Training tips that triumph
Memory science, microlearning and what actually makes workplace training stick.
Training providers have a golden opportunity with the introduction of the Apprentice Levy.
An exciting opportunity presents itself next year for Learning and Development providers, in the shape of the UK Government’s announcement of the Apprenticeship Levy, bringing further expansion and funding of the already successful and popular apprentices scheme. With cross party support, it is likely that further development of the apprentice scheme will follow, in the government’s ongoing attempts to bridge the UK’s productivity gap. A significant factor in the productivity gap, an ongoing issue currently running at 20% below the rest of the G7, is the low skills level in the UK’s workforce. As a consequence, we are faced with an increasing demand for Learning and Development, and an essential ‘upskilling’ of the workforce in the coming years. The levy will be seen by many as a game changer in the world of apprentice training, giving an incentive to all employers to address their training provision across existing apprentice programmes, professional qualifications, graduate schemes and professional development, and to look at how those programmes might be integrated into apprentice schemes, to maximise the impact of contributing to this new ring fenced levy fund. By taking a lead from countries such as Denmark and France, the levy puts investment in apprenticeships
Closing the feedback loop: Managing the performance of performance management
Performance Management. Just the mention of the words brings a heaviness to the heart, and a long sigh to many. The face to face method of reviewing an employee’s performance itself could be due for a review of its own. Widely regarded as cumbersome, awkward and stressful by employees, yet so beloved of company managers, that difference alone should highlight the fact that there is a bridge to be built here. Maybe a more integrated and collaborative approach is called for. And there must be questions to be asked. Is there any real value in an annual meeting between an employee and their manager to discuss their work over the previous year? What are the barriers to employees fully engaging in the process? Can the business positively gain from the process? How do we monitor more effectively? And, of course, there is the age old question of cost. We know that performance management should be both strategic – bringing focus on corporate objectives and business goals, and integrated – ensuring that all aspects of the business are closely aligned in the interests of the long term business strategy. Through improving performance in individuals and teams, and in providing the support
Lessons to be learned from CIPD 2015
For some seventeen years now, the Chartered Institute for Professional Development (CIPD) have published an annual survey, highlighting trends in Learning and Development, and identifying issues and potential challenges for L&D professionals. The 2015 survey is no different, as it views the industry at a time of change. While the public sector draws back, experiencing considerable cuts to budgets, the private sector is looking towards further growth and recognises the need for investment in L&D services, either in-house or externally. The world of the workplace is in constant flux, subject to advances in technology, and, as a result, a changing marketplace. This change seems more pronounced in times of financial difficulty, and as a result, the survey presents several interesting matters and anomalies. Embracing technology – or are we? Three-quarters of the organisations involved in the survey are already accessing learning technologies, however, the way they use these methods varies hugely. Overwhelmingly, organisations report that face-to-face provision continues to be prevalent, and there is an expectation that this will remain the case going forward. Additionally, the survey reports the existence of a confidence gap with regard to e-learning provision, with only a quarter responding that they feel either
“Don’t worry, it’s only a game”: It’s more fun to compete
We all know one. We’ve all got one. They’re everywhere. A family member or friend, so obsessed with their lifelong passion, their all encompassing love of a particular sport. They eat, sleep, and breathe it. It guides their every waking thought, and shapes every opinion they have. And so, they take every bad result, every harsh refereeing decision, each undesirable outcome as a personal affront. We know these people well. We also know that the mere mention of the phrase “Don’t worry, it’s only a game” to them, is likely to result in a tight lipped, purple faced, furious reply that “you just don’t get it”, or “you just don’t understand”. They could be right. Maybe not everyone does ‘get’ it, or maybe some do more than others. The competitive instinct can change everything. There is a received and perceived notion that, for instance, girls are better at reading than boys, but a recent French study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, looked at how the introduction of a competitive element could change learning, and subsequently lead to that notion being challenged. With the gamifying of a simple school exercise, significant results came to light. Eighty children were
New solutions for maintaining employee engagement
Its the age old question, the age old issue. The question of employee engagement, the why, and the how. The need to keep the workforce engaged is crucial to meeting strategic objectives, recognising that increased employee productivity is intrinsically linked to profitability. If employees are not engaged, with their role or with their learning and development, then inevitably, productivity suffers. In Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2016 report, 9 out of 10 executives site the engagement of employees as either important or very important. No change there, then. The true test for organisations is to encourage not only a culture of engagement, but to assist and empower employees with incentives and feedback structures. In order for us to find new solutions, we may need to think of new methods, new ways to encourage and enthuse. Employees need to feel that greater engagement will not only bring benefits and provide them with greater opportunities, but will also improve their chances of progress within the structure of the company. A greater emphasis on constant learning and development processes, flexible and easily accessed, can help alleviate some of the pressures employees feel, by recognising their achievements and providing them with regular constructive feedback.
Can e-learning provide the bricks to build the bridge across the UK’s productivity gap?
Productivity in the UK is a notoriously slow moving beast, particularly in recent years. According to the Office for National Statistics, productivity growth has remained at a standstill for seven years since the financial crisis. A report by The Independent from July 2015 also highlighted that productivity in Britain is second weakest of the G7 nations. There can be fewer things more crucial to a business than the productivity of its workforce. Productivity produces profitability, we know. It would be reasonable to assume that low productivity is linked to low employee engagement. However, it doesn’t automatically follow that low enthusiasm levels are entirely the fault of the workforce. The gap in productivity, that low workforce enthusiasm could just as easily be a result of ineffective or ill-focussed support in Learning and Development. Productivity is also often seen as the return on an organisation’s investment in its people, so it is imperative that every effort is made to bridge that gap. In an ever changing world, companies and organisations need to look at new frameworks for the provision of training. Investing in people, and strengthening their engagement, not only through providing them with skills, but more importantly, the right skills, will
Maximize Learning Potential: Integrating Training with Work
Picture this, if you will.The ‘good’ old days, when staff training was delivered in bland and soulless conference suites, with less than perfect coffee and an over reliance on flip charts. The days when employee engagement in their own professional development revolved more around the biscuit selection of a particular venue, or the time of the buffet, than anything else. The learning day had an agenda and crucially, a timetable. At the bottom of the day’s timetable, was the word that learners engaged with the most. FINISH. Excited but hushed discussions would break out across the room, as people wondered whether the finish time would actually be at the time predicted, or whether they might get to leave a little early. Elbows would be nudged, comments whispered under breath “don’t ask any questions, they’ll keep us here all day”. The next day, our intrepid learners would return to work, with valuable feedback for managers and colleagues on the important issues they discussed at the training day. “Well, the coffee was awful, and I didn’t like the look of the buffet much, so only had a couple of sandwiches, but they had Hob-Nobs, and we were out of there by 4
Driving employee engagement through gamified training: Next level or game over?
So. You’re an organisation, a company. You have employees, and they need training. You’ve invested in the training, and rolled it out across the workforce. Did all your employees enjoy the training? Did they gain from it? Did they learn? Did they all fully engage with the training, or the trainer? Would you even know if the answer to any, or all, of those questions was no? And if it was, what would you change? Although we’ve all known about gamification for a while, newer technologies, design principles and frameworks help us to make the process more scalable and more reactive, giving the opportunity for greater feedback, through more comprehensive use of data. Ever since those heady and exciting days of the early 1970s spent playing Pong, with its catchy one note soundtrack, to today’s Call Of Duty, game designers have used every known piece of data on how users work, how they think and react, locked into their systems, and as a consequence, have been able to use that data to help users improve. Data gives analysis, and analysis is key to giving us answers to some of the questions listed above. Gamified learning can dramatically improve employee engagement.
Elearning Market on the Rise: Projected 5% Growth Ahead
As more and more organisations embrace e-learning as a valuable tool for growth, the market size shows no signs of slowing down. It could easily be said there’s a training and development revolution happening, and consistently, we see more brands and organisations seeking to be involved. Ease of accessibility, technological developments, increased user demand, and the low cost of delivery will all play a part. In Western Europe and North America, we see a growth in the amount of smartphone and tablet users entering the workplace, and an increase in the demand for, and engagement with e-learning. In regions such as Latin America, Asia, China and Australasia, with large and widespread populations, will also see an increase in demand for distance learning. E-learning produces results across the board, from SMEs to large universities and governmental programmes. Research shows that factors such as learning flexibility, ease of access and engagement, and low cost look to be driving an increase from $165 billion in 2015, to more than $240 billion by 2023. Other than cost and flexibility, however, there are several factors fuelling this growth drive globally, leading to this increase in involvement. Key areas such as the US, and Asia-Pacific regions are
What benefits could e-learning bring to emergency training?
Plans have been announced for an extra one million workers based in crowded city centre areas, and sports and entertainment venues to receive training in how to effectively react and respond in the event of a terrorist attack. Project Griffin, a scheme jointly designed and developed by the City Of London and Metropolitan Police forces is to be extended from the 100,000 military and emergency service staff who already receive training predominantly in the capital. Historically, such instruction has been primarily classroom based, and delivered to small groups at centres such as The Cabinet Office’s Emergency Planning College in Easingwold, North Yorkshire. Across so many emergency service staff, this process, clearly, can take years. The difficulty of the times demands a new, fresher approach, more appropriate, more accessible, and faster. The training Project Griffin requires is structured in such a way that individuals who complete levels are subsequently equipped to train their colleagues. Project Griffin is now also pursuing involvement from those working in the retail, hospitality, entertainment and travel sectors to help ripple out the training. The Association of British Travel Agents is just one organisation to have signed up to be involved in the expansion, in the light of
The art of bite-sized learning
Astonishing and incredible yet irregular and unpredictable at the same time, the human memory is a funny thing. Some pieces of information are readily available and can be plucked from the front of your brain at a moment’s notice. However, other facts or figures are buried deep within the recesses of your mind, which might be recalled after a few minutes or later on that day at random. Simple questions such as ‘where are your keys right now?’ sound easy, but it might take a little bit of thought to remember when you had them last and their current location. Even so, the complicated and complex nature of memory is often forgotten about when it comes to learning. This is despite the fact that if classroom teachers and corporate trainers consider how the brain acquires new knowledge, they will benefit from better learners and stronger outcomes. The secret is bite-sized learning… The shortcomings of memory In their paper The “Change-up” in Lectures, Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish observed a polarity between the way lectures were being taught and how students learnt. “Research tells us that the traditional lecture does not match what current cognitive science tells us of how humans
The science behind spaced repetition
In order to drill new information or knowledge into your brain, you do not need to cram for hours on end the night before a test or listen intently to a daylong training course. As a matter of fact, these approaches to learning will probably have the opposite effect. Along with the tedious and repetitive nature of reading a textbook or listening to a classroom teacher, traditional techniques used for learning are extremely ineffective too. Basic neuroscience and psychology research says that they are misaligned with how our brains actually absorb new information or knowledge and do not help with retention or recollection. Instead, studies into the subject suggest that with techniques such as spaced repetition, you are much more likely to embed new information or knowledge into your long-term memory. But what is the science behind spaced repetition? And how can you use spaced repetition for the purposes of information and knowledge retention and recollection? The basics of spaced repetition Spaced repetition can trace its roots all the way back to 1885, when German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus published an experimental study about memory called Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology. The main aspect of his work was the forgetting
Reading about it is the easy part
See what daily retrieval practice looks like running on your own training content.