How to enhance effective learning for employees?

Learning is one of those essential activities that any working professional should be engaging in, throughout their work-life. Formal education from educational institutions is just the starting line. The workforce of any organisation must continue learning and gaining new knowledge and skills, to meet the requirements of their roles, catch up with the constant developments in their professions, and reach higher positions in their personal career paths. To support learners to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills effectively, L&D experts and organisations need effective learning models as guidelines.

Coined in the 1980s, based on the results of a survey conducted on around 200 successful executives, and blooming in the early 2000s, the 70:20:10 Learning Model has been the most popular learning model in the L&D field. This inspiring model points out that learning is primarily informal and is integrated in daily work. It suggests that 70% of new knowledge and skills should be acquired from on-the-job learning, 20% from interaction with supervisors and peers, and 10% from formal training / education. However, there have been arguments that the measurement of efforts put on learning, as well as that of knowledge and skills mastering from the 70% and 20%, are vague.

Additionally, the survey conducted by the Association for Talent Development (USA) in 2020 revealed that most of the participants focused on and allocated all their resources for the 10% formal training, and neglected tracking and measuring the processes and results of the other 90%. This suggests that how employees practiced and applied their trained knowledge and skills into their work, after the training events, is questionable.

The 3:1 Learning Model, suggested by Kevin Kruse, a remarkably successful entrepreneur and author, has a clear and simple formulation to designing learning programs, tracking the implementation and application of learnt content, and measuring the mastery of it. Instead of only looking at designing content and activities for workshops or training sessions, L&D professionals need to include 3 activities for :

• Learners to practice each new knowledge or skill in their daily work as well as in their interactions with their supervisors or peers
• Schedule follow-up plans
• Measure the mastery of that knowledge and skill after a certain period of time

The basic crux of the model is : for every one formal learning event, you should design and facilitate three on-the-job application exercises.

For example, to train salesmen on how to use DISC for influencing skills, a training program following the 3:1 Learning Model should consist of :

1. 1 formal training course : providing theoretical knowledge of DISC, facilitating practical exercises, and role-playing activities in the training sessions.
2. Post the training course and within the next two days, recognizing the communication styles of five friends / family members, applying the appropriate influencing techniques, observing the results of these interactions, asking for feedback, and making a short report of the results.
3. In day 3 and 4, recognizing the communication styles of five people at work, applying appropriate influencing techniques, and similar follow-up activities as the above step.
4. From day 5 to 10 : recognize the communication styles of 5 customers, and apply appropriate influencing techniques, do follow-up activities as the above steps, while writing a short reflection on your interactions.
5. At the end of the learning and practice journey, learners send reports and reflections to their trainers, to receive the necessary feedback for improvement of their skills.

With this training program design, the practice part, which is crucial for mastering new knowledge and skills, is guaranteed. However, as L&D professionals have to spend more time for tracking and guiding the learners’ practice, the organisation’s budget for L&D activities may increase significantly.

On the other hand, the effectiveness of this learning model would shine clearly through the learning results and evaluations. Having said that, we must be mindful that as it is a new model, it may need more application, research, and empirical evidence to prove its effectiveness.

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