Do you have a roomful of jaded employees who are sick of classroom teaching? Human Capital looks at how innovative learning strategies are guaranteed to shake things up while still providing solid ROI

With the arrival of a new financial year, no doubt budgets are being scrutinised and pulled apart - and in some cases slashed. When economic conditions tighten, traditionally one of the first areas to be cut back in the corporate world is learning & skills development. This is a short-sighted and ultimately detrimental approach. One of the worst things any company, team or individual can do is play it safe and 'wait for the tide to turn'. This approach is an almost guaranteed formula to assure that you will be even more unsuccessful than the average organisation.

Rebecca Lambrose, client services manager at Odyssey Training, notes that continued L&D is vital for motivating and retaining staff. "Recent surveys completed indicate that employees see training as a key motivator in their job role and can in fact be viewed as the equivalent of a 1% annual wage increase. Feeling confident on the job and having the skills and support to successfully complete tasks is paramount to staff retention and in the current job market this can not be overlooked," she says. "Upcoming Generation Y employees view companies not from a 'what can I learn in this role?' perspective - but more a 'what can this company do for me' perspective."

Far from being a time of inward-looking caution, Jim Haudan, chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Root Learning, believes that during challenging times the pressure of the environment can create greater clarity on the risks that must be taken, the inefficiencies and redundancies that can be let go, and most important, the new actions that are necessary to thrive in a down economy.

"This puts a premium on getting people to think and act differently," he says. "Learning still remains the catalyst for people to do this. The important nuance is that the learning may be different - it may be more focused and need to move from experience to execution in a shorter period of time."

ROI
The ROI on L&D initiatives can be slippery to pin down - but this should not be used as an excuse to cut back on L&D budgets (see box for more information). Haudan maintains that in a difficult economy, learning and results become even more connected because most leaders want and need their people to mobilise around critical actions that change the performance of the business immediately. As a result, before the learning occurs, the desired outcomes become crisper; during the learning, the applications become more prominent; and after the learning, the linkage between actions and results becomes more transparent. 

"Measurement actually becomes easier because the learning manifests itself as 'quick hits' that really do target changes in the work environment and changes in performance, so it becomes easier to assess as a result. Surprisingly, many of our clients have suggested creating the urgency and 'stealth' nature of this kind of learning all the time - not just when the economy is struggling," he says.

General trends
Tailored and customised L&D is a major trend, as the diversity of the workforce - from culture and customs to age, demographics and other dynamics - continues to expand. This has led to a trend toward treating employees more as customers and recognising that segmenting them, understanding them, and connecting with them is an important prerequisite for L&D. "Before we determine what to offer our customers, we work to understand their needs. In the same way, we need to define our employees' needs before we design L&D. It's no longer one size fits all," says Haudan.

In response to demand from the market for shorter, 'impact now' courses, Odyssey Training offers a comprehensive range of short scheduled courses covering both computer skills and broader professional development. Odyssey also offers tailored solutions to client's specific needs - which Lambrose says is far more cost effective than a scattergun approach that wastes the time of learners with irrelevant information.

Odyssey has also recently launched a course called 'Managing the Generation Gap' - again created in response to client demand. "Our clients kept telling us that it was  a constant struggle to work in an environment with various generations and really wanted some tools to assist with managing this change. Our course really aims at explaining the different motivators and drivers within each generation. It arms managers with tools to identify these motivators and works with them to communicate in a more effective way with staff from all generations," says Lambrose.

Another trend Haudan is seeing is that organisations are providing much more opportunity for employees to practice before performance. This is showing up in terms of games, simulations, and other areas to hone new skills and abilities where the risk of performance is mitigated by practice sessions. It is this trend that is driving an increase in electronic learning, he says.

Rekindling the learning spark
Along those lines, some L&D providers are well and truly thinking outside the box when it comes to reinvigorating jaded learners. For Haudan, reinvigorating tired learners should be handled in the same way as dealing with jaded or tired customers: change the experience. "You do this by being very clear about what's relevant to them, rather than what you think they need to know," he explains. "There's a definite parallel between energised business relations between a company and its customers and energised learning relations between a company and its employees. It's important to recognise that realism and relevance are always defined by the recipient of learning, not the provider."

Additionally, Haudan has found that it's hard for employees to be jaded when they're constantly connected to the four 'roots of engagement', which he classifies as: people want to be a part of something big; they want to feel a sense of belonging; they want to go on a meaningful journey; and they want to know that their contributions make a significant impact or difference. 

Root Learning addresses those roots of engagement head on. The company uses an eclectic combination of strategy and learning, the right and left brain, analytics and creativity. This eclectic hybrid makes Root Learning unique, Haudan says. "We put together things that don't seem to go together naturally in a way that creates real breakthroughs. For example, we create fanciful, energetic visual cartoon metaphors for hard-core strategy. We draw caricatures and humorous sketches to illustrate tough issues that people don't know how to talk about. We build gaming and interactivity that are light-hearted and fun to help people take on profound risks that, in the 'real world' engender fear and timidity," he explains.

"If we appeal to people's highest level of thinking and get them engaged in the drama of the business, we'll begin to build a much higher level of capability and achieve better results," he adds.

More than kids' play
Others have taken creative learning to new heights. Most people know Lego as a children's toy. In recent years, however, Lego has moved into the corporate world. Lego undertook substantial research into children's development and creativity and the results of those studies have resulted in Lego Serious Play.

In Australia and New Zealand the one company authorised to use Lego Serious Play is Management Consulting International (MCI). Dr Denise Meyerson, director of MCI, explains the methodology of Lego Serious Play: "The methodology is built around everyone in a room participating. In a Lego Serious Play session you don't have the standard meeting situation where you have 20% sleeping, and the rest not taking part. In Lego Serious Play everyone participates 100% of the time because everyone has to use both hands. This taps into both hemispheres of the bran. You have to construct things and you have to give it meaning by telling a story. Lego Serious Play acts like a catalyst for releasing these stories. The bricks are no longer bricks - they become metaphors. So there's no flip charts and bullet points - it allows your thoughts to flow. It amazes me each time we run a session and you see the amount of change in people and how people have such different viewpoints."

A key strength of Lego Serious Play, Meyerson maintains, is that it develops skills to help people think systematically, and to see the world as a set of related systems instead of isolated silos. "Often people don't understand the impact of their actions on the bigger picture. In management training I don't think we put so much emphasis on that, on getting people to understand that an action impacts more strongly on one part of the system perhaps but that it also reverberates through the system. Lego Serious Play, through looking at how connections are done and how we throw out 'what if...' scenarios, allows people to see that they might only be one part of the puzzle yet their organisation is linked in so many different ways," she says.

Meyerson cites an M&A as a good example of where teams can benefit from Lego Serious Play. It can assist in allaying suspicion and fear. "It allows teams members to explore who they are individually, what they bring to the team, what they would like to bring to the team, where they feel the team is at the moment and what it looks like and what identity it has. That provides huge discussions because firstly you build your own individual model. It's not about building a collective model - you build what you have in your mind and put it out there."

In a recent team facilitation, Meyerson had one person take all the red transparent bricks he could find and placed them coming down from a solid brick - he felt that represented the blood that was flowing in his team as a result of the restructure. In another session Meyerson recalls one person creating a window with a small Lego figure leaning forward out the window. She said that sometimes she felt so pressured in her job that she could jump. "I don't think if I'd just gone around the room and asked 'how do you feel about the change in your organisation' that would have been revealed. I get emotional during sessions because I see people releasing so much of what they've been harbouring for a long time," she says.

Lego Serious Play can also be used for corporate strategy and creating visions of the future. "I asked an executive team to build me the vision of 2010 because they needed to cascade that into the business. Each one on the exec team built something completely different. One built a solid brick and said 'we'll be consolidated; all our brands will be consolidated'. Another one built one with transparent bricks and she explained how everything will be ordered online. The CEO walked around the table and said, 'this is an eye-opener' because everyone said something different," Meyerson says.

While getting buy-in for such a left-of-field initiative might be a challenge, Meyerson suggests it's no tougher than any other mildly intangible initiative. "Management and softer skills are harder to show ROI. An organisation must document it and check the feedback from participants," she says. "Certainly it's the most powerful methodology that I've seen in a long time."

Continuous learning
Whatever approach is taken, managers and leaders who feel they no longer need to develop their skills are simply fooling themselves. With an ever-changing work force, an increase of generational diversity and constant changes within organisational structures, managers who do not continually develop themselves both personally and professionally will soon be finding that the old tried and true methods simply no longer apply. "Learning is growing and as a manager if you're not growing with your team you are not learning anything new and therefore not keeping in touch with the environment around you," Lambrose concludes.

The new classroom
Jim Haudan of Root Learning outlines how the traditional classroom still has its place - with some minor tweaks.

"In general, classroom training follows the classic 'mug-and-jug' theory. Picture a traditional classroom with rows of students, with an 'expert' at the front of the room who holds all the knowledge. If a student sits there holding an empty mug long enough, the expert with the jug of knowledge will eventually fill it for him. That's pretty much how training has been accomplished in businesses in past decades.

One of the best ways we've found to help ensure that the modern classroom is both relevant and customer-based is to follow a three-step process of context, content, and practice.

 * Context is the 'why' behind the learning. Typically, students are asked to 'put puzzle pieces together' without ever having seen the entire picture. A cohesive, systemic view that frames the 'whys' so what once seemed overwhelming and random appears cohesive and sensible.

 * Content is the 'what' of the learning. In many classrooms, the learning ties back to the overarching strategy, and it becomes easier to grasp the supporting pieces. Learners can effectively build their content knowledge of each strategic initiative, skill, or activity once they can place it within the bigger picture.

 * Practice is the 'how'. With context set and content understood, learners can translate their understanding into action by practicing the skill in a safe environment, with supportive feedback. By planning opportunities for trial, error, reflection, and refinement, we accelerate the learning process in a way that is personal, applicable, and sustainable."

Mentoring
Although mentoring has been around since the time of Homer's Odyssey, it is only in recent times that it has been utilised effectively in the corporate world. Prof David Clutterbuck, author and international coaching and mentoring expert, runs through some key points about mentoring:

* "Mentoring has undoubtedly taken off in an expanded form over the last few years, and most organisations will have experimented in some way with mentoring. There are a number of reasons for that - one is the pressure to retain people. Mentoring is one of the best things you can do to retain staff. Research shows that on average you increase retention of staff by up to a third by having a mentoring program."

* "Informal mentoring happens all the time. The danger of informal mentoring is that it does lead to cloning and people tend to choose people who remind them of themselves. It tends to miss out the people who don't fit the mould - they haven't been to the right school, they're not the right colour or gender. The quality of informal mentoring improves dramatically when you've got some structure behind it."

* "Mentoring can be used for a large number of applications. About 10-15 years ago graduate mentoring was popular. Now there's an emphasis on diversity mentoring, helping to bring people from minorities into higher levels of an organisation. There is also an emphasis on reverse mentoring, where people from the top might get someone much more junior to mentor them about areas in which they don't know much about."

* "There are two forms of mentoring: developmental mentoring and sponsorship mentoring. Developmental mentoring is about helping people do things and make decisions for themselves, to access their own strengths, and determine what they want to achieve. Sponsorship mentoring is more about minding people, or protecting them. In sponsorship mentoring we talk about protges whereas for developmental mentoring we talk about mentees."

* "There's a lot of confusion between the terms coaching and mentoring. People tend to use them interchangeably because people have come to the disciplines from different directions. You hear some people say coaching is directive and mentoring isn't, or the other way around. The reality is there are several different models of coaching and several different models of mentoring. By and large coaching is always about performance; mentoring tends to be much more holistic and relates to somebody's career and broader development."

* "A good mentor has the ability to listen. The old 80:20 rule applies. If you're talking more than 20% of the time you're doing it wrong. They also need the skills to know when to ask Bloody Good Questions or BGQs. The questions must really make the other person think. There's a lot of mythology around the coach or mentor not needing to have expertise in the area in which they're coaching or mentoring. This is incorrect. You must know the context in order to ask the right questions."

* "It's certainly possible for senior HR people to provide a mentoring role for other people in the organisation. The problem HR faces is people don't trust them. HR has multiple hurdles to jump over, as does the CEO. HR can really add the most value by educating people about what mentoring can do and to ensure the quality is maintained. If you allow people who are not up to the task to become mentors that gives way to the perception that any person can do it and people feel they won't get much help from it. There have been other instances where people have been too afraid to tell senior people that they are unsuitable. HR can prevent this happening."

ROI
What are the appropriate metrics for measuring ROI for learning? Is it student throughput or time to mastery? Is it dropout rates or full-time equivalents returned to the workforce? Here are some tips on how to do it better.

What is ROI?
 * ROI is a traditional financial measure based on historic data.

 * ROI is a backward-looking metric that yields no insights into how to improve business results in the future.

 * In education organisations, ROI has been used primarily for self-justification rather than continuous improvement.
To calculate monetary ROI, identify the total financial benefit your organisation draws from a learning program and then subtract from that the total investment made to develop, produce, and deliver that program. Though it's difficult to measure all of the costs associated with the program and even harder to isolate the financial benefits from the program, this exercise is worth completing periodically so that you can assess the types of statistics you are tracking and if they are the right ones to measure.

Total benefits include money saved by the organisation, money made, and anything that adds directly or indirectly to the bottom line.

Total costs include the obvious and the not-so-obvious: development costs, learner's time away from doing something else, overhead of education department, physical materials, etc. (For instructor-led training this also includes program materials, meals/refreshments, facilities, cost of coordination, cost of job coverage during training, overhead of instructors, and any other cost incurred. Online courses include servers, graphics, web development or CD-production, etc.)

Questions to ask
 * Are the metrics you collect meaningful for the organisation?

 * What categories are you missing? Does another department collect the information you need?

 * How will you convert data that is not in a useful format for you?

 * What is your organisation's broad objectives? Are they broad enough? How do your programs' objectives align with your organisational goals?

 * What should you isolate and when is it more important to look at an overall effect?

 * What are the 'intangible factors' that contribute to your programs' success and the growth of those who participate?

At a minimum you should consider tracking the following internal measures.

 * Enrolment - are learners showing up?

 * Activity - are people moving through the course?

 * Completion - did starters finish?

 * Scores - how well did learners score?

 * Feedback - how was the program received?

Source: http://www.learnativity.com/roi-learning.html