Blogg | Promote International

Rethinking the way programs are delivered to beat the need to travel

Posted on mars 20, 2020oktober 12, 2021 by Alex Brittain-Catlin

The Coronavirus has brought many challenges with it. Not least that organisations have started enforcing travel bans on their employees, which has had an understandable impact on Learning and Development programs that are currently underway.

Just such a situation has arisen with one of our customers. They have just concluded the pilot of a program and were intending to roll out at scale in the next few weeks. Enter the necessary travel ban and suddenly their plans are up in the air.

The particular program focused on some several hundred employees located around the country. The initial aim was to gather them together in smaller groups and facilitate the learning in the normal way, over several one-day sessions. However, this is now not possible and the idea of waiting until the travel ban is lifted is equally unappealing because of the delays that it will bring. The question was whether to postpone, cancel, or try another approach.

The design of the program revolved around a three-phase approach. The first phase incorporates our online platform Promote to act as the backbone of the program, providing the corporative relevance, the learning theory, and supervisor engagement. Once this knowledge foundation has been delivered digitally, participants move to phase two, the face-to-face sessions where they would really practice and develop key behaviours. During the final phase, there would be additional application assignments, facilitated by both instructors (digitally) and supervisors (face-to-face) to ensure that the participants actually implemented the learning in their workplaces and were supported in doing so. However, due to travel restrictions, the second phase and therefore the whole program were now in danger.

The solution has been to facilitate the face-to-face sessions virtually. The upside is no need to travel, a reduction in logistical costs, and a continuation of the program roll out. All this without a loss in quality and still providing the participants with what they need to apply their learning in their places of work.

This approach has not been without its challenges, not least in the experience that many of us have had when attending virtual trainings in the past. In the majority of cases these could not have been described as engaging and their value has rightly been challenged. The key has been not to address just the face-to-face elements but the design of the program as a whole. To take the emphasis away from the purely co-located elements and place it across the different media. Taking this approach, we can still attain the performance we are after but the virtual facilitation takes on a more central role.

An additional factor may well turn out to be that this customer doesn’t return to the event focus that they have had hitherto. That once the more virtual approach has been introduced and participants become familiar with it, the requirement to deliver as many face-to-face trainings can be reduced. The situation was forced upon them through necessity but has also proven to be an opportunity to try something new.

Ironically, this new approach is not so new after all. It’s already out there being delivered in other companies. However, what was missing was the spur to adopt this new approach. Programs do not necessarily need to be put on hold because of the unfolding situation but can instead be re-embodied through new means of delivery, aided by technology, and designed with performance in mind.

See this as an opportunity, albeit one that has been brought about through unfortunate circumstances, to try new approaches rather than as a reason to stop Learning and Development initiatives.

The Impact of External Factors and How L&D Needs to Change its Approach

Posted on mars 6, 2020oktober 12, 2021 by Alex Brittain-Catlin

The World is being hit by the effects of the Coronavirus, the personal challenges of those who have been infected and the concerns of those who have not yet been. With governments recommending that people work from home and organisations putting travel restrictions into place, we are already seeing the impact that such an outbreak can have on the international community.

The challenges that are currently present for the wider business environment are also reflected in how Learning and Development departments are able to deliver educational initiatives in such situations. By and large, there is still a dependency on not only flying people around the globe for such learning events but also of then gathering groups of people together and putting them in classrooms for at least a few days. Neither of which are ideal, either for the companies or for the participants of such programs.

It is not just health issues that effect the ability of companies to deliver what can be important training ambitions. Economic downturns have also proven a challenge to Learning and Development activities, where once again the costs of holding trainings often leads to them being early victims of any sort of slowdown. The double impact comes because it may well be at such times that such learning and development is most needed, during times of change where there is often time and opportunity to carry out competence development activities.

There is still an over-reliance on the traditional way of doing things when it comes to Learning and Development. The hangover of event-based thinking for many training initiatives still remains. However, event-based thinking has been challenged recently and for good reason. Not least because of resistance both from organisations and from individuals to spending time away from work to participate. The cost of “time away from work” is increasingly challenged, the inevitable backlog of work that needs to be done upon return or the “organisational realities” that take precedence over the luxury of development have become increasingly apparent.

The problem is not insurmountable and technology can come to our aid. It is genuinely possible to turn face-to-face training programs into less intrusive, more flexible, and more performance driven activities. The solution comes not in turning to a new medium but in using a range of media to meet our requirements. This is not about turning face-to-face events into virtual events, or by making all learning standalone eLearning. Instead it’s about using a mix of media to deliver such initiatives to best suit the subject matter, the organisation’s requirements, and the learners’ needs.

The solution comes through two main factors. Firstly, the move from an event to a journey focus. This enables smaller learning chunks to be delivered and subsequent applications to be applied where they matter most, in the work place. This means that a sizeable amount of the development happens whilst at work. Secondly, technology can support this application, it provides a backbone on which to base the knowledge foundation, to deliver theory, enable discussion, filter ideas, and report back on application. Manager support, key to many such learning initiatives, can also be built and garnered throughout the process.

More recently the additional ability of virtual facilitation to replace in many instances the requirement of face-to-face time is an additional and increasingly effective element. Gone are the days of long, laborious lectures delivered via a computer, instead replaced by interactive learning sessions that have been proven to be as effective. What we are seeing is a change in mindset when it comes to how we use virtual, to finally give us a way of really making it work.

Organisations would be well advised to look at how they deliver Learning and Development initiatives to their employees to realise more effective learning outcomes. If not, operational realities may well force their hand. Making this shift is eminently possible but it does require a rethink in the way we design and deliver such programs.

Guided Social Learning: A key to a successful learning journey

Posted on mars 31, 2017oktober 12, 2021 by Edward Boon

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:

Encourage the sharing “Inside and outside the classroom” – encourage the participants to share experiences, views and opinions.
Don’t be afraid to use feedback: In a healthy environment, feedback is a great way to make people grow, change and inspire others.
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.