected workplace, but also acknowledge that this is an uncertain environment with many unknowns that will have to be handled as they come. Being upfront and transparent with stakeholders will go much further in creating collaborative approaches and solutions to address worker connection.
It’s also important to reframe assumptions around what connection means. While physical connections via in-person colleague interactions are beneficial, bringing people together physically is not the only way to foster connections. Each organization can benefit from rethinking and reviewing
its culture and goals to determine what it means to build connections for its specific environment. Leaders may consider a variety of options including: remote, hybrid and inperson interactions while taking into consideration the three workplace profiles along with four main interactions among workers. With partnership from HR, talent and L&D leaders, companies may move forward with thorough planning and intention around where they have gaps and what success looks like.
In addition, L&D teams may take the opportunity to support connection through training and provide guidance for leaders and front-line managers. But people leaders can be so focused on delivery that they may not understand or even appreciate the impact that remote work has had on the mental health of their teams. Building more robust skills around team meeting engagement and individual check-in conversations, empathy, coaching and active listening are just a few ways that leaders may enhance their own skill set to better support their colleagues. Additionally, consider whether teams are only focused on their task lists when meeting co-workers.
The work doesn’t stop here. Learning teams can partner with HR benefits teams to promote wellness programs and company-specific benefits to help employees with struggles they may be facing like feelings of isolation, connecting with team members and overall engagement. Perhaps there are opportunities to showcase learning that is available in the company’s learning management system (LMS) around health, wellness and mindfulness. If an organization has a coaching or mentoring program, coaches would benefit from learning about the latest research and stats around remote work and its impact on workers.
Lastly, tap into employee resource groups (ERGs) as they have a broad reach into targeted employee populations and may be able to impact engagement, foster more connectedness and also be able to report back around any escalating needs that require attention from leaders.
We’re at an interesting point in history where there are tremendous benefits from technology and the digital world, but physical connectedness is suffering. There are no easy answers here, but perhaps all may benefit from keeping in mind that screentime and listening to voices over a phone or computer line are very different from looking someone in the eyes and seeing their body language and facial expressions, and taking the time to go beyond and really form a connection.
The benefits of creating connections will not only help the individual workers but also organizations. It is definitely worth the effort to work through this if an organization is experiencing challenges and is truly moving toward a humancentric workplace.
Neha Trivedi, MA, CPTM, is a certified coach who leads enterprise learning strategy and colleague development at Alight Solutions. She provides thought leadership for learning transformation by identifying needs and creating plans that enable business functions to reimagine their approaches for optimized learning solutions. Email Neha.
We’re at an interesting point in history where there are tremendous benefits from technology and the digital world, but physical connectedness is suffering.
Evaluating training — and therefore proving business value — has long been a challenge for those of us in any learning and development (L&D) or workforce development role. How often have we been asked, “What is the ROI?” or “What is the business value?” And as we stare at that 4.75 score on the user survey, we wonder how we could ever answer those questions honestly. The process of measuring achieved value is critical for learning leaders within an organization — but it can feel impossible.
Ever since its inception in 1959, the Kirkpatrick Model has formed the foundation of evaluation in four levels: Level 1 is the learner’s reaction to the experience, Level 2 is the learning and knowledge increase or transfer, Level
3 focuses on the behavior change and Level 4 represents the business results. Although Level 4, evaluating business results, is the most desired result from training, it’s usually the most difficult to accomplish and often ignored. In fact, “ignored” is probably not an accurate representation of the angst of so many instructional designers and learning program managers who wrestle with determining that result.
To make the case for keeping your project at the top of the list of priorities for an organization, setting goals for behavior change and business value is your superpower. Meanwhile, we have all felt that it could not be done. Over time, some very smart people have tried to adapt the Kirkpatrick Model to the modern world. But why break what isn’t broken? The model isn’t the problem. The way we use it is.
We begin too late in the process to think about it. We don’t believe we can do it. You have heard the doubt and maybe even said it yourself: “We can
set a business goal, but I have no idea how we could measure it,” “What about all those other factors that influence business results,” and more such claims that might be described as failure-inadvance. It is time to step up to the challenge and make the Kirkpatrick Model work for you!
As learning partners of the business and its stakeholders, we must flip the script on Kirkpatrick. Begin with a conversation about business value and behavior change. And set those metrics before initiating development of the training intervention. Seems simple enough, right? Establishing those metrics at the front end will not only make for excellent conversation with stakeholders but will also form a thread through the design and development of training and any activities associated with the project to influence the outcome.
How many times have we gotten all the way through a project with a high-
THE MODEL ISN’T THE PROBLEM. THE WAY WE USE IT IS.
priced vendor who then says, “Time to determine the business value: I need to interview about two dozen of the target audience”? Hindsight is never really 20/20. We all know that. Kirkpatrick was on to something when he established those four levels, forming the foundation of evaluation for what looks to be the next century. What he was really doing was forcing us to think about the “why” of the project and to put every effort into the context of behavior change and business value.
Every training project begins somewhere in the business and is justified for funding based on an identified need. By asking the right questions at the time of the request, you will ensure a focus on the most often unsaid metrics. It really comes down to switching from what looks like a content-driven request that might, for example, be based on a product, to a learner-centric approach to understand why the learner needs the training, what the behavioral change should be and what the business impact should be.
Begin by asking why the training is needed now. What do they measure already and what metric are they using to justify the budget for the training? Then, the conversation turns to the expected impact on that metric once the training is completed. Focus on the behavioral goals and explore what can be observed. Ask the stakeholder what they want the learner to:
One example may be the net promoter score (NPS) that reflects the willingness of customers to refer the company. Knowing that before you begin design helps you define the context, and you can estimate an impact. You might ask how long it takes for a new hire to achieve proficiency. For sales, look at the length of time to first deal. You can estimate a new length of time for that as a business value metric.
Begin evaluation discussions before the design and development stage. Ask a series of questions about the business and the learner:
1. First ask, “What do you measure now?” That will reveal some of the metrics driving the request for the project.
2. Follow up with the question, “What impact do you see the training providing to improve that number?”
And be sure to ask how each of those will differ from the way they behave now. Probe for observable behaviors. It does not take long to evolve those questions one step further, as a trusted partner to your stakeholders. Establish Level 3 and Level 4 outcomes for the training that will ultimately change behavior and influence business value. Remember to look at the business value in terms of time and money.
Here is a real-life example of how this can work. The request came for revamping the training for a call center. Part of the request focused on moving from a bootcamp model to a blended learning journey that included self-study and coaching. It all seemed simple and straightforward, but the learning team took a flipped Kirkpatrick approach and asked the aforementioned questions. Previously, they might have focused on content acquisition as if the content could possibly tell the whole story. The evaluation revealed two important factors.
The first was behavioral and was based on the one-question survey that the company asked of every customer who called in. They would ask, “Would you hire this rep?” That question is a metric that can be influenced by the right kind of training. They had a quarterly number of 91% answering “yes” and the team determined that the training program should be able to move the needle by two points.
Second, they had a business outcome they wanted to influence and that concerned transitioning a support call into a sale. Knowing these two goals in advance formed a design thread through every single learning asset in
3. Then ask, “What do you want the learner to do, to say, to show, to know and to find differently from the way they do now?” These are observable behaviors.
the program and ultimately exceeded the goals that were set.
Taking this approach not only provides opportunities for excellent conversations, but it will also make your program better overall. You simply flip the script on Kirkpatrick. Focus on behavior change and business results. You don’t have to forget about the learning experience and knowledge transfer, because that has been going fine for more than 50 years. Just change the way you think about measuring business value before you even begin designing, developing and writing and you’ll be amazed at your results. Then all you must do is stick the landing.
Carol Cohen has built award-winning programs for enterprise sales in large and small corporations. Two years ago, she joined the team at Infopro Learning, a full-service learning provider whose mission is to unlock human potential with workforce transformation as vice president of strategy and sales enablement. Email Carol.
FLIPPING THE SCRIPT ON KIRKPATRICK WILL CHANGE THE GAME FOR YOUR LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT.By Stephanie Baron
Staying competitive requires a constant focus on learning and development (L&D). Among the many different approaches to learning in the workplace, one has proven to be particularly effective, yet remains strangely elusive: communities of practice (CoPs).
Communities of practice are like secret societies for professionals. But instead of performing arcane rituals and plotting world domination, CoP members come together to share knowledge and skills, and to improve their craft. These groups have become all the rage in recent years as a way to foster collaboration, spread best practices and build trust within teams. Yet, they are often misunderstood and misused.
CoPs are informal and organic groups of individuals who share a common profession or interest and engage in regular, ongoing discussions and activities to improve their skills. They exist in a variety of settings: professional associations, online forums and within and across departments and services. Many successful CoPs have been the spontaneous, informal ones.
CoPs provide space to share experiences and knowledge with peers, which is highly valuable for onboarding new employees. By participating in a CoP, they can learn from collective intelligence and tacit knowledge, rather
than relying solely on employee guides and explicit formal trainings.
CoPs are also most effective when experienced employees want to stay abreast of industry developments and best practices. By participating in discussions and activities with their peers, they continue to build knowledge and skills in their field.
The benefits of CoPs go beyond individual learning and have a significant impact on the overall performance of the organization. First and foremost, they provide a safe space for employees to share their ideas and experiences. In a CoP, people express their thoughts and opinions without fear of retribution or criticism. This can be especially important in rapidly changing industries or those with frequent disruptions. Through fostering trust and continuous knowledge sharing, CoPs help create more agile and adaptable teams.
By engaging in discussions and activities with more experienced professionals, CoP members gain new knowledge and skills and build their confidence in an environment where failing is considered an essential part of the learning process.
In addition, CoPs help build stronger connections and collaboration among team members. Patrick Lencioni paved the way with his book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”
ǵ Provides a space to share experiences grounded in practice.
ǵ Allows more effective and shorter onboarding.
ǵ Creates more agile and adaptable learning.
ǵ Builds stronger connections and trust among team members.
ǵ Improves morale and motivation, which can in turn improve overall performance.
ǵ Supplements coaching and mentoring programs.
His research demonstrates how psychological safety and trust are the undisputable cornerstones of effective teams. By providing a space for individuals to come together and discuss their work without fear of failing, CoPs foster a sense of community and support necessary for trust to flourish.
Participating in CoPs allows for quality connections with more experienced professionals who can provide guidance and support as individuals navigate their careers. These relationships can be valuable for those who may not have access to formal mentorship programs or who are seeking more diverse or specialized advice. Much like Hogwarts, the school of witchcraft and wizardry in the Harry Potter series, is a microcosm for wizards in the making as they learn, CoPs are a way to offer coaching and mentoring in a corporate culture where informal learning is less common.
Interactions in CoPs are often more informal and spontaneous than in structured coaching or mentoring programs, providing incredibly valuable learning opportunities.
Like Hogwarts, CoPs can provide a magical space for their members to
safely progress through the four stages of competence:
• Unconscious incompetence: You’re completely unaware of how much you need to learn or improve in a particular area, or you may be clueless about where to start. Ignorance is bliss and this first stage is the most comfortable to be in.
• Conscious incompetence : You become aware of your own incompetence. You recognize how much you need to improve, but you still don’t have the knowledge or skills to do so. It’s like realizing that you can’t turn your manager into a ferret, no matter how much you may want to. Your comfort level is suddenly at its worst.
• Conscious competence: You’ve acquired the knowledge and skills needed to perform a particular task or function, but you still need to actively
ǵ Detect! While difficult to spot, asking questions will help you detect CoPs and differentiate them from project teams.
ǵ Connect! Meet them where they’re at. Discuss their needs and obstacles. Observe the outputs and the dynamics.
ǵ Motivate! Encourage participation from leadership and communicate the benefits of informal learning. Tell the success stories.
think about how to apply these skills. It’s like casting a spell correctly but only after chanting the incantation and waving your wand around a few times.
• Unconscious competence: You’ve mastered a particular skill to the point where you can perform it automatically and without conscious effort. It’s like casting a spell without even thinking about it, like it’s second nature.
CoPs can be your Hogwarts, helping their members progress through those stages: from completely clueless (UC) to realizing they need to learn or improve (CI) to actively applying their knowledge and skills (CC) to eventually mastering these skills and performing them automatically (UC). By providing regular, ongoing opportunities for L&D, a space for support and encouragement and fostering a culture of trust and connection, CoPs help professionals acquire the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in their roles and advance their careers.
So how can organizations encourage the development of CoPs? One way is to actively promote and support existing ones. This can include providing dedicated time and resources for CoP activities, as well as recognizing and rewarding participation in these groups. As work from home becomes the new normal, CoPs can also exist virtually or in hybrid mode, bridging that gap between those employees who may not meet each other often in real life.
The benefits of CoPs go beyond individual learning and have a significant impact on the overall performance of the organization.
Another key success factor is leadership support. By demonstrating the value of CoPs and encouraging participation, leaders feed into a culture of continuous learning
Some of us are lone learners: Those who prefer to work from home, prepare ahead and go at our own pace without distractions from others. Others are social learners. For all of us though, learning and change can only happen if we feel safe to try and fail. So here is the secret ingredient of the secret sauce: To fully reap the benefits of participating in CoPs, learners need personalized learning! Wizards in the making won’t all flourish in the same space and under the same conditions.
In a 100-student graduate leadership seminar at a North American university, we actively encouraged students to choose a CoP to support their learning. Some chose virtual-only groups, others preferred in-person meetings. Several belonged to more than one CoP while others chose a more passive approach and asked to be integrated instead of choosing themselves.
Taibi Kahler showed in his research and his work with NASA astronauts
how the right environment profoundly impacts individual performance. If we are left to gravitate toward CoPs that fit our preferences, we flourish. If we are forced into a CoP that does not fit the way we need to learn and work, we slowly disengage, or worse, sabotage.
Using the Process Communication Model® (PCM) matrix of environmental preferences (see Figure 1) helped the pedagogical team tailor CoPs to individual preferences. Who belongs to more than one CoP? Who prefers virtual get-togethers? Who actively participates and who stays in the shadows? Evaluation questionnaires filled out at the end of the semester reported
92% satisfaction with using CoPs as a learning support, even for those who experienced conflicts. Yes, there can be conflicts at Hogwarts!
CoPs are a highly effective way to offer learners a sense of belonging and connection, which helps to build confidence and motivation. These relationships can be particularly valuable for newer or less experienced employees, who may feel more isolated or uncertain in their roles, much like firstyear students at Hogwarts.
By actively promoting and supporting these communities to meet the needs of different teams and individuals, organizations can encourage the development of strong CoPs that drive performance and success.
Stephanie Baron, ABD, spent years studying CoPs from police forces to pharmacists, software engineers and even elementary school teachers. She trains executives and corporate coaches and trainers on their path to becoming wizards. Email Stephanie.
CoPs are a highly effective way to offer learners a sense of belonging and connection.
Digital blended training is an emerging modality with a lot of potential. We have all experienced the challenges and limitations of in-person, online and virtual training. Digital blended training allows for the flexibility of online training while also leveraging the engagement of live events. However, it is not enough to take your existing training and simply repackage it in a new modality.
At The Center for Leadership Studies, we rebuilt our flagship course natively in the digital blended modality. Using a learning platform, we created an experiential course that utilizes social and collaborative elements in addition to live virtual sessions to keep learners engaged over several weeks of training. The social learning elements allow learners to connect and engage with their peers at their own convenience by reading each other’s insights and commenting or liking each other’s responses to the training content. It is these social elements that have been the key to long-term engagement while delivering learning that can be consumed in the flow of work
This approach to digital blended training creates an environment where learners can interact with their peers and engage with the training content at their own pace, taking time to reflect before coming back to share their insights. This prolonged engagement with the training content facilitates greater understanding and retention.
Over the past year, we have gathered data on our digital blended training to determine strengths and weaknesses. This data allows us to refine our approach and create more immersive experiences moving forward. The purpose of collecting this data is to identify which learning elements create the most interactions.
In addition, by comparing engagement levels between instances of a specific learning element, we can also use this data to extrapolate some best practices in crafting content. It’s not enough to simply look at numbers to determine engagement (quantity); we must also consider the effort and time investment required from the learner for each interaction (quality). As the digital blended modality continues to grow and evolve, utilizing data in this way will be a key differentiator that will allow organizations to continue to improve their content and engagement.
The following learning elements are organized in order, starting with the items that received the most consistent engagement down to the items that received less interaction in comparison.
Videos have long been a tried-and-true method of delivering content to remote learners, and this is in many ways still the case with digital blended learning. Requiring little effort from the learner, it can be a go-to element for the one-way transfer of information. Our data reflects consistently high views with videos throughout the learning experience in comparison to other learning elements.
Best Practices:
Use a variety of video genres to avoid overuse and learner fatigue. Consider using case studies, motion graphics, direct-to-camera, interviews and more to keep the delivery fresh and interesting.
Find a balance between static text and videos so that learners don’t get bored with either format.
Add summaries for each video so that when revisiting content, learners don’t have to replay the video to remember the key points.
Use submission assignments where it counts. Because they require more effort from the learner, it’s important not to overuse submission assignments and risk lower participation. Instead, use them in high-impact learning moments to capture insightful learner responses.
Use public submissions when possible, to allow learners to see each other’s submissions.
If asking participants to be critical of themselves, use private submissions to ensure privacy and honesty.
Provide multiple ways for a learner to submit their response. For example, allowing both written and video submissions.
Submission assignments are an opportunity to check learner knowledge in a variety of creative ways. Learners can submit completed handouts, videos, text responses and much more. Then they can also view and engage with their peers’ submissions. Our data found that submission assignments had high participation. This is especially significant given that submission assignments require more effort from the learner by asking them to take what they have learned or their experiences and provide their own reflections and insights.
Effective live sessions are a critical part of digital blended training as they are the learner’s opportunity to interact with a facilitator who is a content expert. However, they also present the biggest scheduling challenge and time commitment for the learner for a single sitting. Our data found that live sessions fell around the middle of participation in comparison with other learning elements. However, the opportunity for learners to interact with a facilitator and ask questions is invaluable.
Live sessions need to be impactful. Use them in places where the
This ranking reflects the engagement levels between digital blended learning elements from our data, from most interactions to least interactions, while also taking into account the quality of those interactions.
learning is critical and can be greatly enhanced by a facilitated activity.
If possible, be consistent with the time and day of the week the live sessions occur so that they are easier for learners to keep track of.
Allow time for Q&A segments. This is your learners’ opportunity to make sure they are understanding the content they have learned so far, both from the live session and from the digital platform.
Provide a pre-recorded option for learners to view afterward if they are unable to attend the live session so that they can still engage with the rest of the course.
Discussion questions offer an opportunity to gather learner responses in a familiar, forum format. It’s easy for participants to like and reply to each other’s responses and learn from each other. Our data reflected moderate participation in discussion questions. They were used frequently throughout the course, giving participants opportunities to pick and choose where they wanted to engage further.
Best Practices:
Ask open-ended questions that elicit long, thoughtful responses.
Don’t use discussion questions to ask questions with a “correct” answer. You don’t want everyone’s responses to a discussion question to be the same.
Rather than requiring participants to answer all discussion questions, give them the flexibility to respond to the ones that resonate with them.
Polls are a low-effort interaction for learners to share basic information about themselves and their perspectives.
In comparison to other learning elements, polls fell on the lower end of participation. However, they were still useful in gathering at-a-glance takeaways on learners’ reactions to key content.
Best Practices:
When asking an open-ended question, follow up with a discussion question to allow learners to share more.
Consider what you would want to know about your cohort as a learner and craft polls around eliciting those answers.
Make sure feedback provides the “why” behind the correct response to facilitate better understanding.
One last best practice that can be applied to all of the previous learning elements is the use of a moderator, facilitator or learning community coordinator who can drive engagement and interaction with participants throughout the digital portion of the course. By interacting with discussion questions, submission assignments and more, they can tag specific learners, highlight themes and make connections unique to each cohort.
Quizzes provide opportunities to check learners’ knowledge and provide feedback on critical content. Quizzes were not a widely used element in our digital blended course, as we found submission assignments often provided more insight into participants’ understanding. However, quizzes can be very useful in course-corrected participants if you don’t have other opportunities for feedback from a content expert, such as a facilitator, moderator or learning community coordinator throughout the course.
Best Practices:
Use quizzes to check knowledge on key content, but be careful not to overuse them when other learning elements that enable more social interaction might be a better fit.
Consider allowing for multiple attempts when testing challenging content.
The digital blended modality allows organizations to provide training to individuals who might otherwise be missed due to travel costs, scheduling difficulties, lack of time and other challenges that hinder professional development. Creating engaging content that learners can access within the flow of work and at their own pace increases the reach and accessibility of your training.
Rather than falling back on the best practices for online or virtual training, it’s important to look at digital blended as its own unique modality and play to its strengths. Consider how you can take your existing content and completely revisit it in a way that not only embraces the modality but also accommodates the new ways of working that this modality represents — a flexible, individualized, hybrid experience.
It’s a difficult choice, right? Well … maybe for some more than others.
Pets and spouses face stiff competition from mobile technology, according to a survey by SimpleTexting. Approximately 40% of people would rather be separated from their dogs and cats than give up
their smartphones. However, pets are still doing better than significant others, as 42% of millennials would rather be separated from their better half than their silicon sidekick.
Smartphones are more than just pocket computers. They’re extensions of our identities — windows through which we experience the world. Your smartphone knows you better than your BFF (are the kids still saying BFF?). It has your photos, bank records, personal messages and search history. According to Statista, 83% of the global population owns a smartphone. That’s 6.5 billion people who can access information, consume media and take a selfie behind the wheel of a car whenever they want.
Mobile phones became ubiquitous in the early 2000s. The Blackberry craze hit its peak in 2006. The iPhone dropped a year later and has defined the hardware space ever since. Learning and development (L&D) has been struggling to figure out where these devices fit within our practices for more than 15 years.
While mobile tech is relatively new, the challenge L&D faces is not. In fact, it’s the same issue the industry has with most digital innovations, from the internet and social media to virtual reality and artificial intelligence. We often try to force new
tools to fit within outdated paradigms. The advent of the learning management system (LMS) in the early 2000s didn’t transform learning. The classroom just went online. The popularization of mobile devices didn’t result in the reimagining of digital learning. The LMS just added a native app and started referring to the same old catalog of courses as “mobile learning.”
So, if mobile learning isn’t about completing LMS courses on smartphones, then what is it?
Mobile learning isn’t about technology. It’s not about content. It’s about expectations. It’s about behaviors. It’s about equity.
Consumer technology sets the digital bar. TikTok, Google Maps, YouTube and Wikipedia show people what’s possible today. Platforms like these have established new behaviors for finding, consuming, analyzing, applying and sharing information. This is true for the workplace too. Mobile learning isn’t about L&D’s ability to make courses that play correctly on phones. It’s about L&D’s understanding of and ability to adapt to tech-driven changes.
Consider a retailer with employees who work across a variety of roles and locations, including:
◦ Store associates.
◦ Distribution center workers.
◦ Delivery drivers.
◦ Contact center agents.
◦ Corporate office workers.
◦ Remote employees.
These employees use different devices to do different kinds of work:
◦ Store associates use a point of sale (POS) system to run transactions.
◦ Distribution center workers and delivery drivers use handheld scanners to track inventory.
◦ Contact center agents use companyissued desktops to speak with customers.
◦ Corporate office workers and remote employees use a blend of companyissued and personal devices to collaborate on projects.
These employees know how easy it is to find information on Google, watch a video on YouTube and share their dancing skills on TikTok. But when they go to work, they suddenly can’t apply these digital behaviors on the job. Information lives behind walls. Content is long and boring. It takes seven clicks to watch a video in the LMS. And we wonder why people fail to engage in learning activities!
Every employee — regardless of role, location or tenure — deserves an equitable opportunity to do their best work. Unfortunately, when organizations fail to embrace a holistic approach to digital enablement, many people don’t get this opportunity. L&D must embrace this challenge. Of course, we have limited time and resources. It’s difficult-to-impossible to design a unique learning experience for every role. But rather than acquiesce to a one-size-fits-none reality, L&D must lean into prevailing digital behaviors. This means adopting a mobile-first approach to provide right-fit training and support to a diverse and distributed workforce.
This doesn’t mean people should always be required to access training via mobile devices. After all, many employees are not provided with devices. Not everyone wants to use their own smartphone for work. Some are banned from even looking at them on the job.
Adopting a mobile-first approach means making workplace learning
device-agnostic. There will still be circumstances that require a specific device for a specific activity. For example, a regulator may require employees to complete a designated online course that can only be accessed via desktop computer because it was developed in 2007. However, this must become the exception rather than the rule. Here are three aspects of mobile-first design to keep in mind:
The design. Responsive design must become table stakes in learning technology. This includes delivery platforms as well as authoring tools. You can’t assume which device an employee will use to access a resource over its lifespan. Your audience may use laptops today, but the operation may adopt mobile devices next year. Instead of redesigning volumes of content, instructional designers and developers must build for any device from the start. L&D must make responsive design a requirement during technology selection, even if it’s not required at that moment.
The time. Do you want to complete a 45-minute course on your smartphone? Of course not! That’s why microlearning is essential to a mobile-first strategy. All content — regardless of the intended device — must apply microlearning principles. Each content object must focus on one specific, measurable objective. It must be easily consumed in the time available. It must align with proven learning science. Microlearning makes skill development more accessible within the flow of work for even the most time-constrained employees.
The support. Performance support is a third essential consideration for a mobile-first approach. Employees need a consistent, reliable way to ask for help. This may come in
the form of a knowledge base, social feed or digital adoption tool. These resources must be designed for access on every internet-capable device within the workflow.
For example, Lowe’s retail associates use Zebra handheld devices to access information without leaving the store floor. They can quickly pull up product information to answer customer questions instead of walking away for a lengthy period to access a desktop computer in a back room. This mobile-first strategy boosts associate confidence and improves the customer experience.
The most powerful computers available to many employees are the ones in their pockets. Sadly, lots of companies still frown on the use of personal devices for work activities, including L&D. This risk aversion makes sense in a world rife with data privacy challenges. Plus, hourly employees are limited in their ability to complete work tasks while off the clock.
Nonetheless, an effective bring-yourown device (BYOD) policy offers substantial benefits. It reduces the information technology (IT) spend associated with deploying and maintaining company hardware. It shortens the learning curve by leveraging devices people already
know how to use. BYOD rapidly expands the organization’s reach and fosters equitable access to support resources. But to make BYOD possible, you must get past the red tape:
◦ Partner with IT to identify and resolve data security and privacy concerns related to learning delivery platforms.
◦ Work with legal to establish guidelines for personal device use, including activities permitted away from the workplace.
◦ Consider gating access to specific apps or learning activities for hourly employees to make sure they’re at their work locations and/or clocked in for their shifts.
◦ Determine the bandwidth requirements for all applications to ensure additional costs are not passed on to employees.
◦ Provide alternative access options for employees who do not own mobile devices or don’t want to use them for work purposes.
BYOD has enabled companies like MOL Group, a multinational oil and gas company with more than 2,000 service stations across Eastern Europe, to provide equitable development opportunities to their 15,000 workers. When given the option, 88% of their hosts chose to access training on personal devices.
Billie Eilish only watches “The Office” on her phone. That’s a silly piece of pop culture trivia that perfectly demonstrates the way the world now works. Smartphones have forever altered our relationships with technology, media and information. They enable us to solve complex problems and waste preposterous amounts of time. They set a new bar for convenience that the workplace fails to reach thanks to antiquated technology and legacy mindsets.
The purpose of modern L&D is to enable behavior change — the right support at the right time for the right person to solve the right problem. To accomplish this purpose, we must take inspiration from our everyday experience, lean into prevailing digital behaviors and offer equitable solutions that look and feel familiar to the people we support.
We may be 20 years late, but it’s finally time for L&D to find its place in a mobilefirst world.
JD Dillon has spent two decades working in operations and talent development with dynamic organizations, including Disney, Kaplan and AMC. A respected author and speaker, JD continues to apply his passion for helping people do their best work every day in his role as Axonify’s chief learning architect. His new book, “The Modern Learning Ecosystem,” is available at jdwroteabook.com. Email JD.
News about the metaverse feels polarized: The aficionados and the skeptics tend to speak the loudest. But the center, where the critical (and curious) mass lives and wonders, is where the most interesting conversations arise.
If you’re dwelling in this gray area, you might have questions like: What’s in the metaverse for learning and development (L&D)? Will the metaverse outlive other technologies that have come and gone? Will we really spend a significant portion of our lives there — and how fulfilling will that be?
If we follow the progression of the internet from its read-only beginnings (Web 1.0) through its read, write and social iteration (Web 2.0), it’s clear that the rising immersive internet (Web 3.0, home of the metaverse) is the newest evolution. And just as we’ve answered the carpe diem call to engage our team members, clients and community on social media, the time has come to meet them in the metaverse.
Having trouble picturing where the metaverse is headed? You’re not alone.
When a technology is new, it’s impossible to imagine how it will evolve. What we can anticipate is that the value of the metaverse will increase as more people join
As the network grows, metaverse technology will evolve through a recursive process, which “unearth[s] or create[s] new user behaviors” and innovations — just as social networks, streaming services and mobile apps evolved from our earliest web-surfing behaviors.
Recursiveness creates a powerful advantage for organizations — and their L&D partners. We don’t need to be passive spectators as the metaverse’s landscape, governance and purpose emerge. This is our moment to jump in
and build the foundations of a metaverse that aligns with values that matter to us.
The metaverse has much in common with real life: It’s “a shared, computergenerated world where people socialize, work, and play,” writes David Chalmers in his book, “Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy.” In that (often 3D) virtual space, we have a first-person “sensation of ‘being there,’” or a sense of presence, writes Jeremy Bailenson in his book, “Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do.”
We experience that sense of presence thanks to a consistent avatar through which we move, explore and interact in the metaverse. Our avatar might be realistic, stylized or completely fanciful. For example, a futuristic robot, a mythical creature or even a crustacean. Avatars offer benefits for inclusion as well, leveling the playing field for individuals living with different bodies and abilities. Technology strategist Mark van Rijmemam characterizes this opportunity as a “Cambrian explosion of identity.”
Organizations and brands also have consistent digital spaces, or digital twins, that duplicate or enhance their physical buildings. Major brands such as Gucci, Adidas, and Hyundai have created digital twins — as well as exciting experiences — in the metaverse. But organizations in a wide range of industries can benefit from the real-time state modeling digital twins offer. Digital twins allow us to prototype and test before implementing real-world
changes to production facilities, factory layouts, cities and ecosystems.
Digital twins offer a safe, authentic environment to practice hands-on, highstakes skills without harming people, property or relationships. Whether learners need to de-escalate an aggressive patient in a hospital setting or eliminate hazards in an industrial garage, they receive immediate, visceral feedback on their performance. And because a 3D environment and a sense of presence are more natural and intuitive than 2D screens, learners leave the experience with transferable skills — and retain them for the long term.
Full-body interactions in a 3D environment are incredibly effective for learning performance-based tasks — from fighting fires to de-escalating
a challenging customer. And thanks to spatial audio, movement tracking and voice analysis features in virtual reality (VR) headsets, metaverse learning experiences are incredibly adaptive and responsive to nuance. Situations unfold differently every time, demonstrating to learners how minute variations in their actions or tone of voice affect outcomes.
What’s most exciting about learning in the metaverse is that it allows you to increase access to learning, your industry and your organization. Inviting more people to meet you in your digital twin can help overcome the limitations of regions, mobility, access and physical ability.
If the first wave of remote work has opened a global talent pool for
organizations, the metaverse will broaden the reach of recruitment and skilling by orders of magnitude. For example, L&D and human resources (HR) might team up to meet candidates in our organization’s digital twin. There, candidates can not only tour our organization and learn about our industry, but also collect role-relevant skills — perhaps even complete a digital internship — and showcase their abilities during the recruitment process. Thanks to continuity and interoperability, HR can review candidates’ progress, achievements and — once hired — professional development.
That’s just one example of how organizations might put their digital twins — and other metaverse assets — to work. Our people are already imagining many more use cases. Recent data show that 52% of employees are interested in performing some of their work in the metaverse over the next year.
It’s the classic catch-22: Your learners need to practice, make mistakes and learn from their mistakes … yet your organization can’t afford any mistakes.
The metaverse can help! Within a digital twin of their worksites, learners respond to authentic on-the-job challenges, refine relevant skills and hone their response times.
The results? Speedy skill acquisition and increased retention.
Bailenson’s four criteria for immersive experiences worth creating can help you determine whether you’ve got a use case for learning in the metaverse. Here are a few examples:
Expensive: A digital twin of their worksite helps learners practice safe use of prohibitively expensive and hard-toreplace equipment — and (virtually) experience the high cost of errors.
Dangerous: In the metaverse, learners dodge a punch or put out a fire that feels real — then refine their moves and reaction times live. Thanks to in-world performance data, they can review their growth over time.
Impossible: Need learners to take on a different perspective — or move in a way that defies space and anatomy? In the metaverse, they can shrink to the size of a single cell to explore a blocked artery or manage multiple assembly lines through an octopus avatar.
Rare: Prepare learners for the unlikely by creating once-in-a-lifetime conditions (e.g., a global pandemic) that challenge them to model and test contingency plans.
With our constant focus on the future of work, L&D professionals are the perfect facilitators of the metaverse conversation. The following steps will help you gauge your organization’s needs and readiness:
Conduct informal research: Ask your people how they see themselves working, gathering and learning in a metaverse environment.
Ask your stakeholders about their views on the metaverse and whether, when and how your organization might leverage this rapidly evolving technology to:
⊲ Solve business challenges.
⊲ Meet clients where they are (or want to be).
⊲ Make your processes more human and inclusive.
⊲ Attract the next generation of employees and clients.
Review your learning needs.
⊲ Which — if any — learning experiences should be virtualized, and to what extent? (Bailenson’s four criteria make for a great guidepost).
⊲ Could learners benefit from the embodiment and sense of presence the metaverse offers?
Connect the dots: Moving a learning program to the metaverse requires a long-term investment. Maximize the return on investment of your metaverse learning strategy by building asset sharing into your plans.
L&D folks are the ultimate middlepeople: We speak the language of leaders, stakeholders, subject matter experts (SMEs) and learners — and we help them hear each other’s concerns. This ability to translate
whys, “what’s in it for me” (WIIFMs) and where we’re going makes us ideal hosts for the metaverse conversation. We have the power — and responsibility — to keep challenging our colleagues and leaders to create a metaverse presence.
To reap the benefits of the recursive effect — and the dividends of early adoption — organizations need to move into the metaverse quickly. That requires letting go of our long development runways for development and production — and layers of signoffs.
Michelle Klein, vice president of global business marketing at Meta, describes the “perfection fatigue” Gen Z users feel when presented with overworked, overly slick online content. To engage the next generation of learners, workers and creators, Klein encourages organizations to create a presence that is “more homey, less perfect, more real and more organic.”
It might feel uncomfortable putting a minimum viable product out there in the (virtual) world, but our audience wants to see our rougher drafts. They want to see — and connect with — the humans behind the organizations. If you’re not sure yet how that might look and feel, seek out metaverse experiences and explore what’s possible. You’ll find a wealth of adjacent inspiration from other individuals, organizations and fellow L&D professionals.
Tiffany Vojnovski is a learning evangelist and design thinking experience creator at SweetRush, where she shares her passion for learning solutions that support human growth and potential. Email Tiffany.
Though they’re still under construction, the following properties will make the metaverse a great home for L&D programs.
Interoperability: Unlike current gaming and social platforms, which trap our content and achievements within their “walled gardens,” the metaverse will allow us to bring our avatars, high scores and personal island paradises from one platform to another. Learners will be able to transfer and apply their skills, work histories, credentials, certifications and accomplishments from one organization to the next — without gating within learning management systems (LMSs) or learner experience platforms (LXPs).
Synchronicity: Metaverse interactions happen in real time, and objects, people and places respond and change as we interact with them. We learn by doing and receive immediate feedback.
Continuity: In the metaverse, we can change our style — even our avatars — but we remain the same person from one day to the next. Our relationships, achievements and identities grow and change with us for the ultimate adaptive learning experience.
Persistence: The metaverse is there even when we’re logged off. Our organizations’ digital twins remain open for business and practice to visitors all over the world, even when we’re fast asleep. Persistence also allows us to map virtual experiences to real-world spaces. Learners might discover learning experiences and challenges mapped to your physical campus or their own towns.
Digital and soft skills gaps have proven to be a persistent challenge for organizations worldwide, with the rapid pace of technological and societal change creating an ever-increasing need for continuous learning, training and upskilling. For this reason, role-based skills training has become a popular option for organizations that aim to close skills gaps and remain competitive in the global business landscape. A role-based training approach provides a tailored learning experience to employees, delivering hyper-relevant information based on their roles, responsibilities and job functions.
Role-based skills training can be delivered in a variety of ways, including through in-person, instructor-led training (ILT) sessions or virtual instructor-led training (VILT) conducted at a distance. Organizations that choose to deliver role-based training using either of these approaches have the option to maximize their impact by also utilizing custom eLearning. Custom eLearning provides a convenient, flexible and complementary method of reinforcing concepts and skills learned during live, role-based training sessions. It can give learners the ability to supplement their live training sessions with personalized eLearning modules they can both complete at their own pace and reference as needed.
In today’s fast-paced business environment, companies need to
continuously adapt and evolve their skills and knowledge to stay competitive. Unfortunately, global skills gaps continue to persist across industries, inhibiting productivity and threatening growth. In fact, 14 of the G20 countries could miss out on $11.5 trillion cumulative GDP growth due to skills gaps, and skills gaps are projected to cost U.S. businesses $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues by 2030. These skills gaps can be broken down broadly into two categories, both of which cost businesses tremendously: digital skills gaps and soft skills gaps.
Digital skills gaps refer to the gaps between the demand for and supply of workers with the digital skills sought by employers. In the recent past, digital skills have become much more niche and nuanced due to technology’s exponential evolution, with developments in augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things requiring workers to adapt and upskill every year to keep pace. According to Gartner, the number of skills required for a single job increases 10% annually.
As we continue through the age of Industry 4.0, these digital skills gaps remain alarmingly widespread (and far too often unaddressed). Three in four workers today don’t have the digital skills needed by businesses, yet only 28% of businesses are participating in
training programs. When it comes to the future of work, the problem only seems to increase. A study by Dell Technologies predicted that 85% of jobs in 2030 don’t yet exist, meaning that businesses that aren’t actively participating in continuous training and upskilling programs will be unprepared for a rapidly approaching future.
Digital skills are not the only type of skills that workers need to train and upskill to be prepared for the future of work. Soft skills, which refer to interpersonal and behavioral skills, are also needed for workers to thrive in their roles. These skills include time management, creativity, teamwork, empathy, emotional intelligence and problem-solving.
While many organizations often overlook soft skills when they develop and deliver training programs, research from the Stanford Research Center, the Carnegie Foundation, and Harvard University shows just how important soft skills are
Companies need to continuously adapt and evolve their skills to stay competitive.
for achieving individual and organizational goals. This research found that 85% of job success comes from well-developed soft skills, and just 15% of job success is a result of technical skills. In line with this, 89% of recruiters have stated that when a hire doesn’t work out, the cause is usually a lack of soft skills.
Additional research reveals that leading soft skills are requested four times more than leading hard skills in employer job postings, further emphasizing the importance of these competencies. Unfortunately, almost 75% of employers say they have a hard time finding candidates with the soft skills their companies need. In an effort to bridge both digital and soft skills gaps in the most effective and results-oriented manner possible, many companies have turned to role-based skills training as a solution.
Role-based skills training refers to training programs that are designed to teach specific skills and knowledge to employees based on their unique roles or job functions. Role-based skills training is not only focused on theoretical learning but also the practical application of learned skills. These types of training programs are aimed at improving the performance of both individual employees and teams. Role-based skills training programs frequently include a combination of technical skills and soft skills training, since both are critical components of on-the-job success.
Role-based training helps employees stay current with new technologies, industry trends and best practices, which in turn helps organizations stay competitive. This approach focuses on results and maximizes the value of an organization’s learning and development (L&D) investment, ensuring that workers have the skills, tools, knowledge and resources they need to not only perform their job but perform it in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
Oftentimes, organizations deliver rolebased training directly to employees through in-person ILT sessions or through live, VILT sessions. Each of
these methods has its own advantages and drawbacks, but what these two training methods do have in common is that their effects can be complemented and amplified by the development and delivery of customized eLearning
The use of eLearning has skyrocketed over the past two decades, with corporations increasing their use of eLearning by 900% in the last 16 years, and for good reason. eLearning itself has proven to be an efficient, cost-effective way to provide training and upskilling opportunities to workers. In fact, every dollar invested in online training results in a $30 increase in productivity, and eLearning typically takes 40% to 60% less employee time than learning in a traditional classroom setting.
eLearning provides flexibility and convenience, allowing learners to take courses at their own pace, from wherever they are. Given the shift to remote and hybrid work, eLearning is an exceptionally attractive option for companies that want to deliver training to dispersed team members.
Much of the eLearning that is readily available to organizations includes pre-developed, “off-the-shelf” courses and content. While these off-theshelf eLearning offerings are typically sufficient for providing basic or rudimentary digital or soft skills training, they do not create the enhanced impact that customized eLearning does.
Custom eLearning takes the value of eLearning one step further by taking into account the specific learning goals, needs and business objectives of an organization. This directly parallels instructor-led, role-based training by providing personalized learning centered on workers’ individual roles, responsibilities and functions. Custom eLearning allows workers to practice skills and test their knowledge after instructor-led training sessions have been delivered, giving them additional opportunities to perfect their skills.
Tailored quizzes and assessments can help workers learn auxiliary role-specific skills and ensure the efficacy of an organization’s role-based training efforts. With customized eLearning delivered in conjunction with role-based skills training sessions, organizations can inspire and encourage continuous learning that directly relates to employees’ daily work, improves performance and promotes adaptability.
Both digital and soft skills gaps continue to present problems for businesses around the world. These skills gaps are projected to cost the global economy trillions of dollars if left unchecked. With technology advancing at an exponential rate and societal shifts causing unprecedented change, organizations that want to innovate and thrive in the future must prioritize their training and upskilling efforts. Role-based skills training sessions are a great way for companies to help employees stay current with the latest technologies, industry trends and best practices.
Organizations that truly want to maximize the impact of (and return on) their L&D investments should amplify their role-based skills training with job-specific custom eLearning. Customized eLearning enhances rolebased training offerings by giving workers convenient and flexible modules that can be accessed at any time, from anywhere, all focused on employees’ individual job functions, responsibilities and expectations.
Phillip Carmichael, Jr., is a marketing assistant at Intellezy, where he performs research on the training industry, identifying trends and implementing strategies for growth. Email Phillip.
eLearning provides flexibility and convenience, allowing learners to take courses at their own pace, from wherever they are.
Traditional learning and development (L&D) in the workplace can be broken down into two overarching categories — performance skills and human skills. Performance skills are the technical competencies (or “hard skills”) directly related to the job function, while human skills are the interpersonal proficiencies (or “soft skills”) related to a person’s relational and/or transactional capacities to work within a group or team.
It’s not uncommon that these two aspects of L&D are viewed as separate and are given their distinct programs — think leadership development workshops versus technical training courses. Why are we building isolated training programs when it is the intersection of both the human and performance skills together (aka “HP”) in practice that achieves our business goals?
In the outdoor education (OE) sphere, programs are developed to push a group or team into situations that not only stretch their personal skills but also their teamwork, leadership and decision-making skills. For instance, whitewater rafting
or a high-ropes course — the purpose is to force teams through the stages of team development while also learning a new skill (and if done correctly, also having a fun and engaging experience).
can be applied anywhere, even the office. Think about what the structure of OE provides: a self-paced environment where participants sharpen and explore their communication/interpersonal proficiencies while also learning new outdoor skills in the process. Said differently, the standard outdoor education format creates a setting that develops both human skills and performance skills together.
Of course, building a ropes course right outside the office or traveling to a remote location for every training session isn’t realistic, nor is that likely interrelated with your business and training goals, but we can still take inspiration from the outdoor education ideals and look deeper at the underlying principles of the experiential learning cycle to adapt our own programs.
Although outdoor education techniques are commonly thought of as only applicable to things like ropes courses, rock walls or high adventure treks, the principles
The experiential learning cycle has four stages: experience, reflect, generalize and apply.
As amazing and impactful as experiential training tactics can be, cra fting these experiences is not a simple feat.
1. Experience: The cycle starts with an experience; a participant encounters a task or situation that challenges the individual to step outside their comfort zone to practice new skills, communicate and make decisions to complete an objective.
2. Reflect: After the experience is over, whether the objective was achieved or not, the individual reviews the challenge and examines the aspects of the encounter, finding the inconsistencies between their knowledge and understanding.
3. Generalize: The participant compares the experience to other challenges or objectives and then generalizes this relation between efforts and skills to a desired outcome.
4. Apply: Finally, the participant applies the concepts uncovered from the generalization(s) to experiment, putting into practice what has been learned.
Utilizing experiential learning in the workplace provides the potential for three major benefits:
1. Time efficiency: Training and practice sessions become dualpurpose (for both interpersonal and technical skills).
2. Instantaneous feedback: Participants learn by trying; experiencing firsthand allows for real-time feedback via communal, social learning.
3. Content retention: By playing an active role and engaging directly, a participant not only retains the learning objectives more effectively but also has more fun!
Here is an example of the experiential learning cycle in practice:
A customer service organization that handles technical customer problems is looking to create training programs that cover the technical information and interpersonal proficiencies to relay to customers. Using the experiential learning model, the organization creates a workshop series that splits employees into small groups and tasks
each to set up the technical product they support as if they were the end user. Through the process, they struggle and make small mistakes, but are quick to adjust to complete the setup. Through reflection, the group is able to recap what was easy or hard, what went well or not so well, what they learned from or taught one another, etc., for both technical and interpersonal skills and competencies.
Taking all these points, the group generalizes and predicts how what they learned may impact their potential next challenge (e.g., working with this technical product again or working within a team to communicate and make decisions). With all this information postexperience, reflection and generalization, the members of the group are more confident and prepared to apply these skills when working with their customers.
In this example, the organization provides a training environment that efficiently presents an opportunity for a participant to:
• Develop both human and performance skills simultaneously.
• Learn at a rapid pace by receiving real-time feedback through trial.
• Better retain training objectives by actively playing a role and being challenged through the session.
As amazing and impactful as experiential training tactics can be, crafting these experiences is not a simple feat. Curating opportunities that effectively draw on the experiential learning model and that are strategic and in line with business and training objectives can be more complicated than a simple presentation or online learning module.
To effectively implement experiential learning opportunities into your program, here are some tips to consider:
Create small additions: It is near impossible to take a full previous training program and adapt the entirety of the material into strictly experiential sessions. However, it is possible to amend and adapt portions of a program or create supplemental sessions. To expect to completely reinvent a current program into an experiential opportunity is unrealistic. Instead, take the time to assess what gaps your training plans currently have to find opportunities to
connect. For example, maybe you have a wonderful leadership development program and a robust technical learning series. Perhaps it would be beneficial to create an experiential workshop that can combine the practice of these skills to reinforce the topics discussed in those sessions and foster employee fellowship.
Keep it simple and practice facilitating: Providing these opportunities can be fun and a great way to have a “change of pace” within your L&D initiatives. Keep in mind that facilitating experiential programs can become extremely complex very quickly. One of the benefits of an experiential opportunity, of course, is having flexible and organic sessions. With that come scenarios and reflections that take unexpected turns. The spontaneity of the program can easily get out of hand: The challenge might be approached in ways that are out of the facilitators’ wheelhouse — or a debrief question during the reflection can open the door for answers that the facilitator is now unsure how to connect back to the objectives. Starting with small groups and small objectives, building confidence with facilitation and expanding slowly as facilitation skills increase is the fool-proof way to get your feet wet.
Design opportunities in sequence: As participants move from experience to experience, the objectives (and the necessary skills) should be tiered appropriately. We never want to set our participants up for failure; however,
we do want them to be challenged. Matching challenges and objectives to groups and the individuals within each group appropriately, we can create opportunities that build off what the group already knows while still allowing them to learn more. Opportunities with challenges that are too advanced or too simplistic will frustrate or bore the participants. To engage learners and allow them to struggle, it’s crucial to find challenges that have components that they have and have not quite yet mastered. Think of this as pushing a participant or group out of their comfort zone but not pushing them too far into their danger zone. Look for the right challenge for the right person.
Synchronous formatting: Experiential learning cannot be done without experience. Trying to create a canned
or pre-recorded experience is not the same as doing it live. Just as we know the difference between going to a concert in-person versus watching the recording afterward, much of the impact comes from the synchronous, in-person nature of the experience. To be adaptable and to meet the needs of the participants’ circumstances, facilitation should be live. This takes time and availability — things that many training departments are struggling to find.
Experiential learning is a wonderful framework to combine human and performance skills practice into one program, exercising the intersection of these two approaches. Within our traditional L&D programs, experiential opportunities are best used in conjunction with other training as an ideal option for reinforcing and tweaking both technical and interpersonal skills. Facilitating and guiding participants through dynamic learning challenges is not a simple skill, but over time and with practice, it can result in teams that are more confident and better able to address our strategic business needs.
Benji Wittman, MBA, is the support training and operations supervisor at Sweetwater Sound. Before stepping into the corporate training world, Benji was an outdoor educator and facilitator — using the basis of experiential learning to develop groups’ trust, planning, communication, problemsolving, leadership, self-esteem, decisionmaking and teamwork skills. Email Benji.
Cr eating experiences to challen ge and fa cilita te learning on an experiential basis is no t as simple as cr eating a “ one-siz e-fits-all” ex p erience. Ev er yo ne has their ow n st re ngths, we aknesses and ex periences that may af fe ct their response. An ex perience that is to o ea sy ma y be pe rc eiv ed as a wa st e of time or menial. On the cont ra ry, a challen ge that is to o difficult, or out of scope, may lo we r self-confidence and/or cause unnecessary discouragement. Ea ch per son will ha ve a dif fe re nt threshold fo r challen ge s outside their comfort zo ne. Challen ge s should be designed within this wind ow, ju st outside their comfort zo ne. With each ne w additional challen ge , the i ndividual and the te am continue to scale and gr ow
Experiential learning is a w onderful fram ew ork to combine human and perf ormance skills practice in to one pr ogram .MATCHING THE RIG HT CHALLENG E TO THE RIG HT PERSON TC H ING CHALLEN GE THE RI GH T
Now you can... ...welcome to WebVR!
We’re creating stunning, interactive WebVR, and now your learners can experience VR with or without a headset.
Introducing the SweetRush WebVR LMS Integration Tool (WebVR LIT)
Learner simply clicks a link and chooses to use a headset, or not.
Headset or desktop = the same experience. All analytics tracked and pushed to your LMS. Now you can engage all your learners!
no problem!
And thank you to our wonderful clients who stepped up to be early adopters!
Danielle Silver, Solution Architect danielle.silver@sweetrush.com
I love Virtual Reality, but I can’t scale it or validate it!
Geri preferred to blend into the background and not stand out among her peers. She had completed an undergraduate degree in business decades prior when the Selectric typewriter was a luxury. Gradually, her discomfort with everyday computer items — including using a mouse and employing keyboard shortcuts — disrupted the entire newhire class due to the extra assistance she required. When the trainer turned to their supervisor for help, the answer was to “go the extra mile,” a not-so-thinly-veiled admonition to “try harder.”
Despite all efforts, the trainer fell behind schedule and was confronted with frustrated managers demanding an explanation for the delay. By the end of the weeklong contact center onboarding, learners were hastened into the live environment with substandard results and fingers pointing at the trainer, who felt demoralized and incompetent despite advanced education and several years of experience in learning and development (L&D). Ultimately, Geri left the company before
the end of her second week, assumably feeling the same.
This was not Geri’s fault, for the organization had failed to properly assess her skill set during the hiring process. Nor was the trainer entirely responsible, as the organization had failed to provide the trainer with the proper support and resources to navigate the situation. What happened was an aggregate of neurodiversity, the differences between individuals’ perception and interaction with their environment, and digital literacy, the level of knowledge or awareness related to emerging tools and trends in technology. Geri’s circumstances were further compounded as she was competing with digital natives, those raised in the modern era who hold the advantage of familiarity with the latest devices and their use.
Some leaders may dismiss the need to factor digital literacy
NEURODIVERSITY AND DIGITAL ILLITERACY ARE NOT COMING — THEY ARE HERE.
into L&D programs, holding the opinion that learners will either understand and move forward or not and move on, yet the implications are far-reaching. The COVID-19 pandemic — and resulting chaos forcing industry and academia into the virtual realm — found many in unchartered territory, facing evolving mediums of communication overnight with little-to-no preparation while businesses struggled to maintain production within this altered model. Meanwhile, The Great Resignation led scores of employees to pursue new careers or resume their education — often after an absence of decades — only to struggle upon discovering the systems used were beyond their grasp.
Encountering this, trainers find themselves at an impasse, striving toward universal objectives while organizations, especially those desperate to fill entry-level positions, do not properly evaluate competencies as a routine component of hiring — while still expecting every participant to receive appropriate resources and
reinforcement to deliver a return on their investment of time and money. Solutions entail the creative application of research driving various cognitive and learning theories, including those rooted in special education and spectrum disorders.
In Geri’s case, she demonstrated a weak central coherence theory, the skill of summarizing components in context. Psychologist Uta Frith advanced this idea in her book, “Autism: Explaining the Enigma,” describing how some contending with autism may see hundreds of individual people but not recognize that together they form a crowd. Whether or not Geri had a specific diagnosis, she could not link singular elements sequentially. Even rudimentary tasks most take for granted such as highlighting specific fields to cut, copy and paste elsewhere eluded her despite constant reminders and reviews. Potentially problematic for inclusively categorizing multiple steps, chronological checklists are nonetheless advantageous for itemization.
Scaffolding closes the gap between what students can perform independently and what they require closer guidance to accomplish, a phenomenon known as the zone of proximal development.
For example: Two students in a vocational automotive program learn to change spark plugs. The first student demonstrates a decent grasp of the procedure, so the instructor quizzes them in real time as they go step-by-step, decreasing involvement as performance increases. The second student may require more intensive intervention, so the instructor responds with diagrams and other visuals, observing where the scaffold can be further “strengthened” in the form of additional support or “reduced” by scaling back the current level of assistance in response to growing proficiency.
The desired outcome is the same for both: increased knowledge for independent application.
Consider this example of a line-by-line checklist for scheduling appointments:
1. Click on [Client].
2. Enter client last and first name in the appropriate fields.
3. Verify client information (email address, phone number, etc.).
4. Click the calendar icon.
5. Select desired date.
6. Select desired time.
7. Confirm services client requesting (oil change, vehicle inspection, etc.).
8. Confirm year, make and model of vehicle.
9. Offer appointment reminder text, email or telephone call.
10. Thank the client and end call.
At first glance, this appears effective; but participants can still have difficulty successively bridging individual constructs. The challenge is in explaining the procedure to neurodiverse audiences while avoiding boredom or withdrawal among those who acquire information at an accelerated rate. To mitigate this, trainers can engage in the three stages of demonstration, scaffolding and assessment.
Some trainers, particularly those new to the profession, place too much credence in the demonstration phase, failing to understand why this alone is insufficient for bringing performance up to standard. Demonstrations, used appropriately, are introductions that present topical overviews. A basketball coach teaching a three-point shot may choose to execute one themselves, explaining each move as they progress through stance, aim and release but does not reasonably expect those observing to immediately display mastery.
For this reason, the initial presentation is concise yet brief, conveying the general
idea with a shifting focus to specifics when individual practice begins. In the example of scheduling appointments, the trainer can share their screen view and walk through the routine number-by-number, aware that reinforcement will occur organically through practice and repetition.
Scaffolding involves constructing learning frameworks that are gradually removed with growing proficiency. It is an inverse relationship between assistance and ability: The greater the improvement, the lower the interaction between trainers and learners. Successful scaffolding capitalizes on the neocortex’s constant search for pattern recognition that builds central coherence and enables learners to synthesize individual pieces cohesively.
When asked for assistance, trainers reinforce central coherence by taking learners to the step prior to where they stopped, encouraging them to reference notes and job aids. Per the example below, steps 1 and 2 are withdrawn, and the scaffold shifts its starting point to step 3:
1. Click on [Client].
2. Enter the client last and first name in the appropriate fields.
3. Verify client information (email address, phone number, etc.) (1. RESUME HERE).
4. Click the calendar icon (2. IF STOPPED HERE).
5. Select desired date.
6. Select desired time.
7. Confirm which services client requesting (oil change, vehicle inspection, etc.).
8. Confirm year, make and model of vehicle.
9. Offer appointment reminder text, email or telephone call.
10. Thank the client and end call.
This works well because the most recent successful attempt is still fresh in the learner’s mind as they bridge the knowledge gap, avoiding any perception of punishment by starting completely over and reinforcing central coherence when they select the correct action to further connections.
tools work well for virtual sessions but are also effective in brick-and-mortar settings if the extra space is unavailable, affording comfortable anonymity with the chat function used for instructions and feedback while also accommodating colleagues with hearing impairments or other communication disorders.
Properly administered, assessments operate as a natural progression of scaffolding, the final step toward task independence. Additionally, assessments are a referendum of course rigor to indicate where adjustments can be made to improve. Trainers can then reflect on their proficiencies, observing if the learner’s comprehension parallels efforts invested in curriculum, structure and differentiated instruction.
Research and discussion surrounding differentiated instruction often overlooks how these principles and techniques can effectively assess the unique needs of neurodiverse populations. This results in a broad, sweeping approach that inaccurately indicates failure and disproportionately skews outcomes. Unfortunately, most organizations — especially in the forprofit sectors — do not have the luxury of differentiating assessments. This should not, however, mandate standardized testing nor imply that every learner requires extensive adaptation.
In workforce settings, privacy is effective for differentiating assessments in both live and remote classrooms. Given the adverse emotions those encountering unfamiliar technology may experience, testing — especially in front of others — might be received unfavorably. Using a separate area for testing can alleviate anxiety, allowing learners to stay on task without the concern of being observed by others. The breakout room functions in Zoom, Microsoft Teams and other collaboration
There is a significant need to align content with individual learning needs while maintaining the interest of those who excel. Simultaneously, trainers are at a considerable disadvantage since many of the processes and means to accommodate variances in cognition and aptitude — including individual education plans (IEPs) or adaptive technologies — are often absent or unavailable in workforce settings. Meanwhile, organizations continue leaning with increasing pressure on trainers to do more with less, driving outputs with fewer resources.
Those who have yet to plan for these learners are behind the curve, depriving themselves of a talent pool of substantial numbers which competitors are aggressively recruiting. Neurodiversity and digital illiteracy are not coming — they are here. In the workforce, universities and the community, neurodiversity and digital illiteracy are increasingly prevalent. It is incumbent for trainers to prepare for these evolving trends, receive these learners and facilitate a seamless transition that welcomes them into organizational cultures.
Wade Siers has over 30 years’ experience in learning and development across numerous industries. He holds a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Liberty University and is completing his first book, “Training for Beginners: A Career Transition Guide” for release in Summer 2023. Email Wade.
TRAINERS ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE SINCE MANY OF THE PROCESSES AND MEANS TO ACCOMMODATE VARIANCES IN COGNITION AND APTITUDE ARE OFTEN UNAVAILABLE IN WORKFORCE SETTINGS.
behaviors that help reach company goals, you can fill the gaps in your sales training.
Choosing the correct KPIs results in higher profits. The management consulting firm ZS surveyed 200 middle managers about their success with KPIs, and found that market leaders weren’t tracking more KPIs than market laggards but were tracking different and more complex APIs
By Russ SharerMeasuring sales performance in any company is relatively easy. You simply track the number of new deals, renewals, margins and revenue. These are well-understood key performance indicators (KPIs) for any sales team, and it’s been repeatedly demonstrated that those organizations that focus on KPIs get better results.
Given that KPIs are essential to the sales team and management, are you tracking the right ones to achieve your business goals? When management sets the appropriate KPIs, the sales team better understands how their performance is measured and where to focus their time and energy. KPIs also identify weaknesses and direct your sales training’s focus. Choosing strategic KPIs provides a barometer for individual sales performance and helps
determine the sales tools, training and compensation required.
KPIs also need to adapt to suit changing market conditions and business goals. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have had to cope with supply chain disruptions that affect customer buying decisions. Inflation is having an impact on budgets. Buyers are better educated and more proactive, directly affecting how to approach selling.
The result? Your KPIs may no longer be relevant. Sales leaders may fail to adjust KPIs, which affects sales performance. Uncertainty can also result in too many KPIs, too few or ineffective KPIs.
Choosing the right KPIs depends on your industry, business model, goals and other factors. Once you identify those key
High-growth companies tend to curate their APIs, identifying the factors most relevant to business objectives. Approximately half of the companies ZS surveyed also started tracking new KPIs, aligning desired sales results with business objectives and abandoning KPIs that were no longer relevant. Their research showed that high-growth organizations revisited their KPIs regularly, whether annually or quarterly, and adjusted them as needed.
It also pays to use calculated KPIs (i.e., metrics with multiple data points that can be shaped into a single metric). Calculated KPIs can give you a better indication of performance and enable better-informed decision-making. For example, ZS reports that 50% of high-growth companies look beyond customer spending and track customer lifetime value, including purchase frequency and longevity factors.
In curating KPIs, choose KPIs that connect sales to the organization. Sharing the data with other departments provides greater transparency and a perspective on overall performance.
If you try to track too much, then vital information may be lost.
Shared KPIs also translate into shared values. For example, tracking leads by source and pipeline velocity becomes a shared value for sales and marketing.
In his book, “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business,” Charles Duhigg describes the idea of keystone habits; small changes in one area that lead to other positive changes, so you continue to move toward your objectives. You can apply the same principle to KPIs. Choose a small number of keystone KPIs that push the sales team to become more effective sales professionals.
Tracking the source of new business opportunities can be an excellent keystone KPI. Finding leads is a constant struggle but tracking the number of referrals is relatively easy and lowcost to track and can be an essential keystone KPI. Leads from existing customers are a measure of customer satisfaction, plus referrals also tend to be easier to close since the referral is the result of a trusted relationship. Selling to existing customers is the easiest way to increase revenue. That’s why customer service performance indicators should be keystone KPIs.
Many companies find customer satisfaction hard to measure. Questions like “How satisfied are you?” don’t yield reliable results since unhappy customers are more likely to respond. Bad experiences are more likely to trigger a review than good experiences. Existing client engagement, churn rates and customer lifetime value are more reliable metrics to gauge customer satisfaction.
Measuring the amount of time spent with customers can be a keystone KPI. More customer interaction yields more sales. A McKinsey study shows that top sales performers spend 40-50% of their
In the past, I worked for a company that measured the average length of a customer support call as a KPI for customer service. Many of the calls were related to the sales of new units.
Executive management became concerned about response time to customer calls, so they instructed the director of customer support to reduce call times, which was meant to reduce wait times for customers in the queue. The new mandate became a KPI, and call times dropped within a week.
Offsetting the reduction in customer call times was an increase in the number of units returned with “no trouble found.” It turns out, to keep call times shorter, the support team spent less time trying to troubleshoot customer issues and instructed more of them to return the units, and support would ship out a replacement.
The new KPI addressed the immediate concern — reducing customer call time — but the business suffered as a result. This practice was clearly an issue of choosing the wrong KPI and not including the right KPI training to fill the gap.
KPI means assessing how well your salespeople communicate with prospects and customers, creating personal connections that foster trust and promote collaboration. The keystone KPI is how well a sales rep can articulate the unique value they bring to a prospect. Sales management can grade conversational intelligence as low, average or high and match those grades against performance metrics such as win rates, the understanding of each sales rep and time-to-close.
Should your sales team’s focus be outbound on new customers or inbound on current accounts? When we ask sales managers how much time they would spend as a sales rep on new business, the average was 70%. When we ask salespeople how much time they should spend on new business, the response average was 20%, although in practice, that often translates to 5-10%. The discrepancy is for two reasons:
1. The way sales reps are compensated: The cost of losing an account usually outweighs the incentive to win a new account.
2. Salespeople have more responsibilities and less support: Sales reports, proposals, internal meetings, data entry and other tasks consume more time. You can ask your sales team to spend more time prospecting, but does that mean they can spend less time updating the customer relationship management (CRM) system or creating reports?
time communicating with customers by phone, teleconference or in person, while salespeople in laggard companies averaged closer to 16%. The study also found that sales reps who spent more time with customers were four times more productive than the lowestproducing salespeople.
More specifically, you want to gauge the amount of time spent gathering what Maddy Osman of Cirrus Insight calls “conversational intelligence.” Measuring conversational intelligence as a keystone
If you plan to use prospecting as a keystone KPI, consider whether you need to revise compensation models and make it easier for reps to spend more time on outbound calls.
Any sales leader must manage the sales funnel and the sales process. A smooth funnel drives sales results, but most keystone KPIs focus on the sales process. For example, do marketing-
generated leads have a much lower conversion rate than sales-generated leads? If opportunities fail to move through the pipeline, is there an activity or content that can move those prospects to close?
Tracking the number of opportunities against the average value of your salespeople at each step of the sales process provides a pretty good barometer to determine if there are enough qualified prospects in the pipeline and if reps are on track to reach their targets. It also tells you about the performance of individual salespeople. If you compare your best sales performer, your worst performer and your average performer, you can establish a median close rate as well as individual benchmarks. Even a small improvement in close rates will significantly impact the bottom line.
Applying metrics to the sales funnel reveals where sales reps are faltering. For example, you may want to develop KPIs for win/loss rates, length of the sales cycle, upsell/cross-sell rates, the average cost per lead, conversion rates, etc. See Figure 1.
Your keystone KPIs should be based on those behaviors you want to improve. Once you identify the gaps in your team’s sales performance, you can determine what to measure to establish KPIs.
It’s tempting to inventory every gap in the sales process and develop KPIs to
improve performance. But if you try to track too much, then vital information may be lost. The sales team will also be frustrated trying to prioritize the right activities to meet objectives. When it comes to KPIs, less is more. Keep the total number of KPIs to no more than eight and keep your meeting scorecard or dashboard as simple as possible.
Training your sales team to fill the gaps in your sales process will promote greater business agility and increased sales. You can adapt your training and KPIs to meet changing business needs while helping your sales staff succeed
by providing the right tools. KPIs are an essential tool to guide staff coaching and decision-making. Applying well-defined KPIs with better training to achieve them increases staff satisfaction as well as performance, reducing staff turnover. Matching coaching and training to fill the gaps in sales performance makes business objectives more tangible for the sales team while giving them the tools they need to succeed.
Russ Sharer is the chief sales officer at The Brooks Group and co-author of the book “Agile and Resilient: Sales Leadership for a New Normal.” Email Russ.
Even a small improvement in close rates will significantly impact the bottom line.
In a franchised restaurant business, comprehensive, engaging and effective training is critical to success. At American Dairy Queen Corporation (ADQ), the curriculum team is responsible for training DQ® franchise owners’ employees who work at approximately 5,000 restaurants in the U.S. and Canada.
Recently, the ADQ curriculum team was tasked with developing and implementing more efficient and effective restaurant manager candidate training that met three goals:
• Increase knowledge proficiency.
• Build upon continuous improvement skills.
• Apply knowledge and skills in restaurants to improve business outcomes.
The ADQ curriculum team used two distinct methodologies to reach desired outcomes: Norman Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and a flipped classroom delivery model.
During curriculum development, instructional designers wrote training objectives to align with external industry standards, including the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation. Each training objective was categorized to a specific level of rigor using Norman
Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. Depth of Knowledge levels range from one through four, with one being the least rigorous and four being the most rigorous. For example, level one training objectives direct a learner to recall content while level four training objectives require a learner to apply knowledge and engage in critical thinking.
In a standard classroom format, instructors teach content and assume application and understanding occur. Instructors then build upon knowledge, skills and abilities and further assume knowledge is retained.
By incorporating the Depth of Knowledge framework, the program was built with the final goals for manager candidate performance in mind. Identifying the more rigorous content and skills allowed instructors to focus on those training objectives and allocate more time for manager candidates to reach knowledge and skill proficiency as well as apply both in-restaurant.
By contrast, the flipped classroom delivery model enables more flexibility for practice and application, especially in a virtual training environment, and puts learning in the hands of manager candidates. Content review and application happen prior to meeting with manager candidates. Instructorled time focuses on answering questions uncovered during content review and minimizing knowledge and skill gaps identified during the application stage. This empowers instructors to focus on discussing the content previously reviewed, refining learnings, analyzing and identifying areas for improvement in restaurants and applying knowledge and skills to pursue continuous improvement. Instructors then assess if more interventions or content reviews are needed and address them in real time.
Setting clear expectations, communicating frequently and providing ongoing support to manager candidates throughout the program proved critical to success.
THE FLIPPED CLASSROOM DELIVERY MODEL ENABLES MORE FLEXIBILITY FOR PRACTICE AND APPLICATION, AND PUTS LEARNING IN THE HANDS OF MANAGER CANDIDATES.
Expectations were set and frequently communicated to manager candidates. Assignments were explained clearly to ensure manager candidates knew what was expected and when. Assignments were reiterated at the end of each instructor-led training and on a virtual discussion board. Manager candidates were expected to review content, apply weekly learning assignments and present analysis and best practices during the next virtual class.
Manager candidates were also expected to take ownership of a capstone project where they applied what they learned during weekly assignments to identify an opportunity in their restaurants and develop and implement a plan to improve their practices.
Manager candidates understood that they owned their learning journey.
In addition to instructors, in-restaurant coaches were assigned to manager candidates to increase learning throughout the program.
During virtual classroom sessions, instructors and coaches refined manager candidates’ learnings through activities and discussion. They asked manager candidates questions to empower learning, share best practices and analyze opportunities in restaurants.
To support the capstone project, instructors and coaches encouraged manager candidates to practice higherlevel skills such as strategic thinking and problem-solving, identifying business opportunities in restaurants and developing and implementing plans to address them. This coaching included empowering manager candidates to identify business opportunities, develop action plans, execute action plans using training and communication, anticipate and remove obstacles, collect relevant data and analyze results to develop future plans. The intent behind the project was to build continuous improvement skills in manager candidates that could be replicated upon program completion.
At the outset, the program had three primary goals: increase knowledge proficiency, build upon continuousimprovement skills and apply knowledge and skills in restaurants to improve business outcomes. All three goals were met and many unintended benefits made the program even more compelling.
All manager candidates passed knowledge proficiency at 85% or higher and all shared that they were equipped to apply the continuous improvement skills they learned in DQ® restaurants where they worked. As a result of the capstone projects, all manager candidates felt confident in their abilities to improve their restaurants and reach business outcomes. The capstone projects completed during the program led to impressive business outcomes, including, but not limited to, a 2% decrease in food waste cost and a 28% increase in sales using more targeted suggestive-selling techniques.
The ADQ curriculum team found success in using Depth of Knowledge and the flipped classroom model to deliver manager candidate training more successfully and to meet its three primary training goals. Additionally, ADQ instructors and manager candidates realized unintended benefits that made training more efficient and effective.
Here are some unintended benefits the curriculum team experienced using Depth of Knowledge and the flipped classroom model, both of which positively affected instructors, manager candidates and the program overall:
• Empowered manager candidates to learn content when and where it was convenient for them.
• Increased manager candidates’ knowledge through instructorled discussions and peer learning.
• Focused class time for the benefit of manager candidates’ learning.
• Offered more opportunities for instructors to ensure manager candidates’ understanding.
• Removed barriers of physical meeting locations, travel costs and time by moving to virtual meetings in the flipped classroom model.
• Developed critical-thinking skills in manager candidates as defined in Depth of Knowledge level four.
• Deepened the application of knowledge and skills more efficiently and effectively, which led to more compelling business outcomes.
Based on the success of the program, the ADQ curriculum team will continue using Depth of Knowledge and the flipped classroom model in its manager candidate training programs to pursue knowledge proficiency, continuous improvement and in-restaurant applications that meet and exceed business outcomes.
Julie Halloff is the senior instructional designer at American Dairy Queen Corporation and Mikaela Faust is the LMS virtual learning specialist, at American Dairy Queen Corporation. Email the authors.
ALL MANAGER CANDIDATES FELT CONFIDENT IN THEIR ABILITIES TO IMPROVE THEIR RESTAURANTS AND REACH BUSINESS OUTCOMES.
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Enjoying a long and satisfying career requires that we bring the best of who we are and what we can do to our work day-in and day-out. Unfortunately, for many, this is becoming increasingly challenging due to growing levels of stress and burnout What many believed would be a postCOVID-19 blip has turned into a persistent and pervasive workplace condition that’s taking a toll on individuals and organizations alike.
While your job may not require the life-and-death decision-making of the emergency workers I spoke with, you likely endure considerable and compounding stress and tension of your own. But, if the job “is what it is” and likely can’t morph much to mitigate burnout, what can change?
I recently spoke at a conference of emergency professionals — the people we count on to maintain public health and safety. These people are exceptionally well-trained and prepared to handle the stress associated with navigating high-stakes situations. When asked who was feeling burned out, very few hands remained in attendees’ laps. I immediately thought, “If these folks feel like this, the rest of us don’t stand a chance!”
During informal conversations with some of the people who raised their hands, I heard a common refrain: “The job is what it is and it’s not going to change.” And isn’t that the case for all of us? Most work is likely comprised of a variety of tasks that need to happen for the organization to meet customer, market and stakeholder needs. As a result, our ability to shift or mold any given job to reduce the emotional toll it takes is limited.
Much good and well-meaning advice is directed toward the individual — the very person who may lack the emotional resources in the moment to be able to engage in breathing, meditation, journaling or mindfulness recommendations. Talent management professionals and leaders are better equipped to facilitate the positive, energizing and inspiring feelings required to turn down the heat a bit and balance the exhaustion and depletion of burnout.
The job might not change, but an individual’s capacity to perform the job with greater ease can. And that’s a talent management professional’s superpower: Identifying and addressing skills gaps. Offering tools and resources to lessen the cognitive load and effort required to deliver results. And making sure that obstacles to success are removed, as ongoing obstructions can be among the most debilitating and stressful situations employees endure.
Feelings of fulfillment, meaning and deep satisfaction can be inspired in many ways. For instance, passing
along a stakeholder’s compliment or connecting the dots between an employee’s output and customer outcomes. One of the emergency professionals shared how much she appreciated it when others in the system shared the outcomes of an incident she supported. Even if the outcome wasn’t what anyone had hoped for, it reminded her of the difference that she and the team could make together.
Relationships can play a significant role in helping us rebound from work stress. In fact, longitudinal research conducted by Harvard finds that connection is linked to happiness and longevity. This creates a compelling case for insisting upon inclusion, building a sense of belonging and enabling authentic and meaningful relationships between leaders and employees and among all team members.
Burnout is no passing trend. The emotional and physical labor associated with doing the jobs required of today’s dynamic, fast-paced, ever-changing workplace will likely only escalate, introducing new levels of stress. Since in many cases the job “is what it is,” we must envision what we can do to support employees and ourselves to turn down the heat on burnout. That’s the only way to ensure that our careers shine bright for some time to come.
Julie Winkle Giulioni is the author of the bestselling books, “Promotions Are SO Yesterday” and “Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go.” Email Julie.
CONNECTION IS LINKED TO HAPPINESS AND LONGEVITY.
Determine the leadership solutions your organization needs the most. Download the Aligning KPIs to Organizational Goals template to get started.
Are you one of those people who has been ignoring the metaverse because it sounds like some trendy technology that has no relevance to you? Well, I’m writing this article to compel you to open your mind to the metaverse movement, because it’s happening. It’s time to stop dabbling and get serious about virtual reality (VR) and metaverse-based learning, and to follow the examples of companies like Bank of America, Takeda, Novartis and Bristol Myers Squibb, who have strategic plans and serious budget commitments to scale VR across the enterprise.
and that they need to make changes, but they either have no time for it, don’t know where to start or struggle to make it a habit. The metaverse offers an opportunity for learning and development (L&D) to facilitate self-care.
In the metaverse, you appear as an avatar. Unlike current VR experiences, the metaverse can be a social environment that enhances connections and reduces loneliness. Social isolation is not only emotionally challenging, but it can increase the risk of plaques in your carotid arteries and increase the chances of death from a heart attack or stroke. The metaverse can help to prevent this.
In the metaverse, experiences of awe may engage five processes-shifts in neurophysiology: a diminished focus on the self, increased prosocial relationality, greater social integration and a heightened sense of meaningthat benefit well-being. Awe is a complex and transformative emotion that has been hypothesized to be an intervention for depression. Awe can also induce a form of mindfulness that enhances well-being. The metaverse is an ideal context in which awe can be induced through experiences of art that sweep people off their feet.
While you may be familiar with learning in the metaverse or VR, you may be wondering what this has to do with wellbeing. Apart from stress and anxiety reduction improving learning by opening the brain to new information, there’s a new kind of learning that will be fundamental to your organization, and it’s called reskilling for well-being.
When I work with organizations, most people know that they’re burned out
I experienced firsthand how powerful it can be to choose your avatar. In general, people think of the “self” as fixed, but adopting the identity of an avatar may increase empathy and agency and this may also change the way in which people make decisions or exercise their creativity. In fact, people may make decisions that run counter to their own. This may also promote selfexpression which can impact mortality by decreasing the risk of cancer or heart disease. Avatars can be anonymous and attend voluntary group seminars on well-being or mental health without being recognized.
Also, prior studies have demonstrated that choosing an ideal avatar can increase physical activity in people who are overweight.
One of the remarkable features of the metaverse is that your capabilities are not limited as they are in the material world. As a result, you can float, levitate, and experience non-ordinary states of consciousness. If non-ordinary states of consciousness like mindfulness or transcendental meditation can protect your genes or reduce inflammation, the metaverse could also offer this promising opportunity for study.
Health and well-being in the metaverse is anything but science fiction. It is a unique context in which learning selfcare and mental and physical wellbeing can be enhanced.
Dr. Srini Pillay is the CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He is a Harvard trained psychiatrist and neuroscientist, on the Consortium for Learning Innovation at McKinsey & Company, and author of “Tinker Dabble Doodle Try.” Srini is also cofounder, chief medical officer and chief learning officer of Reulay Email Srini.
THE METAVERSE OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR L&D TO FACILITATE SELF-CARE.
The managed learning services segment of the corporate training market has long been a thriving one. Comprised of four primary service categories — content development, training administration, training delivery and learning technology management — managed learning services “are an important part of the training industry because they supplement efforts that companies cannot perform internally,” according to Training Industry’s “The State of the Learning Services Market” report
While the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant disruption, as some companies reduced their training spend or put their initiatives on pause altogether, managed learning service providers have continued to adapt to evolving workforce needs, bringing new and innovative offerings to the (now, mostly virtual) table.
This approach seems to be working. The managed learning services market continues to see growth year over year, with Training Industry research finding that the size of the learning services market increased by 6% in 2021, by 5.7% in 2022 and by 5.5% in 2023.
NIIT is somewhat of a household name in managed learning services, operating for nearly 25 years as an end-to-end provider of services that include content and curriculum design, learning administration, learning delivery, strategic sourcing and learning technology, in addition to its business consulting and advisory services.
Within the past five or six years, however, the company has accelerated its growth even further, says Sailesh Lalla, NIIT’s
chief business officer, by establishing trusted partnerships with clients that continue to look to NIIT for their various training and workforce needs.
While NIIT has long been a leader in the managed learning services market, the company has no plans of slowing down any time soon: NIIT closed two deals in the fourth quarter of 2022 — the acquisition of St. Charles Consulting Group and an investment in KNOLSKAPE, an experiential training provider — which support the company’s exciting plans for the future.
Even as growth continues, NIIT recognizes that there’s still room to innovate and bring even more value to customers, Lalla says. NIIT has been able to support these efforts by investing in new capabilities and in opportunities to tap into new markets.
Their $2 million investment in KNOLSKAPE in October 2022, was a “key initiative in NIIT’s endeavor to constantly bring more value to customers with a focus on talent transformation and workplace skills,” according to the press release. The funds contributed to KNOLSKAPE’s total funding round of $4 million.
Lalla says that KNOLSKAPE stood out in the market for its “interesting set of capabilities and products around immersive learning and talent development.” While still in its early, “scaling up” phases as a company, KNOLSKAPE is growing rapidly. Its solutions are designed to tackle some of the most pressing business problems
today, from digital transformation to change management and frontline leadership effectiveness. NIIT’s investment will help the company “continue on its journey to innovation,” Lalla shares.
One month later, NIIT announced the acquisition of St. Charles Consulting Group. With the acquisition, NIIT gained access to an elite clientele of professional services companies and large business consulting firms, which Lalla says has helped NIIT scale its consulting and advisory practice “almost overnight.”
By taking a stake in an up-andcoming experimental training provider, and expanding its clientele, NIIT is positioned for continued business growth in the future.
A lot has changed since NIIT was founded, in 1981. But the managed learning services giant has proved it has what it takes to adapt to evolving workforce needs. Looking ahead, Lalla says that NIIT will continue to invest in training companies that are pushing the industry forward.
Ultimately, NIIT’s recent business growth shows that companies are doubling down on supporting and developing their most valuable asset to date: Their people.
Sarah Gallo, CPTM, is a senior editor at Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of “The Business of Learning,” the Training Industry podcast. Email Sarah.
Anders Pink , the company behind the award-winning content curation tool, announced its partnership with Go1, the world leader in online learning, with over 3.5 million learners. Anders Pink made the move in order to better support user demand and bring relevant content to learners who need it most.
Degreed, the world-class learning program marketplace that facilitates and streamlines workforce training, expanded its library of coding boot camps with the addition of Nucamp’s top-rated offerings. Nucamp offers a flexible learning schedule to information technology (IT) professionals, with courses that are designed to meet organizations’ needs for affordable and comprehensive web development training.
Skillsoft , the leading platform for transformative learning experiences, announced its content partnership with GoodHabitz, the Netherlandsbased provider of online skills training and professional development. The partnership is projected to provide learners with a more comprehensive library of content to support mental health and well-being in the workplace.
Cognota, the leading provider of operations software for learning and development, partnered with Complete Learning Solutions, the leading consulting services provider for learning and performance management systems in the APAC region. The partnership will enable Complete Learning’s users to consolidate disparate tools and better measure the impact of learning.
Sponge, the leading digital learning provider that offers innovative and engaging learning solutions to drive behavioral change, kicked off the near year by announcing a refresh of its Skill Pills content library. The refresh brings a new look and feel to the library’s offerings (more than 400 off-the-shelf microlearning courses).
GoCoach, the leading coach marketplace and learning experience platform (LXP) for mid-market and enterprise customers, announced a series of product developments,
including a company rebrand as SkillCycle, as well as an overhaul of its user experience. SkillCycle brings talent, learning and career development together into one ecosystem to better personalize learning.
(ISC)², the world’s largest nonprofit association of certified cybersecurity professionals, announced that its Certified in Cybersecurity Exam will be available in five additional languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German and Spanish. The expanded certification will enable (ISC)² to better meet its pledge to certify one million cybersecurity professionals.
Ingenuiti , the leader in custom learning and translation services, teamed with POWERformance to redesign the POWERformance POWER Sales Coaching program. The new design is intended to make learning assets more accessible, increase learner comprehension with bite-size learning and enable sales managers to level up the way they provide feedback.
GSoft, the leading software company focused on improving the employee experience, announced its acquisition of Didacte, a Quebec-City-based company that offers a learning management solution to support and optimize professional development. The acquisition is projected to support GSoft’s mission of crafting leading products that make work simpler, kinder and faster.
Infosec Institute, the leading provider of cybersecurity education, announced the launch of its new security awareness training series, “Work Bytes.” The series, produced for Infosec IQ (the security awareness and training platform aimed at reducing cyber risk) is aimed at improving learner retention through memorable and comedic storylines.
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