Category: Training Strategy
Crafting Enterprise Learning Plans
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 2:00-3:00pm EST
Please join me for the third of the webinar series Making the Most of Corporate Training Dollars .
Learning is an economic elixir. It makes people and organizations more adaptable, responsive and nimble. It serves as the bedrock for innovation, as it’s impossible to innovate without learning something new. It’s the foundation for extraordinary customer service, employee attraction, retention, and development and is the fuel for profitable growth. It can shape culture. And when it’s done right, it’s one of those rarest opportunities – where employers’ and employees’ needs are in perfect harmony. In the vast majority of cases, learning offers significant benefits for both employers and employees.
Last week I shared the first two steps to create training using the Learning Burst method. Here are the next two steps.
Step 3: Develop the design document for a Learning Burst course.
The instructional design document provides detailed instructions on how to build the Learning Burst course, but it doesn’t contain any actual course content; it’s similar to an architect’s blueprint or a software engineer’s design document. The instructional design document will perform the following tasks:
Over the past few weeks I have been posting about the Learning Burst method. In today’s post I share the first 2 steps I use to create Learning Bursts. Additional steps to follow in the next few weeks.
Step1: Determine if content is appropriate for a Learning Burst.
Consider what skills you are training, and how you want your employees to use those skills in their jobs. Answer the questions below and decide if you have a candidate for Learning Bursts.
- How many employees need to be trained? How quickly? Learning Burst work well with larger number of employees so that he savings are realized. However, I have done sessions with 5-10 people and it works well.
- What is the geographic distribution of the participants? Learning Bursts work well when the participants are spread over many geographic areas.
- Can Learning Bursts be used in conjunction with the face-to-face training you currently use? This method works very well to provide participants with foundational knowledge of concepts – this reduces face-to-face time or allows more time for application practice.
- Is the culture ready to make Learning Bursts a success? If your culture already is or is ready to use alternate forms of training then Learning Bursts have a chance of success. If not, you may not want to use Learning Bursts.
- Can the content be broken in small independent pieces? Each Learning Burst has a target length of 20 minutes (listening to the audio and completing the workbook). This lends itself to each burst being a single topic or concept. If your training content can be broken down into small, single topic segments, then it is a good Learning Burst course.
In today’s world in the midst of a recession companies have trimmed their labor forces while keeping or expanding the same level of service and product offerings. This places stress on an already task saturated workforce who simply cannot afford time away from the job for training. Couple that with new skills and capabilities needed to meet market demands along with reduced training budgets and the need for a different and cost effective way to deliver training has risen.
Learning Bursts puts the needs of the participant first. While employees can no longer afford days away from the job for training I uncovered through years interviewing students that they could find 20 minutes a day to learn something new related to their job. And they need it on their schedule not that of the training department. Next, they want these “bursts” of training to be independent of each other – meaning they want the nugget of learning that they need without having to wade through dozens of learning experiences. Finally as I walked around and met with these employees, I noticed on numerous occasions that they had hundreds of screen captures printed from e-learning courses. I came to realize that even in this digital age, they want and use paper!