The Learning Solution Mix

As I started my L&D career, I kept hearing the phrase, “blended learning.” And what usually was meant by blended was not just Instructor Led Training and not just eLearning, but a BLEND of the two. We could add a little bit of eLearning here and a little (ok, a lot) of powerpoint there… stick the learner in the oven (classroom) for a few days, then take them out and let them rest for a week or two expecting to have a high-performing employee when it was all said and done. 

And we still sometimes treat training like this. We treat it like one of those awful recipes you find online where there is a VERY lengthy backstory about how this person’s grandmother once ran into an old friend who was at their husband’s aunt’s house once and had this amazing pie… and how this person tried to replicate this pie but then stumbled upon a different way since one of her children is allergic to gluten and another child hates berries….. and so on…. and then…. finally…. THE RECIPE I CAME LOOKING FOR!

We have to make it stop. 

But in homage to the blended learning of yesteryear, I think we can, and should, think of learning and performance as a result of a mix of solutions. So, in an effort to craft that perfect recipe of human performance thinking for the learning professional… here are some general steps to consider:

First, remember that training is only ever PART of the solution and sometimes it’s not the solution AT ALL. So much can and should be said about a robust analysis of performance gaps, tasks, audience, etc.. All I will say here is that you have to keep in mind you need a mix of solutions and several of them will have nothing to do with formal learning. Be a consultant, not a waiter. 

Second, when you do use formal learning solutions, do everything you can to make them both efficient AND effective. Formal learning (what we normally think of when we say, “training”) is often a critical part of the mix. But when you choose a formal learning solution, make sure it is an effective and efficient solution based on sound analysis. You should KNOW what you’re aiming to accomplish with formal learning and push everything else out into one of the other options listed below. 

Does a new-hire need 4 hours on your company history in order to take that first customer service call or write that first line of code? Maybe (but probably not). Will your 3rd-year employee remember more than one or two of the ten new policies you’re launching next month? No. Is there really going to be a negative impact to the business or to your customers if that sales person can’t remember the name of that random part she can look up in a few seconds when she needs it 6 months from now? No. 

Focus on helping your learner with what they really need to know to start work as soon as possible and put everything else in a different solution. By disciplining yourself (and your team) to do this, you’ll be able to use that precious, rich, expensive time in formal learning to its maximum capacity focused on the knowledge and skills and solidification of concepts that are really important to get right from the very beginning. You also can use that time to teach them how to learn more in the future so they’ve learned to fish and not just gorged themselves on the big, beautiful fish you spent weeks catching. 

Third, focus on the workflow. Rather than thinking about everything a person may need to know or be able to do at some point in time (this is what training historically focuses on), focus on how your learner will perform their work. What tools will they leverage when they get stuck? Where do they go when they can’t remember the next step? Pro-Tip: It helps to actually sit with your learner population to see how they do their work (crazy notion, I know).

If you understand your learner’s workflow, you can begin to see where you can push certain topics out of formal learning and closer to the point of need/application. For example, those 10 policies releasing next month can be available in a knowledge base or, better yet, woven into the systems or applications that apply to that policy. 

I once was shadowing a customer service agent. She took a call that happened to come into her queue by mistake and the customer was looking for a different department… department XYZ. Since she couldn’t transfer the customer, she had to look up the phone number. To my amusement, she muted her phone and asked her teammates around her, “hey who has the sticky note with that phone number for department XYZ?”

Sticky notes.

That’s the way this team accessed something the moment they needed it. Was that phone number covered in the training? Hopefully not (though I wouldn’t have been surprised to find it hiding in the speaker notes). Was it in the knowledge base? Yeah, probably. But this team had already learned that when you need the number for department XYZ, you find the shared sticky note. While this is a bit of a stark example, the reality is if the phone number for department XYZ were to change, the fastest, most effective way to make sure that team had that phone number would be to update the sticky note. (Sidetone: updating the sticky note wouldn’t be the RIGHT way to go about it… but it would be the fastest for sure)

Leverage what’s available and look to implement solutions that help the learner in the flow of work. Knowledge bases, job aids, super users, infographics, etc. etc. etc. etc.... even sticky notes.

Finally, address all the non-Learning things. This is, perhaps, the most important thing when it comes to ensuring your learners can do their job and that your learning/performance/workflow solutions don’t fall flat: Understand and identify all the non-learning specific elements that influence behavior and performance. There are so many things that impact human behavior and performance… things like motivation and compensation and leadership and what you had for lunch. And there are a hundred things that can derail someone from doing their job as expected… poor processes, flawed systems, outdated policies, etc.. 

As a learning and performance professional, you’ll never be able to solve for all of those things (even if you could manage to somehow see them all). But the teams who deliver the right mix of learning and performance solutions, both formally and in the flow of work, design those solutions in such a way as to take into consideration everything else going on in the learner’s environment. By simply considering these things, you’ll become a much better learning professional. Pro-tip: Six Boxes provides a lot of great resources about things that influence human performance if you want to learn more

So much more can be said when it comes to the right learning solution mix. I'd love to hear how you tweak your recipes!