Work could be more enjoyable if training truly increased the depth of our knowledge

Nelson says education is the most powerful weapon to change the world.

True.

So it shouldn’t be as challenging to use it to change your company, department, right?

True.

The problem is we haven’t seen good training results over the last decade, proving that it works.

We’ve also accepted that eLearning with the next buttons was an excellent activity to impose on our staff.

We sent employees away for OVER A DAY to learn something, away from work. We were happy if the whole workbook was thrown at them in one go!

Well, now, if not yesterday, is the time to stop doing that. Never. Ever. Ever.

You must do your best to make training sessions shorter but do them more often, consistently.

You must differentiate each learning opportunity - is performance support required or training?

Performance support is quicker, actionable, a reminder. Training should add more depth to our knowledge bases.

People’s jobs would be WAY MORE enjoyable if we differentiated these better. We would quickly eliminate the expectation of remembering the tasks done quarterly or annually. Instead, quick, visual expert guides can deliver this at the time of need. They are not help manuals. They are highly targeted guides to help get the job done.

And finally, my new favourite topic of Workflow Learning. By this, I encourage you to bring training into the place of work - the workflow. Where ever that is. The first part of our own ‘Workflow Learning’ journey saw us enjoying using tech to deliver training whenever needed, at their work. Less hassle on the learner saw more engagement.

However.....,

The next part of our journey would bear even more fruit. To summarise, we now understand Workflow Learning is to learn by doing.

We now make our microlearning to teach you as you Create, Apply, Change, or Solve work issues.

For example, our interactive video platform has an introductory course that teaches the ‘newbie designer’ how to create courses by creating a course (embeds a window where you create-along your first actual course).

And then, our audit tool takes the same approach. As you do an audit, it teaches you how to do that audit and assess the compliance level required (until you’ve learned).

Consider an online retail course that teaches how to design and plan a virtual webinar to build a store community. It runs you through the steps, teaching, and recording what you pick and write.

In the end, of course, that relevant data is automatically merged into your PDF webinar plan.

Yep. Learn by doing.

Do this once or twice, and that learning will transfer for sure.