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How to Manage a Multi-Generational Workforce

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“We want to be a ‘cool’ company and attract younger people, at the same time we want to retain our long-serving employees with their wisdom and years of experience.” “We hope our younger generation leaders will push our organisation towards a growth mindset, at the same time we don’t want our more senior employees to feel they are not as valued as before.” These are some of the comments we recently heard from a global communications client we work with. They explained to us that they need to ensure they have the future leaders who will ensure the company stays relevant and competitive. But as their comments show, recruiting younger generations also brings challenges. In this post we will explore in detail the diverse attitudes and expectations that different generations have, and the impact this is having in organisations right now. 

In fact, we hear this story with virtually all our clients that we work with in diversity and inclusion training [link to product pages when up]. If you’re managing a multi-generational team, or trying to bring new talent into an organisation, you might be facing similar challenges. And you will know that managing a multi-generational workforce is a real issue that urgently needs solutions today.

When talking about generations, we never want to over-generalise and automatically put people into boxes. On the other hand, we also don’t want to assume everyone is the same. And when it comes to the workplace, different generations have quite different ideas. So if we want to attract new generations and also retain existing talent, we will need to consider how to design a workplace that works for both. To start, let’s look at what a multi-generational workplace looks like in reality…

In this post we’ll describe the different attitudes and expectations of the three main generations in today’s workplace across four flashpoints, and offers practical tips and advice for managing those differences, based on our experience of what works well in organisations we have worked with.

What are the different generations?

Walk into any large company today and you are likely to see much greater age diversity than you would have seen even at the start of this century. The workforce is getting younger; flexible working and technology has meant that more people (especially women) have access to the workforce today, and this will continue. It’s worth re-iterating this; there are more younger people in the workforce today and that population is more diverse than previous generations.

At the same time, due to pension reforms and health advances, older workers are staying in their jobs longer, especially in Europe. While the generational makeup of the workplace varies in different world regions (and you can see some interesting comparisons here, it’s useful to define and contrast the 3 biggest generations currently in the workforce:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Born

1981-1994

 Born

1965-1980

 Born

1946-1964
Age in 2020

26-39

 Age in 2020

40-55

 Age in 2020

56-74
Large and diverse generation and tomorrow’s leaders Smallest generation, stepping into leadership roles now Large generation, today’s traditional leaders

What are the attitudes of different generations?

Now let’s look now at 4 common flashpoints created by generational differences (a flashpoint is a potential conflict which arises from different attitudes or perspectives). As you read this section, ask yourself whether you can see any concrete examples of these differences in your organisation.

1. Ambitions

Younger generations may expect to progress more quickly in their career and can be impatient with traditional routes to promotion and new opportunities. Personal and professional growth and social recognition are probably more important to them than material rewards or status. They may not find the existing rewards system especially motivating. Older generations may see them as over-ambitious and not as committed to the organisation.

Here is a more segmented description of the different ambitions of specific generations:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Expect to have several careers (average tenure is 2 years), therefore value CV building Motivation comes from being challenged and receiving constructive feedback Prefer more formal approaches e.g. pension or ‘status’ rewards like titles and office space

Do you see different attitudes to career and progression from different generations of worker?

2. Technology

The most obvious and most talked about difference. But it’s an oversimplification to say that older generations are not comfortable with technology, because we all need to use it for work nowadays. However, there are differences in how different generations use technology; younger generations seem to be constantly connected and technology is their default way to interact with the world. Older generations tend to see technology as a tool to perform a specific task and they are fine with just turning it off. Millennials will expect to be able to ‘plug in’ to technology in your organisation straight away. Older generations may feel overwhelmed by how younger generations use technology and feel that they simply won’t be able to catch up.

Here is a more segmented description of the different ambitions of specific generations:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Grew up with it in personal and work life, so don’t see a divide. Competent in less tangible technologies e.g. social media Good at adapting to new technologies but still view it as something tangible that does not include personal/social life Need time to be convinced and shown tangible results of using it

Do you see different attitudes to using technology in different generations of worker?

3. Communications

Younger generations may prefer to communicate more often, in person, and more informally. They may not see the need to adjust how they communicate based on who they are talking with. And of course, they will probably prefer to do it with technology. Older generations often prefer more formal ways of communicating e.g. written over spoken. They could feel that lines of communication are not being respected by younger generations and also feel overwhelmed by the constant communication flow.

Here is a more segmented description of the different ambitions of specific generations:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Prefer informal, personal and face to face communication. Emotions have a place at work. Likes straight-talking, email is preferred communication tool. But can also adapt to generations on either side. Communication at work is formal, e.g. prefer things to be documented. Dress and behaviour is also more formal at work.

Do you see different attitudes to communication from different generations of worker?

4. Work life balance

Should work be ‘fun’? We might all answer yes, but different generations have slightly different ideas for how far work should be a social experience and where to draw a line between personal and professional life. For older generations, the phrase ‘work life balance’ probably means enough time outside work to enjoy life with friends and family or alone. For younger generations this phrase is more likely to mean personal goal-fulfilment and social networks inside the workplace, and the flexibility to work when and where they want. This can be difficult for organisations which are still struggling to introduce and control flexible working arrangements.

Here is a more segmented description of the different ambitions of specific generations:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
No clear boundaries, work should be fun, expect to work anywhere, anytime. Family and work life boundaries are important, need to ‘switch off’, ‘work to live’ Work takes place in the office, long hours means loyalty, ‘live to work’

Do you see different attitudes to work life balance from different generations of worker?

As mentioned already, let’s look at some offers practical tips and advice for managing those differences.

1. Ambitions

Different generations can have different motivations and expectations for job progression and career planning. Tailoring how you reward and recognise performance is a good place to start addressing these differences, and it is not hard to do. We recently worked with a global telecommunications company who told us they had great success when they decided to let managers decide how to reward team members. These managers came up with new types of rewards for younger generations like gym membership and Amazon vouchers, in addition to the standard types of recognition offered.

Getting generations to mentor each other can be more effective than formal performance management at cutting across generational silos. Providing a younger employee with a more experienced mentor or coach provides them with personalised growth opportunities and gain valuable knowledge fast. At the same time, it can help older employees learn practical things form younger ones, e.g. how to use new technologies, how to work from home. The personal nature of mentoring or coaching also helps to build relationships that can bridge different attitudes and approaches that the generations have.

Here is a summary of tips for how to manage the different motivations of specific generations:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Don’t think about how long they will stay; instead, consider what they bring to the organisation and how to benefit from it Ensure they are challenged to grow in a supported way; growth is a career goal in itself for this generation Show them that they can teach and also learn from other generations, and assure their experience is respected and valued

2. Technology

Marc Prensky coined the terms ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’ nearly 20 years ago to describe different generations’ entry points into technology. Today that gap has narrowed, but as you saw in Part 1 of this post, generations still have quite different attitudes to how they use technology. This takes careful managing. Ensure you show older generations a tangible benefit of technology, i.e. something that will help them succeed in their job role and meet business targets. Support them as they get to grips with new tech and new ways of using it and praise them when they make progress.

The challenge for younger generations is to show that technology has a real purpose and is not just for fun or following the latest trend. This is especially true for less tangible forms of technology like social media. Millennials grew up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and they understand better than any generation how it works. If you don’t, that’s fine, but make sure you hire someone who does to run your social media marketing.

As with career and progression, mentoring can help bridge the different attitudes and experience. Gen X can also act as a bridge generation, especially for technology because they have traits of both generations that came before and after them. After all, they grew up in the first iteration of a digital world and were the first generation to get their hands on personal computers, CD’s, iPods, etc. The adaptation and learning they went through is a valuable lesson for generations either side of them.

Here is a summary of tips for how to manage how different generations use technology:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Use their competency and experience to benefit the organisation and learn from them Use their experience of adapting and learning new technologies to bridge attitudes and knowledge Be patient, let them learn at their own pace, make sure they can see tangible, business benefits

3. Communications

Much of the above advice also applies to this topic, as nearly all our communications nowadays are via technology. In Part 1 you saw that the generations have different expectations for how to communicate at work, and this could lead to conflict if communication styles get in the way of what is actually being communicated. To prevent this, generations need to come together and talk about their preferences in order to reach agreements and manage each other’s expectations. It’s fine for me to be constantly connected – that lets my manager know I will read her communication quickly. It’s also fine that I expect a delayed response from a colleague who likes to switch off out of working hours.

Technology can also be used to get different generations communicating. Many organisations we know use company-wide platforms like Slack, Yammer or IBM Connect to discuss issues and exchange opinions. These platforms are a great way to bring diverse generations together to work through issues that are common to everyone. These corporate versions of social media will provide natural avenues for younger generations, while for generations which are newer to technology they can provide tangible benefits in the form of information sharing and learning.

Here is a summary of tips for how to manage communication between specific generations:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Expect a more informal and even emotional style, check in with them regularly and show you’re listening Avoid over-burdening with many different forms of communication, use to bridge communication gaps between generations Expect a more formal style and respect/adjust to it, emphasise the goals of communication over the medium

4. Work life balance

Work to live, or live to work? Different generations have different perspectives and in a multi-generational workplace you will need to cater to both. Go with flexible working but make sure that people who use it understand their accountabilities and are reachable, which will assure those people who are resistant to it. Empower managers to set up agreements with team members that respect their individual preferences for where and how to work, including staying in the office. This may mean a shift in culture away from hours put in and towards performance measured by outputs. In other words, saying “We don’t mind how you work, we just want to see the results”. The benefit of focusing out outputs rather than inputs is that individual preferences can actually become less important and noticeable. Still, as with all culture change, the road getting there could be a bit rocky.

Here is a summary of tips for managing different generational attitudes to work-life balance:

Millennials Generation X Baby Boomers

 
Acknowledge their need for flexibility and independence, while setting clear boundaries and expectations Respect their need to ‘switch off’ and have a personal life that is separate to work Don’t force them to work flexibly, respect the hours they put in, talk to them about different generation’s attitudes

 

 

 

We hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you would like to know more about our experience of working with clients in different areas of diversity, please contact us.

How do we start talking about unconscious bias in the workplace?

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“We know what unconscious bias is, and why it’s important. But we don’t know how to start having a conversation about unconscious bias in the workplace in our organisation”. This was a statement from leaders from a multi-national pharma company headquartered in Europe. Any organisation which is trying to build diversity and manage unconscious bias will start with this, or a similar statement. We worked with the group to break their words down into 3 sub questions and this post shares how we worked with our client to answer these questions.

Should we start with training?

Training seems an obvious place to start. But if you can’t make it mandatory (and ensure that 100% of your employees attend), the people who attend training will be self-selecting. We see this time and again on our training courses, when we hear the common comment “Person X should really attend this training”. Person X is usually a senior manager or a ‘problem’ colleague who probably really needs the training, except that no one seems willing to tell them!

Running training courses is also not practical for many industries. For example, about 50% of the employees of our pharma client work in labs. Small teams with a constant workflow will find it difficult to leave their workstations to attend training.

We are not saying that training is not part of the solution, just not the solution. In the next section you will see some ideas on how to work with people on this topic outside the training room.

How can we support attitude changes?

A workplace is a collection of people with different backgrounds, experiences and views. Everyone is entitled to their views but at the same time we have a right to ensure that the people who work with us work to our goals and values. ‘Inclusion nudges’ are a very effective way of achieving this. An inclusion nudge is defined as “a relatively soft and non-intrusive mental push that mitigates implicit bias and helps the brain make more objective decisions”[1]. Here are 3 types of nudges with examples:

Feel the need

In one organisation we work with, 24.5% of employees are women. What percentage of executives in the company do you think are women? The answer is 7.1%. What do you think about the gap between the two figures? This is an inclusion nudge based on data that aims to help people ‘feel the need’ for change by creating a kind of ‘ah-ha’ moment.

Process

A Process Nudge means changing a system or organisational process in order to eliminate bias by default. Changing the way you conduct meetings or screen candidates are examples of this kind of nudge. We know companies who use a Gender Decoder [http://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com] to ensure the language in job ads is not biased to male candidates.

Framing

The way we frame things can also nudge our brains to think differently about bias. Consider the question “Should we hire more women and ethnic minorities?” reframed as “Are we getting our fair share of the talent that is out there?” Which question would steer you to take action?

Inclusion nudges are a simple and cost-effective way to start working on attitudes and behaviours and they can be launched anywhere and anytime; on a poster in the office corridor, on the intranet, in a conversation in the canteen over lunch. In the next section you will read more advice on how to get these kinds of conversations going.

For more ideas on how to create nudges to reveal bias, see the post 9 Questions to Uncover Unconscious Bias:

 

9 Questions to Uncover Unconscious Bias

How do we convince people this is an important topic?

To put the question another way – what will motivate people to get interested and want to do something about it? For some this will simply be a matter of politics or ethics, i.e. it’s just the right thing to do. For others, this may not seem a topic that impacts their jobs. However, something that will appeal to everyone is the success of the business.

Two of the biggest concerns for organisations we work with are talent acquisition and employee engagement. Removing bias is a key component of managing these challenges. You just saw the link between bias and talent acquisition in the framing example above. Consider another common question, “How can we increase our employee engagement scores?”. Now let’s reframe the question as “Which people in our organisation don’t have a voice and how can we involve them more?”

In other words, by addressing diversity and inclusion we can find a way to address some of the biggest challenges that organisations face today. For more examples of the link between bias and common challenges faced by organisations, read this post What Is Unconscious Bias and Why Does It Matter?

Tackling unconscious bias in organisations means starting conversations that will interest and motivate people to do something about it. The key to doing this is to make the link between bias and what is important to everyone in the organisation.

Read more in this post…

What Is Unconscious Bias and Why Does It Matter?

 

We hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you would like to know more about our experience of working with clients in this area, feel free to contact us. Or, take a look at some of our training solutions in this area.

[1] Inclusion Nudges Guidebook: Practical Techniques for Changing Behaviour, Culture & Systems to Mitigate Unconscious Bias and Create Inclusive Organisations https://www.amazon.com/Inclusion-Nudges-Guidebook-Unconscious-Organisations/dp/152363541X

What will training look like in 2030? (survey)

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Our clients have trusted us to deliver practical training solutions since 1994. One of the lessons we’ve learned over the years is the importance of spotting patterns. Being able to proactively meet our clients’ needs adds value and feels right. With that in mind, towards the end of 2020 we began gathering perspectives from our network. We spoke with 94 of our clients, leads and contacts (43 L&D professionals and 51 team leaders). 31 people were interviewed face to face.  The remaining 63 were initially interviewed through an online survey. Some excerpts and the results of the survey are below. If you are interested to read the full document, you can download it here.

The rise in individualised, self service training clearly shifts the obligation onto the learner

Almost everyone who took part in our survey envisaged training increasingly becoming personalised. This means that, for better or for worse, the responsibility for learning will shift to the learner. Employees will be expected to select, organise and take part in training, rather than have management and L&D mandate it and organize it.

 

“Training will be like scheduled TV and Netflix. Individuals will expect to find what they want when they want it and how they want it. Central L&D departments will be about making helping and guiding learners and scheduling if required. Learning is learner driven. The L&D departments are less needed” N.L. (CEO)

 

Technology is enabling and driving learning on demand

Almost all interviewees see technology playing an increasingly pivotal role in learning and feelings are mixed. More and more interviewees expect learners to access learning in a range of formats via smartphones and tablets. Many employers will choose this route as a low cost training solution. Some see technology as the driver behind this change, but interestingly a few pointed out that the very human desire to communicate itself is what pushes the advancements in the technology. Either way, technology in training is key to enabling and driving learning on demand.

 

“I see this digital training world being about learning on demand. Short, focused learning will be the majority. People have a problem or a need and then they find their own solution.” G.R. (L&D EMEA)

 

“I anticipate that the trends I’m seeing today will continue flexible learning, bite sized learning, the fragmentation of learning so that people focus on what they need to know or learn at that moment. This will be software based and virtual … and I feel that the solutions we see today with the big platforms is bullshit, but everybody believes in it. We used to have books and now
we have ‘animated summaries’. This isn’t learning” K.K. (L&D Manager)

 

Managers believe their companies will be investing more in learning but L&D professionals believe the opposite

This finding deserves to be explored more. None of the line managers expected to see L&D investment shrink BUT 41% of L&D professionals did. Equally surprising was that 60% of line managers expected to see more money invested in L&D … compared to just 18% of L&D professionals.

 

Thoughts are divided on the need to develop English language skills in staff

Both L&D managers and line managers are split down the middle on whether companies will need to be investing in Business English training. Our first assumption was that this was connected to the type of industry, the country or even the company size, but we could not find a pattern with the sample size (of 43 L&D professionals and 51 team leaders, managers and senior
managers).

 

“We will less likely hire staff who don’t have necessary language skills, and if we do we will be looking for a service to bring them up to speed fast so they can perform on the job”. D.F. (Technical Manager)

 

“I hear a lot from our HR that our new hires can work in English. I don’t think this is accurate. Some of them have spent a year in a foreign country, and many of them have good English listening
skills. But many of them aren’t so called advanced. They don’t have the communication skills we need and the emails they are writing just aren’t professional enough!” C.G. (Senior Manager)

 

 

Download the full version

If you are interested to read more about training in 2030, you can download the full version of the survey here.

The Secret L&D Manager: Encouraging a learning culture when budgets are tight

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This week’s Secret L&D manager is Hungarian and is a Learning & Development Specialist for a global chemical company. In this post, he talks about the journey and the challenges of building and encouraging a learning culture in a large organization.

Go to the eBook

You were the first L&D manager in the organization. What sort of training budget were you expecting to have to work with when you joined?

Before I came here, I was working in a huge worldwide corporation where learning and development had a lot of money working –  close to about €400,000 per year. Looking back, we were definitely spoiled, and I was expecting something similar when I came here. That was my expectation. When I arrived, I was given a  budget of €10,000 and most of this was already allocated to translation work!

I wanted to be able to build a learning culture (see this post for more information). One of the things I have been doing (and haven’t yet finished) is to build a large library of free learning. This does take time but there are a lot of free, good quality things on the internet. You just need to be able to invest the time to find and assess them. I used our skills and competency models as the basis to build this and then I just matched these skills and competencies with an index of releavnt e-learnings, learning nuggets, MOOCS, e-books and podcasts.

I have also created internal webinars. My first step was to establish subject matter expert groups within our company and then we started to create something like internal TED Talks. People could learn about and from the different groups and different fields within the company. For example we would have one subject expert talking about dealing with difficult customers. It was a 1 ½  hour session and it was advertised, and people could join via Zoom.

How did you raise awareness of these learning opportunities and events?

Here I used 2 types of advertising; one is definitely the usual and very boring e-mail communication. I’m not sure it was very helpful but people did join as a result of this kind of communication channel. The other was creating and printing leaflets and brochures and placing them around the corridors and also in the canteen. This was definitely more helpful and effective. I based them on a silly cartoon that was going around on Facebook a couple of years ago.

These initiatives have helped to prove the worth of learning. Now I’ve got the management to actually spend and dedicate a real budget for learning this year, although with the coronavirus crisis who knows what will happen? But I’m pretty sure that this time I will be able to spend more and I’ve very concrete ideas of what I want to do. So for example I want to still further develop these internal webinars and I also want to continue with e-learning creation and creating the content internally.

The other thing that I’ve been planning on doing for a long time is implementing virtual learning and actually this is also a very timely thing. As you know  I have been in talks with you regarding implementing this.  When you think of the flu symptoms and all the sickness that are going around the world right now I think one of the best tools, let’s call it a tool not a method, is to use e-learning and virtual learning. Virtual learning, and it is not to be confused with e-learning, is when you go for an interactive training session but you don’t have to go anywhere. You can do it from your home or you can do it from your office.  It fits our company and the situation.

 

More secret L&D Managers

Who is the secret L&D manager?

The “secret L&D manager” is actually a group of L&D managers. They are real people who would prefer not to mention their name or company – but do want to write anonymously so they can openly and directly share their ideas and experience with their peers.

 

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The Secret L&D Manager: Building a learning culture in a global organization

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This week’s Secret L&D manager is Hungarian and is a Learning & Development Specialist for a global chemical company . In this post, he talks about the  journey and the challenges of building a learning culture in a large organization.

Go to the eBook

When you joined the company, what kind of learning culture did you find?

I think it’s really easy to answer this question, because when I joined my company, I can say that there was no learning culture. If I can take a step back, people have different understandings and definitions of the term “learning culture” . For me “learning culture” means there are people who like learning, there are learning resources and opportunities that people are encouraged to access whenever they need something or expect to need something going forward, and managers enable and encourage learning . Here, in all cases, there was nothing, so people were not, really empowered to learn. The second thing is that there were not a lot of resources available for learning. One of my priorities, and it’s also one of the reasons I was hired, is to create this kind of learning environment and then along with this also create a learning culture.

How were managers and the leaders in your organization seeing learning before you arrived?

I think, and this is only my perspective, that the management was saying, “Learning is very much needed” but when it came to the point where they had to invest they said, “We don’t have the budget for that”. On the one hand they definitely like the idea of learning. They talk a lot about learning and do want to enhance, improve and develop their employees. But actually, when an employee comes to them and says “OK we agreed that I need negotiations training” and they say, “OK go, have fun”, the employee has to find the seminar or resources. Employees would just Google something and then went come back with a course they had found that cost €20,000. For me this was the first problem because nobody knew if  it was a good course quality-wise, who the provider was and if they were a fit, whether the investment was reasonable or if the training was needed.  And then usually 99% of the managers said “sorry but we don’t have the budget for that”.

So how have you gone about building a learning culture?

What I did first was convincing management that learning and development really matters to our success as an organization. I used storytelling approaches to help them see why it is good to invest in learning, and how a company actually benefits from having a learning culture.  Then I showed them that, even if they don’t want to spend a lot of money, using informal or on-the-job learning is still going to create a lot of benefits for the company. For example, using job rotation or on-the-job development does work and can make a tangible difference.  Approaches like mentoring and internal coaching can and should be done. The managers in my company really bought into this idea. The first 2 or 3 things that I managed to do were ideas which didn’t cost a lot of money but were still very beneficial.

Another example where I actually created value and showed the management why learning helps an organization is when we set up the first e-learnings. We built these internally using a tool called EdApp https://www.edapp.com/. It’s a very good and  intuitive tool and easy to use. There were a lot of templates that we could instantly just choose and work with. I worked with our technical experts and together we created e-learning activities on areas such as regulation, process management and . tendering, and product management. We then rolled the e-learnings out to 200 people and the feedback from the participants has been really great.  Because of this tool we’ve been able to gamify the learning too.

What else have you done to continue building a culture since?

Communication is key. Whenever we have a new product or new system (e.g recruiting, performance management) we  connect it to the learning. For example, in our performance management you have an annual meeting about your performance with your manager, and you have to talk about your development.  Of course most people consider meeting a mandatory step and find it boring. I have worked with the managers to help them individually use this moment to create a better dialog with their employees, be more confident when giving feedback, setting goals etc etc. This combination of  building a catalogue of recommended training providers and training courses, building e-learning, leveraging managers and looking for single moments where we can connect learning to the business process shows why learning is important in a company and is the first steps of building a learning culture.

More secret L&D Managers

Who is the secret L&D manager?

The “secret L&D manager” is actually a group of L&D managers. They are real people who would prefer not to mention their name or company – but do want to write anonymously so they can openly and directly share their ideas and experience with their peers.

 

17 practical ways senior managers and executives can support training and development inside their organization

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Recently one of our clients asked me to co-facilitate a workshop at an annual global event. The client is one of the largest building materials companies in the world, and their annual event is attended by plant managers, country directors and executives. Amongst the presentations and plenary sessions they wanted to run 2 challenging workshops which would then lead to concrete action plans. One of these workshops focused on the ambitious goal of quickly becoming carbon free, and the other on training. 

Our client wanted to further strengthen their learning culture and ensure top-level management were playing an active part in this journey. Rather than asking the senior leaders “What do you need?” the question they wanted to ask was “So. what can you do?” – and the participants loved it.  They were more than happy to share their experiences and opinions, and all were quite vocal when expressing that learning and development was their responsibility. As one Indonesian plant manager said  “You at headquarters support us and help us, we like the e-learning and the virtual delivery offers … but we are the important ones because we need to make it happen”.

Based upon their input, and expanded through interviews with other clients, here are 17 ways that senior managers and executives can actively support training and development within their organizations.

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  1. Ensure that the message of how training connects into your long-term health and strategy is lived by all levels. This means looking for opportunities to repeat this message and using concrete and relatable stories.
  2. Be clear to your L&D teams about where you see your future challenges. What will the critical skills be in 5 years time? What trends do you see in your market? Where do you see the skills gap? What are the core behaviours you want to see in your staff’s DNA? If you show them where you want to go they will help you get there.
  3. Support the building of a skills matrix for roles , then with a rolling 36-month focus, ensure training is connected directly to this skills matrix. This is an upfront investment that then provides a clear framework for deciding where training budgets go.
  4. Tap into “management by objectives“ behaviours and make learning a target for your management team.
  5. Encourage awareness that people learn through experience and exposure. Be an example and look into include and involve upcoming talents and high-performers.
  6. Expect your management teams to lead by example and actively join training sessions. This helps ensure that training is seen as strengthening for the future and not a sign of weakness or gaps.
  7. Be seen to be looking for training and development for yourself. This sends a clear message that training is about becoming stronger and not a sign of weakness.
  8. Insist that managers actively feed back to the central L&D team regarding their current and future needs, satisfaction levels, and ideas for the medium and long-term. Strive to make the internal customer surveys a formality.  Your L&D teams should know in advance what is working and what is not if they are benefiting from direct conversations with the regions.
  9. Ask to see that all training has a clear objective and that this is reinforced before, during, and after the training by line managers in person. This isn’t about checking quality, but rather showing the people involved in the before and after that you care, and these steps aren’t nice-to-have add-ons!
  10. Connected to above, insist that all training programs lead to follow up actions by team leaders and line managers. See #4.
  11. Ensue that clear and tangible training objectives are communicated at multiple touch points. Find stories and examples which connect the importance of learning and development to medium- and long-term goals. Yes, this similar to points 1 & 2 but we can’t emphasize it enough. If people understand the “why” then things happen.
  12. Whenever you visit a plant or site, take the time to meet the local training dept and ask what else you can do to support them. They’ll really appreciate this … and you are again sending a clear signal that training and development is strategically important to you.
  13. Get involved with your emerging talents programs. These people are your future. They’ll be energized by your involvement and they’ll energize you too!
  14. Commit to actively supporting a training session once a month by joining the first 15 minutes, explaining why this training is relevant, showing interest in the people in the room and being clear about what we want to see afterwards
  15. Show little tolerance for regions reinventing the wheel. Identify the core strategic programs needed by all regions– get these programs right through piloting them – and then make sure there is budget to adapt them to the local skill levels and languages.
  16. Get involved when budget ownership questions threaten the actual delivery of training. Help cut through the complexity of cost centers and encourage the company to work as one organization.
  17. When costs need cutting, defend training budgets and training availability. It’s too easy to cut it and the savings are often small compared to more painful options but the message is clear. Do you want your employees to see training and development opportunities as a bonus or as an expectation?

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Which topics are most suited for the live virtual training format

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This week’s Secret L&D manager is German and has been working for one of the big management consulting firms for 13 years. She is part of a virtual L&D team responsible for internal training solutions for a global group of analysts, specialists, and managers across multiple time zones. In our previous interviews she has shared how and why her organization got started with live virtual training solutions, and what they have learned along the way. In this post she shares more of her experience and looks forward to the future of virtual delivery.

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Which topics have you learned work well virtually and which haven’t taken off?

As I mentioned earlier, we first used the live virtual delivery format for what we could call hard skills. This included technical skills and software training. Training on Excel, PowerPoint etc. We then used virtual delivery formats for training where there were a lot of tips, dos and don’ts. For example, how to build effective slides and engage your audience. If the training is about showing something directly and then facilitating a conversation about this, then virtual training actually works very well.

We have also had really good experiences with softer topics too. Many of our leadership programs are now delivered virtually. For example one of our management development programs has a kick-off webinar, two one-one-one coaching sessions and a wrap-up webinar —all facilitated virtual—as standard elements, plus during this journey the participants meet for a two-day residential workshop. The feedback from our managers is that this is one of our most popular and successful programs.  We also have a lot of softer topics where working virtually is part of the training goals. For example, “Presenting in a virtual environment” or “Leading virtual teams”.

One big challenge or obstacle in a virtual space is how to build up trust. You have so many things which are lacking in a virtual space which are usually vital to building up trust with someone, right? This could be the immediate reaction to the other’s physical presence – smiles, body language, eye contact, even smell – anything. We’re all humans and we react to one another’s presence. But what happens when there isn’t a physical presence? Tackling this kind of virtual training topic in a virtual training environment makes absolute sense.

Are there some topics that you’d never wanted to go virtual with?

That’s actually a good question. Some training concepts are not at first glance suitable, but over the years I have learned that it is really a question of design. The technology does have limitations, but this is continually improving. I would say the obvious ones that don’t transfer as easily to a virtual deliver format easily are those programs where there are a lot of role-plays required. It’s difficult when the softer expressions, body language etc. are important training elements. But even these can be approached in different ways.

It depends on the situation, the participants’ situations and our training goals. When I want to adapt communication, soft skills, leadership training, etc. for a virtual context I think it’s possible to do that training or program also in a virtual setting. In fact, I will say that it makes a lot of sense to do it virtually as this is the manager’s reality! Yes, it can be difficult with topics like assertiveness, difficult conversations, giving feedback etc.  On a tiny little screen, their body language is not really visible. I don’t know what their legs are doing, but I can see what their shoulders are doing, and maybe their arms, hands and face – and this is reality. If it’s leadership in a virtual environment or difficult conversations in a virtual environment, the virtual training setting works perfectly.

If you’re trying to practice something you only ever do face-to-face with people, then it’s not as strong but it still can work. I can only think of a couple of our programs which maybe aren’t so suitable for virtual delivery, but it’s really only a few.

Do you see a change in the way you’ll be using live virtual training in the future?

Yes and no. I think there’ll be a shift in L&D generally, and also inside our firm. On the one hand, we don’t want to fully give up on the residential trainings because it’s still a very different experience and people really do like them. You are spending maybe three days with each other, rather than three hours online. It is completely different – you get to know people, you have a different level of peer exchange, you establish defined accountability partners etc. If you are meeting in person you also talk more broadly about things which are happening in the business and topics which are very sensitive things. Often this is outside of the training, too. In these longer residential trainings, you often build friendships with colleagues that are important for the rest of their working life. It’s a different experience.

On the other hand, the internationalization of our people and company means we are finding that the people who require a certain skill and want to develop it are not actually based in the same location. Bringing people together for classical face-to-face training is certainly a cost question – but also a time and environmental one, too! I think virtual training will expand because of these factors. There is of course an additional benefit – it is also good that people from different countries, with different work styles and different backgrounds have more chances and opportunities to exchange ideas and approaches.

So, from the human side we certainly still want that people meet each other in person – but really it’s a question of the topic and taking everything into account. I expect virtual training will increase because of the benefits it offers when done well. It makes a lot of sense when you have a topic which can be actually broken down into modules, and where it doesn’t matter if you have a week in between modules (or maybe a week in between really helps!).

Today, virtual delivery is being integrated into all of our approaches. All stand-alone residential training events will also have maybe a virtual kick-off call, some exercises in between, virtual coaching calls afterwards, and virtual wrap-up meetings afterwards etc. This leads to a blended learning journey so people can integrate training into their work life and transfer what they have learned. It is easier to incorporate virtual delivery into our everyday work life.  I believe it will become more and more usual.

Lessons learned: making live virtual training work for our business

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This week’s Secret L&D manager is German and has been working for one of the management consulting firms for 13 years. She is part of a virtual L&D team responsible for internal training solutions for a global group of analysts, specialists, and managers across multiple time zones. In our previous interview she shared how and why her organization got started with live virtual training solutions. In this post she shares more of her experience on how to deliver virtual training solutions well.

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Based on your experience over the last five years, what advice would you give a fellow L&D manager who hasn’t organized virtual delivery before and is planning on trying it?

If this is your very first move into live virtual training, I would suggest you start with a hard skill. Something which is more about skills than behaviours, for example software tools, processes etc. I would then search for a pilot group. For me a good pilot group is a group who will give you clear and balanced feedback. You should invest some time in preparing the pilot group. See it like setting the scene in terms of change management. People will probably be very sceptical and may even complain. You want to help them build an open mindset and help them understand why this move to virtual delivery is a good idea for them and the organization.

If this is the very first time you’re trying live virtual training then make the time to go and talk with people one-on-one and win them over. People don’t understand actually how “live”, interactive and fun, live virtual training can be. They might be thinking about e-learning or webinars where they just listen for half an hour. You want them to appreciate that this is live and that they will be expected to contribute in the same way as if they were in the same room as the facilitator. Tell them it’s not going to be a passive and boring experience, just pick up the phone and say “Hey John, you’re suggested for this training, we have this really cool format on WebEx, and it will be working like this and we’ll get you a really good headset and this will be really fun. You’ll meet people from Brazil and from Russia and ….”. Then see what you can do to help them be comfortable with the technology. Think about setting up a WebEx call with them beforehand and show them what WebEx looks like, how it works, how you’re going to use—and a few tips on making it a good experience, like finding a quiet place for the training session without people listening in, without background noise etc.

You want to light a fire in them. You want them to talk about the pilot session to other people and say at the very least, “Hey, actually that was not too bad!”

What advice can you share on designing and delivering live virtual training?

First of all, I would also invest in finding a fantastic and experienced virtual facilitator. You want the participants to connect with them and the training and leave with a positive experience. You can either look for an external vendor or learn-as-you go internally.

If you are going external you want to find an external partner who knows what they are doing and can guide you. If I use our example of working with you at Target Training, when we first spoke, and you asked me “Do you want a producer or not?” I knew that you knew what you were talking about.

Why do you feel a technical producer is so important in virtual training?

There are many people who don’t know what a producer is and what a producer’s role is. For me the technical producer is actually a key part of virtual facilitation and this is often forgotten.

The producer takes care of the technical part and if you use a producer, you can leverage all the functionality available in the virtual training tools, like breakout rooms, polls, whiteboards, combining whiteboards and summarizing them, letting people share output from the breakout rooms, managing technical glitches, etc. There are so many things that can be leveraged so easily. When this is covered by a producer then the facilitator can actually focus on facilitating – the human part of it!

Using a trainer and a producer works very well and everyone knows exactly know who is responsible for what when they have glitches. A producer means fewer distractions. It’s really a key thing for me to have a seamless experience and I wish that producers would be standard. I am a big fan of that.

What do you think makes an effective virtual trainer?

Being an effective trainer virtually requires different approaches. Let me share our first experiences. Prior to deciding to make this jump to virtual delivery, we had of course built up over the years a large pool of trainers and training companies who we worked with company-wide. This pool had a lot of experience with us and there were also a lot of alumni amongst them. We decided to invest in them and their development and help them learn to deliver live training virtually. They knew our company, they knew our people and they knew what our firm is all about. This key learning part was completely covered.

We decided to invest in them and their development in three ways – training them, learning by doing, and giving them constant feedback about really excelling in the virtual space. When we started with live virtual delivery, we said, “Just give it a try and let’s talk after 1 or 2 sessions about how they were delivered”. Our experience was that not every trainer can or wants to make the jump, and that is ok.

When I think about the better experiences I have had with facilitators, like your colleagues, what they all had in common was their ability to do a remarkable job in really building up trust quickly. They knew how to engage others and help people open up. I have also seen them play a lot with the pace which is so important. Generally, in the virtual training environment, people (myself included) tend to be talking much faster than they would in a classic residential training. Slowing the speed down really helps a lot, but if you are the facilitator it can at first feel kind of awkward and unnatural. The virtual facilitator can’t always see the other person and then there’s a delay and you feel as if you are talking into a black hole. But talking too fast is far worse as the participants feel they can’t contribute and are being pushed through the training as quickly as possible.  For me an effective virtual trainer can adapt their pace and play around with it. And the supreme discipline for me personally is when a facilitator can use humor in a virtual setting and makes participants laugh.

How much virtual training is delivered by your own trainers and how much by external partners?

I would today it is 60 – 70% by externals and the remainder by internal trainers. We have developed our own internal train-the-trainer programs for virtual delivery. This is delivered by those pioneers who were basically there at the beginning. We offer a “train the virtual trainer” program to our internal trainers. Our experts benefit from the experience, tips, tricks and advice the facilitators themselves learnt over time. They learn about designing and delivering virtual training.

Do you see a difference regarding training design in virtual training?

Yes, it’s absolutely different! Make sure you think carefully about the training set-up and format. For virtual training, the training design and the training materials need to be approached differently. In terms of training design, ask yourself what actually makes a face-to-face training successful and how can I apply this to the virtual training design? You certainly still want a lot of exercises, so the training is engaging. And, as the learners’ attention span is much shorter virtually, you might need to play more with timing and move fluidly between trainer inputting to discussions and then to exercises.

And a final question – how large would you recommend the groups should be for live virtual training?

It very much depends on the topic. For topics which require interchange of more sensitive things, for example soft skills or anything about teams or leadership, we say five to six people per group with seven being our absolute maximum. For what we call” technical trainings” I think we can accept a few more because the exchanges, discussions and conversations aren’t as important. For these kinds of topics our maximum is 15.

In the 3rd and final part of the interview the Secret L&D manager shares her views on which topics are best suited for virtual delivery and how she sees the future of virtual training.

 

 

 

How and why we got started with live virtual training in our global firm

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This week’s Secret L&D manager is German and has been working for one of the big management consulting firms for 13 years. She is part of a virtual L&D team responsible for internal training solutions for a global group of analysts, specialists, and managers across multiple time zones.  In this post, she talks about the need for virtual delivery, the challenges, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.
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When did your organization start delivering training virtually?

When I joined our L&D team four years ago, our department had already been offering live virtual training for about a year. Not everyone in the company was actively using it yet so we were kind of pioneers. The background behind our decision to introduce virtual delivery was that we had, and have, a big group of people who are spread across the world in different countries on different continents. There are people in hub locations, and these hubs are also spread across the world, and there are people who may belong to the same department but are located in some very remote locations.

The training challenge here was that if we used the classical way of offering what we call “residential” face-to-face training to all these people, we would have exceeded our budgets by far. And still we wanted to offer everyone a fair chance of having the same training options as their colleagues. We were actively looking at which trainings could be held in a virtual space and this is clearly linked to which trainings are actually most suited, or most easily converted, to virtual delivery.

We started with so-called hard skills like slide writing, using PowerPoint, Excel etc. but we then also quickly moved into other soft areas too. We were keen to make this move as the virtual approach allowed us to make a continuous learning journey out of a “one-off training” and enabled implementing learning into every-day life – this is clearly the biggest advantage.

So how quickly did you move into delivering live virtual training solutions for soft skills training, leadership development, etc.?

I think fairly quickly actually. Until about six years ago there weren’t any soft skills or leadership training programs for my global group at all because the group was just being established. The first training initiatives were the classical format – residential trainings of one to three days. However, within a year, a live virtual delivery format had been established and then it moved forwards fairly quickly. Nowadays we have a 50/50 split – half is virtual, and half is residential.

What have you learned along the way about organizing live virtual training?

We should split this question into the organizational part and the delivery and facilitating part — but we have learned a lot in both areas! Starting with the organizational side, as with residential training, too, we learned we need to block time with people, and in virtual training these time slots need to be convenient for multiple time zones. Then we needed to find a suitable and reliable tool of course. WebEx was rolled out globally in our company around this time, and we were very happy – it works well with only a few exceptions when people have a poor internet connection. Everyone has the same technology; everyone has the same starting point. This is actually a really big help.

We also learned that there is a difference between delivering the classic virtual training session and what we call a blended virtual format. Let me explain; we had training where everybody was in a different place behind their desks. What we also successfully tried is, for example, having ten people in Boston who wanted to do the slide writing training, and we also had four people in Munich, and three people in Madrid. In some locations we have dedicated video rooms—this means people are sitting on one table and in one corner of the room there is a TV screen and camera. The group in Boston sees the other groups in Munich and Madrid and the other way, too. The facilitator is live in Boston, so one of the locations does have the advantage of having a live facilitator in the same room – but the participants in the other locations have colleagues with them, too – and everyone can see everyone. So when it comes to exercises this “being in a room with colleagues” does have a really big advantage. Colleagues are motivating and challenging each other, and of course we shouldn’t ignore the benefit of group pressure when it comes to participation and focus. People are not checking emails or multi-tasking because there are other people sitting in the room in the same training. And we could offer training to locations where there were too few people to have a face-to-face training.

We did something similar for a “writing proposals” project with a sales team in the Far East. The trainer was in one room and everybody else was in another room. It can work really well.

Absolutely! If the room is set up properly, this comes close to recreating a live residential training. Of course, logistics-wise there can be some difficulties because you first of all have to have a certain number of learners in each office and then people of course change plans last minute etc. But this is similar to the challenges of classical residential training. We also had to book all those video rooms, so they were free at the same time etc. Then an important client meeting comes, and the team is thrown out; so logistics-wise that’s a little bit hard, but we found solutions. In general, the approach worked very well, and the learners said they had a really positive group learning experience.

When you made your first moves into live virtual delivery was there any resistance from people? For example, did you have people wanting to stick with the classic face-to-face training approach?

Of course – and to be quite honest there still is! Often people still frankly ask “Hey I’ve been invited to this virtual training. Is there a live residential training instead?” This is natural because many people prefer to go somewhere else to be really focused, meet people, limit interruptions etc. It’s a much more intense experience, let’s be honest. There was a lot of resistance at the beginning and we still get it sometimes. However, I would say it quickly became accepted – mainly because people have had very positive experiences with virtual training, and they have then shared their experience with others.

This is where we come to the absolute need for good virtual facilitation skills. When we started moving into live virtual delivery, we already had a strong pool of trusted facilitators. Many of them were external vendors who were brilliant in the residential live facilitation, but facilitating virtually is so different. I’m thinking back to a workshop I attended myself on “Virtual Facilitation” run by the American Talent Development Association. This trainer was a radio moderator and he gave tips and tricks on using your voice to make virtual training more engaging. One thing he said—that I have never forgotten—was that facilitating in a virtual environment feels completely awkward. It’s really like being a radio moderator. It feels like you are talking to yourself and you aren’t getting any feedback. He said you need to embrace this, and to accept the silence. You will feel super awkward at first. But people need you to act as a guide. When you ask a question, you have to wait until an answer comes, and you still have to smile into the camera—even if there is no one immediately responding. This is a big change and challenge for many facilitators. And just as with face-to-face training, space and time to think is important. It is just that the time feels longer and different in a virtual training world.

In the early days we invested in our internal facilitators. They got training on how to really adapt to this virtual training context because it requires very different tools and very different styles of facilitation. We also had to train long-term and trusted external vendors on what we needed.

Not every trainer can or wants to make that change – it’s a question of personal preferences. And of course, some trainers are much better delivering training face-to-face than virtually. It’s really a totally different skill.

 

 

In our next blog post this Secret L&D manager share more of her experience and advice on making virtual training a success

 

The secret L&D manager: What makes training effective?

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This month’s secret training manager is Italian and has worked in a variety of fields including public research organizations and service companies. Here she talks with Scott Levey about the basic elements that make training and trainers effective.

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What makes training effective?

To me an effective training is a training that uses most of the senses. Meaning: seeing, hearing, touching. The learners need to experience things and be actively engaged. Of course, the training needs to cover the thinking side, but adult learners need to learn by doing things. A good training event also has to be designed to have different activities and moments. For example, it needs moments to listen and get input and ideas, moments to pause and ponder on the theory that was just presented to you, moments to experiment, and moments to recap. I want the trainer to also plan in multiple moments where they cover again the main and salient points of the training.  For me this is essential.  I would also say that effective training sessions need to have a certain pace and this pace changes depending on the moment.  After lunch the trainer will increase the pace to get people moving again. Alternatively, the pace may slow down if the trainer sees that the participants aren’t following what the trainer is trying to do or trying to say.  So that’s what I think makes an effective training.

What makes the trainer effective? I mean you yourself have worked with many trainers and you have also trained yourself, haven’t you?

Well the most obvious answer would be that the trainer is the subject matter expert. She is an expert in her field and has real experience … but that isn’t enough. I’m going to give you a trivial example but I think everyone can relate to it. It’s about my daughter. She’s in high school right now and her math teacher is brilliant. He has a very brilliant mind … but he is not a pedagogue, so he is a teacher by definition but he is not a teacher through experience, and he is not patient with them. He knows his stuff, and is really smart, but he doesn’t know how to convey the salient points to my daughter or his class.  When I think back to the many companies I have worked in, I have also seen similar experiences with internal training sessions ran in various topics. It could be IT related, quality management, HR or technical skills.  Being a subject matter expert is the start but not the end.

Being an expert is not enough; you also need to be an expert in pedagogy, you need to be patient and you need to be attentive to the participants and allow them to ask questions. You need also to be able to shut down any conversation that strays from the topic because it can become difficult and you can waste time and not reach your training goals. This is not good because as we know training has an agenda and you need to stay on track.

Somehow a trainer also needs to be very confident and have some leadership behaviors, because she’s the leader of the group for the time of the training. Finally, I think an effective trainer has to have those storytelling skills where you put theory and experience into a nice little story that illustrates the point. And is easy to understand and remember

So, what I’m saying is an effective trainer is somebody who

  1. Is a subject matter expert
  2. Is a good communicator
  3. Is people-oriented
  4. Can lead a group
  5. Has the skills needed to design training so there are the right moments at the right times
  6. Has the skills to deliver the training in an engaging way and manage the pace
  7. Is focused and reaches the objective set for the training

Train-the-trainer courses can really help for both new and confident trainers … but it is my opinion that nothing really beats experience. So that’s what I think makes a trainer a good trainer.

Who is the secret L&D manager?

The “secret L&D manager” is actually a group of L&D managers. They are real people who would prefer not to mention their name or company – but do want to write anonymously so they can openly and directly share their ideas and experience with their peers.

You can meet more of our secret L&D managers here …

 

Organizing management and leadership training programs – the secret L&D manager

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This month’s Secret L&D manager is German, based in Germany and works for a global automotive supply company.  He/She has worked in training and development for over 7 years.

New Call-to-actionWhat is important to you when designing and rolling out a leadership program?

For me a successful leadership or senior manager program in our company can never be a “one size fits all” solution.  Leadership and people management is not like a manual. We don’t want a “that’s how you have to do it” approach and we are serious about offering an individualized approach. The programs we build with companies like Target give people a chance to identify whatever they need and benefit from support in applying this in their day-to-day tasks – or in their life as a whole. Individuals take different things from the program.

Who do you target when you set up management and leadership programs?

When I set up a leadership program we are typically involving managers and leaders from a broad range of different functions – from HR to finance, logistics to manufacturing etc.  This means I have to exclude functional topics from the training design because they won’t be relevant to the whole group.

What kind or development areas are you targeting when you set up management and leadership programs?

We’re working in a very fast-paced environment and there are always a lot of changes going on.  A lot of our managers and leaders are firefighting, and really involved in operational work. We want to focus on soft skills like strategic thinking, so that they can step out of the operational and build a broader view of everything.

It is really important for me that our managers have the chance to step back and have a look at the broader picture – this means looking especially at strategy and finance. The leadership program needs to tackle what finance means for our company and to ensure the leaders have a big picture of company decisions that are made based on our financial performance. This extends to them having a broader view on strategy.  Our programs support them in building a strategic view of the company, their area and their immediate objectives.

We also want them to develop a stronger understanding of the consequences their own behaviours have, for example, on an individual, team or another department. If they are stressed out and don’t recognise that somebody in their team is drifting away, that’s not good.  The programs develop them to focus on their people –  their team is what makes their life easier in the end. They need to see not only themselves, their own workload, their own fires that are burning but also to focus more on their people and our overall strategy and values.

Do to summarize, strategy, finance, self-awareness, leading teams, and managing and developing the people they are leading. We want them to just take a step back and have a look at this and to have also the chance to experiment with tools, models and ideas. Not every tool is suitable for every person so they should decide on their own what they want to apply in the day to day what’s useful for them.

What is important to you when designing the training interventions which make up such a program?

I want them to work in groups and have personal time with the trainer. We have a mixture of formats including 1-to-1 intakes, using a tool such as DISC or MBTI, face-to-face seminars, virtual workshops and individual coaching. As the participants in the program are coming from all over Europe we also look to reduce travel costs and time using webinars, e-learning, virtual training sessions. The intakes, accountability calls and transfer coaching are all normally done via phone calls or using Webex. Then there are 3 to 4 onsite events with the groups coming together and meeting each other. These could be at the headquarters, a nice seminar hotel or near a plant (so we can organize a plant visit). Cost- and time- wise it is just not possible that they are travelling every few weeks.

What are you looking for from the trainers?

The trainers, of course are a very important element. When we look for trainers it is important to us that they are flexible. Our audience is usually, during the day, under pressure and there can be last minute things coming up so they are not able to attend a the whole session or training. So we need the trainer to be timewise as flexible as possible so if somebody missed some content they don’t get lost in the program. The trainer needs to help them and give an insight into what has been done. They need to be supportive with the people through the whole process – that is really important. Then of course that they have to be able to handle different personalities, functions, nationalities and cultures.

You mentioned culture – what role does this play in delivering the training?

This is a huge challenge, I can tell you. It depends a little bit on which positions the people are coming from. If they are coming from central positions and travelling a lot, meeting a lot of people etc. then usually they are open to everything and it’s easier to work with them. People coming from the production sites somewhere far away in the middle of nowhere – then it’s sometimes hard for them to connect with the other leaders and the softer stuff. It’s also hard for the trainers to manage them in the right way because they are really stuck in their culture. They are not as open as the people who are already used to being in this international environment – but it’s really important to get them to the stage where they are more open to the other cultures and diverse people.

How do your managers and leader react to the programs you offer? And how do you assess the training ?

The reaction of the operational leaders to this approach is very very positive. There are people who are more willing to open up and to work on themselves than others but I must say that those people who opened up completely are the ones that benefited the most from the program in the end.

About assessment, after the training I usually do a post training assessment where it’s a questionnaire where I ask people different sort of questions.

Who is the Secret L&D manager?

The Secret L&D manager is actually many L&D managers.  They are real people who would prefer not to mention their name or company – but do want to write anonymously so they can openly and directly share their ideas and experience with peers.

Implementing the 70-20-10 model- insights from a secret L&D manager

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This month’s Secret L&D manager is German, based in Germany and works for a global automotive supply company. She has worked in training and development for over 7 years.

Why are you using 70-20-10?

We introduced the 70-20-10 model in 2016, mainly because too many people were thinking that “development” is just about training, and that if our company wasn’t providing “training” the company wasn’t developing people. The 70-20-10 model helped us show that learning and development is more than just training. Training is one tool, but you can develop yourself all the time. The 70-20-10 model is rolled out globally to our whole organisation. There are also individual initiatives that I have developed which are only rolled out in a specific business area in Europe and for specific development programs like our talent development program.

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How did people react?

I would say the majority of the people in our company did not really understand at first. Only those people who joined the sessions where we explained and showed what 70-20-10 is really about – they understood the sense behind it. Learning and development is not such a big topic in our company and is not the highest priority, so many people read about it and ignored it.

So how have you brought 70-20-10 to life in the organization?

I created an individual development plan, built around 70-20-10, specifically for participants in our training programmes.

Which kind of programmes?

A development programme for our most talented young professionals. First of all, I introduced the 70-20-10 model a little bit to them, and I explained what 70-20-10 is about – and what it is not about too. Mainly that 70% of everything they learn is learning by doing, 20% is learning from others and only 10% is learning by “training”. I must say people were quite surprised about this when I started talking to them about it, but they quickly related to it.  They saw it reflected how they had learned their technical skills, and also their softer skills.

I then introduced a new individual development plan, which I have here in front of me.  I structured it in different levels. First of all, people were asked to define an overall individual development goal. Strictly speaking they weren’t all SMART goals – some were closer to a vision for where do I want to be and by when. As most of the goals were very general, I asked them to explain a little bit about what they meant with this goal. Where they are now, where they want to be and what they think would change when they achieve this goal. These were the key questions we asked them to think about.

Then they had to define three key development areas that they need to work on in order to achieve that very goal. These areas had to be really, really specific. They have to be SMART.

Once they had defined key development areas, they had to define development actions. On the tool I gave them, these actions are actually structured using 70-20-10.  They need to define mostly “learning by doing” actions, then partly “learning through others” actions and the smallest part is the “learning in training” actions.

And then, last but not least, for the individual development areas they were asked to define key performance indicators where they can measure the success of their development. Using KPIs is very characteristic for our automotive supply company because everything is measured in KPIs here. This is a step they understand easily, and I didn’t have to explain to them what a KPI is. Everything they do is measured.

How do you get a KPI from a soft skill?

Well, that’s tricky. Let’s take the simple example of improving presentation skills. So development actions can be “I will present my project four times in front of my boss or my team, and one of these will need to be delivered virtually”. The KPI could be the number of presentations you have done.

So you are just tracking that it’s happening?

Yes. Another example for management training is if you give or receive positive feedback – yes or no – it can be measured. It just helps a little bit, like you said, to track it, to know that they have to document their status. It really helps them to be motivated or to stay motivated.

Have you integrated the 70-20-10 into your senior management programs?

We have.  I think the 70 is really covered by the business simulations we use. In these simulations people lead their own company, competing against each other and most of it is really learning by doing. They have to work with the numbers, they have to work with the reports, they have to make their own decisions. They have the chance to contact their trainers for example, or their colleagues, and ask them for advice, so that’s learning by others maybe, but mostly it’s the learning by doing.

How do senior managers respond to being asked to build KPIs for their own development?

I must say I only really push the KPIs with the young professionals. They need the orientation to have this measured and their development areas are way simpler than the ones from the very experienced senior leaders that we’re training. I don’t push measuring of the senior managers and leaders. I think at their level they should be capable of measuring themselves and knowing how far they have come with their development.

What advice would you give to another training manager who wants to try and introduce this 70-20-10 approach to their organisation?

Firstly, I would say it’s a very rational approach to learning and development. You have to look a little bit at your target training audience and at your people. I mean in our automotive world there are a lot of engineers, and a lot of very structured thinking. They need tools that fit into their rational world and I think 70-20-10 does this for them. Learning is quite abstract and 70-20-10 gives them a framework to put it into numbers. So if you would like to apply this in your company you should really look at what is your target group.

And I see that structure is reflected in the way you have built your tools. I mean you’ve got boxes that need filling in which fits with your target audience, tick boxes, % etc.

Exactly, I’ve got KPIs. As I mentioned, everything is measured here and that’s their way of working. It is what people are used to and comfortable with. I think if you are trying to implement this in a more “creative” or “service”  company you might see much more pushback to the way my tools are designed and the use of KPIs

Thanks for your time and for sharing!

You’re welcome!

Who is the Secret L&D manager?

The Secret L&D manager is actually many L&D managers.  They are real people who would prefer not to mention their name or company – but do want to write anonymously so they can openly and directly share their ideas and experience with peers.

Business English training: on-the-job training (for the job)

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On-the-job (OTJ) training has been a cornerstone in our approach to in-house Business English training since our first InCorporate Trainers started their jobs (one of them was Scott Levey). When we explain the concept of on-the-job training to potential clients, they “understand” what we’re saying … BUT …they don’t really “get” how effective and beneficial on-the-job training is until they have seen it in action. This post aims to explain what it is, how it works, and how participants benefit, using some non-specific examples of on-the-job training.

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The benefits of on-the-job training

OTJ training is highly effective because the training takes place alongside and as part of your daily work. The trainer uses your work situations (your emails, your virtual meetings, your plant tours) as the basis for your learning. On-the-job training takes place at work, while you are working. This brings two huge benefits.

  1. You maximize your time because you are benefiting from training while you are working.
  2. You can directly transfer what you learn to your job. Your training is completely based on a real and concrete task. Everything you learn is relevant.

If you are familiar with the 70-20-10 model, you’ll know that 70% of learning comes through “doing” and from “experience”. Learning while you work is highly effective and this is the heart of on-the-job training.

“I helped Hans to de-escalate a situation in Supply Chain Management. Hans felt that the American party was wound-up and overly difficult. Hans brainstormed phrases with my help and he wrote a draft email. I helped him improve the structure and tone of the email and suggested he rewrote some of his sentences in plain English. A few hours later, the American party positively replied and the whole thing was solved by the time Hans went home.”

What exactly is on-the-job training and how does it work?

With on-the-job training, the trainer is there when you need assistance in preparing emails, specifications, manuals, reports, slides and other documentation. The trainer can support you in the planning, writing and reviewing stage. The trainer is also available to you for preparing meetings, phone calls, web meetings, teleconferences, presentations and negotiations.  They can then shadow you in action and provide personalized and situationally-based feedback.

On-the-job training focuses on your priorities at work and on you improving your business English in those areas. It can be

  • reactive where you ask the trainer for help “Can you help me improve these slides?”
  • proactive where the trainer encourages you to share work you have done/are doing in English “I heard you are involved in writing the R-Spec for the new project. How can I support you?”

“One of my participants, a product manager, had to deliver two presentations in English. It was basically the same presentation, but for two different audiences.  Observing her in our first practice session, I made a note of language points to work on. We worked on these, and a few other things (key messages, adapting messages to different audiences, Q&A session) over the next week. She delivered the presentations to me again, already with much more confidence and fluency – and then she practised with a few colleagues in a weekly group session and benefitted from both their positive feedback and the confidence boost.  Finally, I watched her deliver from the back and she did great.  After the presentations we debriefed and I shared my feedback (what went really well, what would she like to focus more on next time etc) . She was too critical of her performance and I helped her to be realistic about what she needs to focus on.”

What on-the-job training isn’t

What the trainer does not do is write the email/document for you (where’s the learning in that?). One common misconception is that on-the-job trainers are translators or proof readers. They’re not, in the same way that translators and proof readers aren’t trainers. Collaborative proof reading and translation can be an option, but the ownership needs to stay with the learner.

Another misconception is that on-the-job training is traditional “classroom training” during work time. The trainer will certainly use the “insider” view and what they have seen on-the-job to tailor traditional “off the job” training. This means your group training, coaching, 1-1 training, and seminars are closer to your workplace and that the transfer of learning is smoother.  But “on the job” training is learning while actually doing. There’s a good example of how this looks in action in an R&D department here.

“Three of my participants had written a 300-page instruction manual and they came to me with the request to help them improve it. Nobody in their department understood it enough to successfully use the system that it was meant to explain. I told them I would read it. Oh boy. We worked on writing with the reader in mind, structuring documents to make them scannable and writing in plain English. Visuals replaced paragraphs and we even created a few video tutorials too.  Four weeks later, they produced a second manual. Over one hundred pages lighter, it was clear, comprehensive, mistake free, and written in a style that everyone could understand, even me. As a result, the system that was supposed to make everyone’s job easier made everyone’s job easier.”

Bringing on-the-job training to life

We sign confidentiality agreements with our clients. Even when we don’t, we wouldn’t use their actual documentation online, so these examples are non-specific and Hans is not really called Hans … she’s called XXXX.

If you would like to know more about the benefits of this approach, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Virtual training v. face-to-face training: How does it compare?

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James Culver is a partner at Target Training Gmbh and has 25 years of experience in delivering customized training solutions. His career has encompassed being a HR Training Manager, a Major in the US Army National Guard and a lecturer at the International School of Management. He’s also a talented percussionist and storyteller. In the final part of this series of blog posts on Virtual Training delivery, he answered the following questions…

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You have 25 years’ experience in training delivery. When did you start delivering virtual training?

James Since the 90s. In the United States we started very early with virtual delivery in the community college system. We often had remote sites of small groups of students who still wanted to take advantage of the kinds of courses that we would offer on the main campus, so we started delivering virtual training . When I started working with virtual training it was extremely expensive to do some of this work. Our system was basically a camera set-up and the professor or the trainer was just speaking to the camera. There was very little interaction available with the other sites and it was like TV school.

How would you say that virtual delivery compares with face-to-face delivery?

James There are probably two things to think about. One is the content that one delivers and the other is the context. By context I mean everything that surrounds the content. How things are being done, who is interacting with whom and how they are interacting – the richness of the communication. As far as content is concerned, the topic that’s covered, the information that’s shared, I’d say virtual delivery and face-to-face delivery compare quite favourably. In fact, the virtual platforms that we use at Target Training are tailor made for delivering lots of content in interesting ways. It’s very easy to add videos, recordings, to have whiteboards etc. For example, if we have content that is pre-prepared on a slide and made available to people, they can annotate it, they can put questions there etc. That’s really, really easy on a virtual platform.

What is harder most of the time is everything that we get from being in the same room as someone. Facial expression change, body language changes. We often don’t see or get that in a virtual environment, even with the market-leading systems. The challenge as a trainer is that we risk missing  a large chunk of the information that we would get from participants in a classic face-to-face training session. That is a major challenge. As a trainer in face-to-face training I have a feel for how things are going because I’m in the room. It’s much more difficult to have a feel for how things are going, when you’re in a virtual environment. And you need that “feel” so you can adjust and give the participants the best possible learning experience.

What are your workaround strategies for that?

James There are workaround strategies and through external and internal training and on-the-job experience our  trainers use them. One strategy is that you have to ask a lot of open and closed ‘check questions.’ Questions like “Are you with me?”, “Is that clear?”, “So what are the key points you’re taking from this?”, “What are your questions so far?” Experienced virtual trainers will ask those kinds of questions every 2 to 3 minutes.  Essentially, as a trainer you have a 2 to 3 minute time limit for your input before you ask a check question, and the check questions should be both open to the group and targeted at an individual too.

Which training themes lend themselves best to virtual delivery and which don’t?

James The themes that lend themselves best to virtual delivery are those that are more content focused – for example classic presentation skills training or presentations delivered virtually.  These types of training solutions focus on input, tips, do’s and don’ts, best practice sharing and then practice-feedback -practice – feedback etc.

Another theme that works very well for us when delivered virtually is virtual team training, whether it be working in virtual teams or leading virtual teams. By their very nature, virtual teams are dispersed so the virtual delivery format fits naturally. Plus, you are training them using the tools they need to master themselves. And of course, another benefit is if the training is for a specific virtual team the shared training experience strengthens the team itself.

The types of training solutions that are more challenging when delivered virtually are those where we are trying to change ourselves or others. Topics such as assertiveness or self-efficiency need to be thought through and developed carefully if they are going to be more than an information dump. Here the coaching aspect is far more important.

Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, management and leadership training can work really well when done virtually. Our Driving Performance solution is a good example of this. The secret here is to emphasize the bite-sized learning, provide additional resources outside the session e.g. flipped classrooms with relevant videos and articles, and provide opportunities for one-on-one conversations too.

More on virtual delivery

Please see the posts below, or start here.

 

5 things you can do to make virtual training a success

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E-learning has been around since 1960 and the “virtual meeting room” is not a new idea either. Many companies already have experience with learning via online platforms or mobile learning, and already have some type of tool to meet and collaborate virtually.  The jump from meeting virtually to training virtually seems simple – and it is, if you carefully consider what it will take to make the virtual training successful. Here are a few things we have learned during 7 years of virtual delivery. The posts 5 questions you definitely need to ask when you are setting up a virtual training program and getting started with virtual delivery have more information on this topic.

 

 

Work with a trainer who can design, deliver and debrief with confidence in a virtual environment

Clients come to us with the experience they have with face-to-face training. They know what they can achieve in a one-day seminar and they are looking to transfer this experience to a virtual training environment. However, not everything is directly transferable. In a face-to-face session a trainer observes, reacts and adapts on the fly. They constantly monitor what’s working, and what isn’t, what people are getting and what not etc. In a way, the trainer “feels” how the training is going. With virtual delivery, trainers have less opportunity to do that.  A common response for the trainer is to focus a lot more on the content rather than the training dynamics … which can turn the training into a lecture.

Virtual training demands trainers with new skills, qualifications and experience. You need an experienced trainer who can design, deliver and debrief with confidence in a virtual environment.

Create time for interactions

As touched upon above, in a face-to-face seminar it’s easy and natural for interactions to occur – either with the trainer or between participants.  When you deliver training virtually this becomes much harder. Don’t assume that interaction will occur easily. It’s much more challenging for groups to actually get together and get a feel for each other in a virtual environment. An experienced and qualified trainer finds workarounds: Interactions are planned, activities are scripted carefully and more time is allocated for group and pair activities.

Keep the training groups small

The difficulty level of enabling and encouraging interaction means that smaller groups (not larger groups) are a must in a virtual environment. Our experience is if you want to go beyond knowledge transfer to building skills and changing behaviours, a group of 6 is ideal. The more participants you have beyond 6, the harder the interaction becomes, and the more likely it is that somebody tunes out and/or starts multi-tasking – and the more time the trainer needs to spend on monitoring and controlling the technical environment and not focusing on the individuals themselves.

For groups above 8 you should use a skilled and experienced “producer”. A producer supports the trainer in managing the virtual environment, monitoring interactions, setting up breakout rooms and maintaining speed, flow and interaction etc.  An experienced technical producer can easily enable the trainer to work with 12+ participants.

Deliver several sessions of max. 2.5 hours instead of one long session

A full day face-to-face seminar won’t translate into a full-day virtual seminar. People can’t concentrate for that long in a virtual environment. Our experience is that 2 – 2 ½ hours is the maximum length for a single session. This means that you should be thinking about three 2-hour virtual sessions to equal one day of face-to-face training.  You can cover a similar amount of training in the same time BUT if you are delivering the training virtually you have to redesign the approach and split it up and break it down.

Plan carefully, when working with multiple time zones

One benefit of virtual training is that anyone anywhere can join. We encourage you not to get carried away with that. It may save you money but you will lose the full effectiveness of the training. In our experience, it’s a huge challenge for the participants and the trainer when some are joining at six in the morning, some during the post-lunch lull, and some at six in the evening. Respecting people’s concentration spans and environments will pay off in the end.

 

For more information

If you are new to virtual delivery, looking to ramp up your virtual delivery or interested in making your virtual training more interactive and valuable then find an experienced partner or a consultant. We could be the one for you, who knows. If you’re thinking of starting with virtual training put out an RFP, be clear about what you want to achieve and ask for suppliers to tell you what you need in order to make it work.

Getting started with virtual delivery

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Although many professionals, managers and training managers know of virtual delivery there is still some confusion as to what it is and how it works.  Here are some common questions we get asked when supporting our clients in integrating virtual training into their learning strategies. For more information on this topic, see also 5 questions you definitely need to ask when you are setting up a virtual training program.

What do we mean when we talk about virtual training or virtual delivery?

Virtual training (also known as virtual delivery or remote delivery) is training where one or more of the participants is not in the same room as the trainer.  Training is delivered using one of the many “unified communication platforms”. This term includes web conferencing tools such as WebEx Training Center, Adobe Connect,  Go Meeting or Skype for Business and video conferencing services such as BlueJeans or Polycom.

People often think of virtual training as an international solution. For example, we’ve delivered a virtual session with the trainer based in Frankfurt, Germany and having participants in Hawaii, Boston, Luxembourg and Singapore.  However, if you have a trainer in one location on a site and you have participants on the same site/same country but in different rooms – that’s virtual training too.

How does virtual delivery differ from e-learning or webinars?

These terms are often defined by a training supplier’s marketing department, but typically most L&D professionals will agree that:

  • E-learning is led by the learner and there is no live trainer.  The learning is self-paced through interacting with a computer-aided learning program. A simple example is Duolingo as an app for language learning. SkillSoft is an examples of e-learning aimed at developing your soft skills.
  • A webinar is speaker-led and has probably about 50 people maximum – although some webinars have hundreds in the audience. The webinar is delivered through video or a video conferencing platform online and the presenter is talking most of the time. At the end he or she has the ability to take questions and if they are using a producer they can engineer interactive moments e.g. asking for input via a poll during the webinar.
  • Virtual training is a trainer plus participants. Ideally the training is interactive, engaging and adaptive the needs of the participants.

What does virtual training give you that a webinar doesn’t?

Put simply, virtual training is about learning through interaction, engagement and personalization – it is active learning. This includes learning from the trainer, learning from personal experiences and from each other via e.g. discussions and experience sharing. Webinars are comparable with lectures or online presentations – learning is passive and based solely around the speaker and the content they are sharing.

How many participants can you train virtually at the same time?

Surprisingly, many people assume that virtual means more participants.  This is often based around experiences in webinars with 50 people plus. In a face-to-face training seminar, we would never try and deliver training to 50 participants in the same room.  Typically, we suggest 8-12 participants with 14 being a maximum.  Years of experience have shown us that an ideal number for highly-interactive virtual training is about 6-8 people. With a small group like this you can make sure that people have a chance to interact with each other in a more intimate way, using options like breakout rooms found in the more functional platforms such as WebEx Training Center or Adobe Connect. These breakout rooms offer the same benefits as integrating small group activities in a training room. This interaction is really important because a lot of the value of training, whether it’s virtual or face-to-face, is the interaction that the participants have with each other. They don’t just learn from the trainer but through each other too!

What is a producer and why do we need one?

A producer ensures that the virtual training runs smoothly and supports the virtual trainer in delivering an interactive, personalized and above all smooth training experience. This allows the trainer to manage up to 50% larger training groups too e.g. 8-12 participants. Their role includes:

  • providing technical support to participants before, during and after the training
  • setting up break out rooms, polls etc
  • monitoring engagement and contributions in chats and break out rooms
  • modelling activities
  • time checks with the trainer and participants

For more information

At Target Training we offer all of our solutions in a virtual format too. This includes in-house Business English with our Virtual InCorporate Trainer , Presenting in a virtual environment and Working in and Leading virtual teams. If you would like to know more about our virtual solutions, save time and money and extend your training reach then please contact us. Finally, see here to read more about delivering training virtually.

5 questions you definitely need to ask when you are setting up a virtual training program

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More and more of our clients are embracing delivering training virtually. Many are striving towards a global training solution where everyone has access to the same high quality of training no matter where they are based. Others are need to cut travel costs. Some are moving towards bite-sized learning and providing training in smaller chunks. This growth in interest has meant that at Target Training, we’re finding ourselves frequently taking on a consulting role with those clients who have little or no experience in virtual training. Below are some of the key questions we’ve been encouraging our clients to ask themselves.

Q1. How much experience do your participants have working with virtual platforms?

It’s important to match the virtual platform you use for delivering training with your staff’s experience and comfort zones. How familiar are the participants joining the virtual training with virtual communication in general?  What can they already do? And which systems do they regularly use for e.g. virtual meetings? Some participants using video conference tools every day for their regular check-ins with their virtual colleagues. In this kind of environment, you would want to take advantage of their skills and deliver training using a rich virtual platform with diverse and useful functionalities. Webex Training Center and Adobe Connect are great examples.

However if your staff are completely new to this kind of work and new to these platforms then don’t worry. Don’t spend a lot of money on a top-end virtual training platform when people can’t use the tools.  There are a lot of simple yet effective platforms that could work for your people, and their simplicity means that they will probably have an easier time working with it and therefore use it more often. Consider Skype for Business, Polycom or BlueJeans.

Target tip – Choose a virtual training platform which matches your staff’s experience and comfort zone.

Q2. What is the lowest common denominator when it comes to your technical infrastructure?

Many of our clients are looking for pan-global training solutions for their staff around the world – everybody should be able to benefit from the same training.  However, if in certain parts of the world the bandwidth available is very slow, cameras are disabled, sound cards aren’t standard etc this will inevitably cause problems and negatively impact the training. Either that person is going to have real difficulty fully participating in the training and/or  it will also cause delays for everyone else.

You have 2 choices – either work with the lowest common denominators when it comes to your technical infrastructure and then adapt the training to this level OR choose to split the training group based on technical capabilities.  

Target tip – Respect and adapt to the lowest common denominators when it comes to your technical infrastructure.

Q3. How much experience do your staff have in being trained virtually?

Connected to the first two questions, if you are going to set up virtual training approach for people who have had little or no experience of receiving virtual training before then you need to plan in time to teach them how to make the most of the virtual training environment.  Your training provider should be able to do this for you. Part of this time will be spent training the participants on how to use the technology AND you also need to help your participants learn more about how virtual training can look and feel different.  Comparing it to a classic face-to-face seminar won’t help.

If you are looking at virtual training for your virtual teams then you can kill 2 birds with one stone here – they will develop their virtual communication skills and strengthen their team at the same time!

Target tip – Invest a little time training people to learn and develop in a virtual training environment. This could be part of the very first session or a separate event.

Q4. How many people are you planning to invite to each virtual training session?

When it comes to classic face-to-face seminars most people are aware that if you want to keep the training interactive and relevant to each individual you need to limit the group size.  Groups of 10- 14 are standard practice.

When it comes to virtual training many clients assume much larger groups are possible.  Most of the time this is due to confusing e-learning and webinars with virtual training.  The maximum number of people we would suggest inviting to a virtual training session is impacted by two factors.

  1. The number of people is limited in some cases by the bandwidth that you and the participants have. (see Q2)
  2. Secondly, it depends on how easily you can manage the group and keep it interactive and relevant to the individual participants. We strongly recommend smaller groups – six is the magic number.  Larger groups of up to 16 can work when you choose to use a “producer” to support the trainer. The producer helps the trainer to manage the functionalities and tools within the platform, and to keep an eye on interaction and questions.  They’ll also step in when the technology causes problems.

Target tip  – Keep training groups smaller than you normally would for face-to-face training.  Invest in a producer when you want larger groups as it will be better value than running sessions twice. 

Q5. What are we doing before or after the virtual training session to boost the learning and drive transfer to our workplace?

Think about how you can make this a more enriched learning environment, and how you can help your staff apply what they learn to their workplace.  An example of pre- and/or post-training could be using your in-house learning management system. Maybe a “flipped classroom” work where a lot of the learning is inputted before the virtual training itself (meaning the virtual training session focuses on application)?  How about individual accountability calls with the trainer after the training? Or on-the-job coaching delivered virtually as in our Presenting in a virtual environment training?

Target tip – Position the virtual training as part of a learning journey. Support managers and employees in understanding the role they play in maximizing the return on the training investment. This eBook can help you.
Go to the eBook
If you are interested in learning more about virtual training please reach out to us. We would love to help you.

Nine ways to Learn More … Effectively, Enjoyably and Easily!

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Want to learn anything more effectively, enjoyably and easily? Then use each letter of the words in the triangle to memorise the following 9 ways to do just that:

1. I Can – Believe it or Believe it not!

As Henry Ford once said “Whether you believe you can do something or whether you believe you can’t you’re right!“ Decide to believe in yourself – your potential is infinite and your best has yet to come!

2. Creativity – yours is infinite – let it soar!

We are born creative! Even though we may not have used our creativity for a long time it’s still there waiting to be unleashed! Like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz, it may need a drop of oil! Today do something totally new or something old in a totally new way. Your creative ability is infinite. Observe any children at play and you will see infinite creativity in full swing! Let them inspire you!

3. Attention/Mindfulness – learn to relax and focus

Learn to put your attention where it’s needed most and on what’s truly important in the present moment. As our society continues to get faster and faster, the tendency is to cultivate a mind which is always “racing” and prone to distraction. We must learn to relax our minds. Learn meditation, relaxation, yoga, mindfulness, tai chi or similar forms of exercise which cultivate stilling your mind and improving your attention.

4. Newness – your brain thrives on newness!

When you first arrived on this planet everything was new and in those first few years you learnt to walk, talk, recognise, eat and much much more! In times of great change we learn greatly! So remember if we resist change, we are also resisting learning! So travel to a totally different culture, learn something you thought you couldn’t learn and continuously try new ways of doing old things. If it doesn’t work, so what, learn from it and try something different instead!

5. Learning Growth – Continuously aim to improve how you learn

Before learning anything set yourself a goal – the who, what, when, where, why, how of what you’re learning. Ask yourself – how will I know I’ve learnt it – how will you test yourself? Get an overview of what needs to be learnt. Use the left and right side of your brain – the logical and the creative. For example use colour, words, images, structure, movement, rhythm, excitement, humour. Above all make it an enjoyable experience! After achieving your learning goal ask yourself – what worked and what could be done better next time?

6. Exercise – Physical exercise – Body/Mind

Recent research in Japan showed that people who exercise three times a week for half an hour have mental abilities 30% greater than those who don’t. It really stands to reason – do you think you learn more effectively if you physically exercise regularly? Test it and see – take time to exercise. The exercise can be gentle like walking, swimming, cycling or whatever type of exercise you like.

7. Age – regularly exercise your mind

No matter how much of your brains potential you have used so far, there is always more to use – you have at least 100 billion brain cells. The reason that we believe “mental abilities get worse with age” is because most people believe it! There was a time when we all thought the world was flat as well! We were all wrong! Begin to believe that your … mental abilities can soar with age… exercise them and as they say “use it or lose it”.

8. Reinforce – keep noticing what’s working: The law of reinforcement

Whatever behaviour is reinforced will tend to be repeated – so keep on noticing what’s working and celebrate it! Keep on reinforcing what it is you would like more of in your life. Think about everything that is working, then ask yourself – how can I improve the rest?

9. Never give up learning to learn

Learning is growth. Growth is learning. Never stop learning. Never quit exploring. Your canvas awaits your creative masterpiece. Never give up learning! Never give up learning to learn!

Now if you’ve read this far, congrats and remember as Einstein said “the true power of knowledge is in its application”. Decide to take at least one action after reading this article and learn more … effectively, enjoyably and easily! Let us know how it goes!

About the author

Sean is a leading expert on how to use more of your minds infinite potential. Sean trains and coaches organisations and individuals worldwide to tap into some of this untapped infinite mental potential. With over 25 years of experience in the training industry, Sean has delivered training to many businesses and organisations worldwide. You can learn more about him at: www.MindTraining.biz

The secret L&D Manager: What do L&D Managers look for in a training offer?

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This month’s Secret L&D manager is Australian, based in Germany and works for an American corporation which produces machine vision systems and software.  He has worked in training and development for over 18 years – as an L&D manager, an in-house trainer and as an external training provider.

eBook: The definitive checklist for qualifying training providers

What do you look for in a training offer?

First and foremost I want to see if the provider actually listened to me. I want to see some evidence that they understood what I was saying and had a clear grasp of my expectations. What I mean by that is the offer has to reflect my true needs and the information that I gave to them at the beginning. Next, I want to see some added value as well. Yes, I want to be sure that they listened to me but I also want them to bring something extra to the table. I guess I’m expecting them to show me that they are sharing some of their expertise and experience by offering me a new idea or a solution to a problem that I hadn’t thought about.

To be honest I don’t really want, or even need, a super-detailed offer document. In fact, the more I think about it the less likely I am to be impressed by a 50 page in-depth report with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Let’s face it, we’re all very busy, so what I want to see is a document where they break it down into chunks so that I can get a clear look at what is going to happen and how they’re going to make it happen. Oh and not forgetting, the expected outcome at the end of the training. You know, what people can do better after they have been on the training course than they could before. That is after all why we’re sending them on a training course.

Obviously I want a clear understanding of how much the training solution is going to cost me. Yes, I know that it is not always possible to identify every possible cost but what I don’t want are any nasty surprises later in the process. You know, you suddenly find you’ve got a business class ticket you’re paying for. That’s going to be an issue.

If it’s the first offer from a new provider, what extras do you need?

Things are a bit different when it’s somebody you haven’t used before. If it’s the first time, I really want to see an example of what the training material looks like. That look and feel is very important to me. I want to be sure that the material looks professional and isn’t, for example, full of cartoons or hand-drawn pictures. On day 1, when our people walk into the training session and pick up the material for the first time, I want them to be impressed. First impressions matter.

Equally I want to know what they’re going to get at the end of the training. Are they going to get a whole slide pack, pdf documents of notes, and photographs of flipcharts? You know the sort of things I mean. Whatever it is I want to know that in advance. So samples are always a good idea.

Do you need any information about the providers in the offer?

Generally not, I like to do my homework before anybody gets to the offer stage with me. I want to feel reasonably confident that the provider is up to the job, whatever the job is. So before I even ask for an offer I will have done a fair bit of digging and that will include references from previous customers and things like that. That type of thing needs to be handled before an offer not during or after the process.

How many offers do you look at for one session?

Generally I want 2 or 3. Any more than that and I’m wasting my time digging around and doing a very bad job of filtering out the good offers in the first place. There are times when I know exactly what I’m looking for and then one provider will probably be fine. Sure, for me, as an internal training provider, it’s important to have multiple providers. But if there are courses where we only uses one particular provider I don’t have a problem with that.

What is your biggest frustration with offers?

I think the thing that frustrates me more than anything else is when you feel like you’re just getting the same thing that they send to everyone. It drives me mad! Why did I spend 2 hours explaining my situation to you and you send me a generic offer. That makes me feel like I’ve wasted my time. I never expect to buy, and probably never (or very rarely), buy an off-the-shelf product.

And there is one more thing. The one where you get an offer that has no mention whatsoever of the intended outcome and what we’re actually trying to achieve. I would say those are the 2 most frustrating things.

 

 

Who is the Secret L&D manager?

The Secret L&D manager is actually many L&D managers.  They are real people who would prefer not to mention their name or company – but do want to write anonymously so they can openly and directly share their ideas and experience with peers. Also from the Secret L&D manager:

The Secret L&D manager: 4 questions for screening potential training providers

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This month’s Secret L&D manager is German, and works for a global telecommunications organization. He’s been working in training and development for over 20 years for a variety of organizations including automotive, financial services and higher education. He’s lived in multiple countries and is interested in balancing classic approaches with virtual learning and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). We asked him, “What questions do you ask potential training providers when they first approach you?”

This eBook is also available in German – follow the link below.

eBook: The definitive checklist for qualifying training providers

I get contacted by training providers on a regular basis, and to be honest how much time I give them depends a lot on what else is going on.  However I’m always interested in new ideas which I think can add value to our associates here and do try to make time to ask questions and learn.  I tend to get straight into things and want to take control of the conversation. I’ll ask questions like …

Tell me the two or three topics that you as a training provider are specialized in?

I’m not interested in working with training providers who say they can do everything. So what are the 2 or 3 things that you are good at? I want details. I want to see experience and innovative ideas. I want them to be able to talk me through activities and the “why” behind the activity.

If I feel they know about training and are not trying to promise the earth, my second question needs to be about their trainers. Knowing more about who their trainers are is hugely important to me and I need to know they’ll fit my training population. I ask something like ….

Who are your trainers? How do you find them? How do you select them? What is their background?

I was a trainer myself, and still do some internal training.  I know the impact and potential of the training is realized (or limited by) by the person in the room – by the trainer.  I want specifics and real examples from a potential training provider. I’m not interested in general broad-brush descriptions. I want to know who they would use to deliver a specific solution and to know why that person, what’s their experience, style etc.

I’d then ask …

Why do you think you’re different from all the other trainers and training providers that offer similar things?

Seriously, explain to me why what’s special or different about what you’re proposing? Otherwise, why should I change?  If they stop and think about the answer, that’s fine. If they babble, then I’m not interested. For me a training provider needs to know themselves why they are different or special.

My last question would be something like …

Before we spend any more time on this can you explain your pricing model?

I want to know what they charge for a one-day, off-the-shelf training program. The kind of thing that’s really a commodity product.  I want to know pricing for a customization and preparation, and I want to know if travel and expenses are included or not.

I want to find an example. I’ll pick something simple, so I know if their rates are competitive and if this actually makes sense to me and our situation. If you deliver a standard 2-day presentation skills training for me, what will the cost be for 10 people? And if it’s much more expensive than what I already have, or if I have no real reason to believe that they will be genuinely considerably better than my current solution, then that’s time saved for both sides. I also want a clear answer here.

I think these are my top four questions. These are pretty much what I need as a basis.  If I’m interested, then I’d like to meet them in person and see where we go from there.

Who is the Secret L&D manager?

The Secret L&D manager is actually many L&D managers.  They are real people who would prefer not to mention their name or company – but do want to write anonymously so they can openly and directly share their ideas and experience with peers. Also from the Secret L&D manager: