Quotable: Alice Kim, Ph.D.
It's a misconception that trying to match knowledge delivery to someone's personal learning style or perceptual preference translates to better learning.
Dr. Alice Kim, Rotman Research Institute for the study of human brain function
Why We Should Ban Cell Phones During Training Classes
Gloria Mark, of the University of California, Irvine, has shown that workers typically attend to a task for about three minutes before switching to something else (usually an electronic communication) and that it takes about 20 minutes to return to the previous task.
Source: Harvard Business Review, June 2015, Conquering Digital Distraction
Music and Memory.org
The Training Doctor has just gathered up all its employee's old iPods and shipped them to Music and Memory to help "expand our proven program of personalized music to reach more individuals struggling with Alzheimer’s, dementia and other forms of cognitive and physical impairment.
A 5-minute task - a significant impact. Won't you consider doing the same?
How Do You Define "Competence" In A Job?
Very often when we design training we also want to design some type of test or certification which helps us to assure the organization that learning truly did take place. What most training departments struggle with, however, is how do you define competence? How can you ensure, through some type of test, that the trainee truly does understand what they've learned and can apply it on the job?
Very often when clients of ours ask us to create a Level 2 evaluation (a test) they ask of us: “So what should be the level of success?” In other words, what is a "passing grade?" Often, we fall back on the standards we learned in grade school - an 80 or better would be considered "passing" and better than average. But, in the reality of the workplace, do we really want someone who performs 20% less than they optimally could? It is not logical for us to churn out marginally capable individuals.
A solution to this dilemma is to secure a comparator. A comparator is essentially the standard of excellence or competency which we want a new trainee to be able to replicate. A comparator can be established through identifying those individuals, already on the job, whom the organization deems to be the best at their job. That might be the best salesperson, the machinist with the lowest quality defects, or the collections agent who has the best collections rate.
Don't look to just one individual because you have the potential to miss excellent practices which that individual might not employ. Judith Hale, of Hale Associates, even suggests NOT choosing your best performer but instead your B+ performers. Her philosophy is that the A+ performers don't even know what they do anymore; they are on autopilot and have forgotten what it is like to be new and still thinking through the process and applying rules.
Develop the comparator by conducting a time and task analysis of how your chosen performers do their job. This is a detailed observation of their day-to-day responsibilities: how they complete their responsibilities, how they organize themselves and what period of time it takes them to complete their job correctly and competently.
Once you have those comparators identified, you can then determine what the level 2 - or potentially level 3 - evaluation would seek to determine/establish. (Note: once you have the comparators, you can also establish your objectives.)
Rather than pulling a "level of excellence" out of thin air, instead, take the time analyze your best performers and establish a truly defensible expectation for competence and excellence on the job.
No, You Cannot Replicate Your F2F Class Online...
What most organizations don't appreciate is that it is impossible to take a classroom-based class and replicate it online as it currently exists. They are two different delivery mediums which require two different instructional design techniques.
Too often organizations simply strive to replicate the classroom experience; so they use the same participant guides, the same slides and the same activities, which fall flat and/or fail to support the learning experience in an online class.
Quotable: Bob Pike
When performance is the question, training is the sixth answer.
When we have deep conversations with managers about performance and help them focus on all the possible barriers to performance first - systems, policies and procedures, recruitment, placement, and coaching - but using some or all of these still does not provide the performance and results we want, then it is time to look at training.
Bob Pike is founder of The Bob Pike Group
How does one "prepare" to work in training?
What makes a "training professional?" Interestingly, the May/June edition of Training Magazine has a feature article, "2015 Emerging Training Leaders" and the formal degrees of the 25 individuals featured include: journalism, psychology, social work, biology (2), mechanical engineering, education (whew! we were getting worried), entrepreneurial studies, English lit, ecommerce, communications (warmer), genetics and French.
Things that make you go "hmmm." (Thanks Arsenio Hall)
Ensure Training Validity with an Advisory Committee
Establish an Advisory Committee
An advisory committee should be created in order to help you determine what training needs to be developed for your organization, and what is a priority. An advisory committee should be made up of front line workers from across the organization and from all levels, from hourly workers to supervisors. For example, if you want store managers to conduct new hire training, it's a good idea to have input from store management, supervisors, front-line workers, and back office workers. They will provide their thoughts on how the training should be delivered and what should be accomplished by the conclusion of it.
An advisory committee should have no more than 13 members, and the membership seats should be rotated regularly. Larger groups can be harder to facilitate, and you want to be sure everyone has an equal chance to participate in the discussion. You'll find that you don't have to do as much marketing of the training function when you have 13 ambassadors who return to their work areas every month understanding that they are responsible in part for the success of the organization.
The 4 Learning Outcomes all Training is Trying to Achieve
The Four Levels of Learning
While this month's topic is not directly related to adult learning theory, it is important to understand in terms of designing learning for adults.
Learning progresses "up a ladder" of difficulty from knowledge -which is the easiest way to design and transmit learning - to changed behavior on the job, which is the hardest to achieve through a learning process.
Knowledge is firmly rooted in education. It involves reading, lectures, and rote memorization. It is helpful for providing baseline information, such as facts and rules, and is easy to design because it is simply a collection of information. A learner often can partake of knowledge without any professional intervention.
Psychomotor skills are a bit more complex because they involve teaching someone to physically manipulate something such as a cash register or a fork lift. This type of instruction requires hands-on practice and a skilled instructor to demonstrate or coach appropriate behavior. This type of training takes longer to design because it includes both information and skill, and it takes longer to teach because an instructor is often required, and practice time should be included.
Proceeding up the ladder of difficulty, critical thinking skills are significantly harder to teach because they require teaching someone to think in a different way. For instance, teaching a loan officer how to determine if someone is eligible for a loan, includes both facts and rules (knowledge) - and applying those to some type of standard -in order to make a decision. Often, when teaching critical thinking, numerous scenarios must being practiced in order to have confidence that the learner will make the right decision no matter the variable stimuli.
Teaching critical thinking - within itself, can have many degrees of difficulty; from "easy" decision making - such as whether or not to grant a loan, to life or death decision making such as performing surgery. This type of learning process requires multiple exposures to information and situations (in other words, it takes longer to teach thinking skills) and is difficult to design in order to ensure that the trainee changes their thinking process permanently.
Finally, ultimately, the goal of training in the workplace is to get people to change their behavior on the job. This requires actually leaving the training and helping people to transition their new knowledge and skills to their on-the-job responsibilities. That can take a few days to a few months - especially if you're organization intends to do a level three evaluation in order to determine if changed behavior actually has occurred.
Before designing any training program, assess what your desired outcome is (from the four categories above) and invest the appropriate amount of time necessary for both the design and the successful completion of the training.
Quotable: Tom Gimbel
Our Training leaders don't provide the answers... they help people get to the answers themselves by posing thoughtful questions. They listen, observe, and think before reacting or responding.
Tom Gimbel, founder and CEO of LaSalle Network
CLO's Reasons for Outsourcing Training
Outsourcing some of your training functions such as instructional design (ahem) and delivery can help reduce the stress of creating and delivering content in an ever-changing environment. But don't take our word for it, here are some comments from CLO's Business Intelligence Board members, when surveyed about why they outsource:
Headcount reductions force us to seek outside assistance
There is no time for resources internally to develop training (this is the #1 reasons we hear, at The Training Doctor as well )
Outsourcing is more cost effective and flexible than hiring
In-house expertise becomes static and confined to specific areas
Subject matter expertise that the vendor brings
The vendor's ability to act as a partner
Why we can't effectively measure training outcomes (say the CLOs)
CLOs (Chief Learning Officers) believe their ability to deploy an effective [training] measurement process is limited by: Lack of resources, lack of management support, and an inability to bring data together from different functions. When the measurement programs are weak, most CLOs report their influence and role in helping achieve organizational priorities is also weak.
Source: Stagnant Outlook for Learning Measurement published in CLO Magazine, May 2015
Quotable: Michael Lee Stallard
Managers organize, leaders engage. People follow managers because these individuals have the authority to hire, fire, and promote them. People follow leaders because they are inspired to.
Quoted in Connect to Engage, published in TD, April 2015
Higher Ed Students are Used to Online Learning
About one-eighth of students enrolled in higher education institutions take all their coursework at a distance (online or through video, satellite or correspondence work), while another one-eighth take at least some classes at a distance according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education which focuses on best practices and technology for distance learning.
Free Podcasts Related to Workforce Development!
Looking to expand your horizons and gain some knowledge in the management arena? The AMA (American Marketing Association) is a great resource for free podcasts. You can find short audios from industry leaders such as Dan Pink, Marcus Buckingham, and Alexandra Levit on such topics as Collaborative Methods for Moving Forward, Why Technology is Doing More Harm Than Good, and Harnessing the Next Generation Workforce.
Learn more here!