The Application of Learning | May/June 2020 by Training Industry Magazine

M A Y/J U N E 2 0 2 0

THE

APPLICATION OF LEARNING

USING GAMES TO ENCOURAGE ACTION | 16 Learning Experiences that Lighten the Cognitive Load

HARNESSING INFORMAL LEARNING | 28 Demonstrating the Value of On-the-job Learning

THE LEARNING TRANSFER ELEPHANT | 36 Why Successful Training Hinges on Learning Transfer

BUSINESS

PERSPECTIVES

MANAGING

WORLD-CLASS

TRAINING

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KEN TAYLOR

FROM THE EDITOR

CONSIDER APPLICATION WHEN REDEFINING YOUR TRAINING PROGRAMS

Before jumping into this edition of Training Industry Magazine, I hope this magazine finds you and yours well, and you are adjusting to the new normal. Our team produced this issue of the magazine from their homes, which has taught us quite a bit about why we do things the way we do at Training Industry.

64% OF LEARNING LEADERS ARE REPURPOSING THEIR EXISTING TRAINING PROGRAMS TO SOME EXTENT.

During times of dramatic change – like we are experiencing now – we must reevaluate our current business processes and consider how we may need to adapt to move forward. This edition of Training Industry Magazine assembles a collection of perspectives on how we can employ strategies to ensure new skills are appropriately and accurately applied on the job. While we’re still uncertain of the longterm impact of the pandemic on the training industry, now is a great time to reevaluate your training offerings to ensure they are driving the intended behavior change in your employees. Our most recent study evaluating the confidence levels of training managers to execute on their current learning and development (L&D) plans revealed that only 36% of learning leaders are confident with the training plans in place. However, 59% of respondents said they are reworking their current plan or lack confidence in executing it. Further, we found that 64% of these learning leaders are repurposing their existing training programs to

some extent. That reality affords us the opportunity to take stock of what programs we have in place and why we are offering the training the way we are. To start, we must evaluate the business reasons a training program exists in the first place and identify the business problems the program is designed to solve. Programs that impact the most important company goals or are in place to reduce company risk should be our top priority. In the current climate, we have new guidelines on how we deliver our programs, how we practice new skills, how we coach and mentor employees, and how we reinforce learning over time. These new restrictions will need to account for the possibility of less travel and continued social distancing requirements. While the future of training remains uncertain, we hope this edition of Training Industry Magazine provides you with a few ideas to consider as you define your company’s new training normal. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the evolution of your training programs. As always, please send along any suggestions for us to consider in future editions of Training Industry Magazine. Ken Taylor is president and editorin-chief of Training Industry, Inc. Email Ken.

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CO N T E N TS

TA B L E O F VOLUME 13

ISSUE 4

MAY/JUNE 2020

FEATURES

16 USING GAMES TO ENCOURAGE ACTION

28 HARNESSING INFORMAL LEARNING

36 THE LEARNING TRANSFER ELEPHANT

ALIGNING GAMES AND ACTIVITIES TO CONTEXT TO ENCOURAGE ACTION AND LIGHTEN THE LOAD By Jill Martine

Create practical, meaningful learning experiences that encourage learners to take action.

20 24

LEARN ON THE JOB: A SPACED LEARNING APPROACH By L. Nicole Edwards, MBA, MSN, CTT+, RN-BC

Devote the time to develop your workforce with continuous and spaced-interval learning.

PRACTICE DOESN’T MAKE PERFECT … PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: AN IN-DEPTH STUDY OF VIRTUAL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT By Sam Shriver, Ed.D.

Reinforcement matters, and it matters most to learners who truly aspire to develop their skills.

28 32 36 40 45

HARNESSING INFORMAL LEARNING

By Dr. Jim Kirkpatrick and Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick

Maximize the value of on-the-job learning by demonstrating its impact on the business.

THE BACKBONE OF THE SMART FACTORY: A NETWORK OF IMMERSIVE TRAINING By Laura Bohnert and Johann Cohut

Intelligent manufacturing may not be as far away as we imagined.

THE LEARNING TRANSFER ELEPHANT By Paul Matthews

It’s time to address the elephant in the room and focus on the application of learning.

5 WAYS TO MAXIMIZE YOUR ON-THE-JOB TRAINING PROGRAM By Emily Blancato and Shelley Stanley

Formalize your on-the-job training to measure its efficacy and increase employee satisfaction.

ARE KEYSTONE HABITS THE MAGIC BULLET FOR TRAINING OUTCOMES? By Lori Preston

Let’s take learning off its pedestal and put it in service of habit building.

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IN THIS ISSUE

THOUGHT LEADERS

3 9 11 13

FROM THE EDITOR By Ken Taylor

Learning leaders should consider application as they redefine their learning programs.

GUEST EDITOR

By Julie Kirsch, CPTM, LDSS

Learning leaders must match ever-changing skill needs with organizational strategy.

SCIENCE OF LEARNING By Srini Pillay, M.D.

To achieve behavior change, employees will need guidance into an uncertain future.

PERFORMANCE MATTERS By Julie Winkle Giulioni

15 53 55 57

Establish a clear connection between learning and what matters most to your organization.

BUILDING LEADERS

By Sam Shriver and Marshall Goldsmith

Gain the active support of managers to inspire behavior change.

WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NEXT IN TECH By Stella Lee, Ph.D.

Encourage the development of agile mindsets in your learners with hackathons.

SECRETS OF SOURCING By Doug Harward

Learn how to transform a good training organization into a great training organization.

LEARNER MINDSET

By Michelle Eggleston Schwartz

Change fuels innovation, and ingenuity helps organizations evolve amid disruption.

INFO EXCHANGE

CASEBOOK

GLOBAL OUTLOOK

Discover how one organization scaled their training initiative with immersive learning.

Cross-cultural training is oftentimes the right solution to the wrong problem.

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Given the current climate, online learning is becoming increasingly important.

Keep up with the latest in the training industry by reading news from the last quarter.

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ABOUT OUR TEAM

STAFF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Doug Harward dharward@trainingindustry.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Sarah Gallo sgallo@trainingindustry.com

DESIGNER Kellie Blackburn kblackburn@trainingindustry.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF & PRESIDENT Ken Taylor ktaylor@trainingindustry.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Hope Williams hwilliams@trainingindustry.com

DESIGNER Alyssa Alheid aalheid@trainingindustry.com

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MANAGING EDITOR, DIGITAL Taryn Oesch toesch@trainingindustry.com

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EDITORIAL BOARD JUDI BADER, CPTM Senior Director of Learning Arbyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Restaurant Group

MATTHEW S. PRAGER, CPTM Executive Training Manager U.S. Government

MICHAEL CANNON, M.ED. Senior Director, Head of Learning & Development Red Hat

MARC RAMOS Vice President, Chief Learning Officer Sitecore KELLY RIDER Vice President, L&D Content Strategy & Experience SAP Learning & Development

MEGAN CASADOS Director of Training DISH

DR. SYDNEY SAVION General Manager, Learning Air New Zealand

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 Talent Management Officer, Office of Business Process Integration Veterans Benefits Administration

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IN P H I L LY SINC E 1891

O NL I NE SI NCE 1 9 9 6 Drexel University is a top-ranked, urban research university, located in the heart of Philadelphia. Known as an academic center of excellence, entrepreneurship, and innovation, Drexel was a pioneer in technology-enhanced education for working adults. Today, nearly two decades after launching its first online courses, this transformative university offers more than 150 online degree and certificate programs including: EDD IN EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT MS IN HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT MS IN LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ONLINE PROGRAMS FROM DREXEL

O N L I NE. D R EX EL . E D U / T RA I N I N G I N D U S T RY

JULIE KIRSCH, CPTM, LDSS

GUEST EDITOR

TALENT DEVELOPMENT’S ANSWER TO UPSKILLING AND RESKILLING FOR THE FUTURE The World Economic Forum’s 2018 Future of Jobs Report states, “Business leaders across all industries and regions will increasingly be called upon to formulate a comprehensive workforce ready to meet the challenges of this new era of accelerating change and innovation.” This means that up to 75 million jobs could be shifted by 2022, meaning nearly half of our workforce will need reskilling to fill approximately 20,000 vacant U.S. job roles.

Development strategies for an employee must be considered on an individual level; each employee has different goals, as well as unique skill sets that benefit the company. Before our workforce approaches us to develop new skills, it’s important for us to think about how they fit into the organization and – more importantly – to understand what their current capabilities are. Here are four actionable tips for developing your organization’s new upskilling initiative:

However, only 30% have received training in the last year to get closer to that target. Business leaders are going to have to meet employees at their point of need and implement strategies that create opportunities for them to build on the skills for the future.

MANY FUTURE SKILLS ARE NOT FINITE; WE’RE LEARNING TOGETHER AS WE GO.

Amazon recently announced it will spend $700 million to retrain and develop its employees over the next six years, as workers with capabilities such as adaptability, technological literacy and people-management are in high demand. What is your business going to do about this talent shortage, and how will your talent development strategy meet the demands of the modern business landscape? How do we adequately prepare tomorrow’s workforce while retraining the hundreds of millions of employees whose roles are quickly evolving? The skills gap may be closed by looking internally and exploring ways to make upskilling a priority for future success in your organization. Afterall, upskilling and reskilling significantly increase retention and engagement.

• Meet with organizational leadership regarding strategy, retention and succession plans. Discuss how talent development and leadership can play a significant role in employee retention and organizational growth. Discuss the skills your leaders believe to be the most critical, and then do research on capabilities needed for success in the future of work. Do an assessment of the current roles with your human resources partners; who has these capabilities today? Who can grow them? • Evaluate your current curriculum. Is it flexible enough to withstand change? Are there growth-related activities, events and opportunities? Conduct an inventory on the resources you

have. Will they support the context and content needed to upskill and reskill? What other tools do you need in your toolkit? Where easily deliver and make them available to your people? • Propose solutions to address the talent shortage issue in the future of our workforce. Discuss shortterm solutions to address these immediately through your current programming. Recommend a longterm strategy that incorporates personal development plans, jobspecific upskilling programs, and other talent and retention efforts. • Upskilling and reskilling focuses less on teaching currently needed skills and more on developing mindsets and behaviors that enable employees to perform well in tasks not yet defined. Many future skills are not finite; we’re learning together as we go. We know future skills can and will change as the market changes and technology continues to expand. Our responsibility as talent professionals is to match these ever-changing skills with our organizational strategy. At Calibre CPA, PLLC., Julie Kirsch leads the creation of core talent development processes and provides thought leadership in identifying, designing, implementing and facilitating developmental learning solutions to provide support for organizational transformation. Email Julie.

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SRINI PIL LAY, M.D.

SCIENCE OF LEARNING

HOW WILL YOU MANAGE BEHAVIOR CHANGE CHALLENGES POST COVID-19? Many people underestimate the challenges associated with behavior change after the COVID-19 pandemic. This change is unprecedented because the pandemic poses specific challenges. 1. Post-pandemic change activates the conflict detector in the brain: Change activates the conflict detector in the brain – causing cognitive dissonance. Following the pandemic, this activation will already be high. Any kind of change will be a challenge because the brain is uneasy. For example, you might find it is harder to get employees to adjust to being part of a multifunctional team. The usual reframing – i.e., “Look at this as an opportunity” – does not work. When anxiety is reflexive, as it is in a pandemic, reframing increases amygdala activation rather than decreases as it does when anxiety is less instinctual. Remember this if your people feel disinclined to look on the bright side. Try starting meetings with mindfulness or virtual reality. Both of these techniques get to the root of anxiety quickly, enabling change to happen more easily. You should also talk to your team about purpose. This activates the brain’s reward system and quells anxiety by increasing your sense of wellbeing. Learning leaders should attend mindfulness trainings, as well as reflection sessions on meaning and purpose. 2. COVID-19 may make it impossible to dream up a new future: During a lockdown, cabin fever may cause fear of the passage

of time – called chronophobia. If also traumatized by the death of someone close to you or extreme fear of becoming ill, the future may seem impossible to imagine. When you have a “sense of foreshortened future,” there is nothing to change for. This, combined with stress turning on your habit pathways, keeps you stuck in the moment. To combat this frozen attitude, change will require constant guidance into a defined future. Start by assessing what is blocking possibilities, and then design an intervention targeting the cause – e.g., feeling lost or burnt out. Change is taxing on the team, so it is important to know what future you are committed to.

CHANGE WILL REQUIRE CONSTANT GUIDANCE INTO A DEFINED FUTURE. People who expect to revert to normal will also be resistant to change. Their brains may not register any payoffs for change. Research demonstrates that, under such circumstances, the left frontal cortex has to activate much more for change to occur. This will only happen if the brain buys into the advantages of change. You may need to spell this out for people – repeatedly. Learning leaders should determine the possible thinking of any given individual (using a scale like the possibility index). There should also be resources for people with post-traumatic stress disorder, such as mental health screenings to foster a future-oriented mindset.

3. Resilience may hold you back: Everyone needs to be resilient. But if resilience is your goal, change may be impossible. In the same way a float will not allow you to surf waves, simply protecting yourself may cause you to lack flexibility. Sometimes you need to dance in disorder. This is a form of change that requires letting go of traditional forms of control called antifragility. Instead of relying on an external means of control, you turn inward to facilitate change. Imagination, simulation and imitation guide you. Test your imagination, and try out a few scenarios. However, it’s not just about going through the motions. You must be deeply in your imagination, and if scenario planning, you must be able to vividly walk through different situations. Learning leaders should help leaders develop imagination biologically, as well as have an antifragile plan for reintegration and reinvention. During and after the pandemic, don’t try to encourage change by simply spelling out what needs to be done. Use mindfulness, conversations about meaning and purpose, possibility thinking, and imagination to guide yourself and your team to change. Dr. Srini Pillay is the CEO of  NeuroBusiness  Group. He is also assistant professor (part-time) at Harvard Medical School and teaches in the executive education programs at Harvard Business School and Duke CE. Email Srini.

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JULIE WINKLE GIULIONI

PERFORMANCE MATTERS

LINE OF SIGHT: THE ULTIMATE LEARNING TRANSFER STRATEGY

Time. Budget. Attention. They’re all in short supply in organizations today – particularly when it comes to learning. As a result, learning and development (L&D) professionals are under constant pressure to develop and execute increasingly strategic approaches to drive behavior change and improve performance. These approaches involve generating innovative content, creating engaging instructional activities, and leveraging cutting-edge technology that enables access to development. And yet, sustainable success may depend less upon these outward features and more on a subtle but essential strategy: Line of sight. In the context of L&D, line of sight refers to articulated and acknowledged alignment between what people are learning and critical business results and challenges. Line of sight is key to both the transfer of new skills, and practices to the job and the leadership support required for success. LINE UP YOUR SUPPORT Line of sight is a powerful tool, because it cultivates support throughout the organization. A clear connection between learning and what matters most to the organization is important to employees who must decide how they deploy their limited energy, time and focus. Articulating line of sight inspires employees to actively engage. This clear connection also inspires managers to move from mere permission to passionate support of training. Even

the busiest managers prioritize what they anticipate will deliver results. Connecting the dots back to business needs will inspire managers to do activities that ensure knowledge transfer: encouraging participation, following up on the learning, coaching, and providing recognition. Line of sight is a powerful motivator for executives. Senior leadership supports, resources and enables what’s vital to drive results. When learning’s connection to business results is made equally clear, it too receives attention and support. DRAW THE LINE Line of sight boils down to connecting the dots between your development efforts and what matters most to your organization. Consider it a backwardengineered narrative that offers a business case for your efforts. Begin by taking advantage of the natural line of sight that already exists as topline goals cascade throughout the organization to divisions, departments, teams and individuals. Then, work backward from your learning objectives or performance outcomes – clearly articulating how people will behave and perform differently – to how these behaviors contribute to business results. For example, if your organization wants to enhance sales enablement, you can draw a line of sight from listening skills to a greater understanding of customer needs to increase the number of prospective customers in the pipeline to increasing sales.

THE BOTTOM LINE As a learning professional, you know you don’t have the time to offer training for training’s sake. We must externalize this thought process, because for line of sight to succeed, it must be highly visible to others. Consider the following to demonstrate the necessity of your training.

ARTICULATING LINE OF SIGHT INSPIRES EMPLOYEES TO ACTIVELY ENGAGE. • Write course descriptions that place business goals and challenges front and center. • Amend learning outcomes to include the clause, “So employees will be able to…,” and overtly reference goals. • Speak with executives exclusively about business impact rather than learning activities or technologies. • Reference business goals and challenges as context and use them as a focus for practice. Business outcomes may seem far removed from your current learning effort, but only until you consciously connect the dots and create line of sight. Julie Winkle Giulioni has 25 years of experience working with organizations worldwide to improve performance through learning. Email Julie.

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SAM SHRIVER & MARSHALL GOLDSMITH

BUILDING LEADERS

BEHAVIOR CHANGE IS A FUNCTION OF PROACTIVE POSITIONING AND IMMEDIATE REINFORCEMENT We are officially throwing caution to the wind and thinking outside of the box we usually confine ourselves in when drafting this column. Ready for “old school interactive”? Here you go: 1. Take out a piece of paper and a writing instrument of your choice. Put the following words across the top of the page from left to right – before, during, after. 2. Next, write the following words on the far left-hand side of the page from top to bottom in the following order – manager, trainer, trainee. 3. Finally, draw horizontal and vertical lines between the terms (four lines that create nine boxes). If you followed along, you have in front of you the framework that researchers Mary Broad and John Newstrom first offered in the late 1980s – referred to as the transfer matrix. Simply stated, it remains the most useful tool we have for learning professionals who are genuinely dedicated to driving targeted behavior change. The absence of evidence that connected learning to behavior change inspired the impetus for Broad and Newstrom’s research. Even though nearly everyone in the extended training community was familiar with Donald Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation, there was only one that received any true attention – Level 1: Reaction. In theory, if you did a good job raising a trainee’s level of knowledge and understanding

during training, that newfound insight could be applied on the job to produce results. Unfortunately, there were few indications or outcomes anyone could identify to confirm that was the case – Level 3: Behavior. Broad and Newstrom asked two questions that remain relevant to this day: 1. What role-time combination (from our matrix) is currently responsible for training transfer (outcomes focused on behavior change)? 2. What role-time combinations should be responsible for training transfer?

IF YOU ASPIRE TO CHANGE BEHAVIOR, YOU NEED TO ELICIT THE ACTIVE SUPPORT OF MANAGERS. The primary answer to the first question shocked no one but was troubling nonetheless. The trainer during training was the big winner. Furthermore, most of us would suggest we have direct experience with that reality. You may have facilitated a learning experience that went very well. There was active participation, deep reflection and the well-intended articulation by participants of their plans to apply what they learned back on the job. As you close out the experience, you do your best to reinforce all that and encourage those in attendance to contact you with post-program comments, questions,

successes or setbacks. From that point, you get on with your life, and the learners get on with theirs. The answers to the second question were more evenly distributed throughout all nine role-time combinations, but the clear winners were the manager before and after training. A number of thoughtful studies have confirmed this reality. If you aspire to change the behavior of those attending training, you need to elicit the active support of nontraditional stakeholders, particularly the manager of the trainee. Consider for a moment how much more motivated and prepared learners would be if they met with their direct supervisor before training and: • Discovered the potential importance of what they were about to learn. • Had the supervisor schedule a post-training discussion to explore what they learned, how they plan to implement it and how the learning will impact productivity. It simply stands to reason that a welldesigned learning event – proactively positioned and immediately reinforced by a legitimate source of on-the-job influence – has the highest probability of yielding desirable behavior change. 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.

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ALIGNING TO CONTEXT

TO ENCOURAGE ACTION AND LIGHTEN THE LOAD BY JILL MARTINE

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SIMPLE CHANGES CAN PROVIDE PRACTICAL, MEANINGFUL LEARNING EXPERIENCES THAT ENCOURAGE ACTION AND LIGHTEN THE COGNITIVE LOAD.

raining requirements exist in every organization, but if you poll learners, they rarely describe these experiences as valuable. Training events are not meaningful when they are too complex, unrelated to intended outcomes, non-specific to job roles or delivered as a one-time event. In a world where every organization now functions as a media company, it is critical to support team members as they access data to make more informed decisions. Learning experiences should benefit employees and customers not only in orienting and familiarizing them with new products, services and processes but any time the learners need to engage with content. Fortunately, no training program has to be overhauled all at once. Simple changes to learning modes and activity types can provide practical, meaningful learning experiences that encourage action and lighten the cognitive load. To illustrate quick wins in improving learning experiences, explore these three scenarios encountered working on projects encompassing instructional design, change management and communication. Each example sets up a scenario that may be familiar to learning leaders, but if not, you will be able to connect and relate your learning programs to the experiences and tips to enable your organization to provide learning solutions that are learner-centric in both content and context.

Break Monotonous Lecture with a Game Imagine you are a new instructional designer, and your first project is to audit a four-week training program and suggest improvements. The learners are new employees who will process health claims and answer customer calls. A few challenges surface, but you can suggest a solution to improve just one lesson in the course for now.

Problem: Lack of empathy for the audience One area lacking in the training program is an understanding of the audience. This training program â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including four weeks of classroom instruction with little follow-up training â&#x20AC;&#x201C; places too much stress on the learner. They are also navigating a stressful role that requires workers to focus on processing claims while simultaneously responding to customer calls and complaints. They will have a quota of both claims and calls to fulfill each day once they are on the job, and that quota increases the longer they remain with the company. So, they not only have to enter information into systems correctly, they have to do it while unhappy customers yell at them and keep up with a required pace each day. The program primarily consists of lecture and slide decks with a large emphasis on quiz scores, contributing to a lack of engagement and ample stress.

Support change: Encourage rather than blame There is often a resistance to change among trainers and managers when it comes to longstanding programs. The best way to encourage change is to work to understand the

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motivations and needs of your trainers and managers as you do for your learners. Most trainers want to deliver meaningful and actionable learning experiences but run out of time, face budget constraints, struggle to deal with higher-level politics, or simply don’t know how to sift through and effectively transform years of content. Your best bet is to help them identify their strengths as trainers, content creators and managers rather than attacking their approach. Encourage them to share ideas, actively participate in changes and compliment them on what they are doing well.

Solution: Let’s play a game A good way to break up content in lengthy training programs is to focus on quick wins, which may come in the form of agile or iterative deliverables. When stress levels and expectations are high, the amount of content in a training program is insurmountable, and your managers are resistant to change, take one area of content and turn it into a familiar game that breaks up the monotony. For example, turn a boring quiz on medical coding terminology into a game of bingo. The game board includes medical coding term names. The trainer reads corresponding definitions, and learners see if they can correctly match names with definitions on their game board. Because the rules of bingo are simple and familiar, the learners have fun while confirming what they have learned but are not required to learn a new or complex game format. You may run into trainers and managers who resist this version of the game, because they believe it is too easy. Just focus on the goal: Get the learners to actively apply their knowledge in a stress-free manner. Rather than tricking them, build comfort and activate recall. In turn, familiarity and comfort with the material leads to improved customer interactions and fewer complaints to managers – even more critical in a highstress, sales-oriented environment.

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Encourage Practice in a Realistic Environment You are the instructional designer and developer on a consulting project, and your client is making the major switch from paper-based change requests to an online system accompanied with a mobile app. The online system has a great user interface and the screens are easy to navigate, so the client thinks screen video recordings are enough training support. You identify a few concerns and suggestions for improving the hands-on active learning experience.

Problem: The system is intuitive, but the process is not The problem sometimes gets lost in a perceived solution. In this case, because the supporting system is developed to be easy to use, the client disregards the complexity of submitting a change request and providing all required information. They want to point learners to videos that cover everything in the order in which the form appears on screen without accounting for the other steps in the process. If a learner is stuck on the third step but the only supporting content is a video without timestamps, they waste time, get frustrated and may make mistakes when they start to use the system.

Support change: Capitalize on momentum and success When an organization takes on a major technology initiative and begins to see how quality improves, you can focus on success and momentum to support learners in additional ways. When things are going well, you can remind the project team that they might be experts in the process, but that their

learners may only touch the system once a year (if ever); you can help the team see how additional context continues the winning streak.

Solution: Let’s click submit In this case, you can repurpose the video content, and transform it into a practice tool where learners enter real information, click submit and potentially receive feedback to improve their next submission. When video content is saved as slides in a common authoring tool, you can quickly mimic the actual system by adding a few collection variables and a submit button. Make sure the project team knows the additional development would only take your time and would not require any new content development.

Selecting the Right Learning Activity The type of activity or game you choose to create for your learners should add value, not just be filler content. Play to reinforce, not trick. That’s the challenge.

ENCOURAGE CHANGE BY WORKING TO UNDERSTAND THE MOTIVATIONS AND NEEDS OF YOUR TRAINERS AND MANAGERS AS YOU DO FOR LEARNERS.

The end result gives learners a stressfree practice opportunity that reduces errors in the real system.

Deliver Dialogue and Realistic Scenarios to Improve Performance Management In this final example, you are brought in to help a company move from once-a-year performance reviews that managers and employees dread to year-round discussions that support performance enhancement. You are focusing on strategy and delivery related to content and change management.

Problem: Move the needle from generic to specific The client team says they want to revolutionize their performance management process to improve communication and employee satisfaction, yet the materials they give you are still generic and cold. So, you decide to interview them about some of the most challenging performance review conversations they have had to

get more context and brainstorm how to create practical conversation guidance rather than more slide deck copy.

Support change: They say they are ready for change but do not know how to do it You know that videos are popular in learning environments, yet you also know they need to be instructionally sound and context specific to deliver meaning to your learners. After you interview the client team, you realize reproducing real conversations in videos with illustrated characters could go a long way in transforming the performance management process into meaningful, year-round collaboration. By watching, hearing and seeing the content, learners can gauge when a conversation is productive or becoming aggressive and awkward.

Solution: They see it, and they expand on it The video content does more than you expect. By using the right medium at the right time, the learning activity

meaningfully connects with learners in a way you hope for but can never guarantee. When they respond to surveys after specific video lessons, they do not focus on the quality of video. Rather, they report they have connected with the learning experience so much that they request additional video-based learning on other challenging situations they encounter and do not know how to handle. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing, designing, delivering and maintaining meaningful learning experiences. However, you can diagnose problems with outdated learning approaches and organizational resistance, communicate well to make change less daunting, and deliver quick wins to improve portions of learning content. Jill Martine is an instructional designer, instructor and interactive marketer with 14 years of experience in consulting, information technology, higher education, finance and healthcare. Email Jill.

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LEARN ON THE JOB:

By L. Nicole Edwards, MBA, MSN, CTT+, RN-BC

When the need to maintain productivity limits time for instructor-led training, consider a spaced learning delivery model.

REINTRODUCING LEARNING REQUIRES THE BRAIN TO RECALL THE INFORMATION BEFORE THE LEARNER HAS TIME TO FORGET. | 20

The task of delivering a learning solution on time and within budget is often complicated by the added challenge of limiting its impact on daily operations and productivity. While training can be accomplished by a single instructor-led or web-based learning event, when delays occur between the training event and the application of the new knowledge on the job, participantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; recall may be diminished and the information may not effectively transfer to their work. In an effort to meet the needs of businesses today, a deviation from traditional classroom or virtual instruction is necessary. Spaced-interval learning

is an option that meets the needs of an organization while providing the added benefit of minimizing the loss of knowledge that occurs with one-time learning. Spaced learning delivers content in small portions over several days or even weeks. Content is then reintroduced at specified intervals to prevent learning decay. Integrated practice activities in the form of reading, video and scenariobased interaction can be incorporated to allow learners to immediately apply content. Learning content can be reinforced using games, role-play and practice activities during scheduled learning checkpoints to review content.

WHAT IS SPACED-INTERVAL LEARNING? Spaced-interval learning is a concept that has been used effectively in studying for standardized tests, information technology, and education. Spaced-interval learning involves presenting new information, then reintroducing the information after a period of days or weeks. Reintroducing the learning requires the brain to recall the information before the individual has time to forget. During each successive interval, new information can be introduced while reinforcing prior learning. The biggest advantage of spaced-interval learning is that it minimizes the effect of the forgetting curve. During his 2015 keynote address on brain-based learning, Dr. Art Kohn challenged the audience to recall the effects of the forgetting curve. First introduced by Herman Ebbinghaus in 1880, the forgetting curve illustrates the natural decline in memory over time if knowledge is not immediately and frequently used after learning. According to Kohn, as much as half of information learned is lost in as little as one hour after the training event ends, and 70% of information learned is forgotten within 24 hours. Up to 90% of learning can be forgotten in one week. Kohn explains that forgetting is adaptive. It is the brainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way of filtering out irrelevant information to make space for essential information that may be learned later. To further support the forgetting curve, Murre and Dros replicated the work of Ebbinghaus and found similar results in the decline in memory over time. Spaced-interval learning overcomes the effects of the forgetting curve by providing learners with periodic review and reinforcement of previously learned content. The first reinforcement period can take place within 24 hours of the initial learning or later depending on the complexity of the information.

HOW IS SPACED-INTERVAL LEARNING IMPLEMENTED? When tasked with developing training to minimize the impact on productivity and the natural demise of memory,

a spaced-learning approach may be the right solution. Here are a few considerations when implementing spaced-interval learning:

MEET WITH BUSINESS LEADERS.

Before starting the design work, speak with your business partners to determine if this approach meets their needs. The success of training events requires buyin from stakeholders. A spaced-learning approach is a good option when taking learners out of their work will negatively affect productivity, as well as when there is a period of time between the training event and when participants will apply the training on the job.

IDENTIFY THE LEARNING TIMEFRAME.

Next, work with business partners to identify the maximum number of hours each learner will be allotted to participate in training to best minimize business impact, and obtain a commitment to scheduling that time for learning. Learning periods can last as little as 30 minutes each day or a few hours each week depending on the amount of content covered and the time between training and implementing the learning.

DESIGN TRAINING WITH THE LEARNER IN MIND.

Identify the learning objectives and pertinent information required for the content, then begin the design work. If there is a relatively short time to design the program, leverage existing learning materials where possible; if there is a longer design time, build a new curriculum. Keep learning intervals short, covering no more than two or three objectives. Plan to deliver the content for each objective using different learning styles. For example, consider providing content for auditory learners in an instructional, recipe-style format. Follow-up by delivering the same content with a video demonstration of the training to engage visual learners. Finally, allow learners to participate in a hands-on activity where the information is applied in a real-world

Work with your business partners to schedule time for participants to engage in learning activities.

Include only one or two learning objectives per learning interval.

Design activities that present the content in multiple ways to engage auditory, visual and kinesthetic learners.

Hold a weekly check-in meeting to answer questions and validate learning.

Incorporate novel gaming activities to allow participants to share what they learned in a new way.

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setting using the instruction or video in a scenario or simulation. If the training involves training in a computer application, provide the learners hands-on practice scenarios that must be completed in the system’s training environment.

demonstrations allow participants to show what they had learned. Find and correct activities based on the “room of errors” activity used to educate nurses on patient safety. Encourage learners to recall information in a novel way.

For example, in a systems training, participants are placed in pairs or triads; in a virtual classroom, you can use breakout rooms. Each team is presented with a screen image with system errors. Working together, the learners identify the problems, and state the changes needed to correct the errors. Troubleshooting in a group setting allows participants to work in teams to problem solve the same way they would in their workplace. When the assigned time for teamwork ends, everyone returns to the main classroom. Each team then shares their screen image with the class, discusses the errors and issues found, and reports the steps taken to resolve them. Any items not found or overlooked by the team can be redirected to the class by the facilitator, or the facilitator can provide the information to the class. The role of the facilitator is to correct misinformation and provide the correct information to support learner performance.

SCHEDULE CHECK-INS WITH LEARNERS.

The culmination of the weekly training interval should include a facilitator-led, learner-centered check-in. During this check-in, the facilitator should ask for and answer learners’ questions, clarify any misconceptions in the content, confirm learning activities were completed and debrief the week’s learning.

ORGANIZATIONS THAT DO NOT DEVOTE TIME TO DEVELOP ITS WORKFORCE THROUGH CONTINUOUS LEARNING RUN THE RISK OF LOSING A VALUABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

INCORPORATE INTERACTIVE ACTIVITIES.

Consider using a gaming activity to validate and engage the learner in a fresh, different way. Utilize the design and training team to create gaming activities to use during each check-in session. Online quiz platforms can be used to create interactive, competition-based quizzes; “trust walks” allow learners to instruct each other during task completion. Return

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CONDUCT A DEBRIEF SESSION.

At the conclusion, the facilitator leads a debrief session where learners share the value of the information presented during the spaced-interval learning period. A debrief allows participants to review the events, self-correct and improve future performance. It provides a safe place for participants to express feelings about the learning event in a constructive way. Learners can reflect on and discuss the pitfalls and successes experienced while maintaining a sharp focus on continuous improvement. The facilitator is there to guide the discussion, acknowledge the thoughts and feelings of the learners, address concerns, and highlight positive takeaways from the learning intervals.

CREATING A CULTURE OF CONTINUOUS LEARNING In today’s work environment, training is often in competition with meeting the business’s demand for productivity. Organizations that do not devote time to

develop its workforce through continuous learning run the risk of losing a valuable competitive advantage. At the same time, training delivered as a one-time event that occurs weeks or months before the information is needed means participants may forget critical information required to perform successfully on the job. Delivering training over time using a spaced-learning approach can offer the best of both worlds —minimal time away from work with continuous reinforcement. Short bursts of information delivered across multiple modalities can offer enough continued interaction to overcome the forgetting curve and provide just-in-time training to improve performance on the job. L. Nicole Edwards MBA, MSN, CTT+, RN-BC is a self-styled learning engineer with more than 10 years of experience in training facilitation and learning and development. She applies approaches used in nursing education to create meaningful learning experiences in a corporate training setting. Email Nicole.

ADDITIONAL

RESOURCES “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” By Holly Auer

“Brain Science: The Forgetting Curve—the Dirty Secret to Corporate Training” By Art Kohn

“Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve” By Jaap M. J. Murre and Joeri Dros

“Debriefing Across the Curriculum” By the National League of Nursing

Despite the best-selling efforts of Malcolm Gladwell in “Outliers,” many continue to attribute accomplishments of significance to people born with unique talents. It’s a sort of built-in defense mechanism we have long been able to muster up on demand to reduce (and even eliminate) the dissonance associated with our relative commonality. The messaging sounds something like, “People who do special things came into this world with special gifts.”

Natural talent is not a reliable predictor of significant accomplishment. Practice does not make perfect; only perfect practice makes perfect. Perfect or purposeful practice is characterized by the following: • Focus: There is noticeable concentration on active display during practice.

Unfortunately, the research findings of • Specific goals: There is a target to hit Anders Ericsson conclusively neutralize or a previous best to surpass. that argument. If, by chance, that name doesn’t ring a bell, Ericsson is a • Feedback: There are ongoing and psychologist who has studied people objective assessments of one’s achieving special accomplishments progress (i.e., you either “did better” for over 40 years. After studying chess or you “did not”). champions, violin virtuosos, recordbreaking athletes, memory mavens and • Leaving your comfort zone: a host of others, Ericsson came to two Observable effort is expended irrefutable conclusions: to hit or surpass the target.

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With all of that as background, I would offer it is difficult to be in the business of leadership development and not be intrigued by Ericsson’s pioneering contributions. After all, nobody cares what people learn about leadership. They only care about how what was learned to drive productivity, improve employee engagement and retain key talent. And not unlike playing chess, playing the piano or competitively swimming the 100-meter backstroke, the gap between learning something for the first time and consistently delivering outcomes that distinguish you from the crowd is a function of how you stick with it and iteratively get better over time. What do you think would happen if leadership training were conducted under the umbrella of perfect practice? Common sense would suggest we should be able to identify differences

between learners who attended training and were then empowered to figure out training transfer and skill development on their own and those who were greeted on the other side of the training event with a sustainment structure that featured microlearning content refreshers in conjunction with the services of a dedicated and certified leadership skills coach. That is the essence of the hypothesis that motivated a research project The Center for Leadership Studies embarked upon with Training Industry, Inc. In the spirit of complete transparency, portions of the results surprised us, and we believe they have the potential to surprise you as well.

THE STUDY

A total of 77 learners from five highly diverse organizations participated, including government agency, banking, non-profit, healthcare and manufacturing sectors. The study was eight weeks in duration with evaluations before and after that measured the following: • Occupational self-efficacy: Do I believe I can do my job effectively? • Organizational adaptability: Can I effectively respond to disruptive change? • Team adaptability: Can I effectively respond to the needs of my team in the face of change? • Workplace status: Do I have the respect of others? • Practice: Do I intend to practice the leadership skills I learn during training after the event? After completing the pre-test, participants attended six hours of virtual training in Situational Leadership® over two days. At that juncture, they were randomly assigned to four conditions of reinforcement (Figure 1): • Condition A: Received both coaching and microlearning. • Condition B: Received microlearning.

Virtual Training A

Situational Leadership©

B C D

Pre-test

4 weeks

Post-test

Coaching: Two virtual sessions (15 to 20 minutes in duration) with a certified leadership skills coach. Each session took place at or around the midpoint of each reinforcement cycle.

review amid the chaos of COVID-19 and social distancing mandates. Organizational resiliency has never been in greater demand. Since an organization’s overall resiliency is a function of frontline responsiveness, we believe a manager’s ability to help his or her team effectively adapt to unforeseen and massively disruptive change is resiliency in action.

• Session 1: Coach provided the learnerpractitioner with feedback on an application activity completed during training and facilitated agreement on an implementation plan, including elements of perfect practice.

Another aspect of our findings made more interesting and telling by the rise of COVID: The entire project was conducted virtually – each training session, content refresher and skillscoaching discussion.

• Condition C: Received coaching. • Condition D: Received no reinforcement.

• Session 2: Coach and learnerpractitioner discuss outcomes of initial implementation and agree on a plan moving forward. Microlearning: Four virtually delivered content refreshers delivered at twoweek intervals over both reinforcement cycles. Each component of microlearning was designed to take approximately eight minutes to complete.

THE RESULTS

In general, here’s what we learned: 1. Reinforcement had a positive impact on team adaptability as well as the intent of the learner-practitioner to continue practice moving forward. We believe this is worthy of attention for a couple of reasons. First off, this article is being submitted for

2. The participants themselves significantly influenced the results. The pre-test identified those who placed high value on becoming better leaders through goal setting. This had a positive impact on workplace status as well as the frequency, duration and intent of the learner-practitioners to continue to practice moving forward. Among the variables that present themselves between the successful completion of leadership training and outcomes attributed to the successful transfer of that learning, it can be easy to overlook the learner. It is akin to the

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evidence that has been uncovered over the years studying employee engagement initiatives. At some point, considering all the sophisticated programs and resources that have been leveraged to address the challenge, we need to accept the fact that there are those – regardless of the organization’s formal and active commitment – who are highly unlikely to ever fully engage at work. Much the same with sustainment efforts dedicated to building leaders, a key piece of the puzzle is the learner’s receptivity to building skill as opposed to simply acquiring knowledge. We have all endured a class that we had to take but did not value. When the formal instruction was done – so were we. Will learners who proactively commit to thoughtful practice post-training and intrinsically value the prospect of improving their skill as a leader provide evidence of a positive return on the investment (ROI) in training? They will. Will those who don’t provide similar evidence? Highly unlikely. In fairness, it is important to keep the inherent limitations of this project in mind. First, and as we are all aware, there is no objective measurement for leadership. If you play chess, you either win or you don’t. When you dive into a pool and swim, you either post your best time or you don’t. If you have increased your ability to effectively respond to the

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needs of your team during change, can we now crown you a leader? It isn’t that easy, and it never will be. Additionally, please do not lose sight of this project’s duration: eight weeks. During that period, participants receiving reinforcement formally invested:

the project. The two met three times a week for an hour. During that period, Dr. Ericson would recite random numbers, and Steve would repeat them back from memory. In their first session, Steve maxed out at eight numbers. After 200 sessions, Steve could consistently and accurately recite 82 numbers. Dr. Ericsson had this to say about Steve:

Condition A: 60 minutes • 30 minutes for microlearning “Steve was a cross country runner that liked to challenge himself. Everyone who content refreshers • 30 minutes for two skills coaching knew him would tell you he trained as hard as anyone… and that his motivation sessions was to improve his own performance, Condition B: 30 minutes of microlearning not necessarily to win races. Condition C: 30 minutes of coaching If the period of analysis had been extended would we have increased evidence of further impact? We believe the answer would be “yes.”

CONCLUSIONS

The transfer of learning to behavior change that produces results of significance requires extended opportunities for high-quality practice. That quality is a function of many things, but none is more important than a dedicated learner. This reality was never lost on Anders Ericsson. His early work at Carnegie Mellon focused on the impact of practice on improving memory. A student by the name of Steve Faloon signed up to participate in

From that point forward, I made it a point to only recruit subjects that had trained extensively as athletes, dancers, musicians or singers. None of them ever quit on me!” Reinforcement matters, and it matters most to learners who truly aspire to develop their skills. In that regard, consider the notion that leadership training should be reserved for those who truly aspire to be leaders, and that ROI analysis should factor in a learner’s intent to practice before they ever have the opportunity to participate in the event. Sam Shriver, Ed.D., is the executive vice president at The Center for Leadership Studies and has over 35 years of direct experience with Situational Leadership®, executive coaching, human behavior and leadership development. Email Sam.

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Angela beamed as she left her manager’s office. She had gotten the promotion to senior analyst she had been working to earn for quite some time. She would have a team of analysts reporting to her in her first supervisory role. “I better learn how to lead people,” she thought excitedly. She sat down at her desk and conducted a search for leadership articles and videos on the internet to help her.

You Can’t Beat ‘Em, So Join ‘Em Does this scenario sound familiar? In today’s fast-paced business world, professionals often obtain their own development by simply conducting an internet search. This informal learning is intimidating to some training professionals; some organizations are asking their training function to manage and measure it. For the purpose of this article, informal learning is defined as learning that occurs outside the realm of traditional instructorled classrooms and asynchronous courses. The informalization of learning is a trend that is likely to continue and grow. “Lifelong learning is no longer just a hopeful ambition; it will soon be a requirement of remaining relevant at work. According to a 2019 IBM report, the average time companies reported for upskilling or reskilling workers jumped from three days to 36 days in just the past five years,” said Brandon Busteed, president of University Partners at Kaplan. When learners seek out their own sources of training materials, they are actually doing training professionals a favor by diminishing the time required to develop content. This allows trainers to get involved in strategic planning and performance support. Regardless of the source of the training content, learning is of little value unless it prepares the participant to perform better on the job and

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makes a measurable contribution to organizational results. There is strong agreement that formal training alone yields a fairly small portion of the results for any program. On-the-job experiences are the biggest source of learning for employees, according to the “Deconstructing 70-20-10” research report published by Training Industry. The on-the-job environment and culture significantly impact what employees do in their roles, regardless of their knowledge. Here are practical tips learning professionals can use to add to and demonstrate the value of the informal learning that is likely already occurring in their organizations.

making, so the company achieves the highest possible level of profitability and mission accomplishment with the information and resources they have.

Identify Performance Standards From there, a training professional should assist Angela in identifying specific tasks she can perform on the job to ensure that her team’s reports are accurate and delivered on time (Level 3: Behavior). For example: • Discuss the purpose, timeline and due date for each report with the team. • Check report progress at predefined points throughout development. • Review and approve each report prior to submission. Defining performance standards is a critical step in creating a plan that will produce results, yet it’s often the one most overlooked. Invest time in discussing exactly what training graduates should be doing in their work – in observable, measurable terms – that subject matter experts and supervisors believe will have the biggest impact on desired results.

Define the Desired Outcome The first step in creating and demonstrating training value is to define the desired organizational outcome that the training is supposed to support – the Level 4: Results. For example, as a new supervisor, Angela could spend countless hours engaging in all kinds of leadership development training on a variety of topics. However, she will get the most impact if she first defines the specific outcomes her organization believes are most important for her to accomplish in her role. As a senior analyst, Angela is responsible for providing accurate, timely reports to support good organizational decision-

Make sure the conversation centers on actual behaviors the employee should exhibit rather than competencies that define skills and traits. What the employees must do to be successful must be clearly and specifically defined to both trainees and their observers. In Angela’s case, success would be easy to determine if each report had a stated purpose, a defined timeline and due dates announced. The other performance standards are similarly observable and measurable.

Locate Targeted Training Content The performance standards identified for Angela help define the training she may require. Training professionals should facilitate conversations between trainees and their managers to assess their current level of experience and proficiency in performing the new behaviors. Any gaps represent potential areas to target with training. From there, the training professional assists in curating content, or in Angela’s case, she could find it on her own. The key is that the search is

The Kirkpatrick Model of Training Evaluation LEVEL 4: RESULTS The degree to which targeted program outcomes occur and contribute to the organization’s highest-level result. LEVEL 3: BEHAVIOR The degree to which participants apply what they learned during training when they are back on the job. LEVEL 2: LEARNING The degree to which participants acquire the intended knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence and commitment based on their participation in the training. LEVEL 1: REACTION The degree to which participants find the training favorable, engaging and relevant to their jobs.

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American Express: Focused Informal Learning Yields Big Results A few years ago, American Express had an ever-growing list of training requests. Learners were overwhelmed by the volume of training choices and simply passed up opportunities. Amex recognized and responded to the problem by reducing the curriculum from over 25 programs to a range of one to three programs over a three-year period. Importantly, the remaining programs were dramatically shifted from 90% training content and 10% support to 30% training content and 70% support. The support activities focused on the few behaviors they wanted to change. The activities included:

LEADER-LED ACTIVITIES

GAMIFICATION

ROLE-PLAY SCENARIOS

ONLINE LIVE WEBINARS

GROUP ACTIVITIES

LEADERSHIP COACHING TRAINING

PEER-TO-PEER COACHING

The results of this bold change were impressive. “There has been a 10% improvement in business volume, a 15% increase in employee engagement, and this group is top tier for 2019 business performance,” reported Daniel Haden, a director of global sales training and enablement at American Express. “The results speak to known training and business realities,” said Haden. “People have always learned in different ways. 90% of classroom training is forgotten. Informal learning is rapidly increasing due to the fast-paced nature of today’s information consumption and millennial generation. The new, focused approach leverages these facts.”

targeted to preparing employees to perform the defined behaviors.

Identify Trackable Metrics Little to no difference exists between evaluating the effectiveness of the informal learning in Angela’s scenario and any other type of training. As you define the outcomes and performance standards also identify metrics to measure if they are being accomplished, as well as methods to perform the measurement. If multiple employees have similar responsibilities and performance standards, ask questions about the training content that they located and used and whether or not they would recommend it to others with similar learning requirements. A group-sourced library could be a valuable, timesaving tool.

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Create a Strong Performance Support Plan

Training value is realized when people use their learning on the job, and therefore perform better. Invest the time formerly spent developing training in creating and implementing multifunctional plans to support on-thejob performance and accountability. The degree to which a performance support plan is created is the biggest determinant of program success. Examples of ways performance can be monitored and supported include: • Job aids and checklists. • Check-ins to see if training graduates are performing newly learned behaviors. • Reports or dashboards to show progress. • Meetings or conference calls to discuss overall progress, results and, if needed, revisions to the plan.

• Self-reporting processes or tools for training graduates. During training, tell participants about the resources available to them, and let them know how their performance will be tracked. Use the job aids and other tools in exercises, so they become familiar with them and can practice incorporating them into their daily work.

Monitor Performance and Results Once program implementation is underway and performance is being tracked, there will often be surprises. Expect and welcome changes to the plan. Continual monitoring allows you to support and enhance performance and results. This is far more valuable than simply surveying people after training and documenting what did and did not occur. Instead of just reporting

what happened, you are increasing the positive outcomes. You are also reducing the risk of mission failure by identifying and fixing problems before they lead to unacceptable final results.

have good rapport with, and see if you can pilot this approach to help them with an important initiative or existing need. Learn as you go, and formulate a plan that you can institutionalize for upcoming training needs.

Do not underestimate the power of simply checking in with training graduates via phone, text, email or in person and asking them how they are applying what they learned in training. If they know they will be asked, they will be looking for ways to tell you that they have been applying their learnings and accomplishing positive outcomes.

Elevate Yourself from Trainer to Performance Consultant Following this plan, training professionals give themselves a promotion from trainer to performance consultant. By

Start with just one or two programs that serve as beta tests for implementing these new ideas. Document which tactics worked and which did not. Do what you can to publicize the successful strategies and increase their usage for the beta test and in other initiatives.

working with the people you train and assisting them in reaching their goals as quickly as possible rather than spending your time developing the training content itself, you become a valuable and sought-after team member. If you are wondering how to get started, contact a manager or supervisor you

Celebrate all steps in the right direction, and build on them. Soon, positive organizational change will occur through the productive involvement of the Modern training and performance consultant. Jim Kirkpatrick and Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick are co-owners of Kirkpatrick Partners and co-authors of “Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation.” Email Jim and Wendy.

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hat does a future of immersive technology look like? It features a remote network of services around the world that pull groundbreaking immersive training programs, lesson management and collaborative learning potential into one location, accessible on any platform. However, it also features a new world of possibilities for industries choosing to embrace the potential of immersive technologies. From converting cost savings into revenue generation to the integration of a digital e-governance infrastructure, immersive training is the beginning – and the backbone – of the smart factory.

Introducing the Smart Factory According to Deloitte Insights, the smart factory moves beyond automation to create a “fully connected and flexible system” where “a constant stream of data [is generated by] connected operations and production systems.” This means all

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data, from your learning record store to the technician’s notes on your manufactured equipment, is made available within a fully integrated system. But the collection of that data isn’t what makes the smart factory so clever. Smart factories describe the site of convergence between digital and physical industries – information technology and operations technology – that will result in the transformation of the traditional supply chain into “an interconnected, open system of supply operations — known as the digital supply network.” This integrated digital infrastructure will be able to “communicate, analyze, and use information to drive further intelligent action back in the physical world.” In other words, the technical foundations of the smart factory are the cyberphysical systems that communicate with each other to exchange data between

the product and the production line in order to improve supply chain connectivity and create a better organized production environment. In other words, intelligent manufacturing may not be as far away as we imagined. Many smart factories are already incorporating the necessary digital technologies into their core infrastructures, and they are being empowered by the pervasiveness of digital technologies.

The Digitally Pervasive World The core components of digitalization are already in all of our pockets. Statistics show that approximately 3.5

billion people around the globe use smartphones. Further, close to half of private households have a computer, and in the U.S. alone, 66% of individuals own at least two digital devices while 36% own all three (smartphone, PC and tablet). The global pervasiveness of technology has created an opportunity for industries: The majority of employees already have access to the necessary technologies. Combined with web hosting, a few online servers and an integrated interface, industries suddenly have the capacity for a centralized digital system that is accessible by any device, over any network. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the perfect recipe for a high-tech overhaul with unlimited scalability potential, and the foundation starts with training.

Digital Technologies and Modernized Training Training represents a critical starting point for the digital revolution, because the

increased digitalization of industries causes a direct shift in the skill requirements needed to support the future workplace. In fact, a report published by the World Economic Forum estimates that close to 35% of the top skills required for all jobs will change by the end of 2020. Supporting this shift in skill demand with the appropriate training is critical, but industries are already spending an estimated $362.2 billion on corporate training initiatives worldwide. In order to accommodate the added training demands of adapting current workers to their new skill requirements, organizations need a means of optimizing the entire training process to make it more affordable, accessible and effective. They can accommodate this need by incorporating smart technologies into their training departments.

approach to training. In the very near future, quality training and education will be readily available on any device, over any network. This will allow training to be made remotely accessible, increase the number of learners able to access training in any given session and minimize the cost and impact of distance. Further, digitalized learning increases learnersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ability to review and practice lesson material, especially when they can access it from their own devices outside of working hours. In addition to the disruption of the geographic and socioeconomic barriers of traditional training, digitalized learning also enables high-quality, remotely accessible training to be delivered in a dynamic and engaging approach capable of advancing learning retention, knowledge transfer and learner potential.

An investment in digitalized training using immersive technologies supports the transition to student-centric training. This shift provides multitiered benefits for industries looking to optimize their

According to Touchstone Research, immersive training technologies disrupt a learning problem that has pervaded training institutions for centuries. In 1885, Herman Ebbinghaus hypothesized

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a decrease in the brain’s ability to retain memory over time – otherwise known as the forgetting curve. His argument states that the length of time during which something can be remembered is dependent upon the strength of that memory. In other words, in order for something to be remembered long term, it needs to be learned in an impactful way. Following traditional methods, Ebbinghaus’s calculation shows that a person will forget 90% of training course content after only a month. The challenge becomes more paramount in the workplace, where employees are only able to dedicate 1% of their workload to learning and development. Immersive training disrupts the traditional training methodology by leveraging a simulated and interactive environment to create a stronger memory of each lesson. Virtual learning environments activate different learning approaches, combining sensory perception and muscle memory in an experiential learning environment that demonstrates realistic scenarios. Humans, by nature, are used to learning by doing and by perceiving the critical impacts of their actions. Immersive technology enables learners to enter a simulation of any training environment and learn and make mistakes safely. Learners are supported by responsive functionality, the true-to-life physics of the simulation and added educational content, resulting in increased engagement and a stronger training memory.

Smart Training, Smarter Datasets Digitalized immersive training is able to optimize training efficiency – with improved knowledge retention reducing cost by requiring fewer training sessions. However, that digitalized training program is providing a further benefit. Through its user tracking, data collection and data analysis capabilities, it is working to secure an improved dataset that can prepare its digital infrastructure for the potential of still-developing technologies, like artificial intelligence. By using immersive technologies, organizations

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gradually build a repository of easily dispersed immersive training content to use in training new technicians and experts. Organizations planning for the future are ensuring longevity by investing in immersive training, then leveraging the resulting digital capabilities to form a backbone for sustainable development. The strategy is already seeing some success. According to a Capgemini report, 82% of companies implementing virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) have found that it either matches or exceeds their expectations.

The Immersive Investment One of the strongest drivers in the adoption of immersive training is the demonstrated return on investment (ROI). Boeing declared their use of AR for technicians has increased productivity by 40% and reduced wiring production time by 25%. Intel, a multinational tech company, created training for their electrical safety recertification. Their final assessment calculated the five-year ROI of VR for this one training alone could be as high as 300%. Not only can organizations benefit from cost savings by investing in immersive training programs but also by using their immersive training as a revenue driver. Once created, immersive training lessons can be sold to end clients, and virtual training environments can be used to improve remote support engagement or as training for affiliate operations. Organizations are no longer researching the potential of the technology; they are

strategizing how to implement it and are heavily investing in its potential for future revenue growth.

From Smart Factories Come Smart Cities Digitalized technologies have undeniably created a paradigm shift that is taking hold of training organizations worldwide. It’s no coincidence that the manufacturing industry is at the leading edge of this digital frontier. Historically, the manufacturing industry has typically instigated revolution. By definition, an industrial revolution describes the appearance of “new technologies and novel ways of perceiving the world [that] trigger a profound change in economic and social structures.” Soon, just as learners can access immersive training from any device and over any network, clients will be able to access product data, procedural information and direct organizational support with their fingertips. All data, from point of creation to point of sale, will be fed back into an integrated digital infrastructure. However, the important thing to remember about industrial revolutions is that they don’t limit themselves to the industries they take their shape from. The changes taking place within smart factories are going to lead the rest of the world to sociopoliticallandscaped and economic infrastructures. From the steam power revolution to the mass production revolution, the technologies that power industrial innovation have a dynamic impact on the world. Immersive technologies have created an opportunity to optimize education and training, and in the process, they have begun to sculpt the core infrastructure of the smart factory. A future of smart cities is not far behind. Laura Bohnert and Johann Cohut are members of the business development team at Modest Tree, an award-winning modeling, training and simulation company whose mission is to leverage extensive industry experience and leading technologies to create advanced, immersive solutions for enterprise clients. Email Laura and Johann.

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Consider the following question: “What is the purpose of training?” What would your answer be? Often the initial answers about learning, knowledge, new skills and compliance change as people reflect on the desired end result from training. They usually begin to hone in on a purpose for training that is about helping people develop so they can be better at delivering what they do on behalf of their employer. They arrive at something like, “The purpose of training is to improve competence, and thereby, change the way people do things, so they perform better and get better results at work.” Fair enough, but how successful is learning and development (L&D) at doing this? An article published in the McKinsey Quarterly stated, “Only one-quarter of the respondents to a recent McKinsey survey said their training programs measurably improved business performance.” This survey, and many others, show that training can work well for some trainees but does not work reliably. Why?

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Look again at the purpose above. Another way to think of this is – What you do in the training room matters, but what your trainees do afterward matters more. In 2012, a group of researchers conducted a meta-analysis of the science of training and development in organizations and found, “Successful training is not a one-time event but an iterative process that considers the elements leading up to training as well as important factors after training.” It’s clear that training should never be sent on a solo mission. Training should never be presented, like James Bond, as the lone hope for saving the world. Training should be executed as part of a team, where the other players are just as important. Alternatively, you can expand your concept of training, so when you think of training, it includes everything from the initial analysis through the final measurement. When you do this, the classroom component is just one of the pieces of the program. Ultimately, this is about learning transfer. Arguably, if there is no learning transfer, the training was not successful. So, you must ask the question: Are the trainees effectively using the content presented to them in the training event, and if not, why?

UNDERSTANDING LEARNING TRANSFER Learning transfer relies on learners choosing to take action after the training event. If they do nothing, or not enough, learning transfer does not happen, and the training has failed. The key is to make sure that learners act. It is the lack of action, and therefore lack of learning transfer, that is at the heart of the low success rates for training identified in so many surveys. Most training done in organizations pays little attention to learning transfer. It is one of the elephants

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in the L&D strategy room. The case for proactively driving the learning transfer process is self-evident, yet so many learning professionals choose to behave as if the elephant is not there. On the rare occasion anyone points out the elephant, there is usually an acknowledgment of its existence, followed by a slide back into the usual explanations for

The good news is that you can transform your training events into effective development programs. Yes, it takes more work, but what’s the point in continuing to do something that isn’t working well? There is a saying often misattributed to Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

WHAT YOU DO IN THE TRAINING ROOM MATTERS, BUT WHAT YOUR TRAINEES DO AFTERWARD MATTERS MORE.

traditional delivery: “Let’s just get the people through this program that the head of operations wanted.” They are held captive by culture, context and traditional practices. L&D professionals are busy; they are short on time, resources and energy.

ADDRESSING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM The learning transfer elephant is big and should be impossible to ignore, because ignoring it is expensive. Besides, it really annoys the elephant. Every training program should be focused on making sure that what is learned in the classroom is subsequently deployed in the workplace and has a positive and sustainable effect on performance. Otherwise, why do the training at all?

To give yourself the bandwidth to expand your training to include learning transfer activities, consider whether you would be better served by training less people and providing better results for the people you do train. When you can demonstrate the new way you approach training gets better results for the organization, the door opens to asking for and receiving more resources. The next question has two parts: What needs to be done, and who needs to do it? To get the right things done, the work of Dr. Ina Weinbauer-Heidel and her 12 levers for effective learning transfer is highly recommended. The levers focus on three areas – the mindset of the trainee, the design of the program and the workplace environment. When you look through the 12 levers, it becomes obvious that a variety of people need to be involved in learning transfer activities. This includes the

trainee, their manager, their colleagues, the facilitator, the program designer, the executive sponsor and many others – especially when you consider the cultural context lever. Without input from all these people, reliable learning transfer will not occur. It is this breadth of responsibility for pulling the levers that is most likely the reason learning transfer fails following most training courses. Someone must be held accountable for the results of the entire program, and in turn, someone must hold the varying parties accountable for doing their part. Think of a recent training program you were involved in. Who was responsible for the different aspects of the program, particularly those activities that were supposed to take place outside the training room? Was there anyone with the authority to hold various stakeholders accountable for their input in the program? If there were any activities that trainees were supposed to do after the event, what were the consequences if they failed to do so? What about the managers of the trainees – were they held accountable? It’s a fact of busy organizational life that – unless there are consequences for inaction – people will find other things

LEARNING TRANSFER, AT ITS HEART, RELIES ON LEARNERS CHOOSING TO TAKE ACTION AFTER THE TRAINING EVENT. to do that are more urgent, because those do have real consequences. Who receives the “blame” when a training program does not transfer well or does not solve the problem it was intended to solve should also be considered. Have you ever heard this? “We sent the team for training and they still aren’t doing their job right, so the training was obviously not good enough.” What they mean is that the training event itself was not good enough, because they perceive training as a onetime event. If you use an expanded definition of training, including the whole program from beginning to

end, their statement is still true, but it becomes obvious that there are many places other than the classroom where improvements can be made. For example, use the 12 levers as a framework to show all stakeholders they have a role in contributing to the success of the program, and that it is unreasonable to place full blame on how L&D delivered the classroom event. A good reputation and, by extension, the brand of L&D is dependent upon delivering successful development programs. At a recent conference, Josh Bersin said that their study regarding the net promoter score for L&D resulted in an average value of minus 31. Given the range of possible values is from minus 100 to plus 100, L&D is not doing well in terms of customer satisfaction. Why does L&D in organizations have such a poor reputation? One of the reasons is the lack of successful results due to ignoring the learning transfer elephant. Ignore the learning transfer elephant at your peril, because without learning transfer, your training budget is mostly wasted, and your reputation becomes tattered. Paul Matthews is a leading learning and development expert with three best-selling books to his name. He provides consultancy services, training workshops and webinars for bluechip clients in the U.K. and beyond. Email Paul.

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5 Ways to Maximize Your

On-the-Job Training Program

By Emily Blancato & Shelley Stanley We all learn on the job. With the constant flow of information available today, we are accustomed to using our smartphones as a learning tool in our time of need. When people are on their own time at home, this works great. If they want to take hours to replace the garage door opener by watching a variety of online tutorials rather than paying someone – they can. In business, it’s not so simple. There are costs and resources to be considered. Many workplaces are practicing an informal approach to on-the-job training. Sit here, speak with this peer, watch them, do it yourself and figure it out. We would be lying if we said people can’t succeed in this environment. People do survive and build successful careers following this approach to onboarding.

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The most alarming factor is what a company misses when they take this approach. With no formal plan or path to success, employees create their own definitions and perpetuate bad habits as they mentor new hires. Even experts who feel confident in their environment may have critical gaps in their knowledge base, and with an unstructured, on-the-job model, it is hard to identify these gaps until failure occurs. With the lack of consistency in this approach, your experts will pass on the same flaws to your new employees.

THERE MUST BE STRUCTURE NOT ONLY AROUND THE TASK BUT WHO THE NEW HIRE SHOULD BE PARTNERED WITH TO COMPLETE IT.

In this article, we break down five ways to achieve consistency in an on-the-job learning program, as well as measure its overall effectiveness.

LEADERSHIP 1GAIN BUY-IN

Your leadership needs to be on board. Without the layer of accountability that comes from your leadership teams, even the best designed programs will fail. To clarify, leadership refers to everyone from your executives down to your frontline managers. There needs to be an established culture around learning. Milista Anderson, senior vice president of learning solutions at FIS, says, “Managers should genuinely

care about the development of the whole person and not just about their outputs.” If your boss asks you 10 times about your case work and never about your training or development, the silence says it all, and you prioritize accordingly. Many leaders fall into this habit – as they rush around putting out fires which causes them to think in the moment and not in the grand scheme. To gain and maintain buy-in and engagement with your leadership teams, we suggest the following: • Communicate the expectations of the program to every level of leadership. Be clear about what it will do and what it won’t. • Build ways for them to be involved that are easy and effortless. • Ask for feedback. • Clarify what success looks like to them, and ask for data points. • Follow up. Be tactfully aggressive about your goal, and remind them it’s theirs, too. Most leaders will state that – in today’s world – training staff is critical for retaining good employees and delivering an exceptional client experience. This doesn’t necessarily mean those same leaders will follow through with actions that support their statements about the importance of learning. This puts learning and development professionals in a tough spot. They can design a program without support, but what’s the point of building a playground if no one comes to play?

ADD OJT AS A STEP IN THE NEW HIRE ONBOARDING PROGRAM

Building structured on-the job-training opportunities within onboarding programs is a great way to gain buy-in.

A big win for leadership with a program that involves on-the-job training is that the trainee is on the floor and doing work. When a new hire comes aboard, the team is typically handling more work than usual. How quickly a new employee can start carrying weight is in the forefront of most leaders’ minds. The structural integrity of these opportunities is key. There must be structure not only around the task but who the new hire should be partnered with to complete it. To avoid a program that quickly devolves into the wild, wild, west, here are some elements to consider: • Define specific job functions the new hire is expected to fulfill after their initial training. • Map individual job functions to the learning content meant to build the skill. • Identify what your existing employees need to support your new hires in these sessions. • Ensure the existing staff will have the time and balance necessary to provide a positive experience during their time with the new hire. • Confirm the staff understands the expectations of the program. • Prioritize the most common tasks first to allow both the new hire and the team to see immediate productivity gained. • Design feedback loops from these sessions to improve the employee experience. Understanding the environment and the workflow is critical to building the structure behind the program. If the training content is not relatable to the work, you will quickly lose buy-in from new hires and their employee trainers. Take your time with this step. Be certain the tasks targeted within your program are the most relevant to the role.

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STANDARDIZE MATERIALS TO GUIDE THE TRAINING AND ENSURE CONSISTENCY

People struggle with change, and your new hires are dealing with a lot of it. Materials to guide the training should be familiar and known. While the learner may be introduced to new topics every day, it shouldn’t feel like the first day all over again. Examples of these materials may include: • A welcome message. • Job specific handbooks outlining processes.

ONCE A TRUE LEARNING CULTURE IS ADOPTED, THE FOCUS ISN’T ON HOW WE SURVIVE BUT HOW WE THRIVE.

• Manager and employee feedback forms. • Manager and employee checklists. • Evaluations. Taking measures to make this process as simple as possible will go a long way in improving the clarity of your expected outcomes. It will also build the confidence new employees have in themselves to quickly become proficient in their jobs.

ESTABLISH A FRAMEWORK FOR MEASURING SUCCESS

Measuring success can be tricky, but it’s not impossible. To excel in measurement, you must understand the business and its goals. It’s all fine and well to monitor attendance and assessment scores. Those metrics can give insight into whether people are making time for learning and on the effectiveness of the course immediately after the learning takes place. However, you need to dig deeper. This is where leadership buy-in sets you up for success. Leadership must understand and define what makes a successful employee in their organization. What attributes do they admonish and celebrate? Once you’ve received clarity from the leadership team, you can begin prioritizing which are most important and monitor how new hires going through the

program stack up against their peers at different intervals in their careers. To be successful here, you will need to invest time in interviewing stakeholders, as well as clearly defining and documenting the key performance indicators.

AN 5 DEVELOP ONGOING TRAINING PLAN

After the initial onboarding period, learning should continue to be encouraged. The steps following on-the-job training require leadership to continuously emphasize professional development and foster a culture of learning. Employees should be actively engaged in identifying the skills they need. Creating a formal, onthe-job training program to kick off a new employee’s experience with your company demonstrates the emphasis and value placed on internal growth and skill development. With technology moving forward, we can’t expect to create polished content and in-class learning experiences for every new task and process. We need to embrace onthe-job learning. Challenge everyone to be a part of the solution, and share their knowledge. Once a true learning culture is adopted, the focus isn’t on how we survive but how we thrive. As learning managers for FIS Learning Solutions, Emily Blancato and Shelley Stanley are responsible for the overall development and delivery of businesswide client and employee product training. Email Emily and Shelley.

TAKEAWAYS Onboarding programs often include some type of informal, on-the-job training that supplies a large portion of the new employee’s job-role knowledge. Formalizing this process provides a means of measuring its efficacy, thereby increasing employee satisfaction and retention. Use these five strategies when implementing a consistent, effective formalized training program: 1. Gain leadership buy-in.

4. Establish a framework for measuring success.

2. Add on-the-job training to the new hire onboarding program.

5. Develop an ongoing training plan.

3. Standardize materials to guide the training and ensure consistency.

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How are you going to lead effectively? The shift to virtual interactions requires a new way of leading. GP Strategies ® can help your leaders refine the skills they have and expand their development to be successful in their remote reality. For virtual and digital leadership development solutions, visit gpstrategies.com/virtual-leadership to learn more.

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Are

Keystone Habits the Magic Bullet for

Training Outcomes? By Lori Preston

It has been 70 years since the publication of Donald Kirkpatrick’s “Four Levels of Learning Evaluation,” responsible for focusing training professionals on the measurement of training’s impact. So, why are so many of us still struggling to quantify the business impact of training? To solve that, we chase new innovations in learning to improve the impact our training has on business – and those learning innovations require money. In order to secure the budget for those innovations, we must prove to leadership that our training impacts the business. How have you responded to that question in past? Hopefully, you don’t just share the impressive numbers of bodies you trained or how often you delivered the courses. Leaders may hear that and wonder, “How much could I have saved in expenses if we hadn’t done that?” The more you brag, the bigger their concern becomes: “So, you did all that training last year, but how did it impact the business?” Perhaps, you share comments from participants exclaiming how much they loved the program and can’t wait to use what they learned. But that only leaves business leaders wondering if learners even used that knowledge. The questions keep coming. We keep reaching. This is not going well. We have all been there. If we have been fighting to prove the value of training since 1950, could it be time to broaden our focus on what will enable us to answer that question and consider something more core? What if we shifted training’s core focus from learning objectives to keystone habits?

From Learning Objectives to Keystone Habits We have all heard the saying, “If we know better, we do better.” But is anyone else still balancing their expensive, sugary coffee while speeding down the highway and participating in a heated

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business call? We likely know better, but we aren’t doing better. It might be time for learning professionals to let go of the hope that if our trainees successfully learn how and why to do something, they will implement that back on the job. We just can’t count on that happening. For now, let’s loosen our grip on this core belief around learning objectives. I know taking learning objectives off the pedestal feels uncomfortable – and maybe even disturbing. Learning objectives have been our center of gravity. They are the anchor for our design; the north star for our measurement. But learning doesn’t show up on the job the same way new habits show up on the job. If our traditional end game remains learning and skilling, then participants leave with something they may or may not use. And if they don’t use it within 48 hours, much of the learning is lost. Then, we try to solve the learning problem by invading their personal space to reinforce the behavior and win the battle against the Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve. Yes, these kinds of interventions can improve their learning, but unfortunately, the organization they return to reinforces and rewards the old behaviors. We lose. They lose. There is no business impact to be measured if learners don’t do anything different. We need to shift our focus to helping them form habits.

Learning Isn’t the Holy Grail, Building Keystone Habits Is

show up in the customer relationship management system (CRM). That is a business impact we can measure.

Forming a new habit is notoriously hard. What was the last poor habit you easily conquered? To unseat old habits requires a systematic approach, not just the learning. Training professionals must design that holistic approach rather than simply creating engaging learning experiences.

So, how did we do that? Our job analyses identified the keystone habit that would create a cascade of other good relationship selling behaviors. The habit we found was: consistently gathering relationship information that provides insights into what is most important to each selected business contact. Then, align to those priorities and create a partner ally who sees how we are helping them be successful.

We don’t have to exit the business of learning; we just need to enter the business of habit building. Let’s take learning off its pedestal and put it in service of habit building.

For Example Suppose we are responsible for training salespeople to maximize relationships when selling and we are held accountable for the business impact of growing revenue. Instead of focusing only on the learning objective of leveraging relationships, we should focus on building the habit of leveraging relationships when selling. When relationship habits show up on the job, more qualified sales opportunities

Stickiness comes with habits – not in learning. In fact, learning fades tragically fast. If training identifies the keystone habit needed on the job and changes our mission to forming new habits, we benefit from the same unintentional cascade of good behaviors. This creates business impact we can measure.

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We found when that concern became the salesperson’s habit, a cascade of other good relationship behaviors showed up. The learning objective is teaching them how to do this, but now we are designing a holistic approach (program) to create the habit.

Figure 1.

Consistently gathering relationship data to provide insight that would create a partner ally

What is a Keystone Habit? What we need to see on the job are new habits – more specifically, keystone habits. Keystone habits were first introduced by Charles Duhigg in his book, “The Power of Habit.” He described these habitual routines as small changes in behavior that unintentionally create a cascade of other good behaviors.

LEARNING DOESN’T SHOW UP ON THE JOB THE SAME WAY NEW HABITS SHOW UP ON THE JOB.

Internal Team

Prospect Asking different questions to get relationship insight

Coach

Pursuing different relationships than before

Getting coaching on relationship tactics Replacing assumptions with evidence on relationship status

Getting others involved in building relationships More referrals in pipeline

• Potential inhibitors that would prevent a new habit from forming.

The Cascade of Good Behaviors

2 | Design

That holistic program looked like this: we created an online tool for salespeople to use back on the job, so they can attach the new relationship behaviors they learned to an existing online habit. The tool provides insights and reports to assess their progress and can be used in Microsoft Office-based software, a CRM, or the cloud. In addition, leaders are able to review the assessments and coach employees based on the results. The leader’s involvement ensures that the environment our trainees return to will support the behavior change. This program holds salespeople accountable for forming the habit of completing the assessment tool. It provides new relationship insights along with review sessions that are positive, collaborative, and action-oriented, while motivating the user. The tool also continues teaching in the training professional’s absence by continuing to ask learners questions they need to be considering. This process enables a positive cascade of relationship building behaviors. Figure 1 shows a piece of the cascade of good behaviors that resulted from that habit, with the keystone habit in the middle.

How to Make Habit Forming Central to Training’s Purpose If we loosen our grip on the belief that our participants will do better if they know better and shift our focus from learning to habits, how does our work in training change? Learning leaders must add the focus of building habits when designing training programs, whether you follow ADDIE or SAM. Here are a few examples:

1 | Analysis • Identify and add the following to your analysis template: • The desired employees.

habits

the

• Create recognition for employees who build habits. • Encourage changes in their work environment that support the new habit and does not allow the old.

LET’S TAKE LEARNING OFF ITS PEDESTAL AND PUT IT IN SERVICE OF HABIT BUILDING. 3 | Implementation • Change class exercises and facilitator questions from only a learning focus to how the learning will be implemented on the job. • Get managers prepped, committed, and accountable for their new role in reinforcing the behavior change. Change the organizational habits.

4 | Evaluation • Measure the building and the support of the habit. • Highlight consequences of using old habits. • Evaluate training programs by capturing insights on forming habits

and any potential barriers to modify the program. • Track the business impact of those with the habit and those without.

Walk the Talk In his book “Atomic Habits,” James Clear says, “Outcomes are lagging indicators of our habits.” So, if you change the habits, you will change the outcomes. Learning leaders must extend the learning beyond the training event in order to see impact and achieve meaningful outcomes. To begin building your own personal keystone habits as a training professional, use Charles Duhigg’s habit loop as a guide (see Table 1). The cascade of good behaviors that follow a keystone habit are free. So, what if in the next budgeting meeting, we actually promise to accomplish more for the business with less? Now, that is an intriguing return on investment discussion. Lori Preston is an organizational development consultant at Revenue Storm, a global sales consulting firm. With 30 years of experiencing success and frustration, Lori has become a change management expert, relying on neuroscience to point the way. Email Lori.

Table 1

CUE

What cues your habit when you design training? Do you open your favorite template? If so, open that template now and add a cue: “What habit do we want to create?”

BEHAVIOR

What is the plan for this program to help learners create a new habit? Use the preceding prompts outlined in this article.

REWARD

Grab your favorite drink and inform your boss that you are on the cusp of getting some great business impact stories. Then, create your plan to gather the impact.

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CASEBOOK

HOW VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY CONQUERED THE IMPOSSIBLE: AFFORDABLY SCALING ULTRASOUND TRAINING BY JEFFRY GORDON, PH.D., AND CHRISTIE CALAHAN

Ultrasound is the stethoscope of the 21st century. It is the only imaging tool that can be brought directly to the patient rather than forcing the patient to go to the imaging device. Not only is that better for the patient who may not have the mobility but it also allows for imaging scheduling to be more flexible, available and safe during a time where infectious diseases can be transmitted in a waiting room. In fact, for even greater flexibility in acquiring diagnostic images, the probes on the ultrasound device can now be attached to a cell phone. SUPPORTING HIGH-DEMAND CLINICAL SKILLS Like many universities, Vanderbilt has a growing nursing student population. Between an aging population with a longer life expectancy and advances in healthcare technology, nurse practitioners are in high demand – especially those with ultrasound training. Aside from scheduling convenience and practicality factors, sonography is quickly becoming a staple of modern medicine and is considered the gold standard for monitoring a developing infant’s health throughout pregnancy. As a result, Vanderbilt has a strong interest

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in training nurse students to become proficient with the technology. However, the typical training delivery – which relies on face-to-face training with hands-on experience – is just not scalable for the magnitude needed. There are not enough instructors or ultrasound devices to come close to meeting the demand. The cost of hiring additional instructors and purchasing enough devices to provide that level of hands-on training would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is far outside Vanderbilt’s budget. Like many institutions, Vanderbilt is not alone in this. Every nursing program and medical center faces a serious shortage of trainers and devices that can be released for training and removed as a clinical resource. THE FINANCIAL CHALLENGES OF SCALING TRAINING IN A CLINICAL ENVIRONMENT Since much of the education that students receive is already online, migrating ultrasound training to an online environment is a natural progression. However, traditional authoring tools

have limitations. While eLearning can show students how to set up the ultrasound console, it cannot adequately demonstrate to clinicians how to properly use the probe on a patient, especially when trying to identify the anatomy being scanned. Furthermore, it’s difficult to show the ultrasound output in real-time or recreate the experience without some form of immersive media.

MIGRATING ULTRASOUND TRAINING TO AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT IS A NATURAL PROGRESSION.

Healthcare educators, both in academic and practice settings, continue to seek the most realistic simulations for their students. However, the rising cost of healthcare equipment – alongside a heightened focus on patient safety – make it difficult to provide ample opportunities for students to practice new skills.

representation of the patient’s internal anatomy can be superimposed on the image of the patient, allowing the student to see exactly what is being scanned. Once ready for editing, the videos were imported into Adobe Premiere. Both the top-down view and the ultrasound output were matched the clinician’s actions and precise timing. Then the videos were parsed into shorter video scenarios and saved as MP4 files in an equirectangular format. AUTHORING THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Like most medical devices, ultrasound machines are expensive; each new machine can cost over $100,000. While portable probes that can be attached to a smartphone are much less expensive, they are still very costly. A broken probe can still cost thousands of dollars to replace. THE BENEFITS OF VIRTUAL REALITY Since Vanderbilt had a limited number of devices and instructors, students needed a safe environment to simulate skill development. By replicating the clinical setting in virtual reality (VR), students are more likely to hit the ground running when given hands-on time with a device and a patient. Furthermore, the chances of a student encountering patients with specific and diverse problems during training sessions are low, so VR provides an opportunity to interpret multiple scenarios and patient conditions. Finally, with a VR application, students can replay the activity until they feel confident in their understanding of the task. They can watch the clinician place the probes on the patient, then go back and see what is being imaged. Moreover, the ultrasound output is annotated with text, arrows and circles corresponding to the presentation of the instructor.

By preloading much of the instruction into an online format, the need for faceto-face instructor time is substantially reduced. This allows more people to be trained while reducing the hands-on time required with the device. SIMULATING THE EXPERIENCE To capture the experience of operating ultrasound equipment, three different media components were combined to simulate the clinical environment: 360-degree video of the clinician and patient interactions shown from two distinct camera angles; a top-down view with graphic, anatomical overlays; and streaming video of the ultrasound output timed to coincide with exactly how the instructor is interacting with the patient. A 360-degree video camera was placed opposite the clinician at eye level, continuously recording the clinician as he or she interacts with the patient and mirroring the student’s subjective perspective. The output from the ultrasound device was captured on a digital video recorder, and the video was moved to a portable USB drive. Lastly, a ceiling-mounted camera was built into the lab to record the same patient encounter from a top-down perspective. With an overhead view of hand positioning and movement, a

Each MP4 video file – representing a specific patient encounter – was imported into CenarioVR, a VR authoring tool for creating immersive learning courses. Each video scenario was enhanced with additional instructional elements on the top-down view of the patient, such as drawings of anatomical elements that appear when selected. Questions, annotations, buttons and hotspots were included to enforce key concepts and quiz the students on probe placement. Once each scenario was finalized with interactions and assessments, the course was published in two formats: HTML5 for viewing on a computer’s browser, as well as CenarioVR Live and mobile for viewing on a phone in a Google Cardboard or Oculus Go headset. A PROMISING OUTCOME Despite modifications that could be made to improve the immersive experience for students, the VR course is proving to be effective. Since rolling out the immersive learning module in the spring of 2019, each student reported they had a more efficient training experience with the ultrasound probes. As a result, Vanderbilt will continue to expand ultrasound training to support its growing nursing school enrollment while keeping costs down by making the training more efficient and scalable. Jeffry Gordon, Ph.D., is a professor of educational informatics at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. Christie Calahan is the director of marketing at eLearning Brothers. Email the authors.

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GLOBAL OUTLOOK

BUYER BEWARE: DON’T INVEST IN CROSSCULTURAL TRAINING YOU DON’T NEED BY JAMIE B. GELBTUCH AND FRANK GARTEN, PH.D.

Much of cross-cultural training bought in the corporate world is the right solution to the wrong problem and yields low return on investment. When a multicultural team is not performing well, culture quickly becomes the scapegoat. The team’s issues, however, are not necessarily the result of a lack of cultural knowledge. The common perception is that working on cross-cultural teams adds layers of complexity. Yet, communication challenges, trust-building issues and power struggles can equally exist on monocultural teams. In fact, research has shown that “country” can be a poor container of culture, as more differences exist within countries than between them. Perception is a poor compass for deciding where to invest company dollars. In any investment decision, one should return to the facts and clarify the underlying problem that needs to be solved. WHY DO WE BUY CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING? In our experience delivering crosscultural training, we identified three primary reasons why companies invest in it. First of all, confirmation bias kicks in. Rather than carefully analyzing the difficulty from multiple perspectives and breaking it down to define the root cause, our brain shortcuts to confirm our belief that problems on cross-cultural teams stem from cultural differences. Secondly, today’s work environment demands results. Reaching out to human

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resources (HR) to schedule a training is quicker than working with team members to dig into biases and interpersonal dynamics. HR – feeling the same pressure to deliver results – then outsources the problem to an external training provider. Everyone feels pro-active about taking steps to solve the problem to the best of their abilities. In reality, we have farmed out the problem-solving two or even three times, and with the addition of each party, we lose sight of the real issue. Finally, many organizations have an embedded culture of training. This becomes the go-to solution whenever the way of working needs to improve. Therefore, habit dictates that we should invest in a cross-cultural training when there is a problem on a crosscultural team.

AN OPEN ATTITUDE TOWARD DIFFERENCES IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN STUDYING THE BEHAVIORS THAT PEOPLE MAY ENCOUNTER.

cluster national cultures based on common characteristics, such as how people deal with hierarchy or how directly they communicate. Training uses this data to look at central tendencies in a target culture. However, the data does not isolate regional, generational, organizational or individual differences, the last two of which are most likely responsible for the challenges experienced on any team. As a result, a cross-cultural training focuses on how cultures are supposed to be rather than how individuals actually are. A training about Brazil doesn’t talk about your company’s team in Brazil. It talks about working with 200 million Brazilians in general. Participants analyze cultural gaps in an effort to match the Brazilian team’s behaviors to the tendencies predicted by the models. This is an oversimplification of the team’s interactions that fails to take unique personalities into account.

WHAT HAPPENS IN A TYPICAL CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING?

On one hand, cross-cultural training provides “the joy of recognition.” Participants often see their colleagues’ behaviors in the cultural stereotypes. The models offer a way to structure our environment, so the world suddenly makes sense. Because data and observations have been organized, we perceive that we better understand different cultures. After the training, participants often say, “The material was interesting,” or, “The course was good fun.”

The majority of cross-cultural trainings are based on cultural framework models founded on the idea that culture is something that can be measured and

On the other hand, participants may resist the way a culture has been characterized, as they can cite counterexamples in their teams. They will refer to the Brazilian

manager who does not care for personal relationships, or explain that at their German innovation center personnel are not rigid at all. Cross-cultural trainers then quickly find themselves defending the models by pointing out behaviors that fit or adding disclaimers that the models may be inaccurate, outdated or “just a guideline.” Additionally, participants point out that using these frameworks to explain behaviors contributes further to stereotyping and can go as far as creating blame. As we analyze the other culture, we may implicitly confirm that the problems we face are a result of the other culture. Our own behaviors, assumptions and openness to differences remain unchallenged. The problem intensifies when only half of the team is present to learn about the culture of the other half. An “us vs. them” dynamic replaces a collective responsibility to act as one team. By the end of the training, cultural awareness and understanding have potentially improved. Yet, managers point out that team behaviors do not change in the long run Consequently, cross-cultural training is often the right solution to the wrong problem. HOW TO IDENTIFY THE REAL PROBLEM We argue that every request for crosscultural training should be received with caution to avoid defining a solution before defining the problem. So, what

should business managers, learning and development, and HR do to ensure they tackle the correct problem? We can use five – often forgotten – steps from the high impact learning methodology: 1. Define the business objectives of the team (derived from the business objectives of the organization). 2. State the critical activities of team members to meet these objectives (i.e., what people should do). 3. Describe the current reality of the team (i.e., what people actually do). 4. Identify the gaps between the second and third questions. This defines the real problem. 5. Once question four has been completed and verified, the solution can be designed. In our experience, few if any organizations work through this process internally before investing in cross-cultural training. Managers, for example, are under the pressure of many operational tasks that do not allow them to spend enough time deep. The in-depth dialogue required between HR and management often doesn’t materialize. After thinking through steps one through five, it is unlikely that the outcome is a need for a cross-cultural training.

These observations resonate remarkably well with those of Robert O. Brinkerhoff, which led to several often-used learning models. He states that, in corporate training, we usually spend a large amount of time on the learning event itself. We also spend little time upfront to get the objectives right and little time after to ensure the skills transfer. The focus should be on creating the skills, knowledge and actions that ensure the key critical activities are done well by the team. CONCLUSION Confirmation bias and an organizational culture of training can drive global managers into the arms of cross-cultural training providers. An open attitude toward differences is more important than studying the behaviors that people may encounter. It is the openness to learning, rather than the knowledge itself, that should be the focus of training. It is the responsibility of managers to avoid the cross-cultural training shortcut. By investigating the source of the issue, we model what we expect from our teams: Do the in-depth work before choosing a quick and obvious solution. Jamie B. Gelbtuch is the founder of Cultural Mixology, where she serves as a strategic thinking partner to support individuals and organizations faced with multicultural challenges. Frank Garten, Ph.D., is a Netherlands-based author, speaker and facilitator, specializing in cross-cultural differences and clear conversations. Email the authors.

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STELLA LEE, PH.D.

WHAT’S NEXT IN TECH

HACKATHONS AS A MEANS TO CULTIVATE A LEARNING ORGANIZATION Many of us think of hackathons as gatherings of technically-minded people coming together to write computer codes while looking sleep deprived. While hackathons are deeply rooted in the technological culture, today we see a variety of hackathons, from solving climate change challenges to promoting social good. Participants with backgrounds as diverse as marketing, human resources and project management are taking part in these events, working alongside IT professionals. Broadly speaking, a hackathon is a creative and collaborative means of solving problems within a limited time period. When designed appropriately, internal hackathons could work well for companies striving to cultivate cultures of learning. Here are a few ways hackathons support organizational learning. PEER-LED LEARNING Hackathons require people to form teams and work together to solve a problem. The problems are usually complex and authentic, requiring collaboration and a variety of skill sets. The key to success is maximizing diversity among team members to reflect the diversity of perspectives, experiences and domain knowledges. This is a huge opportunity for learning and development (L&D) staff to learn from other departments and units within the organizations. For example, learning professionals can learn more about data interpretations from business analysts and storytelling techniques from marketers. This type of peer-led learning can help in upskilling employees.

FAIL FAST Hackathons usually last for a short period of time. Participants won’t have time to come up with a perfect solution, and the speed of execution is more important than perfect execution. For this reason, rapid prototyping is the norm. Rapid prototyping is a design approach consisting of ideation, prototyping and testing. It starts with group ideation to generate ideas; then, you create lo-fi prototypes that are easily reproducible with a paper-and-pencil sketch. Finally, you test prototypes on users. In L&D, we often focus on just one learning solution, and stick with it throughout the development cycle before getting any feedback. The tight turnaround time in hackathons encourages you to test many ideas to increase the speed of training design and development.

THE EXPERIMENTAL NATURE OF HACKATHONS HELPS LEARNING LEADERS ADOPT AN AGILE MINDSET. IDEA VALIDATION Idea validation is the process of testing and affirming your idea prior to launching the product or service. User testing is a common technique used in hackathons. User testing allows the designers to observe how users interact with the product and receive direct input from them. It is about putting yourself in your users’ shoes to determine whether

your solution offers value. Similarly, idea validation can be applied in L&D by testing your learning solutions with real users, so that your design is feedback driven and learner centered. AGILE MINDSET The experimental nature of hackathons helps learning leaders adopt an agile mindset. To have an agile mindset means that you are open to diverse ideas and continuous feedback, and moreover, you are able to adjust accordingly. An agile mindset is about learning and adapting, so iteration is key. It is not unusual to see hackathon teams go through several lofi prototypes before arriving at a final solution within a couple of days. To put it in the context of L&D, we can apply an agile mindset in designing and delivering our training and learning solutions by pilot testing small increments of content, collecting feedback from your learners, and preparing to change your learning design and approaches based on the insights. The ethos of hackathons is learning by doing, and working together is crucial for success. I challenge you to host a hackathon at your organization to start cultivating a learning culture. Dr. Stella Lee has over 20 years of experience in consulting, planning, designing, implementing, and measuring learning initiatives. Today, her focus is on large-scale learning projects including LMS evaluation and implementation, learning analytics, and artificial intelligent applications in learning. Email Stella.

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DOUG HARWARD

SECRETS OF SOURCING

5 WAYS TO IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF YOUR LEARNERS Training Industry, Inc. has spent a decade conducting research on what makes a great training organization, as well as the practices they employ to achieve high-level results. These findings have allowed us to produce a variety of models to help the training manager with developing organizations that offer applied learning experiences to improve behavior on the job – ultimately improving business performance. We have found that the common denominator of all great training organizations are the exceptional leaders of the training function. Strong leadership is the single characteristic that transforms a good training organization into a great training organization. Training functions may have well-defined processes, access to technologies and learning tools, and experienced instructors – but high-performing training organizations have leaders who understand how to achieve true behavioral improvement that improves business outcomes. The reality is that the training function is not to serve as a teaching organization; it is to serve as a performance improvement organization. Of course, teaching fosters performance improvement. However, our responsibility is not simply to deliver courses but to get learners to behave in a way that achieves business results. I know that everyone in our profession ultimately understands this concept, but we still have a long way to go to develop the future leaders of our training organizations and to prove the impact of training. The good news is our industry

has moved forward leaps and bounds. By better understanding the science behind how people learn, we can reduce the amount of time people spend in training and increase the time they spend practicing and improving behavior.

STRONG LEADERSHIP IS THE SINGLE CHARACTERISTIC THAT TRANSFORMS A GOOD TRAINING ORGANIZATION INTO A GREAT TRAINING ORGANIZATION. Here are a few easy-to-implement practices that, when done effectively, can dramatically change the performance of your learners. 1. On-the-job practice: Formal training programs are effective in helping the learner understand the responsibilities and expectations of their role. But the best way for anyone to get better at their job is to gain experience. Doing the job without a deliberate plan for improvement may constitute doing the same, wrong thing repeatedly. Each job should have a clear on-thejob learning component defined with learning objectives and performance milestones. Improvement comes from deliberate practice. 2. Feedback: Understanding when you are doing something wrong is critical for improvement, but it’s also important to know when you’re

performing well. Feedback is not just about having someone telling you when something is right or wrong. It’s critical to have the knowledge to evaluate your own performance. 3. Reinforcement: Research has found that the foundation of learning comes from skills, concepts or practices being reinforced over an extended period of time. We often think of reinforcement as what a facilitator or supervisor provides us in feedback. Reinforcement can also come in the form of reminders for deliverables or on the importance of practice. 4. Spacing: Conducted over a century ago, the research of Dr. Herman Ebbinghaus concluded that information or skills practiced and reinforced over time minimized forgetting and ensured performance continuity. Spaced learning requires information to be reinforced over an extended period of time rather than delivered in a large, single dose. 5. Coaching: One of the most effective techniques for improving performance is coaching. Providing objective feedback is critical, but the most important aspect of coaching is providing learners with direction on how to move forward. The most effective coaches provide a plan on how to improve, as well as affirmation and recognition when they reach their goals. Doug Harward is CEO of Training Industry, Inc. and a former learning leader in the high-tech industry. Email Doug.

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MICHELLE EGGLESTON SCHWARTZ

LEARNER MINDSET

HOW DISCOMFORT ENABLES GROWTH

Everyone has felt anxiety when trying something for the first time. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is scary, discouraging many people from embracing new opportunities. However, it’s these moments of unease that push us to grow and reach our full potential – if we’re willing to persevere. Let’s be honest: There’s comfort in routines and predictable workflows. But navigating life on cruise control lacks the richness and reward gained from accomplishing difficult goals. It’s the challenges and setbacks along the way that create a profound sense of achievement. In the current business climate, employees are being bombarded by challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From transitioning to a remote work environment to ensuring compliance with safety guidelines, displaced employees are struggling to navigate their new realities. They’re anxious, stressed and uncomfortable in the unknown. As a first-time mother to a six-month-old baby during the pandemic, adapting to the rapid changes has been difficult to say the least. Juggling remote work and family life has been a humbling experience as a mother, wife, leader and peer. Prior to the pandemic, it was easier to separate work and home life, especially for those accustomed to working in an office. This crisis has blended both worlds – with video conferencing tools inviting clients, customers and colleagues into our homes, and pets and family members making impromptu appearances. Through all the disruption,

the pandemic has challenged people to apply new ways of thinking and working. When your dining room becomes your new office and your baby becomes your new co-worker – creativity, resilience and empathy emerge from the chaos.

CHANGE FUELS INNOVATION, AND INGENUITY IS GOING TO HELP ORGANIZATIONS EVOLVE IN TIMES OF DISRUPTION. Change fuels innovation, and ingenuity is going to help organizations evolve in times of disruption. Learning and development (L&D) professionals play a pivotal role in helping employees adjust to business changes and excel in the current climate. Here are a few ways L&D can help employees embrace change during times of disruption: • Integrate mindfulness into day-today work life: Uncertainty creates anxiety and stress, making it difficult to think clearly and concentrate. Mindfulness can help alleviate these issues. Mindfulness is defined as “maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.” By teaching mindfulness practices like meditation, employees can become more adaptable to change, increase their problem-solving skills and demonstrate more empathy toward others.

• Promote a perspective of empathy: Empathy is not about being nice, compassionate or sympathetic; it’s about understanding and sharing someone else’s feelings. It’s about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to allow yourself to see things from their perspective. In moments of change and disruption, empathy can help employees better understand others, leading to an increase in communication and productivity. • Encourage clear, transparent communication: Open communication is necessary during times of disruption. By maintaining ongoing communication and outlining how this change is going to impact employees, leaders can garner support. When people feel valued and respected, they will inevitably work harder for your bottom line. • Connect in meaningful and fun ways: Creating ways for employees to connect during times of disruption can improve motivation and engagement. Informal activities – like a happy hour event – can strengthen employee morale and connect colleagues on a more meaningful level. • Disruption and change can create overwhelming anxiety and stress for employees. By leaning into the discomfort, we can step outside our comfort zone and embrace new opportunities that will push us forward. Michelle Eggleston Schwartz is the editorial director at Training Industry, Inc. Email Michelle.

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CLOSING DEALS

ENABLING UBIQUITOUS LEARNING: CORNERSTONE ONDEMAND ACQUIRES SABA SOFTWARE BY TARYN OESCH

This spring, remote learning came into its own amid the coronavirus pandemic. Learning and development (L&D) experts suddenly became more integral than ever, both inside their organizations and the broader business community. Amid the chaos, Cornerstone OnDemand announced its acquisition of Saba from Vector Capital for almost $1.4 billion. A “talent experience solutions” company, Saba’s offerings include software for recruiting, onboarding, training, performance management and coaching. The transaction is expected to close this quarter. It was a timely announcement, as a Cornerstone spokesperson noted in an email to Training Industry Magazine: “Given our current climate, learning, especially online learning, will become the norm for even more organizations around the world. Over the next few years, you will see learning and development opportunities start to blend in with day-today work, making learning more seamless in the flow of work. We like to think of this concept as ‘ubiquitous learning’ — it’s happening all around you, all the time.” LEARNING IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 didn’t introduce online learning, but it did make it an imperative. As businesses sent workers home, leaders realized anew the importance of providing learning solutions in the time and place that best suits the learner. Other trends have also increased the demand for effective online learning.

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Recent years have introduced the gig worker. Many of these “employees” are not present in the office and cannot participate in most in-person training opportunities. However, they often still need training and access to upskilling initiatives. As L&D explores how to develop these workers, access to quality learning platforms will be critical. With its acquisition of Saba, Cornerstone hopes to improve its ability to help organizations provide that “personalized, engaging and highly empowering” talent experience, the spokesperson said. “Whether employees are onboarding, developing new skills, seeking new opportunities within [their] organization or managing a large remote team, they should always feel like they have the tools, insights and support they need to be productive and to realize their potential.” IMPROVING LEARNING ACROSS GENERATIONS “Technology can offer employees a safe place to practice critical workplace skills,” said the Cornerstone spokesperson. Platforms should enable “employees to improve as they go, before they apply [new skills] to the real world. Online learning and applications through modern technological advancements will continue to help businesses distribute compliance training, code of business ethics and annual reviews. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will also support the workforce’s continued development by identifying retention risks and addressing the skills gap in an organization.”

With the arrival of Generation Z in the workforce, L&D is looking for new ways to engage these digital natives in training. With that goal in mind, Cornerstone recently launched a “Digital Native Advancement (DNA)” offering, which uses microlearning to develop Gen Zers’ skills. “Microlearning is the opposite of traditional learning,” said the Cornerstone spokesperson, “which is typically comprised of long classes and a lot of lengthy, involved coursework.” The “short bursts of learning” involved in microlearning are growing in popularity. “If employers want to ensure that their workers are actively engaged in training development, they have to adapt” to workers’ learning preferences. According to recent Training Industry research, those preferences can be influenced by anything from job function to training topic. By offering learning on an online platform that enables multiple modalities, L&D leaders ensure they meet a wide variety of learning needs, improving the impact of their programs. Cornerstone is optimistic about the future of learning. The acquisition “gives Cornerstone and Saba the resources to accelerate innovation and propel us through the next 20 years of growth with an unwavering focus on customer value,” says the spokesperson. Together, the companies hope, they will “continue [their] mission of engaging and empowering the global workforce.” Taryn Oesch is the managing editor of digital content for Training Industry, Inc. Email Taryn.

COMPANY NEWS

ACQUISITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS KPA, a leading provider of environment, health and safety (EHS), and workforce compliance software, announced the acquisition of Multimedia Training Systems (MTS), a safety training company specializing in life-saving video programs for the manufacturing industry. The addition of MTS to the KPA team will enhance their ability to provide clients with an integrated portfolio of EHS software, consulting services and comprehensive training. SendBird, the leading interactions API service for mobile and web applications, announced that it has acquired Roundee.io – a core technology and key engineering talent from enterprise video conferencing platform. The acquisition comes at a time when people across the globe are searching for new ways to connect, and it further solidifies SendBird’s position as the market leader in in-app communications.

Therapeutic Research Center (TRC®) Healthcare, a leading provider of medication advisory and learning solutions and the author of Pharmacist’s Letter, announced that it has acquired CriticalPoint, LLC – a premier provider of educational offerings focused on sterile and non-sterile compounding. With the acquisition, TRC® Healthcare expands its network of end-users and retail pharmacy clients.

The Mom Project, the leader in helping enterprises attract and retain female talent, announced its acquisition of Werk, a people analytics platform that puts flexibility insights and data into the hands of companies to help them work smarter. The Mom Project’s existing insights division will expand its employee experience and workplace productivity analytics offering under “WerkLabs.”

DuPont Sustainable Solutions (DSS) announced its acquisition of the assets of Lodestone Partners, a global consulting firm recognized for helping companies in the resource industry achieve sustainable improvements in operating performance. The acquisition deepens DSS’ knowledge and capability in the area of operations excellence, particularly in the natural resource and mining industry.

Learning Technologies Group (LTG), a global leader in the high-growth workplace learning and talent industry, has entered into an agreement to acquire all intellectual property and assets relating to Blackboard’s open learning management system platform. The addition provides significant synergies across the Group’s portfolio of businesses, enhancing LTG’s current offerings.

INDUSTRY NEWS FREE ASSESSMENT TO MAP EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP

OutMatch, a talent intelligence platform, announced the launch of its free development assessment to help organizations understand how effectively their leaders can navigate through a crisis. The assessment analyzes how leaders display certain behaviors during a crisis and helps identify potential performance gaps. INTEGRATING MARKET-LEADING DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE AND UPSKILLING PLATFORMS

Inkling and EdCast announced that they are partnering to improve how enterprises create and distribute missioncritical learning to their employees. The integrated offering combines the bestin-class AI-powered learning experience

platform (LXP) from EdCast with Inkling’s mobile-first operational learning platform to enhance onboarding, training and upskilling efforts across the enterprise. EXPANSION OF SAFETY, WELL-BEING, AND SOFT SKILLS COURSE LIBRARY

OpenSesame, the elearning innovator, announced iAM Learning was added to its popular OpenSesame Plus subscription to expand its curated library of safety, well-being and soft skills courses. Companies leverage the OpenSesame Plus subscription to keep employees safe, motivated and happy while keeping the organization compliant. TRAINING COMPANIES OFFERING FREE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES DURING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

created by the coronavirus pandemic, Training Industry, Inc. has curated a list of free training products and services companies in our industry are now offering. Organizations can leverage these resources to remain agile and adaptive in the face of unprecedented challenges presented by COVID-19.

INTERESTED IN SUBMITTING COMPANY NEWS? PLEASE SEND TO EDITOR@TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM

In light of the business and training issues

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