LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT (BLOG - 2)

 

Figure 1: Learning & Development

Opportunities are a pathway through which organizations develop, grow, and prosper. Failure to explore and exploit opportunities is sure to trap them in a downward spiral of inactivity, decline, and final extinction. But how many companies create opportunities in a dynamic business environment characterized by overcapacity, saturated markets, and fleeting competitive advantages? The answer lies in the organization’s persistent learning and development plans for exploring opportunities for continuous value creation.

The current business environment is fast-paced, challenging, and constantly evolving. Your employees need the skills to face ever-new situations, so their development as leaders can't be left to chance. A good learning and development strategy incorporates senior executive training, so their leadership skills are continually sharpened.

How is training different from development?

Employee training and development is a crucial part of human resource function and management. Both the activities aim at improving the productivity and performance of the employees. The training program is organized to develop knowledge and skills in the employees as per the requirement of the job. On the other hand, Development is an organized activity in which the manpower of the organization learns and grows; it is a self-assessment act.

Best Practices for Successful Learning and Development:

If you’ve ever experienced training that wasn’t as impactful as it could have been or leaves you feeling a little less than sure that you know what you’re doing, then you know what we’re talking about. Not only can unproductive training really damage your organizations' bottom line, but it also creates a culture of hindrance and dissatisfaction within your workforce.

Designing an impactful training and development program within your organization is the first step in not only creating more efficient, productive employees, but also happier, more satisfied as well.

So, let’s dive into the best training and development practices to incorporate within your organization; ensuring that not only ‘what’ but ‘how’ you train your employees sticks with them, and really makes a difference in your company’s day-to-day operations.

·         Identify your Audience and Performance Challenges :

If you don’t know who your audience is and what they’re struggling with, then you’ll eventually struggle—with presenting the right info and aligning it with your organization’s needs.

Think about your employee’s education, work experience, and routine life. Were they in a college classroom just a few years ago or has it been decades since then? Try to consider their experiences and offer content in a language that’s easy for them to understand. If you’re working with a dissimilar group, it may take more time to create a training plan that works well for everybody.

Focus on what your employees are motivated by and what tasks they seem to blunder over with the most; don’t be afraid to get specific. What specific behaviors or challenges do your employees need to work on to develop better habits or a more efficient workflow? Displaying employees how your training could positively impact their careers, as well as your organization, will go a long way in creating the right tone and impact for the information you’re presenting.

·         Create a Flexible and Accessible plan :

Make your training and development program as easy as possible for everyone to access. How? We always recommend designing a training plan that’s easily accessible via mobile devices. By making your training mobile-friendly, you’re creating an environment where learners can learn at their own pace and in their own time. Proposing a plan that’s mobile-friendly and accessible anytime and anywhere means that you’re creating the most effective training—the kind that always meets a learner’s schedule. Not only will you increase your team’s enthusiasm, but from a bottom-line angle, you won’t have to stop production or sacrifice office hours to have your employees complete their training either.

·         Include Assessments to Test your Employees’ Knowledge to make adjustments :

Incorporating both formative and summative assessments into your organization’s training offers several benefits. Formative assessments present testing points as criteria for learners along the way, making them more likely to self-assess and review information to ensure they’re prepared for their evaluation, while also helping to break up the flatness of a long course. Summative assessments not only let management know how their learners are progressing but give an organization the ability to incorporate adjustments and course alterations to their training along the way. If a particular lesson isn’t effective, having an assessment will allow you to see the issue more quickly and adjust your training to address any concerns. (Kapadia, 2023)

Figure 2: Learning Design

The model starts with the organizational starting situation and prior knowledge based on which learning goals and objectives are defined. This information is used as input for the subject matter, teaching methods, and learning methods and activities. These lead to a certain result, which is monitored and evaluated. Based on this evaluation, the goals and objectives are updated.

Based on this model, we identify four phases required to create an effective learning and development process.

1. An analysis of training needs (starting situation)
2. Specification of learning objectives
3. Design of training content and method
4. Monitoring and evaluation

An effective learning and development strategy relies on a process in which one continually moves through these four phases. Let’s examine them one by one.

Phase 1. Analysis of training needs

The first step is an analysis of the starting situations and prior knowledge to identify training needs. We don’t want employees to learn for the sake of learning. Otherwise, we would be happy to send them on a pottery course. Instead, we want employees to acquire new knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are relevant for their (future) function. This way learning is a way to create new business capabilities.

 

Figure 3: Value Chain of Learning

In other words, learning is a means to an end – it has a goal. Example goals could be the development of digital capabilities in an analog firm that needs to transform, building analytical capabilities to create more business value through analytics, or simply making sure that everyone gets their mandatory certification in time so they can continue to do their work.

Identifying the learning goal requires you to analyze where the organization wants to go and what skills are missing to get there. This happens in three parts.

Organizational analysis. In this phase, the short and long-term goals of the organization are analyzed. The goal is to define the training needs that will help the company realize its business goals. These goals need to align with the organizational climate in order to be effective in the long term. For example, an assertiveness training in a very hierarchical organization with a culture in which personal initiative is not appreciated may not be effective – it may even be counter-productive!

Function, task, or competency analysis. Besides the identified organizational need, it is important to look at a function or task level. What are the competencies and skills required to be successful in one’s job? The goal here is to identify the most important knowledge, skills, and attitudes for employees to be successful in their jobs, and to identify which of these are the easiest to learn.

Personal analysis. In this analysis, job performance is evaluated. Current competencies and knowledge, performance, and skill levels are identified. The key source for this analysis is oftentimes the employee’s performance evaluation. The outcome of the analysis serves as input for the definition of the training needs.

Using these three analyses, training goals can be specified. However, it is important to ensure there is sponsorship and support within the organization for the initiative.

Sometimes, gaining support is easy, especially if there is an urgent organizational need for learning and development. This makes building support easy. Other times you will have to put a lot more effort into specifying the case for learning in order to free up budget and ensure that employees get time off for learning.

Phase 2. Specification of learning objectives

The training needs need to be translated into learning objectives. These objectives serve as the starting point for the design of the training’s content and method.

According to Lievens (2011), a training objective consists of three elements.

The ability to realize specific objectives. For example, “as an HR business partner, I need to be able to identify a manager’s strategic people needs”.

The conditions required for effective behavior. For example, “during the 30-minute check-in with managers, I need to be able to identify their strategic people needs and be able to summarize these to them to check if I identified these needs correctly”.

A specific and measurable training goal. For example, “after every check-in with a manager I have a double-checked the top 3 of this manager’s strategic priorities”.

This way training goals become highly specific and measurable. This helps to create an effective learning and development intervention aimed at improving these skills.

A learning intervention can have multiple learning objectives. Another example objective for this training could be that the HR business partner is able to relate each of the manager’s strategic objectives to HR policies that can assist the manager. Because these objectives are closely related, they can be part of a single training that will make the business partner a lot more successful in their role.

 

Phase 3. Design of the training material and method

In this phase, the teaching material and learning method are determined. This is where the choices about the training material, teaching method, and learning activities are made. This is often done together with an external trainer or training provider, and ideally also with involvement from the trainee.

In addition to learning methods, techniques, pacing, setting, and many more factors are determined.

Training can be trainer-centered or trainee-centered. Trainer-centered methods include seminars, presentations, lectures, keynotes, and lessons. Trainee-centered methods are more interactive and include case studies, role-playing, self-directed lessons, on-the-job training, simulation, games, and so on. Effective training usually includes a mix of methods.

 

Phase 4. Monitoring and evaluation

The last phase of the learning process is monitoring and evaluation. In this phase, the learning objectives are evaluated and learning effectiveness is assessed. A very useful model for evaluating learning effectiveness is Bloom’s taxonomy, which we will explain later in this article.

In addition, student evaluations are collected and reviewed and improvements are made for future learning interventions.

When the training is seen as effective, it should result in a change in behavior. This means that the starting situation and knowledge in the organization will be changed for the next learning design.

 

Methods of learning

We already mentioned some methods of learning – but there are many more. We will list a number of them below. However, this list is far from comprehensive.

 

·         Lectures and seminars. This is a more formal setting often used in universities with a lecturer and students. The setting inhibits interaction.

·         Discussion groups. Highly interactive setting aimed at sharing viewpoints.

·         Debate. Highly interactive setting aimed at convincing others of one’s viewpoints.

·         Case study and projects. These actively involve the participant and activate them to come up with solutions and answers.

·         Experiential activities. These involve active participation and are often used in team building

·         Role Play. A role is acted out or performed, for example as a technique to train customer interaction.

·         Simulation/Games. An increasingly popular and highly interactive way of experimental learning. With the rise of virtual and augmented reality, this can be made very realistic.

·         Job shadowing. Working with another employee who has a different experience to learn from them. This is a good way to learn and exchange ideas.

·         Outdoor management development (OMD). A form of experiential activities. A 2001 study by Hamilton & Cooper showed that this could be effective. I couldn’t resist including this quote from their paper: “50 percent of the participants were experiencing high levels of pressure and reported low levels of mental wellbeing pre and post attendance. It was concluded that a greater impact could be achieved if the participants were not over‐pressured and/or not experiencing low levels of mental wellbeing.” Those poor managers…

·         Coaching. Coaching focuses on hands-on skill development. The coach is often allocated and is the driving force. The coachee follows and learns.

·         Mentoring. Mentoring is more strategic. The mentor is chosen by the mentee and the process is also driven by the mentee. Mentoring goes beyond skills.

These are some of the most common methods of learning in an organization. There are, however, many others. If you feel like we forgot an important one, feel free to mention them in the comments and we’ll add them!

Conclusion

That’s it for this guide on learning and development. We covered what learning, training, and development are, how L&D strategies can effectively be deployed in organizations, different teaching methods, and we covered the topic of learning effectiveness.

There is a lot more to say about teaching methods, critical educational resources, skills required to train, the different shapes and forms of experimental learning, learning analytics, and much more. (Vulpen, 2023)

References

Kapadia, V. 2. (2023, 4 30). Best Practices and Strategies to create an Effective Learning and Development Program. Retrieved from www.gyrus.com: https://www.gyrus.com/best-practices-and-strategies-to-create-an-effective-learning-and-development-program

Vulpen, E. v. (2023, 4 30). Learning and Development: A Comprehensive Guide. Retrieved from https://www.aihr.com/: https://www.aihr.com/blog/learning-and-development/