Winning the War for Talent with Agile Learning | Winter 2022

Q U A R T E R LY | W I N T E R 2 0 2 2

Winning The War For Talent With Agile Learning

CALCULATING TRAINING’S IMPACT | 24 Proving the Value of Training

THE INTERSECTION OF L&D AND DEI | 38 Building More Inclusive Organizations

SPEED TO PROFICIENCY | 52 Pitfalls to Avoid When Designing Training

BUSINESS

PERSPECTIVES

ON

MANAGING

WORLD-CLASS

TRAINING

MICHELLE EGGLESTON SCHWARTZ, CPTM

FROM THE EDITOR

THE FUTURE IS NOW

It’s a new year — and that means new content! This Winter 2022 edition of Training Industry Magazine kicks off our 2022 editorial calendar, and we’re excited to share a few changes. As you flip through this edition, you will notice articles on a variety of topics, as opposed to one central theme. With so many important topics to address, we wanted to broaden our focus and touch on a variety of challenges and trends in each issue, so we’re moving away from themed issues this year. We are also shifting to a quarterly cadence — but with more articles in each issue!

So, that means you will still receive the same amount of great content that you’ve come to expect from Training Industry Magazine this year.

LEARNING LEADERS HAVE NOT ONLY EARNED A SEAT AT THE DECISIONMAKING TABLE — THEY ARE LEADING THE CONVERSATION.

This edition is packed full of great content, including articles on building equity into remote work and hybrid workplaces, increasing speed to proficiency, creating a culture of coaching, leading digital transformation, the power of creativity in learning and the intersection of learning and development (L&D) and diversity, equity and inclusion.

In the current business climate, organizations are grappling with The Great Resignation, prompting business leaders to reevaluate their organizational culture and how they attract and retain talent. Our cover story examines the shift in the employee-employer relationship and how embracing a human-centric approach to work and learning is

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necessary for organizations to thrive in the post-pandemic environment.

The challenges over the past few years have disrupted the way we work and learn, to say the least. But learning leaders have risen to meet those challenges and proved their value as strategic business partners. Learning leaders have not only earned a seat at the decision-making table — they are also leading the conversation. They are helping organizations navigate ongoing ambiguity and change, leveraging training to build resilient and adaptive employees.

While the path forward may be unclear, focusing on employee well-being and creating a more human-centric workplace is imperative. However, learning leaders can’t shoulder this responsibility alone.

Organizations must commit to the development of their employees – both personally and professionally – and this requires support at all levels and functions.

This is an exciting time in the training industry, and our editorial team is dedicated to providing the content and resources that learning leaders need to deliver impactful training. As always, we love to hear your thoughts, so please reach out to our team and let us know what’s on your mind.

Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM, is the editor in chief of Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of “The Business of Learning,” the Training Industry podcast. Email Michelle.

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TA B L E O F

CO N T E N TS

VOLUME 15

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I

ISSUE 1

I

WINTER 2022

24 CALCULATING TRAINING’S IMPACT

38 THE INTERSECTION OF L&D AND DEI

52 SPEED TO PROFICIENCY

FEATURES

16

WINNING THE WAR FOR TALENT WITH AGILE LEARNING

By Sonia Malik

38

HOW TO BUILD EQUITY INTO REMOTE WORK AND THE HYBRID WORKPLACE

By Blake Beus

43

24

By Dr. Paul Leone

Learner engagement is essential, but you’ll need to prove more than engagement to shareholders.

28

ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES FOR LEADING L&D DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

46 48

THE EVOLUTION OF L&D: FROM SALES ENABLEMENT TO SALES READINESS

By Chris Lynch

ADAPTIVE ORGANIZATIONS NEED ADAPTIVE LEADERS

By Jim Dowling and Richard Lynch

Adaptive leaders are effective leaders: These tips will help enable adaptive leaders in any organization.

The disruptions of the past year have set the scene for a more agile, data-driven workplace.

36

By Dianna Anderson, MCC

Sales training is most effective when learners have access to the information they need.

By Regina Nowlan

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UNRAVELING COMPLEXITY WITH A CULTURE OF COACHING Coaching helps learners and leaders connect and enact DEI initiatives in a mutually beneficial way.

Equity must be built with intention — especially in hybrid or online workplaces.

THE TRAINING WAS FUN! BUT DID IT IMPACT THE BUSINESS?

By Antoinette Alexander Adefela

L&D leaders are uniquely situated to enable diverse, equitable and inclusive organizational cultures.

The behavioral changes needed to keep up with the new normal goes beyond technology alone.

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THE INTERSECTION OF L&D AND DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION

52

By Emily Hastings

TRAINING FOR SPEED TO PROFICIENCY: PITFALLS TO AVOID WHEN DESIGNING TRAINING AND LEARNING INTERVENTIONS FOR SPEED

Trust within organizations is at an all-time low. Here are some skills that will help you build it back.

Training can get in the way of learner proficiency: Make sure your training isn’t an obstacle.

THE TRUST CRISIS: THE SKILLS EVERY LEADER NEEDS TO REBUILD TRUST IN THE POST-PANDEMIC WORKPLACE

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: FUTURE-SKILLING YOUR WORKFORCE

By Marjorie Van Roon, CPTM

PD programs can show learners how to get the skills they need without looking for a new job.

By Dr. Raman K. Attri

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THE POWER OF CREATIVITY IN LEARNING

By Shaun McMahon

Creative, unexpected elements can create learning that sticks.

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IN THIS ISSUE

THOUGHT LEADERS

3 9 11 13

FROM THE EDITOR

By Michelle Eggleston Schwartz, CPTM

It’s a new year with new content and focus areas.

GUEST EDITOR

By Erin DeStefanis

Virtual learning design must emphasize the learning experience to be effective.

15 65

WHAT’S NEXT IN TECH

By Stella Lee, Ph.D.

The demands of the past few years are leading to a new ecosystem of education technologies.

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BUILDING LEADERS

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

By Dr. Kristal Walker, CPTM

Improving your diversity, equity and inclusion efforts can help attract and retain talent.

CAREER DEVELOPMENT

By Julie Winkle Giulioni

We need to update our definition of what “career” means to meet our learners where they are.

SCIENCE OF LEARNING

By Srini Pillay, M.D.

Use science to design more engaging remote and hybrid learning.

By Sam Shriver and Marshall Goldsmith

Prepare future leaders for an everchanging world of business.

INFO EXCHANGE

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CASEBOOK Pax8 used blended learning to decrease ramp time for new sales hires.

COMPANY NEWS Keep up with the latest in the training industry by reading news from the last quarter.

CLOSING DEALS Udemy’s human-centric model has fueled a rapid expansion, resulting in the company going public last year.

CONNECT WITH US

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1 (866) 298-4203

editor@trainingindustry.com

TrainingIndustry.com

ABOUT OUR TEAM

STAFF CEO Ken Taylor ktaylor@trainingindustry.com

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Mike Allen mallen@trainingindustry.com

DESIGNER Kellie Blackburn kblackburn@trainingindustry.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF Michelle Eggleston Schwartz meggleston@trainingindustry.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Amanda Longo alongo@trainingindustry.com

DESIGNER Alyssa Alheid aalheid@trainingindustry.com

SENIOR EDITOR Sarah Gallo sgallo@trainingindustry.com

DESIGNER Mary Lewis mlewis@trainingindustry.com

ADVERTISING SALES Sales@trainingindustry.com

EDITORIAL BOARD JUDI BADER, CPTM Senior Director of Learning Arby’s Restaurant Group

MATTHEW S. PRAGER, CPTM Executive Training Manager U.S. Government

MICHAEL CANNON, M.ED. Senior Director, Head of Learning & Development Red Hat

MARC RAMOS Global Head of Learning Strategy & Learning Innovation Novartis

MEGAN CASADOS Director of Training DISH

KELLY RIDER Chief Learning Officer PTC

BARBARA JORDAN, CPTM Group Vice President, Global Learning & Development Sims Metal Management

DR. SYDNEY SAVION Chief Learning Officer Cityblock Health

CATHERINE KELLY, MA, BSN, RN, CPTM Director of Learning Programs Brookdale Senior Living SHIREEN LACKEY, CPTM Talent Management Officer, Office of Business Process Integration Veterans Benefits Administration LAURA MORAROS Global Head of Sales Learning Facebook

KERRY TROESTER, CPTM Director, North America Sales Training Lenovo NATASHA MILLER WILLIAMS Head of Diversity & Inclusion Ferrara KEE MENG YEO Adjunct Professor Grand Valley State University & Davenport University

A S B P E Aw a r d s o f E x c e l l e n c e

Training Industry Magazine connects learning and development professionals with the resources and solutions needed to more effectively manage the business of learning.

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ARTICLE REPRINTS To order reprints of articles, please contact Training Industry at editor@trainingindustry.com.

PUBLISHER Training Industry Magazine is published quarterly by: Training Industry, Inc. 110 Horizon Drive, Suite 110 Raleigh, NC 27615-6520

SCOTT NUTTER General Manager, Research, AQP & Development Delta Air Lines

A Z B E E S

MISSION

A | S | B | P| E Fostering B2B editorial excellence

American Society of Business Publication Editors

2018 Cross-Platform Package of the Year Top 10 Award

A | S | B | P|E Fostering B2B editorial excellence

American Society of Business Publication Editors

2017 National

ONLINE Award Winner

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TRENDS 2022 Learning leaders have risen to the challenges facing their organizations over the past few years.

So, what’s next in training?

Find out in our annual Trends Report.

LEARN MORE

ERIN DESTEFANIS

GUEST EDITOR

THE EMPATHY MODEL: DESIGNING VIRTUAL EXPERIENCES

A recent study published by Deloitte indicates that 40% of learning will be facilitated virtually with some organizations moving to 90%. Successful execution was attributed to the intentional and reflective design of the learning experience. Placing intention on the actual learning experience creates yet another hurdle to overcome.

With the EMPATHY learning experience model as the foundation for virtual design, learners are empowered to make deep, meaningful connections within the content .

The model can be broken down into seven components: E: ENVIRONMENT A psychologically safe learning environment requires shared understanding, modeling behaviors and protecting the privacy of the learner.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: • Is dedicated time built into the training agenda to provide an opportunity to use the platform?

• Are lighting, sound and a virtual background to maintain privacy provided in advance?

M: MEMORABLE MOMENTS If content is king in the learning space, creating memorable moments with intention is queen.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: • Does the training agenda include a meaningful icebreaker?

• Are moments of laughter and/or joy embraced and celebrated?

P: PEER-TO-PEER LEARNING Peer-to-peer learning activates the essential principles of adult learning.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: • Are opportunities for information sharing or teaching back provided?

• Are instructional activities trainerfocused or trainee-focused?

A: ATTENTION Chunking is the process of breaking complex concepts into small pieces.

H: HEART The core values of an organization are guideposts toward meeting common business goals.

IF CONTENT IS KING, CREATING MEMORABLE MOMENTS WITH INTENTION IS QUEEN. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: • What are your organization’s core values?

• What opportunity exists?

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

Y: YOU, THE L&D PROFESSIONAL

• Are opportunities to paraphrase, summarize or report out provided for each step?

Just as core values guide organizations, the learning professional’s educational philosophy guides and informs the realtime approach.

• Are visuals provided retention and recall?

to

increase

T: TIME Through differentiated instruction, time is maximized and contributes to meeting the needs of all learners.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: • Have breaks and lunch been excluded from time allocation?

• Is there an opportunity for collaboration, Q&A and group discussion devoted for each hour of training?

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QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER: • What are my core values?

• What is the role of learning in the current environment?

• How does my approach align with my core values?

Erin DeStefanis is manager of corporate training an operational development at Freedom Mortgage Corporation. Erin has more than 20 years of experience as an educator, learning designer and career coach. Email Erin.

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Did You Know...

65% of Companies Deliver Their Training Virtually

&

53% Identify Learning Engagement as a Priority

Did You Also Know...

Increasing Learner Engagement Requires Tools Video Conferencing Platforms Don’t Have

& Finally, Did You Know...

Jigsaw Interactive’s Virtual Learning Environment Is Built Specifically to Create & Sustain Engagement Through Innovative, MultiDimensional Learning Tools

Experience The Difference JigsawInteractive.com

STELLA LEE, PH.D.

WHAT’S NEXT IN TECH

EMERGING TRENDS FOR EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN PANDEMIC TIME Educational technology (edtech) is a fastchanging field. It has particularly been so due to the impact of the global pandemic.

Learning and development (L&D), like other organizational functions, had to rapidly pivot to 100% online to continue to support organizations. Edtech companies also have adapted their business models to this changing market demand.

Although learning with technology has arguably been around since the 1960s, the corporate sector has been slow in investing, implementing and sustaining the innovative use of edtech.

Could COVID-19 be the catalyst we have been waiting for to give a much-needed push to transform the way we provide learning and performance support? Here are a few emerging trends to consider during this critical time of change.

CHANGING BUSINESS MODELS As the demand for edtech products increases, vendors have adapted their business models accordingly. Early in the pandemic many edtech companies were offering free or extended-trial versions of their products to lower the barriers to entry. These companies also provided enhanced support and connected different communities to share best practices.

While many edtech products targeted schools and universities, the corporate sector was quick to take note and try them out. Many edtech products ended up with a high trial conversion rate as companies realized remote work and learning were here to stay. Organizations realized the benefits of fast-tracking their digital transformation process.

OTHER MODELS OF LEARNING There is room to move away from a virtual classroom that replicates the lecture-style training approach into something more interactive and learner-driven. To support staff juggling remote work and online learning, edtech products started to emerge with more niche focus to integrate different learning and performance support experiences, such as peer-to-peer collaboration and knowledge sharing, rapid authoring of microlearning content and virtual coaching and mentoring.

TECHNOLOGY IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE DESIGN OF THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE. DEMAND FOR A MORE PERSONALIZED LEARNING EXPERIENCE As employees shift positions and acquire new responsibilities, edtech products that allow organizations to identify knowledge gaps and provide customized content will be increasingly in-demand. Personalized learning also helps engage remote learners when the content is directly relevant to their needs.

ECONOMIC DOWNTURN INCREASES DEMAND FOR LEARNING AND RESKILLING People considering a career change will search for edtech platforms that provide educational credentials and self-directed learning opportunities. Edtech companies

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that provide upskilling programs need to build on people’s existing skills, use a transferable competency framework (so it is commonly accepted across industries) and balance technical and soft skills.

LACK OF LEARNING INVESTMENT AND LEGACY SYSTEMS WILL SLOW THE GROWTH Organizations are often reluctant to implement digital learning, partly due to the lack of understanding and evidence of the effectiveness of using these tools, and partly due to the absence of an internal learning culture. This apathy about workplace learning is taking a toll when companies need to repurpose their learning and performance support digitally. Legacy systems, messy data, short-sighted vision and tight spending will also slow the growth of further development and innovation in learning.

COVID-19 has led to an acceleration in edtech demand across sectors, heightened the need for new learning models and shown the importance of investment in workplace learning. Are you ready to adapt to the changes in the learning models and medium rather than replicating face-to-face classroom sessions? Remember: Technology is only as good as the design of the learning experience.

Dr. Stella Lee has over 20 years of experience in consulting, planning, designing, implementing and measuring learning initiatives. Her focus is on large-scale learning projects including LMS evaluation and implementation, learning analytics, and artificial intelligent applications. Email Stella.

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Take this quiz to see if the CPTM™ credential is the missing link to keeping you and your business on track for success.

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SAM SHRIVER & MARSHALL GOLDSMITH

BUILDING LEADERS

3 KEYS TO EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP TRAINING

There are a number of things to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of leadership training. But we think these three should gravitate toward the top of your list.

Do they aspire to be better leaders, and do they see themselves being successful in that pursuit? Because if they do not, it simply doesn’t matter how awesome our offering happens to be.

1. THE LEARNER

2. THE TRAINING

We all had a class in college that we would have absolutely avoided — if only we had been afforded the opportunity. It was a prerequisite for our major or a requirement for our graduation. We had to take it, so we did. How much have we thought about that learning experience since? Not a bit! We checked the box that needed checking and we moved on.

It is difficult to imagine training of any kind producing documented results if the training itself isn’t compelling. Two parameters of evaluation have long been critical in that regard:

How many people attend leadership training in a similar frame of mind? “I don’t need this.” “I don’t think this is going to help me in any way.” “Careerwise, I’m not sure I want to move into a formal leadership position,” etc.

WHAT’S CHANGED? PLENTY. BUT MOSTLY THE LEARNERS THEMSELVES. We spend so much time and effort trying to determine the return on investment of leadership training. Most of that toil is focused on the experience itself in long-term combination with the change in behavior it produces (and the business results those changes generate). Moving forward, we need to focus increased attention on the learner.

• Is it relevant?

• Is it engaging?

The driving forces of this assessment have shifted (and continue to do so).

Traditionally, the platform skills of the facilitator were overwhelmingly the most critical consideration. Other elements contributed, of course, but in an eventcentric design, metrics were (and still are) a function of the facilitator’s ability.

What’s changed? Plenty. But mostly the learners themselves. The modern learner is spread thin to meet the everyday challenges of their work.

For a variety of different reasons, they work in a flexible, hybrid environment and the pace of change has served to redefine “upskilling” and “reskilling” as “the new normal.”

What are the implications? First and foremost, training needs to fit into the flow of that work. Content should be consumed in “bite-sized” chunks and tied to application. Relevancy has taken on an entirely different meaning.

With ever-increasing regularity,

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learners expect content to be directly tied to their work. As such, leadership training is much less about imparting knowledge, and increasingly about a function of embedding handson experience (with feedback and feedforward) into the design.

3. THE CONNECTIONS Think for a quick moment about key executives in your organization. The leaders who drive your culture. Do they believe the way you are developing leaders provides a competitive advantage? Or do they see leadership training as the kind of thing that has to be done, but it makes no discernible impact on the profitability or competitiveness of your company?

How about the managers of the trainees who attend your leadership training?

Do they understand and appreciate the critical role they play when it comes time to evaluate leadership training’s true impact? The more connected those managers are to the training itself, the higher the probability that training will be proactively positioned and pulled through upon completion.

Connecting what you do in training to the calculated interests of executive leaders, as well as the outcome achievement interests of mid-level managers, is a crucial component of an effective evaluation strategy.

Marshall Goldsmith is the world authority in helping successful leaders get even better. Sam Shriver is the executive vice president at The Center for Leadership Studies. Email the authors.

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COMPANY LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

TOP

20

COMPANY

2021

TOP

2021

2021

NEW TOP 20 LISTS LAUNCHED

TOP

20

COMPANY

ASSESSMENT & EVALUATION

IT TRAINING

CONGRATULATIONS TOP 20 COMPANIES VIEW THE LISTS The Top 20 Companies are a service provided by Training Industry, Inc. Because of the diversity of services offered, no attempt is made to rank Top 20 lists.

DR. KRISTAL WALKER, CPTM

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION: THE TRIFECTA APPROACH TO ATTRACTING GREAT TALENT Change is upon us. Individuals are realigning, resetting and re-establishing their priorities to balance their personal well-being with their careers. While some prefer more flexibility in scheduling, others are opting for a change in career altogether. In either case, companies are challenged with creating nontraditional ways of attracting and retaining employees in a job market that favors employees.

EMPLOYEES MUST FEEL WELCOMED, VALUED, SUPPORTED AND APPRECIATED. McKinsey & Company recently reported that approximately 19 million U.S. employees have left the workforce since April 2021. That number is projected to continue growing for the next 12 months.

While employers who are falling prey to the impact of the “Great Resignation” may name various reasons for voluntary attrition, the lack of progression in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts remains high on the list. This presents continued opportunities for DEI, human resources (HR) and learning and development (L&D) practitioners to champion the case for DEI in business operations, particularly when attracting and retaining great talent.

THE ROLE OF DIVERSITY IN TALENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION Diversity is about understanding, embracing and celebrating the unique differences that exist within our companies, communities and circles of influence. One strategy your company might use to support its ongoing case

for diversity, specifically in talent attraction and retention, is to explore the unique differences and similarities that exist among your internal and external customers.

• Cultural differences and similarities.

• Percentage of underrepresented or marginalized customers.

• Methods used to understand, embrace and celebrate differences and similarities in branding, recruitment and engagement materials.

Thinking through these considerations can offer three advantages: 1. Greater insight into the kind of talent your organization needs to advance innovation and expand market share.

2. Better opportunities to prepare managers for inclusive leadership.

3. Increased awareness of how to engage existing stakeholders in welcoming and engaging new talent.

THE ROLE OF EQUITY IN TALENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION Equally important to identifying the differences and similarities of your internal and external customers is understanding their unique needs. For example, some external customers may need access to your products and services to enhance their quality of life, while others may simply want to engage with your company because of its brand power. On the other hand, the needs of internal customers may revolve around a fulfilling employee

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experience. Some might take great pleasure in driving the company’s mission, while others may need access to a clear career path to ensure a return in their investment. In either case, equity should be examined based on the individual needs of your customers rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

THE ROLE OF INCLUSION IN TALENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION If diversity is about exploring differences (and similarities), inclusion is about accepting those differences. The role of inclusion in attracting and retaining talent has expanded well beyond the HR team and the hiring manager. In fact, job seekers are searching employee reviews to determine whether a company is serious about creating an inclusive workforce. While inclusion has always been an important factor in an employee’s success at work, both candidates and tenured staff are more vocal about their sense of belonging (or lack of) in their companies and among their work teams.

Leveraging inclusion in talent attraction and retention requires a measure of civility.

Remaining civil in every situation speaks volumes about our ability to embrace an inclusive workforce. The more we create work cultures where employees feel welcomed, valued, supported and appreciated, the more we’ll attract and retain the best talent.

Dr. Kristal Walker, CPTM, is the vice president of employee wellbeing at Sweetwater. Kristal is also a facilitator for Training Industry’s Diversity and Inclusion Master Class. Email Kristal.

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Winning The War For Talent With Agile Learning

By Sonia Malik

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T

he Covid-19 pandemic hit the world like no other event. The economic downturn created by the lockdowns, the focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) spurred by racial unrest, and the accelerated pace of automation created the perfect storm. Today, as we continue to steer our lives and businesses through the pandemic, we know that the future will remain uncertain. Likely changes are how, where and with whom we work; how we use technology, how we communicate, how we acquire and retain customers, how we lead and how we think about the place of work itself. As we start to focus on thriving rather than surviving, our strategies are dependent on whether the changes are temporary or transformational.

The Social Contract Between Employees and Employers Has Changed The tremendous impact of the pandemic on the personal and professional lives and the health and well-being of individuals and their families has redefined the worker-employer relationship. The following are just some of the areas in which we’ve seen massive shifts: • Mental Health: There is a strong business case for investing in the programs and services necessary to create a resilient workforce.

• Culture: Culture is critical now more than ever, and most organizations are challenged to build and nurture inclusive cultures, encourage innovation and positively impact productivity.

• Leadership: Leaders must be mindful and take a much more holistic view of their people to better understand the multitude of factors that ultimately impact performance and productivity.

It’s also incumbent upon them to provide a psychologically safe place where employees feel respected and valued.

The Hybrid Environment Needs a Human-centric Model The COVID-19 pandemic forced most of the global workforce to move into a remote work setting almost overnight.

Now, as organizations are planning their back-to-the-office strategy, many hybrid or remote knowledge workers agree that their expectations for flexible work schedules have increased. The new design of work must incorporate employee-driven flexibility, intentional collaboration and empathy-based management.

Providing flexible experiences: Providing employees with the flexibility that allows them an equal opportunity to succeed is essential in a hybrid environment.

The flexibility will enable individuals to

balance their personal and professional goals, vital for women and caregivers who traditionally had to choose.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Collaboration: Expanding access to various collaboration models is essential to inclusion. Research has shown different talent segments thrive in each mode.

Introverts, for example, flourished during the pandemic when they did not have to interact face-to-face with others. On the other hand, highly social individuals struggled with not feeding off the energy of others in the same room with them.

Becoming more intentional about where, how and when we use each of these modes will be essential to achieving innovation in the hybrid environment.

Empathetic management: Organizations must equip managers to contextualize performance in a low-visibility environment by making empathy a key priority. Six key attributes define empathy-driven managers are that they: 1. Prioritize people over processes.

2. Embrace a growth mindset.

3. Create transparency.

4. Ask (as opposed to telling).

5. Safeguard confidentiality.

6. Contextualize their employees’ mindset.

However, organizations face three main barriers in driving empathy-based management:

Thriving in the post-pandemic era requires an adaptive skillset and a mindset open to continuously learning and unlearning.

1. Skills: Managers may not have the skills needed to be empathetic.

2. Mindset: Managers may resist the requirement to be compassionate, believing it is not their job.

3. Capacity: Managers may not have the time to prioritize empathy.

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If organizations genuinely shift to empathy-based management philosophy, they must create a holistic strategy that addresses all three of these barriers and invest equally in each.

The New Nature of Work Can Be Unbundled or Broadened With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and the ability to automate repetitive tasks, there has been an opportunity to redefine jobs. Unbundling work from the job and dividing it into smaller pieces allows for greater mobility by allowing employees to take on shortterm challenges, opportunities, tasks, projects or assignments that span job titles and departments. Unboxing people from jobs and deconstructing them into their full range of skills, experience and interests enables them to be seen as unique individuals beyond their job descriptions, with significant DEI implications.

On the other hand, according to Deloitte, an alternative is to broaden the scope of a job to focus on the broad outcomes to be achieved or problems to be solved.

With latitude in defining the “how” of work in pursuit of broad objectives, employees get the opportunity to take on more prominent, more integrated roles and responsibilities that often cross functional boundaries and enable them to develop new skills and gain experience. The focus is less on specific hard skills and more on broad human capabilities, such as the problem-solving, curiosity and creativity necessary to identify problems and opportunities — and then develop, test and iterate on solutions.

Stop trying to predict skills and invest in foundational skills instead.

But the behavioral changes required to optimize the new work models and the accommodations for the shift in employee expectations go beyond what technology can offer. Thriving in the post-pandemic era requires an adaptive skillset and a mindset open to continuously learning and unlearning.

The single most significant factor that will drive organizational and personal success through the decade is the ability to pair continuing technological

All Major Future of Work Trends Need a New Skilling Imperative The proliferation of collaboration and communication tools made the transition to remote work and learning possible.

Figure 1

The Agile Learning Manifesto Values

e

Business outcomes over knowledge gained

Earning Cur v

ea ile L rning g A

Just-in-time microbursts

Source: Gartner 730775_C

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Dynamic pathways

ea

L

Community compounding over individual practicing

Learning to earning Motivation multiplier

Growth mindset over current skill set Real-time embedded over training time offline

Principles

Progressive layering

rn

in g Cu r ve

Flow of value delivery Data-driven, AI-enabled Socially amplified

advances with talent strategies, creating a broader culture of workforce digital dexterity.

The total number of skills required for a given job increases year over year.

At the same time, the skills present in the average job posting from 2017 will not be needed by 2021. In this dynamic environment where the same person may have different roles on different projects and the need to switch frequently, it’s not a simple task to acquire new knowledge.

The ability to learn, unlearn and relearn is vital for long-term relevance and success. Organizations with a sound learning culture have mastered the art of embedding learning in the flow of work, so it’s not a discreet activity but rather something that occurs as needed on the job. Agile learning is the discipline for making this happen.

Agile learning is a mindset and method of skills development, via short iterative bursts, applied in the flow of achieving outcomes that can dynamically adjust to changing needs. Agile learning connects motivated, self-directed learners to the enterprise’s strategic results. The manifesto, as defined by Gartner, consists of a set of values and principles, which are outlined in Figure 1 on page 18.

To drive an effective culture of learning, organizations need to define the culture’s values and create processes that enable its implementation. The following three steps can be taken to operationalize the implementation of the Agile learning manifesto:

productivity all along their career path will keep the motivation to learn alive.

2. Take a dynamic approach to skill shifts: Stop trying to predict skills and invest in foundational skills instead. The top skills of 2025 will include critical thinking, problemsolving, resilience and active learning.

Learning accelerators that deliver just-in-time training by leveraging existing skills as a starting point help compress the skilling timeline and enable progressive layering of skills for the individual.

3. Promote multidisciplinary collaboration across internal and external stakeholders: Collaborate with talent acquisition, strategy, operations,

“In this age of accelerations, everyone is going to have to raise their game in the classroom and for their whole lifetime.”

- Thomas Friedman

1. Make purposeful investments in people (connect the learning and learning curve): The capabilitybuilding exercise for the organization must be personalized for each employee. This process starts with an inventory of existing skills, understanding what the future skill needs are, and mapping a learning journey based on the adjacencies or gaps. The excitement about developing new skills and new knowledge that helps enhance their

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compensation, DEI and employee resource groups to develop the realtime skills intelligence necessary to make better skilling decisions.

Empower employees to seek opportunities in different parts of the organization to create a diverse portfolio of skills supported by a cross-functional community of peers.

Empower Employees to Be Future-fit for the World of Work An essential part of any organization’s learning strategy should be about empowering employees who are not just future-fit for their organization but future-fit for the world of work in general. As the labor market evolves to be more automated, digital and dynamic, everyone will benefit from having a set of foundational skills that support the following: • Deliver value beyond what automation and artificial intelligence can provide.

• Operate effectively environment.

in

a

digital

• Continually learn new skills and adapt to new ways of working.

Building proficiency in cognitive, digital, interpersonal and leadership skills over time can be associated with a higher likelihood of employment, higher incomes and higher job satisfaction.

What the world of work will look like in the future is unknown. But investing in our ability to learn, take risks and try new things helps us build resilience to the inevitable disruption that’s just around the next corner.

Sonia Malik is the global program lead at IBM Education and Workforce Development. She is a visionary change agent with a successful record of driving learning and workforce development strategies to create the best human and digital experience for individuals, clients and their employees. Email Sonia.

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HOW TO

BUILD EQUITY INTO

REMOTE WORK & THE HYBRID WORKPLACE

BY BLAKE BEUS

T

he hybrid workplace — a blend of in-office, in-person and remote work offsite — is here to stay. We know the flexibility of a partially or fully remote workplace is beneficial for many reasons that will outlast the pandemic.

For example, organizations with hybrid workforces enjoy increased access to remote talent and higher retention rates, while employees appreciate the flexibility and view the option to work remotely as a form of compensation equal to any in their benefits package. But despite the advantages, remote work also has the potential to reveal and exacerbate inequity in our workplaces. Therefore, as we move forward into the future of work, the challenge will be to create workplace environments with equity in mind.

However, to develop and support equity in the workplace, it won’t be enough to provide equal access to laptops, mobile phones and an internet connection. The solution to building equitable workplaces isn’t to add more dial-in meetings held over video conference, although that has certainly provided a starting point for many organizations during the pandemic.

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Instead, we must recognize and design new ways of working to empower employees, provide opportunity and meet them where they live — in a manner of speaking.

ANY EQUITY INITIATIVE IMPLEMENTED

BY YOUR ORGANIZATION SHOULD BE AN ONGOING EFFORT. It will take more than technology to build equity into the hybrid workplace. Instead, we will need to take a proactive approach to support employees and develop better communication initiatives with the mindset that equity initiatives are always ongoing — there’s no ending point. “It’s not going to be enough to give our employees equal access,” says Ron Zamir, CEO of AllenComm.

“It’s a challenge, and it’s always going to be a work in progress. Design is critical. We’re only at the beginning of our journey. But I’m an optimist.”

DEFINING EQUITY IN REMOTE AND HYBRID WORKPLACES

So, how do we define equity in the remote workplace? First, let’s begin by clearing up confusion around the term “equity” that commonly leads to misunderstandings.

The terms “equity” and “equality,” although similar and often confused, do not have the same meaning.

Equality often means providing each person with the same resources, regardless of their needs. Equity, in the most essential form, is

about opportunity. It is a humancentered approach to recognize individual needs in order to meet the conditions necessary for people to have the tools to succeed and grow. Equity involves empowering employees with the tools they need to be successful, based on their individual circumstances.

When we discuss equity for a hybrid workforce, we’re covering the issues that may arise in a remote workplace that could exacerbate barriers to a level playing field.

HOW TO BUILD EQUITY INTO REMOTE WORK, BARRIERS TO OVERCOME, AND WHY IT MATTERS

With the challenge of building equity in the workplace, we have the opportunity to build newly revitalized, more successful organizations. If anything, our newly hybrid workplaces provide a tremendous opportunity for progress.

How? When we work together in an office, it creates an artificial environment that masks equity issues that may be holding back a team. For example, we all have the same technology available to us, and the norms of dress, procedure and schedule to simplify many things.

But when we work from home, the opportunities in flexibility can also create opportunities for misunderstandings.

It can uncover and highlight the differences between us. Remote work may lead to misperceptions about who is and isn’t working or putting in effort, based on preconceived ideas held over from traditional office customs.

These concerns about inequities caused by remote work are based on more than conjecture and anecdote. Studies are showing that some employees, including members of groups already traditionally marginalized, are more likely to want to remain working from home. But research done by a Stanford economic professor shows that people working from home are less likely to achieve promotions.

Other research has shown similar promotion rates, but a slower rate of compensation increases even when other factors are ruled out.

For these reasons, we can see that we must consciously counter potential issues around remote work with equity initiatives built on increased communication to avoid misunderstandings. We must examine our policies and procedures to determine the best path forward.

In reviewing our workplaces, we might ask ourselves the following questions to begin the process of building equity: [ How do we bridge the experience gap between employees that are inperson and those working remotely? [ Who on the team might have greater challenges to overcome just to participate, and what support can we provide? [ What can we do to bridge gaps in access and proactively accommodate team members with different needs around remote work?

These aren’t empty exercises. Some companies are already putting measures in place to level the remote playing field for their workforce. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Cloudflare in San Francisco made the decision to require all employees to log into video meetings if even one member of the team is calling in remotely. Other companies are bridging gaps between remote and in-person meeting attendees by providing agendas ahead of time and making certain to communicate that people won’t be penalized for different types of participation.

So, what can your organization do to make your workplace more equitable?

STEPS TO ESTABLISH MORE EQUITABLE WORKPLACES

Every workplace and organization is different and will have its own set of

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WE MUST RECOGNIZE AND DESIGN NEW WAYS OF WORKING TO EMPOWER EMPLOYEES, PROVIDE OPPORTUNITY AND MEET THEM WHERE THEY LIVE. needs. However, the following steps will be useful for any group seeking to make improvements: 1. Establish a diverse and inclusive workplace. Is your organization actively seeking talent across backgrounds to enrich your team with varied talent and points of view?

Has your organization put measures in place to support recognition of lived experience, provide necessary accommodations and encourage the inclusion of all members of your team?

Does your workforce reflect your client base and community? Contributions from people of different ethnicities, genders, ages and socioeconomic backgrounds are needed to build a successful organization and should be encouraged.

2. Use evaluations to create a map that makes sense for your organization. Is your team more engaged and productive from home, or in the office? The needs of employees may vary by role, personality, personal life needs and tools needed to perform their jobs. Some employees, for example, are more productive at home where they can focus effectively to produce creative or highly detailed analytical work. Others may benefit from collaborative brainstorming and access to team members. Plan your decisions based on team and individual needs.

You may do this by taking surveys.

You might also use the talent in your L&D departments to leverage needs analysis data collection. Performance mapping, use of needs analysis tools and performance consultants are all useful options.

3. Invest in improved content and reconsider your use of technology. It’s no wonder that organizations are placing upskilling, reskilling, onboarding, leadership and diversity equity and

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inclusion (DEI) training at the top of their priority lists for the year ahead, as these are all vital areas to increase workplace equity. You can improve content in all these areas by rethinking the user experience (UX) design to develop a blended model. Use video, interactive websites, social functions like chat and content planning that considers both in-person and remote experiences. Make it mobile. Create platforms that act as a repository of knowledge that employees can access to do their jobs when a manager isn’t available to take questions.

4. Communicate intentions and updated policies to management effectively.

Have you gotten buy-in from management to increase equity in your workplace? It’s a critical step to provide management with training and support to build equity, as they are on the front lines with your team. Help them be proactive and give them the tools to communicate effectively. Provide them with skills training, confidence-building immersive exercises and more.

5. Provide skills training. Do you have a career development training plan in place? According to multiple industry reports, including the 2021 LinkedIn Workplace Learning report, more employees (and especially Gen Z) are using remote time to access training programs to improve performance.

Providing employees with accessible options to improve and develop their career is key to promoting equity.

CONCLUSION Any equity initiative implemented by your organization should be an ongoing effort. There will always be room for improvement. The goal, ultimately, is to support and empower

employees to give their best and bridge gaps between in-person and remote team members. Organizations that recognize and support their employees will benefit from increased productivity, loyalty and retention — all of which improve the bottom line and increase successful outcomes.

Blake Beus is the vice president of Sales and Business Development at AllenComm. He leads the new business team and focuses on supporting strategic relationships with their clients.

What Blake enjoys most about his role at AllenComm is helping organizations implement initiatives that have a real impact on the business. Email Blake.

CRITICAL SKILLS FOR MANAGEMENT IN HYBRID WORKPLACES Management is on the front line with employees. Their skills can make or break your efforts in creating an equitable hybrid workplace. It is important to provide management with training on the following topics: • Proactive Communication.

Help your management team realize that communicating early and often is vital to ensure that employees know how to be successful.

• Technology Training.

All your employees should know how to use the tools available. Ensure they have support by training your management team in best practices.

• Capability Training. Has your management team had practice in diffusing conflict, recognizing mental health issues, DEI and other skills needed to make good decisions and support the team? Build their capabilities, and you support your entire workforce.

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| 24

If you’ve ever designed, developed, delivered or managed a training program, you might get very excited when you get rave reviews on your Level 1 smile sheets. And you should — it’s the first measure and earliest indicator of success.

But no matter how well you do here, the question still remains: Is it going to have a positive impact on employee performance back on the job? We want training to be fun and engaging, but we must also measure and report higher levels of impact to make our case for the business. If investors, stakeholders and leaders are spending millions of dollars on training, they want (and have every right) to ask how much that fun and engaging experience will ultimately lead to better employee behaviors, greater profit and stronger growth.

If we don’t give them this evidence, then many skeptical stakeholders will continue to see even the most innovative training experiences as fun, but frivolous investments.

So what exactly do these skeptical stakeholders want?

And why don’t great Level 1 scores float their boat? To answer this, let’s look at how far “fun” will get us within our larger, more comprehensive six-level approach to training evaluation. Here’s a quick review of all the levels we can measure:

Evaluation Levels 1 - 6 Level 1: Did they like it? Level 1 measures the extent to which training

participants react positively to the training experience. Were they engaged?

Was it fun? Were they satisfied with the content and the way it was delivered?

Was it relevant to their role? Was it worth their time?

your training back on the job. Are there things going on in the participant’s immediate work environment (e.g., direct manager support) that are either helping or hindering the impact of all your training efforts?

Level 2: Did they learn anything? Level 2 measures the extent to which new knowledge and skills were acquired during the training. Are they leaving with critical knowledge and capabilities that will help them do their jobs better?

If we look at Table 1, we see that a fun and engaging training experience will get us past Level 1 — and that’s it! Can we ask stakeholders and business leaders to feel good about all the dollars they spend if we only tell them how fun and engaging it is? Of course not! There’s five more levels that are even more important and predictive of a good investment. Would you drop tens of thousands of dollars on a car if it might fall apart tomorrow, but you had a “fun” test-drive? How about investing in college tuition (as a paying parent not a student) because you heard the campus

Level 3: Are they doing anything differently and better? Level 3 measures the extent to which participants are returning to their everyday jobs and actually applying what they learned in training. Do they do something better?

Do they do something more effectively or more efficiently? Without this application and transfer of knowledge, training can never impact the business.

Level 4: Did it impact the business? Level 4 measures the extent to which training is improving critical business metrics.

That is, did the behavioral improvements and application of new knowledge and skills lead to better business metrics and higher performance? What was the increase in productivity? What was the increase in sales revenue, customer satisfaction or cost-saving efficiencies?

Level 5: Was it worth the investment?

Level 5 measures the return on investment (ROI). That is, the extent to which the benefits of a particular training experience outweigh the costs of that training experience. The final ROI is expressed as a percentage of the original investment.

Level 6: What factors maximize the ROI? Level 6 is an evaluation of what I call “ROI Maximizers.” This analysis tells you which environmental factors are best at influencing the impact of

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1 2 3 4 5 6

Satisfaction: Did they like it?

Learning: Did they learn anything?

On-the-job Improvements: Did they do something differently or better?

Business Impact: Did it impact the business?

ROI: Was it worth it?

Transfer Climate: What factors maximize the impact of training?

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was fun? We can’t expect businessminded bottom-liners to care about a one-time training experience that is fun, without telling them about the longerterm story of impact.

The Value in Level 1 But that doesn’t mean you should scrap your Level 1! All is not lost. It’s still a valuable data point to collect.

The bad news is you need more — but the very good news is that, despite assertions to the contrary, there is actually a correlation between how engaged the learner is during training and how much it might later impact that employee’s application (Level 3) and business benefits (Level 4). The even better news is that there are ways to increase the power of your Level 1 by including all the right questions in the overall score.

Can Level 1 Reaction Predict Level 3 Employee Behavior Change on the Job? Based on my own research and data collected over the past 15 years, the answer is yes, it does have some predictive power. The reason why it’s been traditionally so frustrating to draw this conclusion or find research in the industry is that most Level 1 assessments don’t ask the right questions, nor do they use the right scaling. Further, there is rarely any consistency across companies, or even within companies, as to how they measure their Level 1 results (our independent variable). Add

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to that the scarcity of L&D organizations that are validly measuring Level 3 (our outcome variable), and you’ve got an almost impossible hypothesis to prove.

So, what evidence do I have of a correlation? The strength of my findings comes from the consistency of how I’ve collected Level 1-6 data over the years. That is, I’ve gathered data and reported findings on over 150 different training programs in over a dozen different companies using the same methodology, and at least a core set of assessment questions to capture Levels 1 and 3. Using this data, the evidence of a relationship breaks up into two key findings:

Correlations Within Programs Here, the Level 1 scores of thousands of internal employees (on a five-point scale) were correlated to their respective scores for Level 3 (standardized to a five-point scale) for those very same training programs. The correlation for all participants in the study (N=20,116) was a 0.31, which was weak, but it was statistically significant considering the size of the sample.

Differences Across Delivery Modes Here, the overall Level 1 scores for different delivery modes (our independent variable) were

collected and then compared to the overall Level 3 scores for those same delivery modes (dependent variable).

I used an analysis of variance within and between groups to make sure any differences were significant and so far, the evidence is compelling. The main modes of delivery in the study included training guides, training videos, selfdirected web-based training, classroom training and virtual reality (VR) training.

Essentially, the overall Level 1 scores went up as the training became more sophisticated.

Simple instructional training manuals and videos scored the lowest in “exciting and engaging,” and VR scored the highest. The next step was to look at any available Level 3 scores across all the delivery modes and see if this progressively higher engagement translated into a higher impact on the job. Since there were not many full Level 1-6 studies done for the low-investment training manuals and videos, I ended up comparing the aggregate results of just three different delivery modes — self-

Self-directed Online

3.8

3.0

Classroom

4.4

3.9

Virtual Reality

4.9

4.5

directed web-based training, classroom training and VR training. Table 2 shows a short summary of the findings.

As you can see from the table, as the ratings go up for Level 1, so too do the scores for Level 3. The online training scored the lowest on Level 1 and also the lowest on Level 3. Classroom faired considerably better than online for Level 1 and 3. And finally, VR scored the highest on both Level 1 and Level 3. So at least from these findings, it appears that you may at least be able to predict which delivery mode will yield more employee improvement on the job (Level 3) by looking at their initial Level 1 scores.

Conclusion Don’t stop measuring Level 1. If you’re asking the right questions, your smile sheets can at least give you a little positive indicator as to which training

programs hold the highest potential for manifesting more effects back on the job. However, this Level 1 data is nowhere near enough to convince your stakeholders it was “worth it” because it doesn’t capture the real story of impact, which is how much was actually learned, how employee behaviors have changed months after the training, how much business benefit was realized, how much ROI was achieved and how to improve that impact and ROI in the future.

After all my research over the years, I’ve come to consider Level 1 as the first baby step in a journey across a very long and hazardous bridge. On one side, the training event where you begin your first steps, and all the way on the other side, across a very dark and scary abyss — lies the business results and the ROI destination you are trying to reach. And all along the bridge are potential pitfalls where you can lose your footing, slip through the cracks

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and plummet to a dismal training failure.

There’s no way of truly determining for sure who’s going to make it across this treacherous bridge by rating those very first baby steps, and there’s no way of predicting exactly how long it might take them to get there, or how strong they will be when they arrive. But there’s no denying that the ones who start with the strongest steps and the sturdiest footing will certainly inspire the most confidence, and probably have a better chance of making it all the way across to a positive ROI. Dr. Paul Leone is an industrial/ organizational psychologist, author and leading expert at evaluating the impact of training initiatives. He is the founder and principal consultant for MeasureUp Consulting, where he helps training providers and internal L&D leaders tell the valuable story of how training impacts the bottom line. He is also the instructor for Training Industry’s Measuring the Impact of L&D Certificate. Email Paul.

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BY REGINA NOWL AN

In the aftermath of a massive global disruption, organizations have elevated employee experience, engagement, upskilling and capability building. In this new era, business needs and customer expectations have significantly shifted.

Skills and work environments have taken on new meaning with greater levels of importance in response to evolving employee expectations and workforce demands. As a result, learning and development (L&D) has become central to helping companies reshape organizational capabilities.

A dearth of available talent amid other pandemic-related disruptions is affecting all industries. Left unmanaged, customer experience, reputation, performance and innovation are apt to suffer.

With so many changes and disruptions, it is the ideal time to transform from the old way of unbending manual processes

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to doing business with agility. Leverage emerging technology (e.g., business intelligence tools, artificial intelligence and mixed reality) and optimize data to better understand learner needs and continually adjust, as appropriate. This is done to enable employees to achieve their career ambitions while successfully improving the customer experience.

Getting Started Let’s review organizational practices to lead L&D digital transformation: Create internal career mobility that builds a skills-based resume.

Challenge and transform your L&D infrastructure.

Embrace digital disruption to create a learning ecosystem.

Amid the current business challenges, companies must be resilient. As such, L&D leaders should alter their mindsets to think of the workforce as a circular economy. Given today’s market conditions, L&D leaders must take a more modern approach to refresh and redefine L&D for their organizations to address talent development as well as the business’s strategic needs.

Talent is a critical area where mindsets and skillsets need to be cultivated.

Given the scarcity of skilled talent in the market, as well as individual employee expectations, companies must revisit how to develop new skills and capabilities of existing teams while also attracting new employees. Keep in mind that any change in business direction will lead to employees needing new ways to learn and develop to advance their careers while allowing for businesses to thrive.

Preparing for Disruption According to a recent Deloitte CEO survey, 47% of CEOs are prioritizing more training and development. The survey emphasized that in the year ahead, the greatest disruption in the market will be a labor/skills shortage, as selected by nearly three-quarters (73%) of the CEOs. Preparing today’s talent for existing and future business needs will require organizations to: Provide skill-building experiences and knowledge on-demand across the company.

Create on-the-job learning, apprenticeships, rotation, project and work teams where employees are learning while working.

Give employees an opportunity to apply skills to new roles that might be outside their specialty to boost agility, innovation and retention of high-performing talent.

Create a learning strategy that supports enterprise-wide needs for organizations such as digital acumen.

With a hybrid remote workforce amid and beyond the pandemic, companies introduced new applications that necessitated employees’ reliance on technology. It is critical to various job roles that employees have access to more technology-oriented training to grow their technical skills.

Keeping the Workforce Sharp While technical jobs are increasing, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are reducing the need for certain roles

going forward. However, new talent demands are emerging with a more significant focus on human-centered roles than we have seen in the past.

Of late, the need has shifted to what was once known as “soft skills” — communication, creativity, problemsolving, critical thinking and cultural understanding — to achieve more positive collaboration and unleash the diversity of people, perspectives and approaches across the workforce.

Departing employees have often cited the main reason for leaving is because the role itself was holding them back. By enabling more career mobility, L&D can address this issue.

A key area for L&D leaders is to deliver learning strategies that enable internal career mobility for employees so that they can elevate their skills and grow within their existing companies. In addition to specialist and role-based skills, we should prioritize portable skills that can be leveraged across business areas to create more opportunity. And it takes different approaches to develop these types of skills compared to process and functional skills.

Employee turnover is expensive, and today’s labor market is competitive.

Attracting talent with the right skills can require a range of tactics, from signon bonuses to increased salaries and other perks. Take steps now to ensure the best employees do not quit, taking with them their company experience, industry knowledge and leadership

to the competition while leaving the existing company consistently needing to fill talent gaps. With various other dayto-day responsibilities and challenges, we need to pull the plug on this neverending hamster wheel. This circular issue will not allow for businesses to advance if companies continue to need to replenish talent while top performers head for the exits. Such churn prevents businesses from moving forward.

Now is the time to think creatively about retention of those top performers. For example, place greater emphasis on intangibles (e.g., culture and flexibility) as opposed to the usual, “traditional” benefits (e.g., compensation) to strengthen a company’s ability to attract and retain talent.

L&D Digital Disruption Moving forward, our goal should be to challenge and transform our organizations’ L&D infrastructure. As a business-critical function that can greatly impact employee and business performance, the function must be designed for relevance and optimization.

As such, L&D leaders should be asking themselves: Are we organized to ensure a learner-centric culture? Alternatively, has L&D become a function for delivery of learning design, responding to our organizations’ needs?

More than just delivering training, today it’s all about how L&D operates as a business. This is similar to how businesses need to evolve their service delivery strategies to remain competitive.

Balance stability with being dynamic — what work activities can be stopped or re-envisioned in your L&D so that you can allocate funding effectively to

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ASSESSING FOR SUPPLY AND DEMAND With so many changes in business and technology, how can busy L&D leaders stay on top of employee and business needs? In a survey of L&D executives conducted by CGS, the top priorities of respondents ranged from increasing engagement to content personalization. How can we accomplish all these initiatives?

Businesses must have the right talent with the right skills at the right time. This means L&D must take steps on a regular basis to reevaluate and adjust to align with the business strategy and employee expectations.

critical business needs as they evolve, engage in sprints, test and learn while working on cross-functional teams?

This will also enable you to be more future-focused.

Develop a culture that embraces digital disruption. Focus on how employees can be engaged as active and passive learners as their jobs require more digital elements, just as the learners have become accustomed as consumers to using digital technology in their daily lives.

3D Learning No longer can L&D be thought of or implemented as a simple, onedimensional format — nor can we rely on just one tool. Current conditions

Training should address current realities simultaneously with future of workforce needs.

Business plans should identify where reskilling of existing employees can be beneficial to employees and businesses.

Keep the learner’s needs and experience front and center for all learning strategies, and challenge the stats quo regarding how we have always delivered traditional training.

require delivering learning with layered technology. It takes an ecosystem to be agile and responsive to learners.

Address capabilities needed in your function. L&D professionals need to be data-savvy marketing experts. Should you have learning experience designer roles on your teams to transform from instructional designers? Are you integrating business intelligence tools and data mining for insights? Assess what tech tools and skills are needed to make it more engaging for the learners.

For example, use of chatbots to help guide employees through a learning journey akin to what we are already familiar with as consumers. Applying AI in this regard also provides data to help continually understand behavior of the learner, like how businesses leverage for customer behavior.

HOW L&D TEAMS PLAN TO PRIORITIZE THEIR EFFORTS Increasing engagement/ employee experience Digital acumen, technology training Upskilling Building out libraries of reuseable/modular content Expanding L&D’s data footprint/ workforce analytics Content curation and personalization Reskilling Building global communities of practice/SME networks Adopting immersive, collaborative technologies - AR/VR/MR Looking at ways to incorporate AI, robotics, chatbots

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The 2020 Training Industry Benchmark Report found that short courses and face-to-face training were the most popular choice overall for training providers, with 78% of providers offering in-house courses. However, 61% were focused on eLearning courses for the coming year. While face-to-face learning has been popular for decades, how can we transition to today’s business structure? L&D must reimagine how face-to-face solutions can be delivered in this ecosystem.

The overall purpose and outcomes desired for face-to-face need to be revisited. Once that is defined, we must ask ourselves: What types of new skills will be needed for facilitators to deliver the newly reimagined learning sessions?

Conclusion As the new year gets underway, L&D organizations can reset and refresh their current state of talent development. They will also plan for an agile, transformative approach.

Post-pandemic, businesses and the workforce are facing a new reality. With a change in L&D strategy, enterprises can drive value and relevancy in this everchanging work environment where workers are shifting their careers and expectations.

Regina Nowlan is a senior learning strategist, leading CGS’s learning consulting services. As an L&D leader with a passion for helping others succeed and grow, her industry experience for the past 25 years ranges from financial services to quick service restaurant.

Email Regina.

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ocietal, institutional and organizational trust is at an all-time low. The 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer found that political unrest, a global pandemic and years of government and corporate scandals have eroded people’s trust in leaders worldwide. The survey, which collected data from more than 33,000 respondents in 28 countries, revealed that a majority of respondents believe that government and business

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leaders are purposefully misleading people by saying things that are not true. In addition, because 84% of employees are concerned about losing their jobs, workers will continue to be guarded about their status and performance compared to their colleagues.

Additionally, Forbes predicted that a major leadership challenge will be the “continued erosion of trust in societal

institutions, and a weakening of the principles that sustain those institutions.”

Within the world of learning development (L&D), we have seen an increase in miscommunications arise from blended and work-from-home environments.

This lack of trust is bad news for organizations everywhere. In his research on the neuroscience of trust, Paul J. Zak found that employees in high-trust organizations are 50% more productive, report 74% less stress and have 106% more energy at work compared to their low-trust counterparts. They also report 76% more engagement, 40% less burnout and take 13% fewer sick days. It is clear that leaders at any level should make building (or rebuilding) trust a priority in the year to come.

The Elements of Trust At its core, leadership is a relationship.

There is no leader if there is no one willing to follow. Leaders must create positive relationships and connect others around a common purpose — and the foundation of any successful relationship is mutual trust. If today’s leaders want to foster trust with employees and other stakeholders, they must understand the elements of trust and the behaviors that underlie trusting relationships: ☐ Reliability: Business leaders must create a reliable and predictable experience for their customers, employees and other stakeholders.

To do this, they must set effective boundaries and clear expectations about how work gets done, what professional behavior looks like and how conflicts will be resolved. These expectations must be communicated clearly, and put into daily practice.

Misunderstandings about what is expected can quickly erode trust in any relationship. ☐ Transparency: When mistakes are made, it is vital to acknowledge them openly and honestly and communicate what will be done to correct the situation. Leaders

should create an environment that encourages their team to handle their mistakes the same way, rather than hiding or being dishonest about a problem. ☐ Integrity: To build trust, leaders must practice honesty and live their stated values. Corporate scandals, reports of tax evasion and illegal activities by leaders of major companies have eroded the public’s trust in business leadership. The integrity of an organization affects customers and workers alike. Leaders must demonstrate a commitment to honesty and reliability in all areas of their organizations — from accounting policies to human resources. To demonstrate integrity to internal and external customers, leaders should keep privacy concerns a top priority. Recent data breaches of wellknown organizations have increased customer concerns about their safety, further eroding trust in companies they once relied on for goods and services.

There is no leader if there is no one willing to follow. ☐ Vulnerability: Trust requires vulnerability. Leaders must be willing to ask for help when they need it and not judge others when they need support. Creating an atmosphere where people feel allowed to be human and fallible is essential to a trusting environment. In the face of the many challenges of the last two years, vulnerability means embracing difficult conversations.

Some leaders mistake vulnerability for weakness, but as author and lecturer, Brene Brown explains, “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they are never weakness.”

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The Skills Leaders Need Now To rebuild trust in institutions and organizations, leaders must embrace three essential skills:

Emotional Intelligence Often thought of as a “soft skill,” emotional intelligence is now an essential skill for leaders at any level. The components of emotional intelligence, like selfawareness, self-regulation, motivation and empathy, have become increasingly important as people navigate the stress of conducting business throughout the global pandemic. Customers, employees and leaders alike are experiencing high levels of stress, difficult working conditions and unprecedented amounts of uncertainty. Leaders must demonstrate the ability to manage their emotions and handle stressful situations while remaining aware of how their words and behaviors impact those around them.

To be seen as trustworthy, leaders must model self-awareness and emotional stability even in times of conflict or tension. Emotionally intelligent leaders create an atmosphere of psychological safety that allows team members to ask questions, speak up about problems and try new things without fear of repercussions.

Fortunately, emotional intelligence is a skill that can be learned and strengthened through intentional practice. Developing emotional intelligence improves the quality of both personal and professional relationships and can benefit employees at any stage of their career.

Effective Communication Less than half of employees report that they are well informed about their organization’s goals and strategies. Now more than ever, uncertainty about job security and organizational strategy is causing stress for workers. When there is an absence of information, people often

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When there is an absence of information, people often jump to the worst conclusion. jump to the worst conclusion, leading to reduced trust in the organization and increased turnover.

Ongoing communication and access to information is the best way to reassure employees. Transparency about good and bad news is vital to creating a trusting relationship with internal and external stakeholders. Leaders should not avoid discussing issues like a tough financial quarter or a need to reduce hours of operation due to slowing business or lack of available staff.

Instead, they should be clear about the circumstances and share the plan for moving forward.

Effective communication can be challenging in an increasingly virtual workplace. Andy Bounds, author and communication expert, recommends sharing complex information verbally first, then following up with a summary by email. It is also more important than ever to remember that communication is a two-way interaction. Building a trusting relationship requires listening as much as, if not more than, speaking.

Miscommunication is easy by text, email or chat, so be sure the recipient has received and understood your message.

Difficult conversations should be face-to-

face if possible, so it is easier to pick up on non-verbal cues that indicate if the other party understands the information and how they might feel about it.

A Lifelong Learning Mindset John F. Kennedy once said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” Not only should leaders embrace lifelong learning, but they should invest in the development of their employees as well. High-trust organizations emphasize a growth mindset and encourage staff to learn new things.

there is always more to learn. Creating a safe space for teams to learn new skills and apply them in real-world situations benefits the entire organization.

Moving Forward The global pandemic and resulting economic and political conditions caused disruptions across many industries, requiring layoffs, reduced hours and new demands on workers.

While many of these circumstances were out of the control of CEOs and managers, it is their job to restore trust in their organizations to help employees feel secure, and customers feel safe doing business. It takes time and consistency to build trust and can be difficult to repair once it is broken.

Managers who mentor their direct reports and help them grow personally and professionally see higher employee engagement and lower turnover rates. Providing opportunities for learning and development demonstrates a commitment to the employee’s well-being as a whole person, which is key to building positive and trusting relationships.

David Brooks, author of “The Road to Character,” tells us that “trust can be rebuilt through the accumulation of small heroic acts — by the outrageous gesture of extending vulnerability in a world that is mean, by proffering faith in other people when that faith may not be returned.” The need for stronger, more ethical leadership is clear — and the time for action is now. Restoring public confidence in leadership begins with each leader’s commitment to embracing and demonstrating the key elements of trust in all aspects of their life.

Learning new skills as a team is also a great way to improve relationships and get to know each other. Embracing lifelong learning also demonstrates vulnerability, as it requires admitting

Emily Hastings writes for Crestcom International, a trusted leadership development partner that transforms managers into great leaders with a results-driven approach. Email Emily.

3 Steps to Repair Broken Trust Author of “The Image of Leadership,” Crestcom subject matter expert, and keynote speaker, Sylvie Di Giusto recommends a three-step approach for repairing broken trust:

1

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Reflect on what went wrong. Look at the entire situation and evaluate what was done, what could have been done differently, and what actions to take next. Is there a need for an apology? Is there a way to make amends?

2

Connect with those affected. Discuss what has happened with honesty and transparency. To truly connect, listen without defensiveness. To repair the relationship, the other party needs to feel heard and understood.

3

Do the work. Restoring trust will require patience and consistency.

People need time to forgive and forget, and it takes effort to demonstrate integrity, reliability and accountability.

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understand the need for upskilling their people, but do they realize how critical it is? A survey of 2,000 people showed that PD opportunities resulted in 34% higher retention and 15% more engagement.

Any company that is dealing with our current “Great Resignation” would love to find ways to keep their talented people. A structured PD program also shows employees what internal career progression or career changes look like and how to get there.

For example, if an employee wants to move from a developer position to a senior developer, a PD program can show them what training is needed to prepare for that role. Succession planning becomes so much easier when everyone has a career path and the training to support it. PD opportunities also prepare organizations for changes in technology, marketing practices and so much more, ensuring they are staying ahead of the curve.

START SMALL

Your IT leader has just hired someone who has amazing skills. Fantastic! Many leaders are great at understanding the skills their employees need to excel in their roles. What leaders sometimes have difficulty enabling, though, is the training that needs to happen to keep their employees’ skills sharp, and for those employees to learn new skills within their field. This is where a strategically aligned learning and development (L&D) team can really help.

can demonstrate tremendous value. By highlighting the benefits of PD, creating great partnerships with organizational leaders and external training providers and promoting development opportunities, L&D teams can help an organization upskill current teams and provide training for any future needs.

Supporting an organization with professional development (PD) opportunities is an area where L&D teams

If you’re looking to start a PD program, consider the benefits it will bring to your organization. Many companies

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CONSIDER THE BENEFITS

So as an L&D team, where do you start?

It will be difficult to meet the needs of an entire organization right away, so you may choose to start with one department.

Choose the department that needs your help the most. Think about which department is struggling with hiring, retention and engagement. Or maybe there’s a team that is launching new software in the next few months that needs to get everyone trained. Giving PD opportunities for these employees will have the biggest impact. Next, get the leaders of those departments on board.

Find out what their most urgent needs are, as well as what kind of budget they have, and show them what you can do for them.

Build a business case that shows them how a PD program can help them with their training gaps now and in the future.

PARTNERSHIP CONSIDERATIONS The next step is finding the right training for the team you’re supporting, whether that means using external or internal providers. When determining which you should use, consider the following: External providers are best when you have generic needs (i.e., accounting skills).

They are also best when you need training quickly, and have a healthy budget.

Consider partnering with local universities, colleges or other academic institutions.

You could also bring in a facilitator from a recognized institution. There are also some cost-efficient external providers.

Consider using MOOCs (massive open online courses), as well as training that is available directly from software providers.

These courses are often free or available at a low cost. It’s important to work with an internal subject matter expert to curate any courses you find. With so many different providers, as well as the varying quality of content, you’ll need to make sure that the courses chosen are the best fit for their specific needs. Over time, you’ll be able to create a list of preferred external partners that meets the needs of your organization.

On the other hand, you may decide that internal training is the way to go.

Creating training internally is best when you have content that is specific for your organization and you have subject matter experts that have the time and expertise to partner with you. Not only will you need them to help co-create the content, but you’ll need their help with facilitating it as well. For some companies, this is too much of a strain on their resources.

There are some resource-efficient ways to come up with internal content suitable for professional development as well.

For example, you could start a community of practice where you have a group of professionals (like data

analysts) meet regularly to teach each other and share best practices. If you record the training, the videos can live on your learning management system (LMS) for future development. Whether you choose external or internal training, or a hybrid of the two, you’ll be able to start upskilling your company’s teams.

UTILIZING AN LMS Speaking of your LMS, it can be a great tool to help you organize, assign and track the training you’ve created or curated. Not only can you create clear pathways that will guide people through the courses they’ll need to take, but it will also help with reporting on key training metrics to share with leaders. Consider using your LMS even for external courses by creating a “shell” in your LMS that houses instructions on how to access the external training with a direct link. Your learners will appreciate having one place to access all their training.

MARKET YOUR TRAINING Finally, think about how you’ll communicate and market your PD program. How will learners know what training is available to them, and how will leaders know how you’ve been able to support them? You might consider creating an online catalog for your learners. Employees can view which courses are available, how to access them and if they need approvals.

Having an online resource makes it easy to quickly update and provide links to

courses, support or approval forms. New or updated courses can be communicated through your company’s intranet or newsletters. When communicating to leaders, consider doing a monthly or quarterly update to show them what’s new, how many people are taking courses and what’s coming. Use data whenever possible to help highlight increased retention or employee engagement.

It can also be powerful to get a few soundbites from learners who have recently graduated from a program or course. Having someone say they are so appreciative of your company because of their development opportunity can speak volumes about the impact your PD program is having.

Starting down the journey of creating a PD program can sometimes feel daunting. Hopefully, these tips will help you think through some of the strategic decisions that will help your program be successful, and help your organization have the skills it needs now and in the future.

Marjorie Van Roon, CPTM, is the senior manager of learning and development for Best Buy Canada Ltd. Marjorie and her team lead the L&D function for 10,000 Best Buy employees across Canada in over 130 stores, their head office and distribution centers. Email Marjorie.

WHERE TO START When starting a professional development program consider the following: ⊲ Research the benefits. ⊲ Utilize your LMS. ⊲ Communicate and market

your courses and programs.

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⊲ Start small and partner with a

department that needs the most help.

⊲ Determine if you should use external

training providers or create your own training.

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Every company approaches diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) differently.

Learning programs are an invaluable way to influence company culture and foster new ways of thinking. Learning and development (L&D) and DEI have invaluable insights to share with one another and will become increasingly collaborative as time goes on.

Typically, instructional designers collaborate with subject matter experts (SMEs) to gather and structure learning content, but DEI requires a little more. The topics and issues DEI addresses are not typically openly discussed and require deep understanding, research, openmindedness, empathy and compassion for all humans.

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THE ROLE OF AN INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNER Instructional designers (IDs) are the learning architects that apply adult learning theories, mental models and a plethora of other principles to make content conducive for an engaging learning experience with a desired outcome and goal in mind. The goal is normally to expand one’s knowledge or skill set — or change their attitude. They work to meet the needs and objectives of the organization as well as the learner.

The role of an instructional designer goes beyond shaping the content: They

shape the culture of their workplace, cultivate new mindsets, develop and change behaviors and drive strategic initiatives. Their role is pivotal in supporting the business, employees, partners and customers, as well as driving training outcomes.

Why? Because before any employee can succeed in their role, they must understand the vision, mission and values of the organization and be onboarded to its culture and operating team. Every role has learning and development at its core and as its main touchpoint.

When examining some of the main responsibilities of an instructional

designer, being a researcher is the first prerequisite. In some instances, IDs must research the organization to develop a better understanding of its function and operational strategy.

They have to research and understand who they are creating the content for, as well as the information related to the training topic, and, at times, develop the content from scratch.

FROM ID TO DEI Now, how does all that transfer to DEI? First, let’s consider their responsibility to research and understand the organization, the learner and the content.

When it comes to DEI, research is prominent and required throughout the entire process to ensure the information provided is accurate and coming from a reputable source — but also to ensure its alignment with the messaging of their organization. Before diving into scholarly articles about bias, the first place to research is what the organization says about DEI internally and externally. This is where IDs can start transferring their skills and put their detective hats on.

The ID should research any articles written about DEI from their organization and research what their CEO and C-suite are saying, what’s on the company’s website, as well as what’s on their internal website and portal and review all of the existing

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learning material and programs provided by the DEI department or employee resource groups. After the foundation is set in what the company thinks about DEI, they can research what other DEI departments in other companies in similar industries are offering. It is always good to learn about what other companies are doing to create a competitive and comparative analysis and learn from other industry leaders.

While in research, IDs must utilize content from reputable DEI experts and scholars. Scholarly articles provide research-backed information that has been tested with proven results to confirm theories and strengthens the confidence of the learner.

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IDs also analyze the audience, need, current environment and goals of an organization or business. Through a series of interviews, focus groups and/or surveys, they are able to ask purposeful questions that uncover the underlying issue the training will address and create goals that solidify the impact the training will have. The analyzing phase of the learning process for DEI will be ongoing.

It starts with understanding the current learning environment for the learner and how they are learning new content. It’s important to understand their pain points,

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what motivates them and what learning solution has worked in the past and should be improved. For DEI, information can be gathered by attending employee resource group meetings, listening to company-wide open forums, concerns raised to HR and business partners and even facilitating an email inbox to address any concerns and act as a safe place to discuss their experiences with the DEI team.

IDs can perfectly align the overall organizational goals with the learning

solution and the goals of the learner.

Here are some questions to consider for alignment: ∞ How do the DEI goals align with highlevel goals of the organization? ∞ How would a learning goal connect with the goals the organization wants to meet in the years to come? ∞ How would the learning solutions align with the goals of the learner and where they want to take their career.

DEI goals not only contribute to the operations of an organization but can also change how their workforce live their lives outside of work. It’s paramount to ensure that the organization is truly aligned with the DEI learning initiatives and this is communicated with an accountable strategy.

Lastly, IDs are magicians that bring a learning strategy to life. After researching and obtaining key data points about the audience and the organization, the ID can construct learning objectives that will be guiding points for the structure of the custom learning initiatives. From understanding what motivates the learners, knowing how they learn and what the end goal should be, they are able to design and develop creative learning experiences that set the tone for real change in DEI.

THE KEY TO MAKING A MEASURABLE IMPACT FOR DEI IDs already have the skills that can transfer to the development of DEI learning content, but it takes everyone to make a measurable impact and change. Change starts from the top down with support from the bottom up. Ensuring the executives are on board for the change initiative shows how important DEI is to the company.

The workforce will take notice when the messages are coming from the executives. And when learners are involved in the conversation with their managers and input is welcome and

considered, it changes the dynamic of the company.

Bringing everyone in the huddle and working with the employee resources groups and DEI experts confirms to the workforce that everyone has a voice and should be represented. When the leaders from all the groups can provide their insight and review on the learning initiatives, their communities will be able to see themselves in the solutions that are provided and know that their views and feelings were considered.

DEI will thrive if the organization is strategic and allows it to be embedded into the infrastructure. Outside of providing learning solutions, DEI must be involved in recruiting initiatives, hiring, performance reviews and evaluations, leadership development, succession planning, leadership and new manager development, and employee engagement and relations reporting.

The employees can be trained on DEI but need the right tools to carry it out and ensure that biases are addressed — and people are held accountable for their actions.

With the skills IDs can transfer to DEI, they are able to contribute to the impact by creating a blended learning solution that includes workshops, virtual forums, eLearning courses, toolkits and resources for managers and team members on a suite of topics such as unconscious bias, microaggressions, debiasing feedback, performance review, inclusive goal setting and practicing thoughtful allyship.

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IN SUMMARY There is a clear connection between L&D and DEI and a learning professional like an instructional designer already possesses the transferable skills to produce dynamic learning solutions for DEI. Some of the main responsibilities of an ID are to research and get to know the organization, learner and subject matter.

They analyze the data and information they gather to align it to the overall goals of the business or organization.

Lastly, they will construct and develop engaging learning experiences.

In the case of DEI, everyone has a role to play to ensure it makes a measurable impact, from the CEO to the entry-level employee. Everyone’s voice should be heard and represented.

Tackling DEI at any organization isn’t an easy feat. But by applying existing skills, utilizing research, working with experts and leading with compassion and empathy, it can be life-changing to the organization and everyone that is associated with them.

Antoinette Alexander Adefela is the founder and CEO of Exp.Design LLC. As an ATD Young Leaders One-toWatch award recipient and Forbes Next 1000 honoree with over 10 years of experience, Antoinette has consulted for top companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, ResMed, and ConocoPhillips in various departments such as diversity and inclusion, business education, customer/partner support, and global learning. Email Antoinette.

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Enhanced learning.

Engaged working.

Unraveling Complexity with a

Culture of Coaching

The diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) conference that I recently attended left me feeling hopeful, overwhelmed and concerned. Hopeful because so many bright, caring people are dedicating their minds, hearts and energy to unraveling the multifaceted challenge of creating more inclusive and equitable cultures. I was overwhelmed by the plethora of approaches that are being experimented with, the astounding array of stakeholder communities that were involved and the sheer magnitude of the behavioral and systemic changes that are needed for enduring change to take hold. And lastly, I was concerned because DEI is only one of many systemwide initiatives that organizations are focused on right now.

DEI initiatives are a perfect storm of complexity. There are so many moving parts, it is impossible for anyone to know what actions will deliver the desired results, when the hoped-for changes will take hold or what the impact of those changes might be. Turning complexity of any kind into meaningful, lasting change is our current shared challenge, along with establishing a coaching culture that enables organizations to turn complexity into opportunity.

By Dianna Anderson, MCC

Changing human behavior at scale is very different from changing technical or tactical systems.

Complexity Has Changed Change Many of the initiatives at the top of corporate priority lists right now are complex: establishing more just and equitable cultures, envisioning and adopting sustainable practices, attracting and retaining the best and brightest people and piloting organizations through the speed bumps T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MAGAZ INE - WINTER 2022 I WWW.TRAININGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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of disruption without losing momentum.

All these challenges have one thing in common: They require people to think, act and interact in new ways across the enterprise and beyond.

Changing human behavior at scale is very different from changing technical or tactical systems. People cannot be forced to engage in lasting change — they have to choose to change their behavior. After coaching people for more than a quarter-century, I can attest that people are capable of breathtaking metamorphoses when they choose to change. I can also attest that people pose an equally huge obstacle to change efforts when they choose not to change.

The need to inspire people to change their behavior at scale is what makes complex initiatives more challenging than any other kind of change.

Coaching cultures can deliver the ability to continuously evolve how people and systems respond to, and with, our everchanging world.

Why Do People Change?

Why do people choose to change?

People change when they believe: • They will personally benefit from making the change.

• They have the support they need to successfully make the change and attain the benefit.

• The reward for changing will be more than worth the risk of possibly failing.

None of these conditions are met when we use traditional leadership

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approaches of telling people what to do, then subtly — or overtly — implying threats if they don’t do what they are told. In fact, our “direct and correct” approaches to leadership that leverage fear to compel compliance actually discourage change. Fearful people aren’t open to learning. They won’t take risks, and as a result, they don’t change.

It’s not their fault — it’s how our brains work. When people are frightened, they put all their energy into trying to keep themselves safe by reducing perceived risks. That is the opposite of what is needed to address complex issues.

Leading Through Learning Commanding compliance is not going to cut through the ever-growing thicket of challenges that complexity generates.

We will need original thinking to imagine new ideas and envision elegant new ways of approaching complex issues.

That means we will have to learn how

to have conversations we’ve never had before. In many cases, we’re going to have to have them with people who think and act quite differently than we do.

There will be few, if any, “right” answers, and many possible paths forward. That means we have to try things out, learn together and try again. That’s why learning how to learn in this way is the first behavior change we need to put into place to change other deep-seated, shared patterns of behavior.

To change human behavior at scale, we must first create organizations where people feel safe enough to risk stepping out of their comfort zones and exploring new ways of thinking, working and being. The foundation of this new kind of culture is collectively changing what the organization believes it means to be a good and effective leader, shifting from commanding compliance to cultivating potential. That’s what establishing a coaching culture does.

Coaching as a Culture Culture is what we do, day-in and dayout. It is the fabric that organizations are made of. The weave of that fabric is created by the shared beliefs that people hold about how things work — and what it means to be successful —within an organization. That’s because our beliefs are what inform and drive our actions, and few beliefs shape organizational culture more profoundly than what it means to be a good and effective leader. Changing that belief can change the very fabric of the culture. That’s what happens when “in the moment” coaching is adopted as the predominant leadership style in an organization.

Cylient defines coaching as the translation of insight into meaningful action to realize potential. Insight is the engine that drives the transformational power of coaching. Consider the rush of positive energy you feel when you have an “aha!” experience. That feeling propels you to explore ideas, try new things and, as a result, embrace new behaviors. This engine only works when the insights that are ignited help people in ways that are meaningful to them.

Remember, that is why people choose to change.

This kind of insight-based coaching can be integrated into any conversation with anyone, at any time, to foster learning, create connections and inspire people to think in new ways. It works everywhere and ignites insights and learning wherever it is used. When teams take a coaching approach to meetings, they can authentically share what is really going on and resolve issues together in real time. When peers take a coaching approach to disagreements, they can appreciate each other’s perspectives and find common ground. When insightbased coaching is widely practiced as a leadership and communication style, people learn with and from each other, in the moment. That’s the kind of learning that enables organizations to creatively respond to change in real time.

Coaching-based leaders believe it’s their responsibility to get the flywheel of learning-how-to-learn moving in their organizations by using “in the moment” coaching to support people to bring the

The Qualities of Coaching that Unravel Complexity Coaching is practiced in many ways and means different things to different people. The kind of coaching that works to unravel complexity has the following qualities:

• It is powered by igniting insight • It happens “in the moment” as a that is translated into action. When people focus on learning together — rather than arguing about who is right — it establishes a space where people feel safe enough to take the risks needed to think and create together.

• It goes beyond asking questions.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone asked you question after question, but you weren’t sure why? Those situations are frustrating for both people.

They tend to happen when people only use questions to try to ignite insight for others. When you want someone to become aware of, or try something, that is completely new to them, questions are often not very helpful. In complex situations, higher-order coaching approaches that illuminate limiting patterns and possibilities in simple ways — such as sharing an analogy, offering an observation or sharing a story — tend to be more effective at creating the “aha” of understanding.

best they have to offer to everything that they do. When leaders believe they will be valued and rewarded for taking a coaching approach to leadership, the culture evolves to one where people feel safe, seen and supported to realize their potential.

Complexity has become a way of life, so the ability to change ourselves and our systems as a fluid process needs to become our way of life, too. That’s what coaching cultures can deliver: The ability to continuously evolve how people and systems respond to, and with, our everchanging world. When “in the moment” coaching is embedded as part of a culture, it enables organizations to tap into

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leadership style and way of life.

When internal or external coaches provide coaching to others in a structured, often ongoing, way, that is coaching as a service.

Coaching engagements of that kind are helpful when individuals are working through significant challenges. For coaching to become a culture, it must be valued and rewarded as the preferred leadership style throughout the enterprise. It becomes what people do in the flow of work.

• The intention is to realize potential.

The power of coaching as a culture comes from the shared value it establishes for realizing potential in people and in situations. Rather than taking a traditional leadership perspective of asking “What’s wrong?”, coaching springs from a leadership worldview that asks, “What’s possible?”. This coaching worldview opens minds — and hearts — to learning, exploring new ideas and taking original actions.

the most powerful and plentiful energy available to them — human potential. This creative energy fuels learning of every kind, burning through the dross, and turning complexity into opportunity.

Dianna Anderson, MCC, is the CEO of Cylient, and the creator of Cylient’s system for wiring up coaching cultures where people feel safe, seen and supported to realize their fullest potential. Thousands of people around the world use Cylient’s Untying the Knot® approach to “in the moment” coaching and feedback conversations to learn with and from each other as they address real issues in real time. Email Dianna.

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The Evolution of L&D:

From Sales Enablement to Sales Readiness

By Chris Lynch

As the wave of digital transformation has swelled, businesses have invested trillions into projects that aim to elevate the customer experience, grow revenue or achieve bottom-line efficiencies. In fact, IDC projects companies will spend $6.8 trillion on these projects by 2023.

But employees have been left out in the cold. Approximately 70% of employees say they don’t have a strong enough mastery of the skills needed to do their jobs and 87% of executives report readiness gaps in their organizations.

Sales employees feel this gap most acutely. As new products and competitors appear daily, companies are investing significantly to ramp them up in their job.

But simply providing a budget and resources won’t work without the right strategy. Large-scale sales certification and kickoff events create an initial burst of knowledge transfer and skills development to sellers — but then they fall off in effectiveness in the following weeks because they are designed simply for completion, not knowledge retention.

In fact, according to a Gartner survey, B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information that they learn within a week of training,

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and 87% will forget it within a month. Many call this the forgetting curve.

This knowledge erosion contributes to a mediocre sales team. Forrester reported recently that, between 2011 and 2019, the average seller quota attainment actually dropped from 63% to 43%. Faced with an underperforming team, sales leadership is forced to churn and burn through sales reps, relying even more heavily on their top performers. All of this may explain why 90% of sales training programs fail after 120 days.

While L&D and sales enablement are functions, sales readiness is a strategy.

Businesses have also tried to address the enablement challenge with content surges. Often led by marketing, this type of program throws content at sellers at every turn. The problem? More often

than not, the content isn’t aligned to the sales process, and thus, isn’t delivered at the right moment when it would have the most impact. So, it turns out that the massive content surge is a massive waste of time: 90% of sales reps never use it anyway, and knowledge gaps persist.

With traditional approaches like these clearly failing, it’s time for businesses to address their enablement challenge with a fundamental change. Rather than focus on traditional learning and development (L&D) for sellers specifically, they need to embrace the discipline of sales readiness.

While L&D and sales enablement are functions, sales readiness is a strategy.

When implemented correctly, sales readiness provides comprehensive, personalized and adaptive ways to forge the skills and behaviors that today’s sellers need to succeed.

Let’s take a closer look at sales readiness and how revenue leaders can create it.

Creating Readiness in 5 Steps Simply stated, sales readiness is a continuous state of excellence in growing revenue, achieved through

increasing knowledge, enhancing sales performance and helping sellers adapt to change.

Step 1: Define Excellence “Excellence” goes beyond whether a seller makes or misses their number.

It can be quantified beyond just the revenue outcome. To achieve this, sales leaders must first clearly understand and define their ideal rep profile, which can be organized into three buckets:

• Inherent attributes, such as whether

the seller is a good negotiator or strong communicator.

• Trackable behaviors that can be tied to training, such as scores on messaging or presentation delivery.

• Individual

seller metrics, such as revenue goals, sales cycle length or customer satisfaction.

Step 2: Build Knowledge The second step in the path to sales readiness is to build seller knowledge.

Training programs shouldn’t be a oneand-done endeavor. Building knowledge must be an ongoing discipline aimed at developing mastery of skills, not just memorizing messaging and passing tests. Three components exist to build knowledge effectively. They are:

• Defined

skill sets, such as product knowledge, deal negotiation, sales forecasting and message delivery.

• Engagement

mechanics, which include a diverse set of tools (like role-play exercises, social sharing and quick quizzes) to keep the seller interested.

• Spaced reinforcement, which involves

revisiting topics periodically to strengthen and fortify knowledge and ensure it’s not forgotten.

Step 3: Align Content Next is building a process to deliver sales content just in time. The buyer journey isn’t linear — therefore, content that’s planned out in advance isn’t always applicable. Sellers will only use the content that helps them in the moment to advance a deal. For that reason, a seller’s “readiness” can be helped along

For sellers to survive and thrive in the dynamic and ever-changing B2B selling environment, L&D must focus on helping them achieve business outcomes.

with a system that is organized by the type of content that works for them in that context.

For example, evaluation content — either technical or specific to a product or service — helps guide customers to the right decision. Objection content helps sellers to clear hurdles that are blocking a deal from moving forward.

Value content uses case studies or ROI analyses to illustrate top-line improvements or bottom-line savings.

Step 4: Analyze Performance The fourth step critical to achieving sales readiness is the ability to analyze seller performance — understanding how a seller achieved their goal and quantifying it through their behaviors in the sales process. This is where a new breed of conversational intelligence tools come into play. These tools leverage AI and machine learning to provide sales leaders insight into what’s happening in the field, and tie that back to competencies that were or weren’t achieved from an enablement standpoint.

Forrester found that the biggest limitation to utilizing AI sales technologies to gain deeper visibility into sales process activities was capturing a high enough percentage of the interactions between sellers and buyers. Voice represents 42% of these interactions pre-COVID and 57% postCOVID according to Forrester’s sales activity studies of more than 25,000 B2B sales professionals. Conversation intelligence tools integrated with sales readiness platforms do exist today to bring real-world selling interactions to the training process.

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Step 5: Optimize Behaviors The final step in achieving sales readiness is optimizing seller behavior through coaching. Coaching closes the loop in sales readiness, ensuring feedback makes it back to individual sellers as well as informing and enriching the entire readiness program. There are four key coaching interactions that should be harnessed in this step:

• Manager-to-seller interactions, which

include pitch assessments and deal remediation.

• Manager-to-team interactions, which include daily communications to discuss account targeting and territory management.

• Seller-to-seller

interactions, offering peer feedback and opportunities for content sharing and pitch review.

• Manager-to-manager

interactions (“coaching the coaches”), which involves analyzing team trends and collaborating on how to troubleshoot problem areas.

Final Thoughts For sellers to survive and thrive in the dynamic and ever-changing B2B selling environment, L&D must focus on helping them achieve business outcomes. It must include continuous skills reinforcement, training, field observation and coaching to make sure sellers are ready to make the most of every sales interaction.

Chris Lynch is the chief marketing officer at Mindtickle. He oversees all global marketing functions, including product marketing, demand gen, brand and creative. Email Chris.

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T

he leadership development challenge is clear: Corporate executives are concerned that their leaders are not ready to react to inevitable disruptions. They also want better outcomes from their investments in leadership development. For the chief learning officer (CLO) and learning and development (L&D) professionals, that means developing adaptive leadership capability and delivering this at an organization-wide scale.

There are two obstacles holding organizations back from adapting to new realities. First, hierarchical structures hinder team performance, slowing decision-making and communication.

Second, most team leaders are actually process managers, comfortable in their technical operations zone but out of their element when disruptions occur.

They try to apply operational skills to adaptive challenges and revert to patching problems rather than inventing novel solutions. To prepare for the future,

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leaders need to leave their safety zone and tackle adaptive challenges where there are no clear answers.

to address disruptions while doing their operational work. Here’s how.

ADAPTIVE ORGANIZATIONS

Now is the time for organizations to develop leaders who adapt themselves and their organizations to address disruptions.

Now is the time for organizations to develop leaders who adapt themselves and their organizations

How organizations adapt to changing conditions is pivotal. Leaders have two options: View disruptions as a threat and resist or see them as opportunities and adapt. According to Deloitte, organizations that adapt will win out. Becoming an adaptable organization requires a fundamental shift in operating and management philosophy that enables large-scale global organizations to operate with a start-up mindset and drive modern people practices that enable enterprise agility through an empowered network of teams.

Hierarchies need to take a back-room role empowering an ever-changing network of teams. These teams need adaptive leaders.

For instance, one such disruption is the explosion of consumer choices and the use of digital technologies to create distinction. It presents new opportunities with new challenges. It is not good enough to apply digital technologies around the edges. Organizations need to invent new ways of working with new measures of productivity.

Such new ways of working demand strength in leadership competencies that has not been emphasized and rewarded in the past. Confronted by disruption, leaders are tested and often respond in two nonproductive ways: Some sense danger and shut down, while others overconfidently apply unexamined know-how rather than taking an adaptive approach by defining or reframing problems, exploring new domains and innovating.

ADAPTIVE LEADERS Long-term disruption and change will continually shape and reshape the way people live, work and do business. Adaptive organizations must think beyond incremental growth and continuously address weaknesses of current practices.

Adaptive leaders must periodically get up on the roof to see what is coming over the distant horizon.

When they see disruption potential, they must quickly prepare responses to act in unity with other leaders.

Adaptive leaders constantly look for ways to align moments of truth to changing customer desires.

They seek to change customer preferences in ways that benefit their organizations and customers. They prepare their teams for planned and unplanned futures. They sense change coming and respond quickly. These adaptive leaders operate well, adapt quickly, invent new ways of working and transform their organizations seamlessly all at the same time.

ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT A new schema for leadership development is needed. One that develops adaptive leaders at all levels, earlier in their careers and in the flow of their work — and can be delivered economically at scale. The new schema

emphasizes learning within the context of the organization’s business conditions, workflows and goals with immediate application of learning.

There are six actions and several keys to developing adaptive leaders, starting with helping leaders understand the organization, including the goals, mission and the products and services it delivers.

Form an instructional design team of leaders at various levels and provide a framework for discussion and design of leadership training that senior leaders can use to provide core organization understanding of what is important to them and expected of all leaders.

Have business leaders provide essential goals to their instructional design team who leads human resources, corporate communications, employee relations, and other teams. Embed this into the entire employee journey from recruitment to retirement.

Empower the instructional design team to lead corporate strategy, program management, operational excellence and other teams to align objective setting, investment portfolio management and other goal-to-results methods to ensure alignment as conditions change.

Iteratively design, develop and deploy leadership development programs that are facilitated by the leaders who participated in one through three above.

Iterate from essential aspiration and intentions and continuously extend content. Reengage leaders to continue their learning.

As deployment progresses, engage learners to refine learning content by providing application cases, additional application scenarios and pitfalls.

In this new schema, the CLO and L&D professionals drive value by enabling and coaching organization leaders at all levels, regardless of title or tenure.

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Measure impact using baseline measures of employee engagement and employee sentiment, including individual experience with diversity, equity and inclusion, value of work, quality of leaders and teaming.

LEADERSHIP ROLES IN ADAPTIVE ORGANIZATIONS

• Ensure that leadership practices from thought leaders are adapted to your organization’s desired outcomes.

PEOPLE LEADERS

Successful programs result when there is cohesion among members of the C-suite, talent management, people leaders and individual contributors (like subject matter experts) who lead without direct reports and L&D professionals. The following bullet points outline the contributions of each group toward the development of the training program:

MEMBERS OF THE C-SUITE • Describe business outcomes quantified along a timeline.

• Incorporate delivery of expected outcomes into recruitment, onboarding, L&D and performance management practices.

as

• Describe outcomes of leadership development in terms of technical and social competencies. Ensure that competencies enable espoused purpose and values.

TALENT MANAGEMENT EXECUTIVES • Describe stages of leadership proficiency for cohorts of leaders such as individual contributors, subject matter experts, project managers, executives, people leaders, high performers, emerging executives, etc.

• Actively engage in leadership development by teaching, coaching and mentoring other leaders.

• Produce and reinforce desired outcomes at team and individual levels.

INDIVIDUALS • Own accountability for selfdevelopment and utilize available development resources.

• Seek opportunities to demonstrate, develop and leverage competencies.

L&D PROFESSIONALS • Coach learners to address specific leader issues and challenges.

• Prefer integration over specialization.

Integrate behavioral and technical skills and integrate doing and learning.

PARTING THOUGHTS For the CLO, L&D and other talent management leaders to successfully build adaptive organizations, transformation

must start from within. Here are some emerging principles to consider: • Cross-functional teams must adapt all organizational systems, including rewards and recognition, talent management and L&D to respond to opportunities and disruptions.

• Start with internal knowledge and skills.

When adaptive leaders are attained, look outside for leadership, technology and management expertise to continue extending your adaptive leadership schema.

• To build scale, create a leadership team with one leadership system mindset. Build organization leadership capability and capacity into the flow of work of leaders.

• Embed critical thinking, leveraging diversity and other behavioral skills into the learning experience and content.

In this new schema, the CLO and L&D professionals drive value by enabling and coaching organization leaders at all levels, regardless of title or tenure. Members of the C-suite drive value by keeping direction and goals current and clear.

Jim Dowling and Richard Lynch are cofounders of Capable Company, an organization that designs and develops integrated models, methods, tools, guides and courseware to develop adaptive leaders at all levels at scale. They are also co-authors of several books and articles, including the e-book “Prepare Leaders for Any Future.” Email the authors.

Keys to Successful Leadership Development Programs • Clarify your organization’s goals and document them to provide leaders with context regarding the goals of the organization.

• Declare your organization’s intentions with sufficient detail to enable leaders to plan for long-term growth as they deliver on short-term promises.

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• Define practices that create a pathway from intentions to the ability to produce expected outcomes.

• Define practices that drive investment based on the ability to produce desired outcomes making projects and processes enablers of results.

• Define results measurement and management methods to continually align your organization’s goals.

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Training for

Speed to Proficiency: Pitfalls to Avoid When Designing Training & Learning Interventions

for Speed The goal of any employee development initiative is to help employees become proficient. This is the stage where their performance is consistent, reliable, repeatable, independently productive and meets established standards. Such proficiency is measured at a jobrole level and is concerned with producing noteworthy outcomes.

However, when it takes a long time to achieve that state, organizations could lose money while handling errors made by non-proficient employees. They have to continue to invest in employee training while losing revenue opportunities in the meantime.

By shortening that time, organizations can shorten the time to market for the products or services and improve customer satisfaction.

TRAINING AS THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE In a research study conducted by the author, a U.S.-based technology

By Dr. Raman K Attri

corporation hired several financial analysts for various business groups.

Their job was to design, prepare, distribute, and present weekly financial dashboards. They were expected to use Excel software and build business dashboards. They would be called proficient if they sent reports each week on time and maintained a feedback score of at least 4.6 of 5.0 over six weeks. It was expected that they would take around two months to become fully proficient.

Upon joining, they were enrolled in a self-paced web-based training, followed by a five-day training class on using Excel software to create business dashboards. They received a 400-page printed manual, job aids, and online resources. After the training, their managers connected them to some senior peers they could contact in case of an issue.

For the first weeks, several financial analysts could not deliver dashboard reports by the deadline. Several of them did not meet stakeholders’ expectations.

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Most of them found it challenging to present and communicate the dashboard convincingly to the executives. While some of them achieved a feedback score of 4.6, they could not maintain it for long.

On average, it took the entire group four months to reach a steady state of achieving 4.6 scores consistently while delivering dashboards on time.

The ultimate time to proficiency turned out to be double the expected time, despite getting the required training and support.

The result is primarily topic-based or task-based training programs stuffed with a lot of “just-in-case” content.

Even today, the training continued to be lecture or classroom style and instructor-centric in several corporate settings. Despite the induction of learner-centric approaches, training design relies heavily on traditional instructors to run the show. The complete focus is on just delivering the content. In most cases, training is supposed to have achieved its objectives when the instructor is finished covering all the slides.

TRAINING AS A SPEED BLOCKER It might be hard for some organizations to understand why their best possible training design and other mechanisms do not help employees attain the required proficiency faster. In a research study with 70 best-in-class organizations from 42 industries, the author found that even the best-in-class organizations struggle to get the training right when the goal is speed. Most of them expressed observations that, contrary to usual expectations, the training programs themselves turned out to be the speed blockers that slowed down the rate of proficiency acquisition across the board.

The critical issue is poor training and learning design practices, coupled with a poorly implemented support structure. Four crucial inefficiencies inadvertently get inducted into training design practices, eventually leading to a slower proficiency acquisition.

1

CONTENT-HEAVY INEFFICIENT TRAINING DESIGN

Historically, most corporate training departments copied the instructional design from academic institutions and continued to stick to it. Such a design usually starts with a massive task analysis that defines performance objectives for activities and tasks.

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When it takes a long time to achieve proficiency, organizations could lose money while handling errors.

Such programs become contentheavy and context-light. The learners take longer to master the skills required to produce better outcomes, even though they performed very well in training. Thus, training simply wastes time or slows down the learners instead of speeding up learners’ proficiency.

2

OUT-OF-CONTEXT SKILLS DELIVERY

When training solutions take the people away from the job and the context in which they are supposed to work, it takes much longer to become proficient at what they do.

For instance, in actual settings, the financial analysts in the previously

mentioned example were trained in a safe environment in front of a computer screen, away from pressure and far from the job expectations. They probably learned all the skills and content to do tasks in excel software and passed the training assessments in flying colors. But that does not assure their proficiency in delivering outcomes in actual settings. No one taught them the survival skill: presenting and explaining the dashboard amidst the boardroom pressure to high-profile executives. They were not assessed for their ability to help executives make meaningful business decisions.

Unless we measure proficiency in training intervention in the same way as in real life, any amount of training will not help speed up proficiency.

Mastering tasks or activities, or skills away from the context in which outcomes must be produced does not contribute towards speeding up the journey.

3

POOR POST-TRAINING SUPPORT MECHANISMS

Managers’ involvement has a vast influence on the curriculum being taught in a training program. That involvement also helps managers decide how to deploy the individuals post-training to speed up the proficiency rate in what they learned in training. The time to proficiency suffers when managers don’t take full involvement in employee training before and after. Ironically, most managers leave it out to their training department and hardly specify measurable job proficiency expectations.

In those cases, the training department delivers the skills to their best abilities, which is designing them for the course or learning objectives, rather than muchneeded proficiency objectives. Such a design leads to the pitfalls highlighted under the first set.

Employees become proficient faster only when they work on the assignments that lead up to those proficiency goals while being supported by their managers on their journey. Employees might get

Focus on the entire journey of a learner and keep your eyes on the desired proficiency.

formal interventions like classroom training. Most of their learning either comes through social interactions or by practically experiencing it.

Several studies also showed that the performance achieved in training is usually not an accurate reflection of the job performance.

Thus, while designing a training program for speed, keep two things in mind:

1 excellent training but very poor posttraining mentoring. When managers tell them, “Sit with Joe. And if Joe is not available, then sit with Jim,” employees are being set up to go slow.

4

UNCLEAR OR POORLY DEFINED JOB EXPECTATIONS

More often, the learning designers are not given the proficiency metrics for the job roles, or they are not given the exact time to proficiency reduction goals.

In the absence of those expectations, most training programs get designed to emphasize a preset body of information, constituent skills, specific behaviors, tasks or activities. These programs fail to make the employees proficient in delivering the actual job outcomes.

Rather, the previously mentioned pitfalls get introduced in the design.

As an observation, training program designers are pressed to reduce the duration of the training program instead of focusing on a direct goal to reduce overall time to proficiency. Such objectives do nothing more than save some money. Learners may not yet be there in terms of proficiency to deliver the required customer satisfaction.

HOW TO GET TRAINING DESIGN RIGHT FOR SPEED?

FOCUS ON THE ENTIRE JOURNEY

Focus on the entire journey of a learner and keep your eyes on the desired proficiency. You can use a combination of formal training, informal training, social learning, on-the-job interventions or other performance support tools.

When you design training programs for acceleration, you need to think of what comes before, during and after the formal training and at various points in the entire trajectory of an employee.

You need to make sure your design, delivery, and support processes avoid the pitfalls mentioned above.

2

DESIGN FOR ON-THE-JOB PERFORMANCE BEYOND TRAINING

Look at ways to provide an efficacious performance support system, OJT

checklists, and other tools that allow learners to experience the job at an accelerated rate. One of several ways you could do so is to make sure the training is designed around actual job scenarios and problems rather than pure content.

This is where it is vital to make certain managers and learning designers work in unison to design assignments or projects that take learners towards a shorter time to proficiency.

CONCLUSION The goal of training and learning is not simply to provide knowledge, content and skills — but to prepare learners faster, there must be some productive mindset changes towards what really should happen for the business. The goal of any training should be to accelerate efforts to prepare employees to do their job.

Dr. Raman K Attri is a training thought leader and a global authority on the science of speed in learning and performance. He is the author of 20 books, including “Designing Training to Shorten Time to Proficiency” and “Accelerated Proficiency for Accelerated Times.” He is also founder of a research forum, XpertX. Email Dr. Raman.

TAKEAWAYS Design training to be context-heavy and content-light.

Deliver skills within the context of the job.

Implement proper post-training support mechanisms.

Define the job expectations accurately.

Consider the entire journey of the employees.

Design for on-the-job performance beyond training.

Models like 70:20:10 argue that people learn only a tiny part of the job from

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CONGRATULATIONS

CPTM GRADUATES!

Congratulations to all of those who became Certified Professionals in Training Management (CPTMs™) in the past year. We would like to recognize 270 graduates from diverse industries and roles around the world. Your accomplishment places you amongst an elite group of learning and development professionals. We cannot wait to see how you will lead the change!

ACS Workforce Institute Faudia Baijnauth Alexandra Bastien Jason Ford Maria Gomez Isaura Rodriguez Hillary Williams

Launch Credit Union Brandon Carter Terrie Stone

Align Technology Michelle Allen Ana-Liza Dreyer

nCino, Inc. Alex Barley Cassandra Stroehmer

Amgen Suzanne Grizzelle Laura Last Sandra Mays Matthew Mitchell

Philips Healthcare Jennifer Benson Amy Demski Sonia Wilson

Carnival Corporation Patricia Cardoso Brigett Potts Doctolib Salomé Bidaux Anouk Broquet EnerSys Andrew Krajewski Jenna Mierzejewski Internal Revenue Service Antionette Allen Angela Campbell Harry Colangelo Phynoil Davis Richelle Edmonds Lakiesha Harris Robyn Joynes Eunice King Lea Maddy Houston Markham Justin Mirgeaux Amy Neubelt Luci Papanastassiou Bonnie Robinson Kelly Sharma Lisa Wilson Kim Wood

National Labor Relations Board Michele Brown Natalie Kosbob

Premion Christina Carlos Amanda Feller Red Hat Keith Burres Kevin Ritter Bryan Saunders Jaime Tobar-Espinoza Jason Wong Sacramento Sewer District Robert Bradley Shelly Cortez Sage Lisa Carthy Nthabiseng Ndlovu Rosie Wright Target Tanja Gabler Marjorie Messnick Glenn O’Neill Alicia Popehn Laura Schany

The University of Tennessee County Technical Assistance Service Nikki Ballentine Kimberly Clark Henry Rachel Ellington Kelley McNeal Chris Payne John Sutton Karisma Williams USAA James Harris Megan Vera Vidant Health Connie Castillo-Winkler Jennifer Gifford Tia James Waymo Anindita Chakraborty Jeffrey Dyer Cheryl Haga Sean Hofman Sunny Jarman Tony Kum Gifty Abagre-Laryea World Relief Natasha Abou Moghli Bulldozer Lydia Abraham CAMP Systems Deniz Adapinar Seqirus Joohi Agarwal Mazars Heba AlBasri PIF Daniel Albert Lenovo

Hamad Al-Marafi Qatar Free Zones Quamituri Anderson US Navy Mike Andrepont Relogistics Bethany Atrat Robert Half Amy Baker Cannon Beach Conference Center Drew Bartlett Bahamas First Holdings Joshua Bateson TRIMEDX Sharon Bennett LinkedIn Philippe Bernadel Katarina Berthoud Barbara Bingham Nestle Purina Alison Bolick David’s Bridal Ioana Bolog Bavarian Nordic Christine Bradley The Training Associates (TTA) David Bransten St Anthony’s Jon Bremseth BCB Homes, Inc Alec Brockman Gesa Credit Union

Dawn Brown Oshkosh Corporation

Christy Dodson MCG Health, LLC

Zoe Brown Oswald Companies

Smita Donthamsetty Parakaleo

Kurt Bruce Teleflex

Frank Dunaway Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board

Tameka Bullock DHS/CBP Meghan Bushman Atlas Technologies, Inc

Jocelyn Dunn Arrowhead Credit Union Angela Everett Rusty Bucket Restaurant & Tavern

Jose Gregore San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Chelsey Groh Motus Sara Gyetvan Lush Handmade Cosmetics Jeni Hackett Michigan Economic Development Corporation

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Alexandra Fagone WEX

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Krsitin Faris GDIT

Brian Helms Charlotte Pipe and Foundry

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Cari Flaherty Inspira Health

Sheila Henderson Bill.com

Supreet Malhotra SE2 Digital Service LLP

Maria Flynn Iron and Oak Designs LLC

Jorge Hernandez Cox Communications

Bandar Manna Saudi Aramco

Marisa Foster Coverall

Jamie Hill Booz Allen Hamilton

Valerie Marsh Sunland

Brooke Franklin HAECO Global Engine Support

Scott Himes Dulead

Sarah Masi

Quentin Fromont ADB SAFEGATE

Wesley Huey WE Partnership Consulting

Rebecca Gaboda Skyward, Inc.

Cassandra Husfeldt Vitalant

Dennis Gabriel SRCTec

Nikki Irwin Menageries, Inc

Stephanie Davis NC State University

Kristina Galvez Aitech Defense Systems Inc

Jody Jensen Transamerica

Mariana de la Fuente Phoenix Municipal Court

Shelly Garyet ProAssurance Companies

Atlee Jones-Presson CACI

Renee Degennaro Fresenius Medical Care

Heather Gay Internal Revenue Service

Travis Ketchel BOT Enterprise LLC

Paul Della-Nebbia John Q. Networks

Michelle Gellert Skyline Technology Solutions

Susan Kish The Superior Group

Darryl Dennis Joint Military Attache School

Alyssa Gilles Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

Susan Kolceski Excellus BlueCross BlueShield

Raymond Butler Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing Leilanie Calalang Upstart Network Inc Cheryl Carter LexisNexis Risk Solutions Jennifer Caruso Abilities in Motion Ileana Castro USAGM Robert Clifford Lloyd’s Register Leighton Cowan ChemTreat Inc Kaye Dacus Fortera Credit Union Terry Danko Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Simona Dîrnu Ericsson Paul Dishburger SMC3 Laura Dittman First Solar

Matt Gleaves Nestle Purina Petcare Allison Goodspeed Tecovas Charisa Greenfield Performance Contracting Group

Stella Kyengo Woolworths Chris Leamon Volkswagen Manufacturing Plant Chattanooga Joseph Lee

Visit trainingindustry.com/cptm to learn more about how you can earn the CPTM credential and join over 900 CPTM graduates.

Jessica Yobana Mayo Anzurez Ford Annie McBrien PMA Companies Marlene McCollim Herbalife Nutrition Kelly McLaughlin NPX ONE Nicole McMickle Bloomin’ Brands Bobbi McVey-Blath Level Up Facilitation Group Rochie Meollo-Talavera DP World Krista Merkley MTY Franchising Inc Stacey Miller Kendo Brands Dana Moat DHS/FEMA Allie Mosher ProAssurance Taylor Muck Zynga inc

Nick Murray Cherokee Federal

Justin Roscoe Bank of Southern California

Carolyn Speer Wichita State University

Amanda Owens Office of Chemical Security

Robyn Rosenboom UCT

Jenny Palmer Badger Daylighting

Jill Routh EquipmentShare

Katelyn Springer Children’s Home Association of Illinois

Kawnish Panse Elasticsearch

Jessica Ruminski Midwest Real Estate Data

Renée Pape Keolis Commuter Services

Amedeo Russo NATO CIS Group

Paulina Perez Orozco Ford Motor Company

Erica Sailer Allianz Life

Chris Pfeifer

George Salomon SinfoniaRx

Samantha Straede Straede Consulting Services LLC

David Schillon Alliant

John Stufflebeam Motorola Solutions Inc

Wilma Wibert NEC NETWORKS

Brian Schorr Wild Wing Cafe

Ryan Swartz New Horizon South Florida

Melissa Wiegand Noom, Inc.

Jennifer Seale Jenny Seale

Robert Szostak Raytheon Technologies

Stephanie Wilson SES

Anneline Searle Mecer Inter-Ed

Ali Tankiewicz Apex Clean Energy

Jianhong Yang City of Phoenix

Daphne Sears Sanmina Corporation

Tamara Tellez Jamboree Housing Corporation

Courtney Young 24-7 Intouch

Lyudmila Semenova Gazprom neft PJSC

Helen Torres G3 Enterprises

Shannon Young Trinity Health

Yasser Shaikh Qatar Petrochemical Company (QAPCO) Q.P.J.S.C.

Karol Lee Trakalo Pearson Education

Pearl Young-Itiye TD Retail Card Services

Tracy Troutman City of Richland, WA

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Emily Tucker Cerner Corporation

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Jim Shank PGT Innovations Trish Sisneros Desert AIDS Project

Cynthia Vencill Cooperative Producer’s Inc. (CPI) Elizabeth Vogt ProMedica

Jude Srikumar Google Australia

Caecilie von Teichman Ultimaker

Wendy Standorff Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool

Alana Waldorf The Lactation Network

Rebecca Stark The Remi Group

Lori Skibjak SofterWare Inc

Andreas Ulven Holmen Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace

Michael Skrypczuk S&P Global

Kristina Unglesbee Veterans Affairs

Alexandra Smith Deepwatch

Randall Upshaw Etech

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Henrik Valbrik KVH Industries

Olivia Walsh Public.com Danielli Weiden Damon West ATCW

Aida Sono SportsMed PT LLC

Download the CPTM brochure to learn more about becoming a CPTM and revolutionizing L&D in your organization.

THE OF IN

BY SHAUN MCMAHON

Sales has always been a challenging field, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.

information, it’s likely to be a brief and distracted interaction.

Over the last two years, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic — from social distancing to remote work to changing business models — have presented many new impediments to sales professionals, regardless of sector or specialty. And there’s another issue that we’re all facing: Sales goals continue to rise.

Salespeople can’t afford the luxury of getting back to a prospect tomorrow with answers to the questions they pose today. They need to know their stuff, in the moment. Convincing a doctor to consider a new drug has always required the ability to speak about that medication with confidence and competence. You can’t inspire trust if you can’t speak with certainty. A successful life sciences sales professional speaks fluently about how their product addresses a disease or condition and possesses a thorough understanding of the wider competitor marketplace. There’s a lot to learn.

For sales professionals working in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device industry, today’s landscape is even more daunting. Health care professionals already stressed by COVID-19 are busier and more difficult to reach than almost anyone. When a life sciences sales professional does get the opportunity to discuss a new medication or updated prescribing

Years ago, if you were a sales representative engaging in the learning process, you might recall the thump of a large box landing on your

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front steps. This box was filled with bulging binders containing reams of information about your product. It was your duty to review this dense medical information and commit to memory as much as possible before

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your team’s product launch meeting.

Even then, we knew that this method was not ideal — but with limited alternatives, it was standard practice.

Over time, however, advances in technology have provided fresh and more engaging methods for training program developers to present challenging curricula, beginning with online quizzes and video presentations.

Training program developers have built upon these new approaches, parsing and packaging dense curricula into smaller modules and more entertaining frameworks that are more appealing to learners. By introducing fun and fresh methods of learning, users are encouraged to engage in training more often, and can establish a base of knowledge much sooner, opening up the opportunity to effectively build upon it.

There’s another key benefit to including fun surprises in your training program, beyond generating interest.

It turns out that the most effective programs for enhancing memorization present materials in unusual formats, filled with unexpected moments. This strategy is validated by scientific research demonstrating that “novelty enhances memory.”

For sales training program developers, this is clearly the time for fresh methods of delivering complex training information that truly sticks, placed within training platforms that encourage incisive, on-the-spot thinking. It’s time for creative solutions.

TRAINING ON THE GO Notable recent methods for presenting information in more creative, entertaining and accessible ways include: • Placing product and prescribing information into game formats, from true/false and multiple-choice quizzes to matching pair puzzles and more, is a great way to encourage repeat play. The uploading of training games to phones and other mobile devices makes it easy for learners to advance their knowledge at any time, in any place. Online games can

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also incorporate audio, video, charts and photos in dynamic ways that will more easily cement the material into the learner’s memory. We are also able to monitor a learner’s answers in real time and tailor the game to their specific areas of weakness.

• eLearning, where participants once passively scrolled through curriculum screen-by-screen following audio prompts, is now a much more robust, mobile-friendly offering that includes customizable and interactive content, video and animation, the ability for learners (and trainers) to review their progress and other appealing and fun features.

Even when the pandemic is behind us, changes to how, when and where we work may be lasting.

• Role-play is another arena where new approaches allow for greater impact. For one, consider employing professional actors (or “simulators”) to perform with your learners.

These spirited encounters, filled with unexpected roadblocks, often produce unanticipated solutions and ensure a productive session that hits all necessary marks. Using simulators allows managers to fully engage as an observer and do what they do best: coach.

• Sales representatives can also take advantage of technology platforms to record and submit role plays to their manager, who will review messaging strategies and provide further coaching and feedback. Research has found that learners, on average, record up to five times prior to submitting for review. This desire, to make their practice sessions perfect, is invaluable.

(a requirement that we’ve all come to recognize during the COVID-19 pandemic). Building virtually means that you have limitless opportunity to insert engaging features that will combat screen fatigue and keep learners actively interested. In this setting, learners arrive for a videoconference session by “entering” a building and traveling down virtual hallways before clicking to join their meeting. Between sessions, they can travel throughout their online world and explore additional features, from company and product information shared via clickable “wall tiles” to private “meeting spots” for one-on-one chats with colleagues or trainers, and almost anything else you’d like to add. And of course, you will maintain the beneficial novelty factor by continuing to introduce new features.

• A virtual training facility is a very innovative method of framing content that can be shared remotely

• To effectively advocate for their product, sales professionals must have a thorough understanding and

awareness of all existing treatment options.

Interactive eLearning platforms are available to provide awareness of the larger competitive treatment landscape.

mobile platforms. But there are also inperson training practices that have been revitalized to better support learning and the development and growth of creative selling tactics in learners.

These advances are helpful and far better than a box of binders, but a successful sales representative will need to do more than absorb and retain the curriculum.

They must also develop the creative ability to think out-of-the-box, come up with fresh solutions to anything that might impede success and deliver agile responses to questioning prospects.

Alternative approaches for role-play were noted above, and while there are demonstrated benefits to using professionally trained actors to enact selling scenarios, actually participating in mock encounters remains a valuable and tested method for building the confidence and creative problemsolving of sales professionals.

TRAINING IN PERSON

However, the performance aspect of role-play can be overwhelming and not terribly conducive to learning new skills.

The coast-to-coast detail at the end of a launch meeting, for example, may

The solutions listed above elevate the training process via remote, online and

CREATING A VIRTUAL TRAINING WORLD Online training was a game changer in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. When inperson gatherings were canceled around the world, training program developers scrambled to place curriculum online, using video conferencing platforms like Zoom.

But there’s a world of difference between the dynamic energy of a live presentation with colleagues and the solitary experience of training at a computer screen. We needed a fun and novel way to combat screen fatigue and keep learners engaged.

The solution came from a client. This global leader typically held training in an on-campus building designed for that purpose, with state-of-the-art conference rooms, fun moments, and the chance to learn about company history and culture. They wanted new hires coming on board during the pandemic to enjoy an equally comprehensive training.

How to do it? We created a vivid, lifelike online world replicating everything in the actual facility, from floor plans to chair fabric. When learners “arrive” for a virtual meeting, they do so by entering the building and traveling down hallways to their meeting room.

(Time-pressed attendees can just click a button at the top of the screen, but what’s the fun in that?) We transformed corridor displays showcasing company history into interactive, clickable wall tiles. We included outdoor gathering spaces and cozy spots for private meetings. Response from learners has been positive, with most lingering after virtual meetings to explore and enjoy.

This creative approach was such a hit that other divisions at the company now reserve time at the virtual headquarters for their own presentations and meetings.

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not be the most productive moment for achieving competency. Instead, consider establishing a role-play circuit with individual stations that each focus on a key skill. This allows your learners to move along in micro-skills sessions, mastering the skills as they learn them, which is a more effective method of skill transfer.

Of course, this isn’t just an online strategy: During in-person sessions, break up teaching moments with unexpected moments or opportunities for participation. Some methods for doing this can include sudden gameshow-style competitions, with prizes offered to those who correctly recall recently taught information, surprise guests, songs and video presentations.

As we know, the introduction of novel elements assists in the memorization of content.

CONCLUSION Content is key when developing an effective training program. But don’t forget another “C” when building your curriculum: creativity. Creativity — the use of imagination or original ideas — is the tool that makes your work engaging, interesting and effective.

By introducing creative elements to your training curriculum — from role playing to gaming to simple surprises — and placing those materials within formats that inspire curiosity and exploration, you will have a much stronger chance of achieving learning goals. Thankfully, we are well past the days of relying on rote memorization!

And the timing couldn’t be better.

Today, COVID continues to impact access. Even when the pandemic is behind us, changes to how, when and where we work may be lasting. Virtual communication and remote work are likely to remain popular options. We may also see reduced opportunities for in-person learning. As we commit to creativity in our training, situations like these, once thought of as challenges, can now be considered opportunities to get creative.

Shaun McMahon is the president and founder of Illuminate. Email Shaun.

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CASEBOOK

PAX8 UNIVERSITY

HOW BLENDED LEARNING INCREASES STICKINESS AND REDUCES RAMP TIME

BY J.B. MCKOY

Pax8 is a leading provider of cloud technology, strategically focused on IT professionals that support small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs). Pax8’s listing on the Inc. 5000 for four consecutive years as one of America’s fastestgrowing private companies has required building a well-trained sales force at record speed.

THE CHALLENGE “We could never have successfully accommodated such rapid growth without a blended learning approach, which I’d describe as giving learners multiple opportunities to observe relevant information and practice desired behaviors,” observed Lynn Leadley, senior vice president of Pax8 University.

Blended learning involves a multimodal approach and, at minimum, typically supplements traditional classroom training with self-paced learning. Pax8 incorporates six training elements: live, in-person or virtual instructor-led training (VILT), role-play, teach-backs, incentivized eLearning coursework, shadowing and coaching. The specific mix will vary according to whether the topic involves soft or hard skills — the latter requiring more concrete and technical trainings.

For application training, the team might combine live, hands-on instruction with a self-paced course featuring software simulation, then follow that up with shadowing so learners can observe

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how others navigate the system, perhaps even recording the session for later review. For soft skills, such as cold-calling prospects, sales trainers augment classroom instruction with role play. The adrenaline-pumping exercise of practicing something new in front of peers involves risk, as well as receiving honest feedback. It also promotes long-term memory retention, or stickiness, and tends to correct one’s delivery in a way that passive learning cannot.

Three-year sales growth exceeding 3,200% necessitated learning and development (L&D) innovation to decrease the time it took new hires to attain their full quota, which Pax8 calls “ramp time.” Channel account managers (Pax8’s primary sales reps) were taking seven months to ramp, and the L&D team challenged themselves to reduce that by a month through blended learning.

THE RESPONSE Despite ever-present pressure to get new sales reps on the phone and selling as quickly as possible, Pax8 boldly expanded new-hire sales training from two weeks to four, allowing time for additional modalities and practice.

Trainers added teamed learner teachbacks to VILT, increasing engagement and collaboration. Having recently invested in a learning management system (LMS), Pax8 launched in-house development of tailored eLearning.

Such self-paced instruction now broke up classroom training and locked in new knowledge, with progress through learning plans recorded in the LMS. The team capitalized on the natural competitiveness common in sales by adding contests to the training, plus gamification and a rewards shop.

Learners earn points by completing courses and exchange them for Pax8branded merchandise like a gym bag or a Yeti tumbler. Trainers chunked instruction with corresponding inclass role-play, finding that elemental focus and repetition increased learning stickiness. Trainers assigned new hires to listen to a model pitch in the LMS, then recorded themselves for scoring by a reviewer. Sales managers collaborated with trainers, learning to see shadowing not as an interruption, but as a time investment critical to the new rep’s success. As a cohort’s formal training ended, the monitoring and coaching phase kicked into high gear.

Sales trainers and managers at Pax8 could listen in on live sales calls and coach via chat in real-time, scoring them based on rubrics or assessment maps created for each type of call their reps conduct. These rubrics made expectations crystal-clear and mitigated scoring subjectivity and inconsistency. The company procured software ideally suited to this purpose.

Besides call scoring, a sales manager could remark on granular aspects of

the call and note opportunities for improvement, with everything recorded in the software by competency. Reps now enjoyed instantaneous access to these comments and could review past calls over the month or quarter and receive encouraging evidence of progress. This tool has allowed highly personalized feedback and eliminated time wasted on refreshing an entire team on a call element with which only one or two were struggling. Managers have regularly seen competency scores rise because of this coaching.

In one example, the exercise highlighted a need for deeper questioning during the call. While intimidated at first, the rep took progressive steps to competency, aided by software and managerial coaching. Another manager highlighted a sales rep who continually refined his pitch using this coaching framework and has met his quota ever since.

IT’S ONE THING TO HEAR ABOUT BLENDED LEARNING AND TO ACKNOWLEDGE ITS POTENTIAL — AND QUITE ANOTHER TO TAKE ACTION.

In addition to recorded and live call scoring, sales readiness assessment includes new-hire confidence surveys.

These solicit reps’ sense of job preparedness, exposing any need for reinforcement. The LMS scores and records completed courses, charting overall progress toward program

completion. Sales performance reports provide an ultimate assessment of skills attainment.

For example, after product-specific training, L&D can monitor the rep’s sales success with that product over the following six months. Sales-stagebased reporting pinpoints deficiencies, prompting spot trainings, coaching or additional role-play as appropriate. Sales reps also rate their learning experience and their trainers, helping ensure continuous iterative improvement in the program.

THE RESULTS The repetition and increased engagement that come with blended learning yield greater retention of the information conveyed, as evidenced by measurable results. Pax8 went from a basic, live classroom training program with limited role-play two years ago to the robust blended learning approach described, with excellent outcomes.

Sales new-hire ramp time decreased in the assessment period not by one month, but two, for a 29% reduction.

A year ago, the company documented a strong correlation between eLearning training completion and sales performance. Sales reps who had completed the highest percentage of their assigned courses were not only meeting but exceeding quota, while those who had the lowest training completion rate also lagged in quota attainment.

Sales managers also provided qualitative evidence of improvement — reporting reps had refined their talk tracks and were now asking better discovery questions.

“Now, when new hires begin their sales careers with Pax8, they are much

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better prepared and begin producing revenue sooner,” said Jared Pangretic, senior vice president of sales at Pax8.

“Pax8 University’s innovations have been critical to this improvement and a big win for the company overall.”

L&D’s success with this new approach was not limited to the sales department.

New-hire ramp time in technical support decreased from six weeks to only four using blended learning techniques, demonstrating their combined efficacy across learning domains.

For organizations wishing to take advantage of blended learning in their training, Lynn Leadley suggests they start with an objective assessment of how they are doing things now.

From there, they should gradually add complementary elements one at a time instead of attempting to implement too much change at once. Sometimes there may be a need for enabling technologies requiring time, budget and planning (such as an LMS, a telephony system allowing monitoring and realtime feedback or a separate coaching platform). Simpler modalities, such as role play and shadowing, might be added easily at no expense.

It’s one thing to hear about blended learning and to acknowledge its potential — and quite another to take action.

Pax8’s experience offers evidence of blended learning’s effectiveness and, hopefully, the encouragement readers need to take the first step.

J.B. McKoy has held roles at Pax8, ranging from sales training to managing the company’s LMS and eLearning development teams. He currently serves as Pax8’s L&D strategy manager.

Email J.B.

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TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT

UNDERSTAND THE NEED PROVIDE THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS VIEW BROCHURE

JULIE WINKLE GIULIONI

CAREER DEVELOPMENT

CAREER 2022: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

The events of the past two years and The Great Resignation have brought into clear focus the extraordinary impact of growth, learning, skill building and development of all kinds on retention and organizational results. In the next several editions, we’ll explore how career development is changing, as well as ways to use it to engage and retain talent.

You’ve likely seen the statistics. According to Gallup, 87% of millennials say professional growth and career development are very important. And 76% of employees are looking for opportunities to expand their careers.

While 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development (L&D).

Career development is one of the most powerful tools L&D professionals have to make a difference — for employees and the organization. But as the world of work has changed, so too has our relationship with careers: • Workforce demographics are changing.

Employees are becoming younger and more mobile.

• Tenures are becoming shorter. On average, employees remain in a role for just over four years.

• Movement is the norm. Employees entering the workforce today will change jobs an average of 12 times over the course of their working lives.

• There’s talk of the end of jobs altogether. Future work may “focus far less on static jobs and far more

on skills, experience, diversity, adaptiveness, and flexibility.”

• Deep soul-searching over the past two years has sparked COVID epiphanies. Many employees have arrived at powerful insights about what’s most important and what they want out of life.

Now is the perfect time to rethink careers and determine the best way to develop them. Here are two strategies to get started.

WE’VE MISTAKENLY CONFLATED CAREER DEVELOPMENT WITH PROMOTIONS AND MOVES. ELEVATE THE CONVERSATION In many organizations, career development has become primarily process-focused. There are forms, tools and deadlines — all of which are necessary to meet the needs of the organization for workforce and succession planning. But let’s be clear: These don’t do much to meet the employee’s need for genuine connection, understanding, inspiration or growth. What does, however, deliver on these needs is real — sometimes raw — dialogue.

Meaningful rethinking or redefinition of careers and development begins with conversation. As a result, managers must be prepared to lead with curiosity and great questions. They need to probe (respectfully) about what others want

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out of the time they spend at work. They need to listen ferociously and commit to clarity and understanding. Finally, they need to create a psychologically safe space, build trust and earn the right to hear and support their employees’ candid thoughts, needs, interests and aspirations.

SHIFT THE FOCUS Working with hundreds of organizations over the past 20 years, I’ve discovered that a significant factor in the current confusion related to careers is that we’ve mistakenly conflated career development with promotions and moves. The standard career conversation question, “Where do you see yourself in XX years?” only serves to reinforce the connection.

Clarifying what “career” means today requires helping employees shift their attention from what they want to be to what they want to do. This means shifting the focus to what kind of work people want to do, the achievements and accomplishment they desire and how they want to grow personally and professionally.

There are a lot of unknowns in business.

One thing we do know is that people will continue to be deeply interested in their careers. Let’s help them figure what that means today — so they can get on with developing them in meaningful ways tomorrow.

Julie Winkle Giulioni is the author of the forthcoming book, “Promotions Are SO Yesterday” and the bestseller “Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go.” Email Julie.

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AT A GLANCE 3

DAYS

3 energizing keynote sessions Each presentation will inspire you to think outside the box and lead your organization forward.

40+ engaging breakout sessions Offering ample opportunities to gain best practices and insights.

Learning tracks to pinpoint and address common challenges, including: • Strategic alignment • Leadership development • Digital tools & technology • Engaging the learner • Virtual, hybrid & remote learning • Workforce development

DISCOVER INSIGHTS

500+

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Roundtable topic discussions Providing opportunities to meet and speak with other learning leaders about common challenges.

Interactive networking activities Connecting learning leaders in unique and highly engaging formats.

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MAKE CONNECTIONS

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HOURS OF LEARNING

Q&A sessions Where you can ask your burning questions to industry experts.

Live product demonstrations Showcasing the latest in innovative learning solutions.

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SRINI PIL LAY, M.D.

SCIENCE OF LEARNING

OPTIMIZING THE SOCIAL BRAIN DURING HYBRID WORK

Hybrid work may offer a much-desired level of flexibility, but there is a price to pay for this work if you inadvertently isolate yourself from peers. Ineffective communication and loneliness are two consequences of the hybrid work context, and in the spirit of “use it or lose it,” you stand to lose critical social brain functions if you stop being socially intelligent.

The human brain is endowed with many social functions, such as networks to mirror the emotions of others, networks to understand the intentions of others, ways of remembering faces and ineffable characteristics of others and many other social functions that may dwindle unless we find active ways to practice them.

A recent study explained that there are seven computations that the social brain makes. Below is a list of each function and what you can do to ensure that they remain sharp in a hybrid setting.

SOCIAL PERCEPTION When at work, it’s important to be able to see teams operating, and to identify how people are feeling. Having your finger on the pulse of this in an office is often automatic. In a hybrid workplace, this may be less obvious.

Suggested Action: Develop a way to keep informed about team dynamics and the “emotional temperature” of the team.

SOCIAL INFERENCES Theory of mind (ToM), or mentalizing, refers to our ability to infer the hidden mental states of other people, such as their beliefs, intentions and feelings.

Suggested Action: At meetings, you might ask someone to explain another person’s point of view as they see it. It will nudge the social brain back into this inferential state.

SOCIAL LEARNING Social learning allows for groups to feel more connected and coherent. By observing, mimicking and joining forces with others, we boost the capacity of the social brain.

Suggested Action: Set aside specific meetings for cross-domain perspectives with the intention of joining them in the mission and vision of your organization.

SOCIAL SIGNALING We don’t just learn from what people say, we also learn from verbal and nonverbal cues. Turning cameras off may reduce fatigue, but it also hinders nonverbal communication.

Suggested Action: Dedicate some time for camera-on interactions.

SOCIAL DRIVES While staying at home may make you feel protected, those working in-office are developing a different kind of social capital. They are the in-group and could have certain advantages for promotions and choices. Also, social capital can improve brain function, as it improves cognitive health and brain structure.

Suggested Action: Stay “in the know” by staying connected with people who are in the office or go in occasionally.

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SOCIAL IDENTITY Your identity is informed by your interactions. These aspects are often relative, so that when you work alone, you can lose sight of your relative significance.

Suggested Action: Ensure that you meet with people who are different from you, even if they don’t fall within your scope of work.

SOCIAL CAPITAL CAN IMPROVE BRAIN FUNCTION. MINIMIZING UNCERTAINTY Knowledge of social groups can help you understand employee behavior — those who are likely to stay versus leave, for instance.

Suggested Action: Ask people overtly about this, and how you could help retain them if you so desire. Also, wherever possible, define roles and outline priorities.

Flexible work has many advantages, but if you don’t pay attention to the social brain, you will not be operating at the best of your abilities.

Dr. Srini Pillay is the CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He is a Harvard trained psychiatrist and neuroscientist, on the Consortium for Learning Innovation at McKinsey & Company, and author of “Tinker Dabble Doodle Try.” Srini is also co-founder, chief medical officer and chief learning officer of Reulay. Email Srini.

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CLOSING DEALS

UDEMY GOES PUBLIC: A LOOK AT THE ONLINE LEARNING GIANT’S U.S. IPO

BY SARAH GALLO, CPTM

Founded in 2009, Udemy, an online education company, has been a household name in the corporate training market for some time now. However, the rise of remote learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic positioned the company for unprecedented growth as companies — and learners — worldwide looked for continuous learning and upskilling solutions that they could access remotely. In fact, Training Industry pulse research found that over 40% of learning and development (L&D) professionals are spending more on learning technologies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a trend we expect to continue as organizations embrace new ways of working and learning.

Udemy’s success culminated with a recent announcement that it filed regulatory paperwork for an initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S. With a price of $29 per share, the company’s market value is now about $4 billion, compared to $3.25 billion in November 2020, based on outstanding shares listed in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Bloomberg reports.

Let’s reflect on how Udemy’s success tells a broader story about the demand for remote learning and greater flexibility in when, where and how people learn.

A FRONT ROW SEAT Greg Brown, business president at Udemy, says that the company “had a front row seat” into how people are interacting with online education during the pandemic. “Perhaps unsurprisingly,” he says, “we saw a significant surge in enrollments and consumption across

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both consumers and enterprises during 2020, which helped fuel the company’s decision to file for a U.S. IPO.” The increased demand for remote learning illustrates not only a need for learning, but also a need for learning that’s accessible and flexible, Brown says. “As such, we want to share the Udemy offering with a broader swath of both consumers and organizations, and an IPO is a great way to help us make progress toward that goal.”

Udemy’s global reach is another factor that has undoubtedly contributed to its success: The company currently offers over 183,000 courses in 75 languages across over 180 countries. In a recent press release, Gregg Coccari, Udemy’s chief executive officer, explains that the company’s “differentiated marketplace model” enables it to continuously deliver high-quality, relevant content across indemand skills and local languages to global customers.

ACCESSIBLE UPSKILLING As digital transformation and industry shifts continue to accelerate the need to upskill the workforce, digital learning will remain a critical way for organizations to build business agility and “empower employees to take control of their path forward,” Brown says, whether it’s learning how to work remotely or how to give candid feedback.

With companies struggling to recruit and retain talent, training providers that support upskilling at scale will continue to thrive as organizations look to develop skilled talent internally.

When looking for a provider that can support company-wide upskilling, Brown says it’s important that the provider can “move at the speed of the market” with fresh and robust content and offer training in multiple modalities to appeal to a variety of learner preferences.

PEOPLE-FIRST The COVID-19 pandemic brought about new challenges for employees and exacerbated existing ones: Caregiving responsibilities became more pronounced, mental health concerns worsened and a heightened awareness of systemic racism and injustice sparked difficult but necessary conversations in and outside of the workplace.

Udemy worked hard to ensure that employees received the support they needed to succeed during the crisis.

This meant offering increased flexibility and mental health support as well as adopting a financial wellness tool, Brown says.

Ultimately, we can contribute Udemy’s recent growth to a variety of factors, from its comprehensive suite of online courses to its global reach and ability to help companies upskill at scale. But if there’s anything we learned from a global health crisis, it’s that companies who embrace human-centric work will remain competitive during trying times by harnessing a competitive advantage like no other: their people.

Sarah Gallo, CPTM, is a senior editor at Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of “The Business of Learning,” the Training Industry podcast. Email Sarah.

COMPANY NEWS

ACQUISITIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS Docebo, provider of a leading artificial intelligence (AI)-powered learning suite announced a strategic integration partnership with EdCast, the leading AI-powered talent experience and knowledge cloud platform. This partnership will combine the power of both companies’ learning experience platform (LXP) and learning management system (LMS) technologies for a seamless update of existing tech stacks.

Skillsoft, a global leader in corporate digital learning, entered into a content partnership with online learning and teaching leader Udemy Business.

Through this content partnership, Skillsoft will streamline the learning experience across the enterprise by integrating Udemy Business’s content into Skillsoft’s next-generation platform, Percipio.

Wiley, a global research and education leader, acquired Knowledge Unlatched, an innovator in online open-access solutions. The acquisition will allow Wiley to continue its mission to democratize information and accelerate academic discovery. This move comes amid a booming market for open-access publishing, with libraries and publishers challenged to manage new workflows.

eLearning Brothers announced the acquisition of Rehearsal, a videobased practice and coaching platform.

The Rehearsal platform lets users practice skills with their webcam, submit videos for review, and receive manager feedback or automated scoring powered by advanced AI technology. This acquisition fills today’s need for innovative and effective remote training.

HSI, a leader in environmental health and safety, compliance and professional development solutions, announced its acquisition of Blue Ocean Brain, the leading eLearning provider.

Blue Ocean Brain’s on-demand, daily engagement microlearning platform and content suite are set to enhance HIS’s offerings in the professional development market.

TransPerfect, the world’s largest provider of language and technology solutions for global business, announced its acquisition of Paris-based language training firm Transfer. The acquisition will bolster TransPerfect’s existing Language and Cultural Training group, adding a full suite of virtual learning options to the group’s repertoire.

INDUSTRY NEWS NEW INTEGRATION TO MEET LEARNERS WHERE THEY ARE

Skillsoft company SumTotal Systems announced its integration with ServiceNow Learning Posts. The integration will enable learning and training content to be assigned directly into ServiceNow workflows. The move will deliver learning at the precise moment of need to ServiceNow and SumTotal’s customers.

NEW SOLUTION TO MEASURE AND IMPROVE EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY

Seattle venture-backed startup Imperative launched a suite of tools to enable executives to measure, report and influence complex employee

connections. The suite, with its ability to track, measure and influence outcomes directly, is intended to optimize workforces — addressing top-of-mind concerns like employee retention, engagement and productivity.

TOOLKIT TO EMPOWER SMALL BUSINESSES

Leading creator of accessible, ondemand performance tools and resources Mind Tools for Business has partnered with Kojo Academy, a virtual sales training platform. The Mind Tools Toolkit has been augmented with additional content from Kojo academy to create a suite of device-friendly digital resources for small businesses.

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NEW COURSE ON TURNING UNCERTAINTY INTO OPPORTUNITY

Internationally renowned leadership company FranklinCovey announced the launch of its new course, Change: How to Turn Uncertainty Into Opportunity.

The course offers individual learners, leaders and organizations a framework to navigate the pattern of workplace change, and will lead to improved and accelerated results.

INTERESTED IN SUBMITTING COMPANY NEWS? PLEASE SEND TO EDITOR@TRAININGINDUSTRY.COM

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