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L E A R N I N G A N D D E V E L O P M E N T P H I L I P P A D O N N I T H O R N E - N I C H O L L S

How to engage modern learners

Today, searching online for almost anything is easy. What is a circle? Just Google it. How do I draw a circle? Watch it on YouTube. Should my circle be red or green? Poll your peers

on Linkedln. Here's my circle: what do you think? Ask your friends on Facebook.

Tap, tap, swipe, ping and there is your answer. While immediate access to information and learning opportunities across a range of platforms has its benefits it also has its disadvantages. This is particularly so for Learning and Development facilitators where hooking the attention of employees and keeping it is essential. It is their role to train employees to meet organisation objectives and to remain competitive and in touch with their increasingly digital customers' expectations.

Let's look first at a couple of the key obstacles L&D facilitators face when engaging the modern learner. Information deluge is the first. Subscribing to the torrent of industry tweets, Ted-talk notifications and text updates combined with accessing work- related webmail, websites and webinars all vie for learners' attention. Whilst employees will contend they want to keep their knowledge current, the pings and dings of notifications are distracting and lead to employees being impatient and prioritising what they read and assimilate while carrying on with their day-to-day work.

The second key issue is that employer and employee expectations are askew. As dubbed by Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, today is 'the Age of the customer'. Customers have been empowered by digital technologies and near limitless choice. To compete it is vital employers build a robust collaborative team of employees who keep their technical knowledge current and stay on top of changing customer expectations. However, the reality for many organisations is that they have to make sales to survive and profits to thrive. Many do not have the time or resources to dedicate to the learning initiatives their often geographically dispersed employees need. Employees want to learn however, so search elsewhere for on-demand answers to work-related queries.

So how do L&D facilitators develop corporate learning initiatives designed for the modern learner on the back of these and other obstacles?

A good place to start is by familiarising

themselves with Bersin by Deloitte's research Meet the Modern Learner. It is a snapshot of current research into who modern learners are and how they behave.

Engaging modern learners: How? Mobile learning is essential. According to Bersin, people check their smartphones nine times an hour and 'people are increasingly turning to their smartphones to find just-in-time answers to unexpected problems.' Modem learners are looking for learning on the go, at their own pace and in context. Many are working remotely and structuring work in non-traditional ways. Making learning accessible anywhere and anytime on any device, online or offline is essential as is the ability to log on and return to where the learner left off. Keep it short. T don't have time!' is a common complaint from learners who believe training takes them away from their core job functions. A theme of Bersin's infographic is the fractured nature of the modern attention span. It says 'most learners won't watch videos longer than four minutes.' Micro-learning is gaining traction as a strategy for quickly closing skill and knowledge gaps. Offering micro four-minute nuggets of training means learners can grasp new knowledge manageably without feeling overwhelmed and distracted.

Point of need learning. Traditionally L&D facilitators had a content first mentality and built comprehensive training programmes around what they think employees should know and then made this information available on intranets. Today 70 percent of employees access answers to on-the-job questions through search engines. That is because Google is the most readily-available tool at the learner's 'point of need'. Linkedln and other social media sites are being used to poll peers on more personalised career and business-related advice. L&D facilitators must meet modern learners on their own turf. Picture your employees searching your organisation's instructional content for on-demand support. Interaction is vital. L&D facilitators must avoid 'passive tools', says Ruth Garside, an Adult Educator in Human Resources at Ara Institute of Canterbury. She says actively getting learners to carry out a task and problem solve until they are able to act independently is essential for driving participation and applying what they learn. Debate, forums and discussing ideas as a group are key interactive tools. Create experiences. Modern learners are tired of stale PDFs filled with black text. They expect to be visually stimulated. Engaging lessons might include slideshows, images, diagrams, infographics, excerpts of

8 HUMAN RESOURCES | W I N T E R 20 17

L&D Facilitators must be modern learners themselves and subscribe to the w orld o f opportunities digital technology provides

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ff white paper text, book excerpts, illustrations and short videos. The design should be clean, contemporary and free of unnecessary distractions. Make time for training: According to Bersin, employees have only one percent of their typical work week to focus on training and development. Because of this 'more and more people are looking for options on their own,' often outside work hours. With only 38 percent of workers saying they have opportunities for learning and growth at work, this is no wonder. In fact, 62 percent of IT professionals paid for training out of their own pockets. Skills-training is essential and employers must make time for it. Organisations should have a dedicated period of time each week which employees can dedicate to learning. Make it fun. Attention spans are shorter today than in the past. It is time to make learning fun. Professor Karl Kapp's well-known infographic '8 Game Elements to Make Learning Fun' is colourful but has a serious message. It is about giving people effective learning solutions that cut through the noise of their day-to-day work lives. Kapp encourages the use of mystery, action, challenge, risk, uncertainty, opportunity, visible signs of progress and emotional content when designing learning experiences. Incorporate virtual reality (VR). This is the most exciting and game-changing tool for modern learning. As the quality improves and the price of the hardware reduces, software providers are quickly moving to maximise the potential of this technology and education will be a lucrative market for those who can meet the needs of L&D facilitators. The power of VR is that it allows the user to become immersed in an environment that is free from distractions of the modern world. With a VR headset and headphones on, the normal barrage of a workplace can give way to a world that is created by the L&D facilitator with the sole purpose of conveying information in a manner that is suitable to the learning style of the user.

An example is the interactive STIHL training course which won the eLearning Award in 2017. It allows employees in 160 countries to look at and try out new brand-name tools in a virtual environment including an interactive STIHL shop, a fictitious laboratory and in a forest. Employees wearing the VR headsets can disassemble the tools and look at the parts. Globally, thousands of employees are experiencing the same learning tool and will give consistent advice to customers. Whilst it may seem like a pipedream, imagine what this technology could mean for training in your organisation.

Summary People are hungry to learn and keep pace with global peers in increasingly connected workplaces. Employees know they must remain up-to-date in their skillsets to keep the organisations they work for competitive. Learning is vital yet the art of learning takes time and resources. Both employees and employers lack both. Key for L&D facilitators is to jump enthusiastically onto the modern learners' turf and celebrate corporate learning as worthy of time and resources. They must be a modern learner themselves and subscribe to the world of opportunities digital technology provides. It is only then that they can connect with their intended audiences by adjusting for changes in attention spans, competing with information overload and experiencing the power of social connectivity for the benefit of their trainees.

So, go on and Google how you can establish modern training initiatives unique to your industry and organisation. Perhaps even poll your L&D and HR peers on Linkedln. HR

Philippa Donnithorne-Nicholls (LL.B. B.Com, CMHRINZ, M lnstD ) is a L aw yer a n d HR Professional.

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Copyright of Human Resources Magazine is the property of Human Resources Institute of New Zealand and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

Copyright of Human Resources Magazine is the property of Human Resources Institute of New Zealand and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.