For over 10 years now, I’ve been working in Learning & Development, defining training strategies, doing instructional design and developing learning content for clients.
Throughout these years, I’ve been able to see the paradigm changing from single, one time training events to having learning content at the point of need.
Being a strong advocate of training, this got me thinking on the kind of learning experience or culture I would like to find in my own company.
With that in mind, here are my top choices that I believe should be an essential part of the learning culture of every company:
Performance Support
How many times have you started a new project, or had to work with a new process and suddenly felt at a loss because you lacked the knowledge you needed or couldn’t recall that specific bit of information?
Performance Support is the number one strategy I recommend whenever a company is dealing with new ways of working, new tools or new business units. And it can be applied to several other situations.
The goal to keep in mind is that you have your company or project’s knowledge and information structured and accessible, so people can easily find it when they need to. This can be process videos, quick reference guides, or a project’s data and lingo.
Backshops
Backshops are especially common in tech teams. These short online or face-to-face sessions are a great way for people to quickly and informally share their knowledge or how they are solving a problem.
It is a great way to connect with other teams, gather fresh opinions from other fronts of the business and offer a more in-depth view of what each team is working on.
Social Learning
Many of us are part of online groups on LinkedIn or Facebook where we go when we want to discuss or ask something, see what people are reading or even share an article.
With existing technologies you don’t need to limit yourself to the people sitting next to you.
Social groups are an effective way to tap the immense pool of knowledge that exists in a company, and with existing technologies you don’t need to limit yourself to the people sitting next to you.
Often we have questions on how to approach something related to our role, project, or company, so who else is better to ask than someone who knows the business as well as your coworkers?
elearning Libraries
Learning at the point of need is one of the most exciting concepts in L&D, and with today’s needs and rhythm it should be strongly considered in any training strategy. If tomorrow I’m promoted to Team Lead, I don’t want to wait for the two-day classroom training on team management.
I want to be able to search for and consume any additional learning content that helps with my skills improvement. I want to be able to manage my own training. And this should not only apply to soft or technical skills.
If you’re transferring an employee to a different team, have an elearning library that helps understand how that team works, what’s their mission, guidelines or structure so that person can start acquiring knowledge on the new position.
Two-way communication channel
Last but not least, I believe L&D should have a two-way communication channel. The days were training was only assigned by management or HR are long gone.
Today, employees need to be able to manage their own learning and not only access training as a consequence of a business transformation, role change or performance review.
Now, I’m passing the ball over to you. What learning experience would you like to find in your company?
