Enriching workplace learning, what are we missing when screen learning takes over.
I'm Nigel Cassidy and this is the CIPD podcast.

Digital learning is the new normal. It's flexible and convenient and a few organisations will probably go back and rely on the classroom to upskill their people. Yet, could it be, that we've got just a bit too cosy. Since the pandemic changed things, might we have become reliant on online everything. CIPD Research suggests we might be losing sight of the rich variety of the ways that learning can be instilled, so that it sinks in.

So, this podcast is all about reshaping your learning for success. How to gage what your organisation and its people expects. Ways to challenge existing learning practice and the use of tools and data and more to not only redesign learning but make sure that you know it's working.  Well, in a moment, its our pleasure to hear from Jilly Julian of Jilly Julian Coaching & Development, She draws on 20 years experience developing senior talent and what she calls, learning experience which sticks.

Hi there, Jilly. Hi there, Nigel.

But first, to set the scene for us, someone who we can rely on to mix things up when it comes to L&D because he's CIPD's Learning Content Manager - a welcome return to the podcast for David Hayden. 

Hello David. Hi Nigel, Hi Jilly - good to see you again.

Yes, so you mentioned there about redesigning learning and if we think about that word, 'design'. What is it that people hear when they that word 'design' and how do they translate it - defaulting to design in a training course or is it thinking around how to design that rich variety of tools we've got to support learning and performance in an organisation. And that rich variety of tools that we can use on digital products, not just defaulting to a virtual classroom.

Yeah.. because if we look at the CIPD Learning research, it did sort of highlight a lack of evidence-based principles to inform what progress looked like and how they are designed. It's almost as if deliberate and purposeful design is being  neglected. How has this happened?

It's really strange, so just eleven percent in our 2021 survey said they included any explicit role for design, so that's a role not a person. Yeah...but just over 1100 respondants, eleven percent, which is really kind of low. Our 2022 to 2023 survey is coming out later in the year, so I will be interested to see if there's any change in that.  

I mean, Jilly, it almost seems as if because of lockdown or something, we've taken up a lot of good things, but it's kind of gone too far.

I feel as though there's something here, almost a consumerist view of convenience that sits alongside some of the shifts we have seen over the years that have been - maybe, on the way already, but exarsperated by the pandemic and shifting ways of working. I think, part of what goes along with that, is something David just said about, what we mean by design and what design looks like in organisations.; because, I'm sure we have all had those conversations where design has started with - 'right, we've got 20 minutes', or 'right, we've got a day'. And if we talk at people for a day, it will be the knowledge equivalent of plugging them into the matrix and they'll know kung-fu. It's almost as if we can download knowledge and skills as opposed to the design stemming from. 'right, ok, organisationally, what is happening?, what needs to be happening?, what needs to be achieved? for our customers, for our market or whatever needs to be achieved'. And working back from that horizon stage endpoint rather than saying;
'Right, we've got these people for an hour'.

Ok, so, David - let's start from first principles. What is the classic proces, then? and how has it got distorted?

The classic process on a few people in my network has been - 'well, I open my laptop and start typing into Powerpoint and I pull together a lot of activities that I like doing and then I try to think what the objectives are'. It's, really, kind of doing a disservice to the organisation and the individuals coming through to learning.

 And then we've got some traditional approaches to design in terms of... the waterfall method, where you go out and you look at creating a wonderful programme. But, we've taken that long creating this wonderful programme, that the organisation has moved on, snf our data's way out of date. And, I think one of the reasons its fallen out of favour a lit bit, is it tended to take too long and the perfectionists in us in learning and development seems to take over rather than just wanting to offer a minimum variable product.

Ok, so Jilly, talk us through, maybe, an occasion when you've gone into an organisation and - dare, I say - you've seen, a proect (rather like the one, we've described). Tell us, how you immediately tell that there's something is wrong with it. And then just start talking through with David on how you start a new design, starting with, presumably, actually, something the organisation wants and needs to do.