Supercharge your digital training

We’ve all been there.

The organisation invests an obscene amount of money in a course library, and after much fanfare and an initial spike of excitement, activity steadily dwindles until the platform resembles a ghost town vacated by all but the most enthusiastic of fans.

Similar problems with learner engagement beset other forms of digital training too; whether it’s the famously low completions rates of MOOCs, or the constant chasing up of laggards who are yet to complete their compliance modules.

So when David Swaddle called out for tips to help fight what he described as “zombie digital learning”, I was all too willing to share the Top 3 pieces of advice that I’ve formulated on my quest to transform conventional digital training into blended learning experiences.

Here they are…

1. Make time

Everyone’s too busy and they don’t have enough time to devote to their own learning and development. This has been the case ever since I started my career in this field and probably will remain so long after I retire.

So make time.

Add reminders into your participants’ calendars; schedule learning blocks; benchmark progress by declaring where they should be up by now; and host a complementary social networking group to keep the flame alive.

2. Provide context

Digital content can be generic by design, because it’s intended to scale up far and wide. However our audience may struggle to join the dots between what they see on screen and what they do on the job.

By supplementing the generic content with customised content, we can explain the implications of the former in the organisational context.

And by facilitating live interactive sessions that explore that context further, we reinforce it.

3. Assess application

Whether it’s a fair reputation or not, digital training is notorious for being a tick & flick exercise that fails to change behaviour in the real world.

So we need to ensure that the knowledge and skills that are developed via the learning experience are transferred by the employee to their day-to-day role.

By weaving an application activity into the instructional design – and by assessing the evidence of that application – we make it happen.

These are by no means the only ways to evolve your digital training.

However I hope that by implementing my three tips, you’ll supercharge it.

70:20:10 for trainers

Learning & Development Professional has been running a poll on the following question:

Is the 70:20:10 model still relevant today?

And I’m shocked by the results. At the time of writing this blog, over half the respondents have chosen “No”. Assuming they are all L&D professionals, the extrapolation means most of us don’t think the 70:20:10 model is relevant to our work.

But what does this really mean?

In LDP’s article The 70:20:10 model – how fair dinkum is it in 2015? – by the way, “fair dinkum” is Australian slang for “real” or “genuine” – Emeritus Professor David Boud says he doesn’t think there is proper evidence available for the effectiveness of the model.

If this is a backlash against the numbers, I urge us all to let it go already. Others have explained umpteen times that 70:20:10 is not a formula. It just refers to the general observation that the majority of learning in the workplace is done on the job, a substantial chunk is done by interacting with others, while a much smaller proportion is done off the job (eg in a classroom).

Indeed this observation doesn’t boast a wealth of empirical evidence to support it, although there is some – see here, here and here.

Nonetheless, I wonder if the hoo-ha is really about the evidence. After all, plenty of research can be cited to support the efficacy of on-the-job learning, social learning and formal training. To quibble over their relative proportions seems a bit pointless.

Consequently, some point the finger at trainers. These people are relics of a bygone era, clinging to the old paradigm because “that’s how we’ve always done it”. And while this might sound a bit harsh, it may contain a seed of truth. Change is hard, and no one wants their livelihood threatened.

If you feel deep down that you are one of the folks who views 70:20:10 as an “us vs them” proposition, I have two important messages that I wish to convey to you…

1. Training will never die.

While I believe the overall amount of formal training in the workplace will continue to decrease, it will never disappear altogether – principally for the reasons I’ve outlined in Let’s get rid of the instructors!.

Ergo, trainers will remain necessary for the foreseeable future.

2. The 70:20:10 model will improve your effectiveness.

As the forgetting curve illustrates, no matter how brilliant your workshops are, they are likely to be ineffective on their own.

To overcome this problem, I suggest using the 70:20:10 model as a lens through which you view your instructional design.

For example, suppose you are charged with training the sales team on a new product. As a trainer, you will smash the “10” with an informative and engaging workshop filled with handouts, scenarios, role plays, activities etc.

Then your trainees return to their desks, put the handouts in a drawer, and try to remember all the important information for as long as humanly possible.

To help your audience remember, why not provide them with reference content in a central location, such as on the corporate intranet or in a wiki. Then they can look it up just in time when they need it; for example, in the waiting room while visiting a client.

Job aids would also be useful, especially for skills-based information; for example, the sequence of key messages to convey in a client conversation.

To improve the effectiveness of your workshop even further, consider doing the following:

• Engage each trainee’s manager to act as their coach or mentor. Not only does this extend the learning experience, but it also bakes in accountability for the learning.
• Encourage the manager to engineer opportunities for the trainee to put their learning into practice. These can form part of the assessment.
• Set up a community of practice forum in which the trainee can ask questions in the moment. This fosters collaboration among the team and reduces the burden on the L&D department to respond to each and every request.
• Partner each trainee with a buddy to accompany them on their sales calls. The buddy can act as a role model and provide feedback to the trainee.

In my humble opinion, it is counter-productive to rail against 70:20:10.

As an L&D professional, it is in your interest to embrace it.

The triple-threat scenario

There’s no shortage of theories as to why a scenario works so well as an educational device. But for me, it boils down to context.

An authentic and relevant context facilitates two important processes.

1. Sense making

The authenticity and relevance of the scenario contextualises the content so that it becomes more meaningful for the learner. It approximates a real life situation with which she is familiar so that she can make better sense of it.

2. Transfer

When the learner finds herself in a similar situation in real life, she will associate the current context with the scenario and thus apply her experience from it more readily.

When we combine these two affordances with the engagement power of video, we create a triple threat which dramatically increases our probability of success.