Pivot: Look to YouTube to Improve Training

Do you turn to YouTube to watch funny stunts or quick demoson how to do things? Evenif you don’t use YouTube for personal learning orentertainment, as an L&D leader you can’t afford to ignore it.

YouTube is currently thesecond-most popular site in the world; people upload more than 400 hours of content each minute,and consume more than one billionhours of content daily. Clearly, the most-subscribedYouTube channels have figured out how to keep peoplecoming back for more. We in L&D can look to YouTube to improvetraining.

Look to YouTube to improve training

Themost successful YouTubers regularly leverage four habits that L&D can (andshould) think about when designing and delivering corporate L&Dprograms. They:

1. Relate to and representtheir audience
   

   Thereis no one-size-fits-all YouTube “voice.” Successful YouTubers know theiraudience. Their sense of humor, anecdotes, degree of detail, use of language, choiceof images, and even video production values are all appropriate to theirparticular viewers.

   YouTubersalso listen to their audience. They don’t need a Level 1 smile sheet asking viewers if theyliked what they saw. YouTube’s Comments function makes it easy to quickly andeasily like, share, and offer observations and suggestions.

   Wouldn’tit be great if learning management systems (LMSs) offered that functionality,as well? Yes, someone must monitor and moderate those comments, but think ofthe time saved and intel gathered by offering a comment function!

   Finally,YouTubers represent their audience—something eLearning must do. eLearning designersshould identify and incorporate images that reflect the diversity and aspirations of eachaudience. For example, encourage underrepresented employees to think aboutmanagement roles with courses that depict people who share their gender, race,and ethnicity in positions of responsibility.

2. Get to the point, quickly

   YouTubersunderstand that they must get to the point within the first two minutes of avideo, or they’ll lose their viewers. If only online training did the same… Themost common complaint I hear about eLearning is that the courses are too longand boring. When courses don’t immediately convey to employees what they’reabout they seem long, and when they don’t offer any practical or relevantinformation, viewers become bored.

   Microlearning is helping learningdesigners and developers get to the point more quickly, but designers needsupport from L&D leaders to formally require training to be as short aspossible.

3. Engage and entertain

   Successful YouTubers understand that theirvideos must capture their viewers’ attention, keep them engaged, and offersomething new or different from the last time.

   InL&D, this doesn’t mean that we have to gamify every course or pull out allthe bells and whistles for every single training intervention. It simply meansthat we have to make each learning experience a memorable, meaningful one thatoffers employees something new, thought-provoking, and tangible to use on thejob.

4. Say thank you

   YouTubersregularly and sincerely express their gratitude. They openly acknowledge theirdependence on viewers without whom their popularity—and monetary benefits—wouldnot be possible.

   Shouldn’ttraining also acknowledge, out loud, that the organization needs its employeesto care about and adopt corporate policies and procedures in order for theorganization to be successful? A sincere thank you for the effort involved toadopt new practices, policies, procedures, or tools can go a long way ingaining employees’ buy in.

In conclusion

Whyare the habits of YouTubers of interest to L&D leaders; why should we lookto YouTube to improve training? Because like other industries, we can and must learn from our disruptors. By doing so, we createbetter learning experiences for employees. We can’t afford not to.