Developing the new personal and social skills for the digitally connected workplace
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From the results of the Learning in the Workplace survey and my analysis of how smart workers use social media to work and learn today, 5 key characteristics of how Knowledge Workers like to learn at work have emerged. I briefly summarise these below, but please bear in mind they are not listed in any priority order. It is becoming clear that Knowledge Workers prefer to learn …
1 – In the flow of work
Workers don’t want to leave the workflow unless it is absolutely necessary for them to do. This means EITHER physically to go to a classroom OR virtually to work on an online course for an extended period of time (i.e more than about 10-15 mins) and/or which is more than a couple of mouseclicks away. (Taking a course at your desk, doesn’t mean it’s in the workflow!) Workers prefer to learn as an integral (NOT an extra) part of their daily job and not separately from it, either.
2 – Continuously
Workers prefer to learn continuously from the constant flow of information they encounter – which may come from both internal and external channels.
3 – Immediately
Workers want to be able to find answers to their learning and performance problems as soon as they encounter them – not have to wait to go on a course or get some other response. They want to solve their problems immediately and get on with their jobs – wherever they are.
4 – Socially
Workers like to learn with and from others – not just in formal learning contexts, but as they work collaboratively with their internal teams and also in the external networks and communities to which they belong – where they learn continuously from the links, resources, experiences, ideas, etc that are shared.
5 – Autonomously
Workers like to have a high level of choice and control over what they do and learn; they are self-directed, self-organised and self-managed. The less control they have, the more disengaged they are with their organisation.
So what does this all mean?
This is the reason why a large percentage of Knowledge Workers don’t rate current training/e-learning approaches very highly, and why they think other ways of learning – performance support, team collaboration and professional learning are more important to them – as summarised in the diagram below. (You can find a more detailed explanation here).
So for workplace L&D departments it means that for Knowledge Workers …
- just converting face-to-face courses into page-turning online formats (e-learning) isn’t enough
- trying to make online courses “engaging” and “fun” isn’t the answer either – since most find interactivities “trivial” at best and “insulting their intelligence” at worst, and
- adding in (or blending) informal, social or mobile into current training practicies, just because it is the current fashion to do so – also won’t make a lot of difference.
Rather it means working in closer partnership with people managers and ..
- supporting the continuous development and performance improvement of their people through both team collaboration and independent professional learning
AND
- helping to address specific performance problems in the most appropriate way. This means first undertaking a performance analysis to ensure that a training solution is not automatically assumed to be the solution to a problem (so is not the same thing as a TNA). But, where some form of training is identified as the best solution, or
- it is a regulatory or mandatory requirement, then, for Knowledge Workers, ensuring that the solution incorporates as many of the 5 characteristics as (relevantly) possible. (I’ve mentioned a few ways that this might be done in previous posts, Tiny Training and Keep it Simple Training, but there are many others too.)
This is an excerpt from from my upcoming book, The Workplace Learning Revolution, where you can read more about the new model of L&D and how to support new ways of learning at work.
UPDATE: Follow-up post
The Learning in the Workplace Survey has now been taken by over 600 people, and although it is still open if you want to cast your vote, I am going to release some interim findings here today as the pattern of results has been pretty stable for some time now.
The survey asked respondents to rate the importance (value/usefulness) of 10 different ways of learning for themselves. The red figures are where the most responses have been received.
|
Not important |
Quite important |
Very important |
Essential |
VIP + Essential |
| Company training/e-learning |
25% |
42% |
20% |
13% |
33% |
| Self-directed study of external courses |
14% |
33% |
35% |
18% |
53% |
| Internal company documents |
13% |
44% |
29% |
14% |
43% |
| Internal job aids |
20% |
37% |
26% |
17% |
43% |
| Collaborative working within your team |
3% |
12% |
30% |
55% |
85% |
| General conversations and meetings with people |
2% |
19% |
40% |
39% |
79% |
| Personal & professional networks and communities |
3% |
22% |
35% |
40% |
75% |
| External blog and news feeds |
8% |
22% |
40% |
30% |
70% |
| Content curated from external sources |
9% |
29% |
39% |
23% |
62% |
| Web search for resources (eg Google) |
2% |
17% |
32% |
49% |
81% |
In the last column, I’ve aggregated the Very Important and Essential scores and highlighted in blue the top 5 rated ways of learning in the workplace. This shows …
- that company training/e-learning is the lowest rated way to learn at work , and
- that workers find other (self-organised and self-managed) ways of learning at work far more valuable – with team collaboration being the highest rated.
Who has responded to this survey?
- Country: 46 countries (incl USA (28%), Australia (12%), Canada (8%), UK (22%), New Zealand and other countries in Europe, South America and Asia)
- Industry: 42% edu-related; 58% non-edu related (incl 12% technology, 9% Government, 9% financial services, 4% healthcare)
- Organisation size: 61% from orgs with more than 250 people, evenly split between other org sizes
- Function: 45% HR/L&D, 65% from all other functions (incl 12% IT, 4% Sales & Marketing)
- Job type: Non-managerial/other: 53%, line managers: 9%; middle: 20%, senior 18%
- Age: <30 : 6%, 31-40 : 28%, 41-50 36%, 51-60 : 24%; 60+ : 7%
- Sex: Male: 42%; Female : 58%
The general pattern of results holds good for most industries, job functions, job roles and age group. Note, for instance that
- 68% of those working in HR/L&D also consider training/e-learning to be of little or no value for them in the workplace.
However, a preliminary analysis of the results has uncovered some other interesting aspects of how people like to learn at work, which I will reveal in a full report on the data later.
Nevertheless as a whole, these survey results are yet another piece of evidence that show how workers are continuing to organise and manage their own learning in many different ways – and in doing so are bypassing the L&D Department. What’s more a comparison with the 2012 Learning in the Workplace survey results shows that this is a continuing trend.
Want to find out more? If so, you might be interested in my upcoming book, The Workplace Learning Revolution, which will provide more evidence how learning is changing in the workplace, and some guidance on how to support these new ways of learning at work.
UPDATE: Two follow up posts
- 5 characteristics of how Knowledge Workers like to learn at work
- Supporting continuous learning and performance improvement – a vital new area of work
 What is the primary role of the learning professional in an organisation today?
- Is it to organise and manage what people learn?
- by designing, creating and delivering content (training/instruction/courses/resources)
- then tracking that people use it, and
- measuring success in terms of learning activity metrics (e.g. page accesses, quiz tests, course completions)
- Or is it to enable and support how people learn best?
- by understanding where individuals have the most valuable learning experiences (other than top-down, organised/managed instruction)
- then enhancing and supporting these other self-organised and self-managed approaches (e.g. as a part of work team collaboration, or independent professional learning and development), and
- helping them to measure success in terms of performance metrics (ie how it is helping them to do their job or do it better)
Many might say that both of these are important in today’s workplace, in which case the question is how much of the role should be about organising and managing what people learn compared to enabling and supporting how people learn?
 Last year I ran an anonymous survey asking people how they rate different ways of learning at work – and the results were widely reported.
I’ve opened it up again this year – and once you submit your own choices, you will be able to view the results submitted so far, plus an analysis of what this means for L&D practices
Here’s the link to the survey
 Following my earlier post: ABC: 10 reasons not to create a course – and 10 other options, I have had a huge amount of interest in finding out more about the different ABC (Anything But Courses) options I mentioned. So in this post I am going to talk about a simple – and low-cost – training model that I recommend whenever there is a requirement for workers to demonstrate they have “learned” (that is read and understood) some content, and can apply it in the workplace.
This approach comprises THREE elements: (1) relevant assessment; (2) flexible content; and (3) timely support. Although the three elements are inter-related, they are independently accessible – and the emphasis is placed not on the content but on the assessment. Here’s some more detail about the three elements.
1 – Relevant Assessment
This is the key, and in fact the only required, element in the model, and is the means by which an individual demonstrates they can apply what they have learned. For this to happen, the assessment needs to be a valid test of application – not just a superficial understanding of terminology and concepts. Jane Bozarth makes this point clearly, in Design Assessment First , when she says an effective assessment is not ..
“… 25 badly written multiple-choice questions asking about things like fine points of a policy or seemingly random definitions or rarely occurring product failures”
A good example of a “relevant and valid” assessment is the Phishme simulation test which sends emails to users to find out whether they can identify a security risk, and offers individuals training immediately they “fall for the bait in the exercise”. But other relevant assessments might involve a role-playing/scenario activity – based around a case study similar to one likely to be encountered by the individual in their job. So it is worth spending time with the managers concerned in order to devise an appropriate, valid and relevant assessment that will demonstrate that individuals are really able to apply what they have read. Of course, this will need to be automated, but it is important to ensure that in doing so, it is not “dumbed down” and loses its effectiveness.
In addition, the individual needs to be able to take the assessment first (if they so wish), and if they pass it – they should not be required to work through any content. If they fail the assessment, however, they should then be referred to the relevant parts of the content before they re-take the assesssment.
2 – Flexible Content
Some individuals will undoubtedly want to start with the Content and work through it thoroughly, whilst others will only want to skim it, to refresh themselves, before they take the Assessment. So this is why the content needs to be in as flexible a format as possible – not a linear sequence of screens that they must work through.
If the content already exists, e.g. in the form of a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, then there is no need to spend time and money converting it into an online course – and in doing so adding gratuitous graphics or trivial interactions. Firstly, it annoys and irritates today’s busy Knowledge Workers (who will try and avoid the experience if they can), and secondly, it rarely adds any value to the content. The most that is needed is some help with post-production, e.g. adding a summary page to a Word document that highlights the key points, or helping to produce a narration for a presentation so that it makes more sense, or setting up and recording a webinar to capture the content, and enabling download of slides, if desired.
If the content doesn’t already exist, then it should be presented in the simplest – and most appropriate – way possible – suitable for the target audience. It might be a video or set of hyperlinked web pages. But the emphasis should still be on good information design rather than instructional design. Having said that, the content doesn’t have to be all online, it could be in the form of a face-to-face workshop – although, of course, this will limit its flexibility.
3 – Timely support
The third element is to provide Support for those who might have difficulty understanding any aspect of the content or the assessment, or who have failed the assessment and cannot make out why. Setting up a useful and support mechanism will be important. It might be the ability to email an expert or access a peer-supported forum or community. In the latter case there will also be a need to review questions asked, and collate FAQ. It may even involve adjusting the original content, if it becomes clear that some aspect is not that clear – which is another reason why the content needs to be as flexible and simple as possible – and not hardwired into a course which is impossible to modify and update.
Summary
There are a number of advantages of this basic training model:
- It can be used as a way of identifying those who need training – rather than requiring everyone to spend unnecessary time working through content they already know.
- It provides managers with relevant “real-world” assessment of application of knowledge.
- It doesn’t require an LMS – since accessing the content is optional, and the test will need to be set up using other more appropriate tools.
- It is a less costly approach – which means that money can be used for other more expensive options – where they are really needed and where they will have the most impact.
- It offers more autonomy and choice for today’s knowledge workers, and can be more easily be fitted into their workflow.
 If we truly are going to shift the L&D function from a “packaging” role to one that enables, supports and “scaffolds” learning in the flow of daily work we are going to have to make some changes in the way we actually operate. We will need to make some operational changes if we are ever to reach the goal of the Connected L&D Department.
Dan Pontefract has recently published a book entitled, “Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization” where he explores the relationship between the principles of collaboration, participation and open leadership with new ways in which to learn and share.
Perhaps Flat Army, in part, can help you achieve the Connected L&D Department quest. And if such is the case, I’m giving away two free copies of the book.
To qualify, simply use the comment box below and tell me what new tool you think might help your own L&D Department become more connected as a team, and why. If you need some help identifying a tool, take a look at the Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012 List.
This opportunity closes on Friday 26 April and I’ll announce the winners on Friday 3 May.
Good luck
 My annual Top 100 Tools for Learning list has become a popular resource – if the Slideshare viewing stats are anything to go by. For instance the 2011 presentation has now been viewed over 800,000 times, and the 2012 has been viewed over 400,000 times. So since the New Year I have been working on a major new, supplementary resource, A Practical Guide to the Top 100 Tools for Learning.
This Guide describes the essential features of each of the 100 tools and explains how they can be used for personal productivity, professional learning and development, education and training, as well as for workforce collaboration.
The Guide is available both as continuously updated online resource and as a 342 page PDF to download.
For a small charge, an annual subscription to the Guide will let you:
- access the online version of the Guide for one year
- download all PDF versions of the Guide during the annual subscription period for your own personal use. This comprises:
- The beta edition – available NOW
- The first edition – available in June 2013.
- The second edition – available in October/November 2013 once the 2013 Top Tools list has been released.
To view the Guide Contents list and a sample section, as well as find out how to purchase an annual subscription, PLEASE VISIT THIS PAGE.
 Although I tweet links to interesting resources as I find them, I collate them in my 2013 Reading List at the end of each month, and pick out the ones that I find particularly useful, valuable or impactful. So here is my selection from March 2013.
1 – I’m going to start with this post about Twitter, because very often when I talk to learning professionals about using Twitter, there is usually someone who will say “I wouldn’t want my doctor to have learned by using Twitter”. That, of course, is missing the whole point! Twitter is mainly about learning the new and keeping up to date with what’s happening in the world. So, it’s not about using Twitter to become a doctor, it’s about using Twitter to become a better doctor, as this article makes clear.
How Twitter has helped me become a better doctor, iMedicalApps, 27 February 2013
2 – It was depressing to read this post, in which Helen Blunden recounted her “unpleasant learning experience”. But she ends on a very important note:
“Let’s not forget the learner. It’s not just about saving money.“
My Experience of a Face-to-Face Course After So Many Years – The Hope has Faded, Helen Blunden, 7 March 2013
3 – But the answer isn’t to turn all your face-to-face training into online courses, as this post makes clear.
“a busy person taking an online class is probably wasting both their money and their precious time (gasp). Online classes should be available as a resource for students with geographical constraints, mobility problems or a dedication to the subject matter.”
Online classes: Where busy students go to die, Christine Colleran, Lanthorn, 20 February 2013
4 – .. and the answer isn’t either to try and embed the course into the workflow, as Charles Jennings points out in this article, Extracting learning from work (Training Industry, March 2013)
“Injecting or adding learning into work is one approach, it is better than away-from-work learning. However, an even better strategy than injecting learning to improve performance is to extract learning from work in order to further improve learning.”
5 – In Leveraging a 1000-year-old idea at work (9 March 2013), John Stepper talks of the value of communities of practice within organisations:
“What’s makes communities of practice powerful is that they tap into people’s intrinsic motivation to become better at what they do and to connect with people like them.”
6 -… which can all be summed up in the next post by Julian Stodd
“Social learning, social tools, the social way of working, this is valuable as it encourages us to share, to create shared meaning. Sure, it can be challenging: it requires us to be brave and to be willing to be proved wrong, but value emerges from the discussion, from the conversation. It’s all about the sharing.”
There’s no point in knowledge if you don’t share it: collaboration and generosity in the social age, 4 March 2012
7 – So what about acquiring more formal knowledge? Here’s an idea ..
“Telling your employees that you want them to learn is different than asking them to promote that culture themselves. Giving employees teaching roles, says Google’s head of people operations, Karen May, makes learning part of the way employees work together rather than something HR is making them do.”
Here’s A Google Perk Any Company Can Imitate: Employee-To-Employee Learning, FastCompany, 26 March 2013
8 – But how do Gen Y learn best? In Growing Gen Y Leaders (CLO Magazine, 15 March 2013) Molly Meyer was asked this question.Her reply:
“It’s a toss-up, really. We learn pretty well by listening, watching, copying and then trying to come up with a better way to get something done. Again, we want to be responsible for improvement. But we also learn well by attacking something entirely on our own. Sometimes it’s the stubborn, “I’ll figure it out,” mentality that plagues a large chunk of us, and sometimes it’s the “times are changing” attitude that drives us to the Internet to start Googling away.”
Of course, it’s not just Gen Y who learn like this, many others do too. But it’s certainly not the traditional way that organisations understand the concept of “workplace learning”, and yet it’s the way most learning takes place.
9 – So what does this mean for your organization? Well, as Harold Jarche explains in No cookie cutters for complexity (28 March 2013) – there is no “cookie-cutter” solution; there is no one best or right way of doing things that fits everyone’s needs – no one-size-fits-all solution – because ..
“Each organization’s situation is not only different, it’s changing.”
Furthermore, he warns …
“Beware the cookie-cutter salespeople. They abound, and are aided by marketing departments that do not have a clue about complexity. There are some real advantages in avoiding the large consultancies and going with smaller companies and free-agents.
10 – Finally, I’m going to give the last word to Clark Quinn, whose post I’ve cited previously, Yes, you do have to change (18 March 2013), where he calls for change. But it’s not just about tweaking the same-old; it’s about doing things differently – and making a difference.“
“Of late, I’ve seen a disturbing trend. Not only are the purveyors of existing solutions preaching caution and steadiness, but it even seems like some of the ’names’ of the field are talking in ways that make it easy to think that the industry is largely doing ok. And I do not understand this, because it’s demonstrably wrong. The elearning industry, and the broader learning industry, is severely underperforming the potential (and I’m being diplomatic).”
 My colleague, Clark Quinn, recently wrote a blog post, Yes, you do have to change, in which he explained how he felt that “the elearning industry, and the broader learning industry, is severely underperforming the potential”.
He also went on to say:
“While the industry congratulates itself on how they make use of the latest technology, the lack of impact is leading a drive to irrelevancy. Learners tolerate the courses, at best. Operations groups and others are beginning to focus on the performance solutions available. Executives are beginning to hear a message that the old approach is a waste of resources.”
Readers of this blog know that I have similar feelings, and only recently wrote a recent post about how many packaged instructional solutions (e.g. online courses) are clearly not working. So here are 10 reasons I’ve put together from my and Clark’s posts why you should not produce a course:
- You don’t want to take your people out of the workflow unnecessarily.
- You don’t want to bore your people to tears with page-turner/click-next solutions.
- You don’t want to treat your people like idiots making them click on every link or action button in a course – because their manager thinks that’s proof they’ve read something and hence learned it!
- You don’t want to dumb down the learning process and make your people have to work through trivial interactions – in a desperate attempt to engage them.
- You don’t want to force your people to stay on a course for a prescribed amount of time – just to prove they’ve had the required length of training.
- You don’t want to require your people to communicate with one another in a course – because that’s what others think “social learning” is all about.
RATHER
- You want your people to have as much autonomy as possible in the process – and be there to support them rather than dictate to them.
- You want any content that is provided to be in the most relevant and useful format for your people.
- You want your people to have genuine and meaningful interactions with their colleagues.
- You want success to be demonstrated by improved job or business performance rather than course completion or “bums on seats” or activity metrics.
Clark says “The best way to change is to take that first step.” So what are the alternatives? My colleague, Harold Jarche calls this, ABC Learning – Anything But Courses.
The main reason we have spent so much time and money designing and developing online courses is weirdly enough for cost- and time-saving reasons and believing that “one size fits all”. It doesn’t! So the right solution will need to match the individuals involved and their learning or performance needs. But it’s also about helping people to help themselves – not trying to spoonfeed them.
To start the ball running here are 10 suggestions as alternatives to courses (with some examples). Some are fairly cheap to set up, others more costly – but by replacing unnecessary courses with simpler and cheaper alternatives, you can release the budget for the more expensive options, where there is a real need for a sophisticated solution, and for one that will have a greater impact.
- You want to help people to know something – provide the information in the simplest and most appropriate form possible – a document or presentation (knowledge) or video (skills/behaviour) for the right device (desktop or mobile). If you absolutely need to know they have understood it or can do something as a result of it, focus on devising an activity that will demonstrate this. Individuals should also have the option to work on the activity first, in order to identify the aspects they don’t already know or understand, so that they can focus on improving these, rather than wasting time on reading stuff they do know. (e.g. PhishMe)
- You want to help people find out about something on a continuous basis – help to set up a drip-feed (using email, RSS, Twitter or your ESN) of tips, terminology, techniques, facts or figures – daily or regularly (e.g. TinyTraining)
- You want to help people explore a scenario and find out the different options (often in a safe environment) – offer immersive solutions and simulations where individuals can investigate a scenario for themselves (e.g. Toolwire Learnscapes)
- You want to help people acquire or improve a skill - this comes through practice, and as we know repetitive practice can be very boring, so help individuals develop a skill using a game-based approach to view skill improvements (e.g. ThinkingWorlds Serious Games Development Tool)
- You want to help people acquire informal and tacit knowledge from experts in the business – help to facilitate coaching or mentoring in your organisation, ideally using reverse-mentoring options – where there is an exchange of knowledge between younger users with new, social skills and older workers with experience in the business. (e.g. 5 methods of reverse mentoring)
- You want to help people carry out recurring tasks, e.g. how to work through a process or use software – create a job aid – in whatever format (eg (info)graphic, screencast) is most appropriate for them, and which can be viewed on the appropriate device – desktop or mobile (e.g. Dave’s Ensampler: Types of Job aids)
- You want to help people deal with new tasks and problems – help them to create and share their own resources with one another (e.g. BT’s Dare2Share project)
- You want to help people benefit from the experiences of other team members – e.g. dealings with clients (successful and otherwise), so help them to set up a group space on an ESN (like Yammer) so that they can share their stories with one another, or help them set up a dedicated team platform (e.g. QA’s Sales465 platform)
- You want to help people easily find answers to their own organisation problems – set up a group or organizational space where they can ask and answer questions on an ESN (like Yammer), or help to introduce an enterprise platform (e.g. AnswerHub), or help them to use Google web search effectively and validate the resources they find.
- You want to help people keep up to date with what’s happening in their industry – provide advice on becoming a Connected Worker and help to support new personal knowledge management and social workplace skills (e.g. ConnectedWorker skills)
Please help me to build this list by leaving your own suggestions in the comments below.
 For some time now I’ve sensed a split in the learning profession in terms of recognising the value and importance of self-managed learning as it takes place in the flow of daily work.
There are some who think that unless they have been responsible for an individual’s learning (i.e. they have designed, delivered, tracked and managed the whole process), then it is of little relevance or consequence to the L&D department, and view self-organised team learning as a “work” activity, and hence the sole responsibility of line managers.
Others, on the other hand, do recognise the importance of self-managed learning, but have difficulty in finding a way to support it more visibly. This is often due to the fact that they need to provide quantifiable success metrics for their own activities, and find it hard to isolate the results of their “learning support” activities from overall team or business performance improvements. But the technology might well be handing them a solution – as well as giving them the opportunity to “join up” learning and working for the first time.
More and more organisations are beginning to adopt enterprise social networking technologies (like Yammer) more formally as business tools, so there is a growing need for a dedicated resource to manage and support this activity – not technically but in human terms.
This emerging practice is known as Enterprise Community Management (ECM), and is much wider than just supporting one small team or community of practice within an organisation, but is about having responsibility for building and sustaining a community across the whole of the organisation. In fact as ECM can include a significant range of responsibilities, in a large organisation it undoubtedly needs to be undertaken by a number of people.
 ECM activities are likely to include
- integrating all social and collaborative initiatives into a common platform
- planning the new community’s strategic approach
- promoting and supporting its use within training (both online and face-to-face, but particularly within induction/onboarding)
- helping to support its use for team knowledge- and resource-sharing
- supporting individuals as they build and maintain communities of practice and other interest groups
- developing an ongoing programme of both face-to-face and online activities and events – to encourage employee engagement on an ongoing basis
- helping to model social and collaborative working and learning behaviours as a major part of helping workers use the technology
- building the new personal and social skills required for productive collaboration in the organisation
- measuring the success of community in terms of business performance (not just in terms of social activity)
Whoever takes on these ECM responsibilities is going to have a significant influence and impact on the business. But more than this, as face-to-face training goes out of fashion and e-learning is outsourced (and hence the opportunities for “managing learning” diminish), this might be a way for a L&D department not only to survive, but to thrive in the future.
If you want to find out more about Enterprise Community Management, I’m going to be running an online workshop on the topic at the Social Learning Centre from 1-30 April. You can find out how to sign up for the workshop here.
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Connect!