Practise

My passion is the practical aspect of learning. Luckily, I am able to travel the world with Actee because our partners and clients share this ambition of changing the world through workplace learning.

Through various surveys, we know that organizations have great demands when it comes to learning designs. The report ’Towards Maturity Benchmark Study 2016-2017’, which is based on an internationally recognized study on the implementation of learning – based on input from over 5.000 participants, suggests that many organizations wish to reduce their costs when it comes to learning activities while simultaneously wishing to increase the number of activities. This is a paradox with no obvious solutions.

I am sure that the answer lies with digitally-based learning technologies similar to the ones provided by Actee. Many of the larger companies that I work with make use of the Actee learning simulations and tools. The simulations provide relevant support to solving tasks in daily work life.

Time Is The Biggest Barrier

The report ’Workplace Learning 2018’ from LinkedIn suggests that the single biggest barrier, when it comes to learning, is indisputably a lack of time.

The lack of time, combined with the wish to reduce costs, points towards a situation in which we need to develop new standards and models that provide valuable but effective learning designs.

The survey clearly shows that organizations use 21 technologies on average, where the most applied technology is “still” Microsoft Excel.

To me, this is a paradox, since technologies like Excel and Word does not contribute towards the development of soft competencies. According to the LinkedIn survey, these competencies are the most important when it comes to L&D.

It is important to have learning technologies at your disposal since these provide support towards creating value and reaching the final goals of the organization.

The Three Steps Of The Kiss Model

I believe there are three important aspects when designing learning courses – back to the Kiss model.

Try to structure the course like this: Before the kiss, during the kiss and after. Think about learning as a process instead of an activity.

Before

What activities lie before the workshop? Implement this in your script of facilitation, discuss the technical possibilities of supporting this phase and how it is supposed to support the context of your organization. Make demands and remember to include the initial activities in your evaluations.

During

While designing the workshop (whether it is online or face-to-face), make sure to focus on the parts of the workshop that is going to support daily work-life directly after the course has ended. Consider implementing identical elements as suggested by transfer theory – is the participant able to recognize elements that are identical to elements in daily tasks. Even more important, think about how participants are going to transfer what they have learned to their daily work. These are the three main areas of concern:

- Persons who need to learn
- You, as the trainer
- The situation of application – daily work life

See my blog about transfer learning

After

What do you do in order to support the participants after the course? What are you able to provide through e-mails? What can you do for free? How much time does this require of you and your participants? Remember, once again, that the biggest barrier of learning is time. Ensure that the activities take no longer than 10 minutes while also relating to the practical tasks at hand. Think transfer – the better you understand the daily work of your participants, the more likely they are to finish your suggested tasks. Remember that the process is what makes learning successful - not the specific activity.

If you would like to know more about our learning solutions and the possibilities of creating a learning design, that contains all three parts of the process, please visit www.actee.com and try our free demo version of the hub.