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Modern Learners Speak Out. Listen to What They Have to Say!
Overwhelmed.Distracted. Impatient.
Theseare a few of the words that leading analyst firm Bersin by Deloitte uses to describethe modern learner. And they should come as no surprise. Technological advances,increasing customer demands, stiffer competition, and rapidly changing productsare transforming the traditional workplace—along with what, and how, employees needto learn. Yet, while organizations should be delivering training that meets modernlearners’ changing needs, many businesses are stuck using outdated approaches thatsimply fall short.
Here’swhat three modern learners from three separate industries (information technology,health care, and retail) have to say about the challenges they face and how organizationscan provide the best support.
Information technology
MeetPaul Carman, principal solutions architect at Hewlett-Packard. Carman supports someof the company’s largest clients across the East Coast of the United States andup into Canada. In his role, he’s required to maintain top-notch technical expertiseon all the products he represents. The products can include hundreds of featuresand functions that are updated approximately every six months. So, getting up tospeed involves massive self-initiated knowledge acquisition—often from a stack ofdocuments that Carman says could easily equal two feet in height. “It’s a bit overwhelming,”says Carman. “If there are 50 things I should know, but I feel like I only know10, I not only have to learn about the other 40, but I’ve got to figure out howto learn about them. So, it can be stressful, especially if you’re going to a customer’ssite and one of the 40 you don’t know is one of the things they care about.”
BecauseCarman also spends 60 percent of his time on the road, he can’t sit in on week-long,instructor-led training sessions. Scheduling one-on-one time with colleagues totap into their expertise is also a challenge. “I feel like there are high expectationsabout what you’re supposed to know,” says Carman. “But traditional training methodsaren’t enough to meet the escalating job demands of today’s fast-paced, mobile workforce.At HP, we’re investigating ways to address this.”
ForCarman, an ideal learning program would include a combination of training methods,ongoing evaluation, and continual reinforcement. “I think you need to have a mixof training—videos, classroom, documentation, etc.—because people learn in differentways,” says Carman. “I also prefer if there is some mechanism for scoring how wellyou’ve learned what you’ve learned, as well as something that identifies how muchyou remembered six months later. Then, if you don’t remember something, you cango back and learn it again.”
Health care
Carman’svast knowledge requirements and desire for a better way to learn are echoed by FredArgo, an executive sales representative and territory account leader for surgicalcare at Ethicon—a world leader in the manufacturing of surgical devices. Argo isresponsible for selling multiple lines of surgical products and services while alsomentoring a team of sales reps.
Withinthe past five years, Argo’s job has changed significantly. The sales cycle has lengthenedand he’s responsible for more products and accounts than ever before. “It’s overwhelming,”says Argo. “The feeling that you have is that you’re the jack of all trades andmaster of none.”
WhileArgo is an experienced rep and can build on existing knowledge of surgical proceduresand products, he says it’s easy for reps to feel, “stressed, less confident, challenged,and spread thin” because they have to be responsible for such a large product portfoliowithout always having enough time to get up to speed on everything they need toknow.
Argobelieves the best way to help today’s workers is to implement training programsthat allow success to be attainable but that also challenge employees to increasetheir knowledge levels. “There is a balance between being bombarded with informationand not having any training at all,” says Argo. “Things that are important, butnot important to do your job effectively, can just add to stress. So, it’s importantfor training to be relevant to your role.”
Retail
Dei’Gardner-Jones, a divisional asset-protection manager at TBC Corporation—one of thenation’s largest marketers of tires for the automotive replacement market—couldn’tagree more. He says it’s important to zero-in on training that pertains specificallyto the work employees need to accomplish. “Give me something that’s a little moretangible, a little more useful to help with the kind of job I have,” says Gardner-Jones.
In hisrole, this means training that can support him in recalling a mindboggling amountof critical information necessary for identifying risks associated with operatingTBC stores. “It can be overwhelming at times,” says Gardner-Jones. “The kind ofjob I have changes every second, every minute, of every hour of the day, and everyday looks different from the previous day.”
Gardner-Jones’vision of learning replaces the traditional notion of day-long workshops and, instead,incorporates microlearning, which is already part of the company’s existing eLearningplatform. “If I was going to put a training program together, I would make it aboutshort intervals of learning. One, because I know this helps retain information longerand, two, because it’s less intrusive on your day. And those short bursts need toinclude more robust information and happen more often in the course of a person’slifetime on the job.”
