Learning and Development from home....

As a leader of our Co.Star Consulting brand, which focuses on OD (among other things), I've been inundated with opportunities to learn, expand my thinking and to try new things. As a result, our email and LinkedIn feeds are flooded with time consuming opportunities and let's face it, it's pretty easy to lose ourselves into a sea of distraction.

 Now is however potentially a great opportunity to put some time into learning and development, be it for your staff, stakeholders or customers. 

 Getting your learning resources online while working remotely might not be as hard as you may think. A good start is to stick to some basic principles and here are my top ten tips:

 1.     Know your team / your market

Let’s start with the obvious one - ensure your materials fit your audience.

 2.     Know your “why”

Be really clear about the why. Why should they look at this, why is this important? There’s so much information out there – make it clear why this material deserves their attention (and they’ll be more likely to engage).

 3.     KISS – Keep it Simple Stupid!

We don’t read online material in the same way we read paper. We’ve developed shortcuts for reading online. We tend to scan, so keep your material brief and bullet pointed.

 4.     Relevant, fresh and timely

Take a moment to review your content – is it all still relevant in an online environment? Has the world moved on and it needs updating a little? Could I do it better?

 The online environment provides a perfect opportunity to look at your content with fresh eyes and design some step changes to your approach that might have been difficult to implement previously.

 If Covid-19 means you’re having to convert to online for external clients, ensure your conversion is timely.

 5.     Make a connection

People may feel more connected if there’s a personal connection – so establish a connection from the get-go. Try using video to make that personal connection at the beginning.

6.     The right image is worth a thousand words

Images are a great way to convey a message and can offer quicker and deeper ways for people to learn new things. Make them meaningful rather than superfluous. Put time into diagrams, infographics and useful images.

 Be mindful though of people printing at home, so forget big dense blocks of colour or images designed to just make it pretty.

 7.     Bite size chunks

Keep the learning manageable and in reasonable chunks – 60 to 90 minute blocks maximum.

 8.     Embrace technology

Take advantage of the technology at your fingertips – make video clips, use YouTube and images to enhance your training (see previous points though). Use tools like Zoom for discussions, break out rooms for short bursts of team activities, shared screens and Chat for questions.

 9.     Facilitate well

If facilitating ensure timely loading of materials, allowing people enough time to read or print. Send daily module notes giving direction for pre reading and what workbooks or resources are required the next day. Give clear cues (eg page number) about what resources are being used at the time.

 10. Add value

There’s so much out there to distract us – so add value. Add tips and extra information – but remember to be clear about what is your intellectual property and brand your materials accordingly.

 We can always refine our practices, so do include a feedback loop for continuous improvement.

 When offering training to an external market a free course can be a great product development tool, but given it’s a jungle out there, it needs to be fresh and relevant to cut through the clutter.

 As we are now in a flexible working environment, this provides a timely opportunity to move your learning and development online, either in totality or, bite size chunks.

 Of course, if you don’t have the skills or you’re stuck for inspiration there are a range of experts out there who know this stuff inside out. At co.star consulting we know these experts so give us a call to find out more....

A big thanks to our inhouse comms guru https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/jacaleen-williams-25a2b1171/ and our Associates at www.languagefuel.com and www.pukekolearning.com for their insights.