Guided Social Learning is no longer a buzzword. It is a way to develop both organizations and employees. Get some hands-on advice how to get started in this blog post.

The social learning theory describes learning as a cognitive process that takes place in any social context, at work, at home, in school, amongst friends and family and so on. Social learning is not always positive, it comprises all behaviors.

For example: If my colleague shows up late to work every morning and I notice that he or she isn’t getting any negative feedback from our manager, there is a big chance that I will try to get into work later myself. But it is the same with good behaviors; I get inspired by my coworkers at work sharing ideas with them and see how they solve common issues.

In the training industry, it is common to use the theory to describe the difficulties of changing a behavior at the workplace after a training session, a big challenge to both the ones who deliver training and the customers ordering it. It’s said that guided social learning is one of the fastest growing segments of the training and education industry, and I truly believe so.

Working in HR/L&D, You invest in a training program and you want to see visible, hands-on results. As an employee, it’s hard to try out a new behavior at the workplace, especially if you’re alone trying it. You have to have a supportive and participating manager, open-minded colleagues and you have to have the courage and chance to try, fail, and try again to succeed.

With an effective and smart feedback culture and guided social learning, it’s possible to make the change happen. These are all things that you as an HR-representative can introduce and encourage at the workplace: In other words, start a learning journey that makes the learning stick.

Three ways how to create a great space with positive peer learning:

1. Encourage the sharing “Inside and outside the classroom” – encourage the participants to share experiences, views and opinions.
2. Don’t be afraid to use feedback: In a healthy environment, feedback is a great way to make people grow, change and inspire others.
3. Wha’s visible gets done:  Get a tool to help you monitor the employees progress. Give them feedback exercises; connect them with their managers to create a positive peer pressure.

Guided social learning is one of the key features in Promote. Do you want to learn more about us and how our learning platform can make it easier for you to get real business results from training? Book a free demo with one of our solution experts.

The new survey tool Fetch is now available for integration with Promote.

Fetch is a new tool that will allow you to create surveys and get a deep understanding about your learners by collecting feedback from them. In Fetch you can create surveys, collect data and create reports.

Fetch makes it easier for you to evaluate your programs, and to collect relevant comments and opinions. An invaluable part of the work to make your training programs more effective.

Fetch is now available as an integrated part of Promote. This means respondents can access surveys directly from programs in Promote. No more need for separate evaluation systems or paper based evaluations in the classroom.

In upcoming releases Fetch will also support quizzes, a great way to engage your participants before, after and during your courses and programs.

Get more information about Fetch and our upcoming Promote releases, contact us at support@promoteint.com

My latest blog post was about management involvement and the sometimes incorrect assumption that managers do not want to be involved in their employees training, or don’t have the time. Both research and our experience show the opposite. As long as managers understand the importance of being involved and are given the accurate tools, they are happy to support their employees. This post is about how easy it is to involve your managers and create higher effect and results with the training.

1. Getting involved in goal setting

One of the most important parts of management involvement is goal setting. We often meet employees taking part in training programs without knowing why and how they are supposed to contribute to the organization differently when they come back. Encourage the managers to discuss and clarify the individual goals and expectations with the employees. Try to define the goals according to SMART and make sure the goals are understood and that the employees are committed.

2. Identifying situations where we want to see change

As soon as we start designing a new training program or improving an existing one, it’ very important to involve the mangers. Ask the question: In what situations do you want to see a new or improved behaviour? By asking this question your get the mangers to really think about crucial situations where they want their employees to act differently and more effectively.  By doing this early on, you have a created a better understanding of what we are trying to achieve with the training.

3. Letting the employees apply new behaviours

Managers play an important role in letting the employees apply what they have learned, i.e. using the new behaviours. According to the research by Dr. Brinkerhoff, 70 % of the participants try one to three times and then fall back into their old behaviours. In order to change this, the managers have to take part in the change and let the employees frequently apply what they have learned.

4. Commenting and giving feedback during training

When the managers have taken part in identifying situations where they want to see change, it’s much easier for them to follow up and give feedback on improved behaviours during the training. Feedback and acknowledgement from managers during training is crucial for the employees in order to try and stick to new behaviours.

5. Reviewing and evaluating goals

After the training, the manager’s role is to review and evaluate the goals together with the employee. To what extent has the employee reached the goals? What is the next step and what kind of support does he or she need to be able to stick to the new behaviour?

For new recruits (or any employee for that matter), training is always a fun experience. Mostly because it’s where you learn something new. Sadly, not all training programs produce results that impact the business in a positive way, and even when they do, to prove these results is a big challenge!

This is not because the training program is bad. As a matter of fact, some of the most in-depth training programs can fail in achieving or proving results. Lucky for you, you can use Promote to create a one-of-a-kind training program that hits your goals, focus on results from the very first day and, most importantly, prove then! All of this while making sure that your trainees are having a good time.

It’s not all about you

The thing most training programs fail to see that it’s not all about the program itself. It should also be about the people who will take the training. Focusing only on one-part defeats the purpose of making a training program that urges people to learn.

It’s very common (more than you would think) to see people getting back to work after a training program, without applying their learning. It means the business will not benefit from the training; instead, money will just go to waste. With a training program, companies expect results, they expect their employees to learn new behaviors that will impact the business, and it should make a difference!

It’s very common (more than you would think) to see people getting back to work after a training program, without applying their learning.

In order to facilitate this process, training attendants need to be empowered from the beginning, their managers need to be involved and create the right environment for their return to work. For its success a training program needs to be designed with results in mind, with the right technics to involve managers and a set of tools that will help the attendant before, during and after the training.

Three Pillars of Training Programs

So you want to make a good training program with Promote but you don’t know where to start. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

It is said that there are three pillars that make a good training program. Let’s list them down one-by-one and find out why each of them are important when creating training programs.

1. Results, results, results!

Know what you want, knowing your goal is the battle half won. Sadly, this is where most training programs fail, they are created without a goal in mind. Well, you might have the central idea or the thought of the whole training program down but what really is your goal? Are you just going to stop with your trainees learning how the machines work? Or do you want them to be not just operators but also safety engineers?

2. Know what they want

Alright, so this is the part where we discuss how a training program becomes boring or ineffective. Like what I said earlier, it’s not necessarily because the central idea of the training is bad. It’s mostly because the training program was created without thinking what the target group wants. You know what’s the best part about this? This is actually the easiest part. Why? Because all you have to do is ask.

A simple questionnaire can give you loads of insight into what your target group wants. Would they want a more hands-on training session? Maybe give more concrete examples for each instruction for the training? When they know that it is for their own good, they won’t have second thoughts about giving their two cents worth.

3. Make it simple yet fun

I can’t really count how many times I’ve heard friends or colleagues tell me how much they hated a training program all because it was too complicated for a very simple training and I share their pain. People have this notion that when something is complicated then it is bound to be good not necessarily.

All you have to remember when creating training programs with Promote is that although the end goal is to gain new skills, habits, or knowledge, you don’t have to be so hard and strict about everything. Going down the “simple yet effective” route should always be your choice when making training programs. Not only will this make the program fun and easy for the participants, it will also save you the trouble caused by an overly complicated regimen.

You will be able to visualize results!

Applying all the three pillars of training programs is a lot easier with Promote. Promote allows you to custom-fit any training program to your liking. With that in mind, the possibilities are endless.

With Promote, you can create a scaling training program that incorporates social learning along with effective training modules. You will be able to visualize results! Your attendants will have the conditions they need to use their new learned behaviors, when they get back to their workplace.

The company will finally benefit from the training and the business will experience a positive impact from it.

When thinking about staff training, organisations often put their faith in what is available to them externally, they look outside for a complete fix to whatever problem they may have, and often behave as if training takes place in a vacuum.

Let’s take an example. Imagine that a company’s sales team is underperforming.  To address the situation, training is suggested to improve the team’s performance. A logical argument for sure. The question of cost will raise its head and discussions will be held as to whether the business can afford to spend a few thousand pounds on training the sales team. Someone will suggest that they cannot afford not to and the decision will be made that they ought to do it and the search for a training provider begins. Once found, the provider will deliver a two day sales course, the group will enjoy it and all will be well. Or will it?!

I have written often about what providers can do to ensure that the learning sticks and that the training is not just enjoyable but also actually creates new behaviours in order to impact on business objectives.

In this article I want to focus on what the business who bought the training can do to ensure it works as well as it can. For it is not down to the provider or the trainer alone!

1) When deciding which provider to use for your training, always invite three or four to meet and propose their solutions. It sounds obvious but all providers are not the same and making sure that the provider fits your business’ culture and approach is crucial for the success of the training

2) Always ask the providers what they do before the training and after the training to help make the learning stick, as well as what they do during the course. If they do not show any inclination to meet the participants (or at least make contact) before the actual course, it is unlikely they will be able to tailor the content accurately.  This is particularly important when training more experienced participants. If they have no way of embedding the learning after the course itself, it is highly unlikely that it will make a lasting impression.

3) Once the training provider has been decided, ask the trainer/facilitator to contact the line managers of those who will be attending. This is an essential part of the process. Trainer and line manager will need to collaborate in order to help the participants use what they have learnt.

4) Ensure that the line managers have a clear understanding of the content of the course and its design. This makes certain that they do not have to ask the participants what was included on the course. They should know so that they can help the participant use what they have learnt, in line with their personal development plans.

5) Give the line managers some guidelines as to what they should be doing before their team member or members attend the course and what they should be doing after they return. The training should be able to help with this. At Phoenix we encourage managers to attend a short session before their team members participate in any training to provide an overview of content and more importantly, an idea of their responsibilities for the success of the programme.

6) Make sure that the participants set objectives for the training and discuss them with their line manager. They must have a goal for the training and really know why they are attending and how it will help them going forward.

7) Do not fill the course with extras to make the budget go further. It is always tempting to add extra attendees to create better value. Only those who really need the training should attend. Extra participants with no real objectives or reasons to attend other than they “might need it at some point” only dilute the training and its impact. It is much better to spend the money on those who need the skills and can use them immediately.

8) Make sure you have an appropriate room for the training to take place in. It is amazing how much difference a good training room can make to the success of the event. Don’t be tempted to squeeze the group into an unused meeting room. If the training provider can’t offer or source training facilities, a quick search should provide you with plenty of choice to match your budget. Make sure they have natural light and good catering options. These are the two things I find receive the most feedback.

9) The participants should always return from the training with some sort of action plan or a what I’m going to do now-list. It doesn’t have to be formal but there should be something that reflects what they are going to use as a result of the training. Line managers must have this post training conversation, that promotes the use of what they’ve learnt. It should not consist of”How was the training?”; “Really good thanks”; “Good”, and no more!

10) Give those who have attended the training the chance to use what they have learnt. They are being trained to develop a particular aspect of their role. It is vital that they are given the chance to practise their newly learnt skills. Training will probably have started the ball rolling in the right direction but they are unlikely to be experts at this stage. Practice in the “live” environment is where the skills become embedded. Without this the participants will quickly return to their old habits and techniques. Management support is once again vital to ensure this happens.

Read Bill’s blog: http://www.phoenix-training.co.uk/blog

Perhaps not as unique as we’d all like to think. I mean, show me a training company whose USP don’t include results!

Let’s take Mindset, for example, one of the most prominent training providers in Scandinavia. Now surely they’re going to have a unique selling point or three? After all, many a prospective client has heard me say it’s so:

• Yes, our consultants are all employed on a full time basis
• Yes, our class room training is excellent
• And yes, we have an international presence

Ah. See what I mean? Perhaps not quite as unique as we’d like to think! But then again, perhaps the first point is, actually, how many other training providers employ all of their consultants on a full time basis? Not many, I would hazard a guess, but we here at Mindset like to do so, because it means that from a pedagogical perspective, we are able to consistently design and deliver our training to a particular standard. A standard that’s in line with our values and culture. Our own way of doing things, if you like. Okay, that’s unique, but not unique enough in itself to buy our services.

A standard that’s in line with our values and culture

As for point two, providing excellent training. Tick. Of course we do! It’s what we live for. It’s why we exist. A given. And thankfully, our industry is full of many a talented and competent training providers.

And an international presence? Oh go on then, stick a pin in a map on your homepage and say it’s so.

As sales manager of Promote International, I’ve had my fair share of meetings over time, with selling points a plenty.

However, nowadays, I’ve become consciously aware of a small, but persistently nagging question in my head, saying:

Selling points, selling points, how lame might you be?

Take results, for example, a selling point oft talked about until the cows come home. But here’s the nub, we either get results from our training and can therefore evidence our value or we don’t.

The question then also becomes and how do we know?

We know. Promote lets us know. As it could for you, too.

We know, because Promote’s a learning transfer platform
that does what it says on the tin.

Promote’s sole purpose from origin is to drive behavioural application and thereby, results. It takes behavioural application and makes it plain for all to see. Did those you just trained applytheir learning, once back in the workplace, or not?

Now what was I saying about unique selling points (she says, spilling her coffee in haste).

Welcome to the clutter of everyday work. Surrounded by all of those things craving your attention. Constantly battling for your most precious resource – time.