The best L&D resources of September 2021
Lavinia Mehedin?u
Co-Founder & Learning Architect @ Offbeat | Learning & Development
Summer of 2021 came to an end, we started getting back from our holidays, to a world where COVID-19 seems to spread again, fast, and the talk is still around models for the future of work, adapting our practices to what's next, and around the great resignation.
For us, at Offbeat, meant launching a brand new newsletter section: Five to go. Five to go is a short section where we bring L&Ds we highly appreciate in the spotlight. They will recommend books, videos, tools, and an L&D professional to follow, and give their advice to L&D peers. So far we featured me and Anamaria Dorgo, and we couldn't be happier to see the response for this small initiative. Keep close, because we have other amazing people in our backlog!
Oh, quick reminder, registrations for our first program, Fundamentals of Learning Experience Design are closing today. We've already met with most of our learners and we can't wait to get things started! Promise we'll tell you all about it. ??
Meanwhile, go explore the best resources we shared in September.
Enjoy!
L&D STRATEGY
Loved this talk! It explores the types of communities Google fosters: from communities of practice, to book clubs, manager communities, coaches communities, g2g groups, etc. Lesley dug deeper into the manager communities and described how they are working with the unconference format and how they learned that time-bound communities work better than long-term ones.
As I've been studying performance improvement and behavior change, I'm always amazed about all the things I don't know. In my journey, I realized that both of them are such complex processes, that can not be efficiently put to practice through one-time learning events.
We defined the solution as learning experiences. You might find it as learning programs or learning journeys as well. I’m sure I took all these terms from somewhere, but unfortunately, I have no idea who was my inspiration in the first place. Sorry about that, and thank you a lot!
"Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you". Now, this is something I would have liked to know when I was in school! But all jokes aside, although this article is a lot about applying retrieval practice in the classroom, you might still get to learn how to apply it in long-term learning programs.
Anneka Deva?tells her own story of how she explored peer-coaching and draws some conclusion about how we can we implement this type of learning initiative in our organizations as an add-on to our programs, during an innovation process, or simply as part of your everyday support structure.
Peer coaching can be used in a number of ways within organisations, for example; during leadership development programs, to support the development of a team, during an innovation process, or simply as part of your everyday support structure.
Bülent Duagi?came back to Offbeat with another amazing piece, where he explores various?links and pathways between learning & development and results in business: I learn - I know, I know - I am able to, I am able to - I do, I do - We do, and We do - We achieve.
Source: Sense & Change
Before meeting the Playlearn team, I had no idea how complex gamification is! Beyond that,?Gabi Constantinescu?explores in this issue of Offbeat other solutions for keeping people engaged and motivated in a hybrid workplace, such as keeping things social, practicing recognition, or nurturing a feedback culture.
Exclusively competitive designs implemented at the workplace usually engage a minority of people who’re trying to prove their worth, while the majority experience a severe drop in motivation. According to Yu-kai Chou, ‘Adding competition-driven stress to the daily challenges that employees face can often increase the probability of burnout and skewed performance.’. Competition can be effective in the corporate environment, but it needs a careful design and the right amount.?
Guided by?Melissa Malec?and?Marie Krebs?we deep dive into how L&D can impact various stages of the employee lifecycle and get a practical example of how Learnerbly uses L&D practices during talent attraction, recruiting, onboarding, performance, all the way to separation.
Source: JooBeeYeow
This article from Spotify made me wonder how we could, as L&Ds, cultivate adaptability through our learning programs, as this turns out to be the must-have skill of the 21st century. I discovered some answers in the article but I'm keen to dig deeper in the future.
To be able to thrive and stay employable there are many workplace researchers arguing that the need for adaptability is super high, along with having other transferable skills such as proactivity, leadership, creativity, problem-solving and communication (to name a few).
ONBOARDING
If you're currently working on reshaping your onboarding process, this report is gold. It shows the differences (and similarities) between what HRs and new hires expect from the process and it talks about the 4Cs of onboarding (compliance, culture, clarification and connection).
Once again, let's learn more about how to set up an efficient onboarding process. This is probably one of the most comprehensive resources I've seen out there, covering both how to develop a good experience for new hires and how to help the organization by helping newcomers be productive fast.
A strategic approach to employee onboarding acknowledges that your new hires simply cannot reach peak levels of productivity if their underlying needs aren’t met along the way.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
The purpose of DoorDash's Elevate Program was to?increase the number of women, people of color, and nonbinary employees at all levels of the organization. Here's an overview of its structure: One-on-one coaching sessions with an external executive coach, executive sponsor meetings with company directors and C-suite members, career workshops, attendance at leadership team meetings. See how workshops are just a small part of the whole program? And how they purposefully combined other learning methods as well to reach their goals? Well, that's what I call a proper learning program.
While no single program is a silver bullet, a well-designed career accelerator can ensure women of color advance in your organization.
Among the advice you can find in this article, there's one that caught my eye: using performance reviews to capture long-tail evolution, not a single moment in time. A former Microsoft employee talks about how they deployed OKRs across departments and how that helped with employee growth.
Part of the joy I’ve had over the course of my career is learning that there are a lot of different ways to ship software and get things done.
This articles' thesis is that behind the "What do I want to do with my career?" there's a bigger and more frightening question of "Who am I?". Instead of getting paralyzed by its complexity, we should instead try the sampler platter. Sampling means trying out different things before committing to one career in particular. The resource also comes with questions you can ask when your coaching someone on their career growth.
The fastest way to discover what works for you is to try things out.
Interesting findings from Lattice's Career Progression Survey, starting with when do employees feel their career growth has stalled and going on with things you can do to support your colleagues in their career development.
Not only will prioritizing career growth progression help your employees get clear on their career trajectory and start taking steps to achieve their career goals, but it will also show them that?you’re going to support them?as they take those steps
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Ashley Williams, Marketing & Brand People Partner at Whereby, was kind enough to share with me their latest work on empowering leaders to strengthen remote team processes, performance, and culture. Great inspiration for those working fully remote right now.
Source: Whereby
Although primarily dedicated to start-up founders who are just setting up their team, I found this resource really interesting for us as well. It goes through what a manager is and what it isn't, what success metrics can we set for them, setting manager standards, developing the right skills, and other leadership models such as self-management, rotating roles or split roles.
Source: M13
领英推荐
One resource to be shared with all your people managers in your efforts to foster ethical behaviors. It all starts inward, where leaders should ask?what matters to them, and where their ethics lie. This is not an easy task, and our impact as L&D might be crucial.
?If you aspire to lead ethically and with high purpose, you must consistently have these honest conversations with yourself, your team, and your organization.
CULTURE DEVELOPMENT
"What distinguishes a good corporate culture from a bad one in the eyes of employees"? That is the question. Is it the respect they get? The managers they have? The perks and opportunities? Or job security? Well, it's a bit of each, with some more important than others. Knowing what elements of culture matter most to employees can help leaders foster engagement as they transition to a new reality that will include more remote and hybrid work.
Source: MIT Sloan Management Review
I really like the "Being intentional about culture" part of this article, where Maria describes how thoughtfully they introduced culture throughout their employee journey, from employer branding to recruitment, onboarding, or development. You might get some nice ideas from her!
Deliberately cultivating our core values and behaviours helps us to use our culture as a powerful force for good, both now and in the future.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Ok, I have to admit. Rarely can I put together two of my biggest passions: L&D and Formula 1. So when I saw this video I knew I had to watch it, as McLaren Racing is one team that over the decades has had amazing success. And it paid off. Rebecca Constable, Director of People Experience talks about their journey of regaining momentum as a team by looking at people data, creating a culture of high support, and constantly communicating. I loved this one!
Source: McLaren Racing
I learned such an interesting idea from this article! Productivity might go beyond goals and KPIs and expand towards other avenues such as well-being, social connections, and collaboration, and the innovation they bring to drive business success. We and people managers in our organizations should take some time to reflect on this.
In the end, we’ll know we were successful if?work is better than it was before?— not just in terms of short-term?metrics, but in helping people, teams, and organizations?be productive and?achieve their?goals?in a way that also supports well-being, collaboration, and innovation.
Getting started with performance management is never easy. From my own experience, is probably the hardest process we manage as L&Ds. So assessing the way things are done right now in your company might be a good place to start. These questions from CultureAmp might help you do just that.
FUTURE OF WORK
Take your time with this one! BCG put together the resources they've gathered about the future of work to answer the question: how can companies?fight?multiple battles: to attract and retain talent, keep up with the ever-accelerating pace of change, and meet customers’ needs.
First cool idea of this resource: surveying different samples of employees consistently on different matters. Second cool idea and actually "aha" moment for me? Right now we face a paradox: people want the flexibility to work from anywhere, while also craving social connection. I'll let you discover the other ones by yourself.
Source: Microsoft.com, Illustration by Valerio Pellegrini
BEHAVIORAL DESIGN
Thanks to Habit Weekly I got access to this really interesting book. It is basically a collection of?interviews, case studies, and articles on how behavioral science is applied both in the public sector and in the private one. Already top of my to-read list.
For those who have not read about or studied habits in-depth (yet), this is a pretty cool introduction. I deeply think that beyond skill and knowledge acquisition, part of our job is habit change. So learning more about the basics of it will definitely yeld results in your role as an L&D.
People often assume you either have a habit or you don’t, Gardner says. “But it varies on a continuum.” And even once you have formed a habit, it is always possible to backslide.
ABOUT OFFBEAT
In the past couple of years, the learning industry started transforming. We are now in the middle of acquiring new technology, working agile, looking closely at measuring the L&D impact and so much more. Offbeat takes all these conversations and gives them a fresh, actionable twist so that learning professionals can learn more from what they read.
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.
OFFBEAT PROGRAMS
In Fundamentals of Learning Experience Design, we’ll go through all the steps of designing a learning program, from research to prototyping. You’ll better understand your potential participants, how adults learn, how to set goals for your programs, and structure the learning experience to reach those goals.?
Throughout the program, you’ll get to practice and receive feedback in a safe space, share lessons learned and challenges with the community, and explore multiple learning methods.?All this to ensure you are going to remember what you learn not just for a week, but along your L&D career journey.
OFFBEAT - THE ACTIONABLE L&D NEWSLETTER
OFFBEAT - THE QUARTERLY DIGITAL L&D PUBLICATION
As Offbeat grows, we get to explore more diverse topics and dig deeper into impactful practices. Together with some amazing collaborators, in this edition of the digital publication, we take a look at linking L&D with business results, and the employee journey, how peer-coaching can boost learning engagement, why training alone is not enough, and how gamification can help with boosting motivation in hybrid workplaces. Enjoy!
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For the first time since Offbeat was launched, we invited people to take over. Instead of intentionally going towards those we knew we wanted to share their perspectives, we asked everyone to join as Contributors. The cool thing? People responded amazingly. So here we are now, at the third issue of Offbeat, the digital publication, enjoying topics such as automation, mentorship, communities of practice, all the way to stakeholder management, onboarding, and learning needs assessment. All in all, this is the result of the love people showed to Offbeat and to sharing their knowledge with peers.
2020 was crazy. It pushed us. Sometimes maybe right on the edge. But the most important thing we got out of it? Different perspectives about our impact, ways of learning, and using technology. This is exactly what this issue is about. Some things we got out of 2020 in terms of lessons learned and resources.
Prologue is the first issue of Offbeat, the quarterly digital publication dedicated to L&D professionals. We brought together L&D pros from big and small companies, an L&D consultant, and one start-up founder to kick off a new way of helping peers grow through actionable advice. We bet you will find useful their advice on building leadership development programs, designing the L&D strategy, or transitioning from learning to performance.
Last month, Offbeat turned 1 year old. We already sent over 50 newsletter issues, and with this edition, we’re completing the cycle of 4 digital publication issues throughout this year. We put this one together with the help of some people who either encouraged Offbeat right from the start or were fond of the project once they discovered it. It’s full of lessons learned, experiments, and know-how for all L&Ds out there.
Leadership Catalyst
3 年This is a great summary, many thanks!
Excellent approach! ??
Cheers for the love Lavinia - we were lucky enough to develop that piece in collaboration with Vlerick Business School, so you know it's the real deal!
Co-Founder at NoNonsense Studio | Make sense of your marketing
3 年Thanks for the Talmundo shout-out Lavinia ?
Learning & Development Associate
3 年Great summary! ?? ??