The best L&D resources of October 2020

I started Offbeat 6 months ago with 0 goals in mind. I usually set goals for everything, so this felt a bit uncomfortable. Now I think I couldn't have done it better. With no pressure from myself or anyone else for that matter, I am able to actually enjoy the process.

Now, 6 months into it (which felt like years giving the current circumstances), I learned something important. Goals are less important than the system you have in place when you're building something. Do you have a habit that you can capitalize on? What's the recurrent process you can always come back to when things feel unsure? Do you have the time for it? Is there any kind of internal or external motivation that helps you go on?

So apart from my growth as a learning professional, I got a big lesson I can carry with me in my personal life. And hopefully, in the learning experiences I create together with my team.

I hope you are staying safe, sane, and feeling well.

Here's a list of the best resources of October 2020. I hope you will enjoy exploring it as much as I did putting it together.

ARTICLES

1. WANT MORE DIVERSE SENIOR LEADERSHIP? SPONSOR JUNIOR TALENT

Mentorship is not the only way to connect senior employees with junior ones? Wait, what? The coolest outcome of this article is the visual at the end of it that showcases the spectrum of different kinds and degrees of support. It gets from a more private relationship where there's only mentorship involved and goes up with strategizer, connector, opportunity giver to advocate, which is the highest public relationship you can strive for. So do we want to build mentorship programs or sponsorship programs?

2. THE L&D DETECTIVE KIT

The other week I came across a pretty cool resource - Kevin Yates' L&D Detective Kit. The Kit is split into two parts: the L&D Detective Kit for Solving Impact Mysteries and the L&D Detective Kit Impact Templates. You can get both of them by subscribing here.

The kit answered 5 questions I struggled with: (1) What are the L&D Detective Guiding Principles? (2) How do you know which learning programs and solutions are eligible for impact investigation? (3) How can I find if learning is the right solution? (4) What are some examples of measures and KPIs we should track? (5) How can I design a follow-up survey that reveals insightful data? You will also discover some case studies and templates you can use in your work. Kudos to Kevin for this great resource!

3. GROWING THROUGH EFFECTIVE LEARNING LOOPS

What's an effective learning loop that helps me grow professionally? Such an inspiring question! Sense & Change designed a framework about how they do things. (1) The loop usually starts with a question. (2) The question is brought into 1:1 or communities of practice conversations that spark new trails, resources, and further (3) individual study, contemplation, and practice. The loop can go on and on, your knowledge expands, your questions become more complex. They also share case studies on how the loop works in practice. I ended up asking myself two questions. What's my learning loop? How can I use this kind of learning loop in internal communities of practice?

4. LEARNING THEORIES TIMELINE: KEY IDEAS FROM EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Before using any theory out there as learning designers, we should understand it thoroughly. This is a timeline of educational psychology discoveries and research. It's part of a bigger series I eagerly recommend to every L&D out there. It can help us make sure we're designing science-based learning experiences and argument our decisions better.

This interactive learning theories timeline highlights 50 key ideas or research papers related to nine key theories which can inform the design of blended and online learning in Higher Education.

5. JOB-CENTRIC UPSKILLING

A useful learning solution should have at least three parts: train, support, measure. But we usually focus most of our time on training and less or even not at all on supporting people in the flow of work and measuring the effectiveness of our programs. I'm throwing a challenge at you. When thinking about the following workshop you're going to deliver, brainstorm 5 ways you can support the transfer of the knowledge and skills into the real world as a follow-up.

6. SEVEN NEUROSCIENCE BACKED-UP FACTS FOR BETTER LEARNING EXPERIENCE DESIGN

This is a great piece of content about 7 principles that make learning stick and we should use in our learning experience design, gathered from books like How We Learn, Design for how people learn, How People Learn, or Make it stick. (1) Attention blinds us. (2) Attention and the affective context model. (3) Curiosity, dopamine, and learning. (4) No surprise, no learning! (5) Deeper processing leads to faster learning. (6) Spaced out learning and knowledge retrieval. (7) Alternating between topics makes learning stick.

Applying a good mix of these practises into your learning experiences will not always guarantee success. Learning transfer depends on so much more than just great learning experiences. Lack of manager support, peer pressure, company culture, old habits, gaps in the reward system, inefficient processes or technology - these are just some of the barriers that learners will have to face while they struggle to apply what they learned and change their behaviour.

7. SPOTLIGHT ON NUDGING: HOW TO GET A BREAKTHROUGH IN L&D

This article showcases three frameworks that support the development of effective nudges: (1) COM-B - the interplay of capability, opportunity and motivation leads to behavior; (2) EAST - make the nudge easy, attractive, social, and timely; (3) BASIC - combining behavior, analysis, strategy, intervention, change. This article left me with a question I challenge you to ask yourself - when in our learning strategy can we start using nudges and which of these frameworks I can apply?

8. THE ROLE OF LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT IN 2020: FOUR EMERGING TRENDS

Wrapping up the latest podcast series on L&D, myhrfuture put together four emerging L&D trends for the following decade. (1) Learning will be central to redefining the nature of work, ensuring talent agility; (2) The business impact of learning is better understood as learning and work become firmly intertwined; (3) Learning breaks out of a vertical silo and instead has an impact across the business; (4) To sustain remote learning, new technologies like VR will increase in popularity. The future definitely looks bright.

It's very clear that whilst there is a lot of hype around reskilling, upskilling and lifelong learning, the impact of truly embedding learning into the very nature of work and, in doing so, ensuring that it is closely intertwined with the goals of the business, will be monumental.

9. FOR SMARTER DECISIONS, EMPOWER YOUR EMPLOYEES

I took 3 things out of this article. (1) Decision making takes up a huge proportion of management's time, which leads to a lack of time spent on more strategical issues. (2) There are 4 types of decisions, classified based on frequency, risk, and importance. (3) Delegated decisions, which are familiar, everyday decisions, with a relatively narrow scope and organizational impact are not easy to approach as managers tend to fall on one of the four categories: the micromanager, the helicopter boss, the coach, the cheerleader. So maybe part of our leadership programs could be training managers on these managerial archetypes and help them connect each situation with the right approach.

10. WHY CONTENT OVERLOAD IS HOLDING YOUR PEOPLE BACK

Content overload causes (1) negative emotions, (2) the primal instincts to surface, (3) new information blindness, (4) sunk cost fallacy, (5) popularity bias. So understanding why and how content overload is so psychologically overwhelming is essential for maximizing learning initiatives and contending with the information from other areas of work pelting your learners. Find out more about solutions to content overload here.

11. WHAT ARE THE SKILLS NEEDED TO CREATE A CULTURE OF LIFELONG LEARNING?

This myhrfuture article outlines a framework on critical core skills - thinking critically, interacting with others, and staying relevant. Learning Agility is one of the skills helping us stay relevant, and one of the ways to support it is through peer-learning like brainstorming or problem-solving. The downside is that these two activities are rather looked at as solely a working activity, and it's our job to emphasize them as learning activities as well.

PODCAST EPISODES

MAKING LEARNING A HABIT THAT MATTERS AT ERICSSON

David Green and Vidya Krishnan, Chief Learning Officer and Global Head of Learning & Development at Ericsson discussed this month about the role of the learning function and the one of the Chief Learning Officer, the future of learning and the one of people analytics, and how to build a skills-driven organization and help employees identify the skills they need.

HOW NOVARTIS PROMOTES LEARNING CURIOSITY TO DRIVE BUSINESS VALUE

Another great podcast episode by David Green and myhrfuture. Their guest was Simon Brown, Chief Learning Officer at Novartis. They talked a lot about the importance of curiosity, how Novartis is embedding analytics into learning and measuring skills, and the impact of learning on performance, retention, and mobility at Novartis.

IMPROVING EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE THROUGH LEARNING, SKILL DEVELOPMENT & MOBILITY

"Analytics helps you know where you are, it helps you see where things are going and it can also give you insights into activities that are happening beyond your control". A podcast episode by David Green and Kat Kennedy from Degreed tackling analytics and the talent marketplace worth listening to. 

PERFORMANCE-FOCUSED, DATA-LED AND CAMPAIGN-DRIVEN L&D

A podcast episode of The Learning & Development Podcast featuring Brian Murphy, the Head of Learning & Leadership at Citi sharing his experience on seeking to understand his target audience language, working with analytics to realize the critical points of failure, and understanding how different departments have different cultures and therefore require a unique approach.

REPORTS

THE FUTURE OF JOBS REPORT 2020

World Economic Forum released this month The Future of Jobs Report 2020. Three of the coolest information you'll find in there? The remote and hybrid workforce; Emerging and declining jobs; Emerging and declining skills.

LEARNER INTELLIGENCE REPORT

Pulling data from thousands of research participants, this report answers some interesting questions we should also address in our organizations. Why motivates employees to learn at work? What helps them best in the process? What barriers restrict them from learning at work? When do they access work-related resources that help them do their job better? Whose opinion is most likely to encourage you to learn? 

WEBINARS & EVENTS

INSIGHTS FROM 12 MONTHS OF TECH TALKS

RESOURCES FOR HUMANS VIRTUAL CONFERENCE

TOP LEADERSHIP SKILLS NEEDED IN TODAY'S REMOTE WORK ENVIRONMENT

OFFBEAT - THE ACTIONABLE L&D NEWSLETTER

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If you want to get curated L&D resources every week straight to your inbox, subscribe to Offbeat - https://www.offbeat.works. I'm putting all my passion into making this newsletter great for L&D peers, so any feedback is more than welcomed.