Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2019 - 21

resources out there and hope for the
best. You can't expect the learner to
find business-relevant content and
programs. The learning you're offering
must be successful in solving specific
business and development challenges,
and it needs to be easy to find. Then,
you must guide the learner toward that
information. Meet learners more than
halfway. Then, they can do the learning
and take your business initiatives the
rest of the way home.
But even engaging learning needs
marketing to show why it's worth the
time investment for learners - and
managers. For instance, when Microsoft
launched a voluntary, but critical,
series of business acumen courses for
salespeople, the course was marketed to
managers and learners as an exclusive
opportunity and privilege, hoping to get
500 learners interested. As a result, they
ended up with a waitlist of over 1,000
learners interested in the program.
Make sure you are telling your learners
why the company feels the course is
important - pulling in a quick webcam
video from a C-suite executive can be a
great way to do this - how and why it will
be a great experience and what skills they
can expect to take back to the job from it.
Just a title in a catalog won't do the trick.
You need to reach out and explain why
busy learners will want to pay attention to
your particular initiative.

MYTH #2:

IN-PERSON TRAINING IS
THE BEST WAY TO TEACH
SOFT SKILLS

Reality: Collaborative online learning
has proven to be as effective, and even
more so, than instructor-led training
(ILT) for soft skills.
ILT is often treated as a flagship or
premier experience. But translational
difficulties to real application (e.g.,

SO-SO LEARNING
SIMPLY ISN'T SATISFYING
ENOUGH FOR TODAY'S
TIME-STARVED LEARNERS.

awkward role playing) are inherent in ILT
because you've uprooted people from
the work context and from repeated
opportunities to practice. With sustained
online approaches like corporate MOOCs
or even self-directed experiences that
are expected to last over a period of
time, you can get the sustained realworld practice and reflection that is the
foundation for behavioral changes.

* Let learners learn from each other's
practice attempts (via video teach
backs, for example)

ILT is no longer the gold-standard; not only
because you can now replicate classroom
collaborative interactions online, but also
because you can do so many things that
aren't available in the classroom through
online learning. Facilitators are finding
that their online learners are better
prepared than their classroom learners,
and with good reason.

Reality: No, they won't!

For example, with online learning
modalities you can:
* Leverage the wisdom of multiple SMEs
at once
* Have all the learners in a course
participate in discussions, not just the
loudest or most extroverted
* Space out practice, reflection and
application over more than just a few
days in a classroom

MYTH #3:

IRRELEVANT OR
GENERIC LEARNING
EXPERIENCES WILL HAVE
AN IMPACT ANYWAY

Think back to the last crappy training
you were forced to take, most likely for
compliance. Maybe it was ethics, maybe
it was sexual harassment, but chances
are, if it was LMS-based or classic
e-learning, it was boring and the only
parts that stuck in your head are the ones
that make a good water cooler story
about how unsuccessful the training
was. The multiple-choice quizzes you
guessed your way through, the videos
you multi-tasked through, the scenarios
you barely read - did they change your
behavior? Chances are, they did not.
Perhaps that's too extreme an example.
What about generic training that starts
everyone at the same level without
regard for previous experience, so you
have to wade through the basics when

T RAIN IN G I N DU STR Y M AGAZ INE - UNDERSTANDING YOUR LEARNERS 20 1 9 I WWW. T RAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2019

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