{"id":417,"date":"2013-06-19T07:22:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T07:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/?p=417"},"modified":"2013-06-19T07:39:10","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T07:39:10","slug":"choosing-your-skills-development-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/?p=417","title":{"rendered":"Choosing your skills development platform"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my article \u201cStakeholders\u2019 roles in skills development\u201d, I explored the top three things that employees, managers and business leaders can do to help facilitate the effective transfer of learning from the classroom to the workplace. In this article, I want to highlight three things you need to consider when choosing learning and development platforms.<\/p>\n

By \u201cplatform\u201d, I mean the way that training is deployed, whether it is classroom or computer-based, whether it is delivered over a few hours or a few days, whether it is practical or theoretical.<\/p>\n

I have previously referenced research showing that only about 15% of classroom-based teaching transfers to the workplace. In my mind, that raises a giant red flag to all training and development professionals that focus exclusively on this platform. They need to introduce a more flexible way of delivering training programmes, one that offers a combination of traditional, classroom-based theory, self-study, e-learning and practical workplace activities.<\/p>\n

The Office Coach team regularly uses a clip from Success Television<\/a> where Brain Walsh explores different learning styles; \u201chear-ers, see-ers and do-ers\u201d. Imagine you are asking someone for directions to the nearest post office. The \u201chear-er\u201d will simply tell you where to go, the \u201csee-er\u201d will draw you a map and the \u201cdo-er\u201d will point and turn his body as he explains where you need to go. The \u201chear-er\u201d will cope well in a learning environment that is theory-based. The \u201csee-er\u201d will prefer a learning environment that offers a high degree of visual stimulus e.g.\u00a0 multi-media presentations. The \u201cdo-er\u201d will learn best in a practical environment, where he can practice new approaches to work and thereby develop new skills. When deciding between learning platforms, you need to consider the mix of learning styles your employees have and you need to adapt the training material accordingly.<\/p>\n

In addition to learning styles, you need to be honest about the operational pressures on employees. Very few people can afford to take time out of the office for training. In my experience, they are usually distracted in the classroom and stressed by the time they get back to the office. Take a look at a recent VideoScribe we made titled \u201cSpend 4 minutes learning why effective listening matters<\/a>\u201d. It is aimed at busy people who are best placed to make positive decisions if, from their desks, they can get a real sense of what we offer. It cost us little more than our time and some imagination but the result had a huge impact. We used VideoScribe for marketing but it can also be used to bring short training modules to life in a high-impact, cost-effective way. By breaking your training objectives down into modules that can be taught in fractions of an hour, you allow your staff the flexibility to learn when it suits them; when they are their most alert or when there are fewer distractions or operational pressures. This modular approach cannot be done with classrooms and lecturers. Instead, e-learning offers a practical solution and there are a multitude of open source technologies that make this possible. If your budget is bigger, you can enlist an external training provider to develop more sophisticated e-learning products.<\/p>\n

The Office Coach is currently developing a bespoke programme for a client aimed at addressing conflict in the workplace. We are combining a mutli-media presentation and classroom-based activities where we can facilitate the learning process with office-based activities that the delegates need to work through either on their own or in groups. This approach allows us to introduce key learning concepts and for delegates to practice them before we meet again for a debriefing session a few weeks later. Our framework combines a wide range of learning and development platforms that will resonate with all the delegates to various degrees. The end result, we believe, will be a training intervention that has a sustainable, positive impact on the organisation.<\/p>\n

We encourage you to think creatively about how you combine classroom-based teaching with more dynamic, customisable platforms to deliver learning and development programmes.<\/p>\nFind something interesting? Please SHARE it!

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In my article \u201cStakeholders\u2019 roles in skills development\u201d, I explored the top three things that employees, managers and business leaders can do to help facilitate the effective transfer of learning from the classroom to the workplace. In this article, I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.theofficecoach.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}