There are many reasons why someone might want to learn. To improve themselves, to get a better job, to complete a project, or perhaps just for the enjoyment of learning. Commercial learning is different. This is learning to add value to an enterprise â often an organisation. Commercial learning needs to be both effective â learning the right things, and it needs to be efficient, learning in the right way to keep costs and resource investment as low as possible.
Training professionals work hard to deliver commercial learning successfully. This includes competencies â skills, knowledge and behaviours â required, evaluating the competency levels of individuals and then describing the gap. They then look to develop solutions that meet the learning preferences of the individuals to be trained and the practical realities of delivering the solutions. This final point has been particularly important in 2020 and 2021 when the pandemic prevented people from being in close contact.
A major on-going challenge for organisations is to find ways of transferring the training input into learning that adds tangible value to the organisation. Too often individuals complete training but find that in a short space of time the learning has been all but lost.
One approach that over the years has proved to be very successful is the work-based learning approach. I have delivered several programmes, over many years for several organisations, including Zurich Financial Service and Ulster Bank that have successfully managed to bridge the gap between workshop and workplace.
The diagram below explains the model that I have found to work well.
Identifying Training Gaps
The model pivots around the organisational context and challenges.
– What is the organisation wanting to achieve?
– What is going on in its market and wider environment?
– What are the challenges?
The next step is to consider what are the practices that are considered âbestâ or âgoodâ. These are often described in standards and guidelines, both internal and external to the organisation. Some are mandated, others discretionary. These practices may be captured in competency frameworks â again these may be internal or external â that have the benefit of translating practices into competencies. These competencies provide the input for individual role descriptions. The theory is that the sum of the roles, delivered successfully, will deliver to the organisationâs goals. Of course, the world is not quite as simple as that.
The model moves on to consider how the role requirements match with the individuals expected to carry them out. Here we identify the âtraining gapsâ. This is a critical exercise for organisations to undertake, and to undertake it regularly. Training gaps is not some abstract term. They mean that roles are not being delivered successfully and this directly impacts the capability of the organisation to achieve its goals. Judgements will need to be made regarding the nature of the impact of a particular training gap and the risks to the overall organisational mission.
Delivering Foundation Knowledge
The question arises, how best to address the identified training gaps?
What seems undeniable is that there needs to be a means by which foundation knowledge of what an individual needs to know and do is delivered to the individual. This can be done in a variety of ways. In recent years increasing use has been made of digital methods, including online video-based training.
Digital has many benefits:
– it is often relatively low cost,
– highly accessible to the individual,
– it can be delivered anywhere and at anytime to fit the needs of any situation.
– It allows individuals to get the input very quickly,
– the material can easily be re-visited if there is a need to refresh.
Workshops and webinars are alternatives that have the advantage of being group based and provide the opportunity for individuals to collaborate and share ideas and experiences. It is usually a much richer learning solution than most online solutions. However, it will be more costly, less accessible and less flexible. There is clearly a judgement to be made about how to blend these solutions to achieve the right balance of learning richness versus practicality.
The Value of Work Based Learning
Whatever solutions are adopted to deliver foundation knowledge the critical challenge is to ensure that the learning gets transferred to the workplace, and further developed. This is where work-based learning proves highly effective. Everyone will agree that their most valuable learning takes place on the job. It is where we learn how to apply the foundation knowledge and skills in a variety of real-world situations. The more complex the roles, the more important it is to learn from real world experience.
Work based learning is more than merely a description. It is a structured process for improving the quality of the learning that naturally takes place in the work environment. Work based learning uses reflection as a key technique. When managed effectively it enables individuals to process their experiences into learning that they can capture and use more effectively in the future.
Work based learning is most effective when it is collaborative. It encourages individuals to process experiences with others and by doing so to enhance their own experience and that of their collaborators.
In the programmes I have managed a process that has worked well is for individuals to prepare a paper that reflects on and reports their learning from specific work-based challenges they address. Completing the paper is included in quarterly objectives to establish a link with the performance management process. This emphasises the importance of the activity and ensures that the individual can prioritise their work-based learning. It also has the benefit of delivering added value to the organisation as the activities will address real world issues and challenges.
In some situations, coaching can be used to help work based learners to better explore their experiences and draw out learning more effectively. The coaching support is usually provided to learning groups, and the coach will be there to help facilitate the collaborative learning process. Coaching can also be provided to individuals where appropriate.
In some circumstances external consultants can be used to work with a team who are addressing issues that they have yet to develop the level of experience necessary to address them successfully. Too often organisations will employ consultants who prefer to take on the task themselves and so exclude the internal team. There may often be occasions when it is appropriate for external resource to simply deliver the project. However, there can be enormous value to external consultants agreeing as part of their brief to work with the internal team and, through a collaborative work-based learning approach to transfer experience and insight to the internal team. This ensures that the internal team can undertake similar projects in the future, without the need to have the same level of external support or even any external support.
Commercial Learning Strategy
Effective commercial learning requires a balance between efficient core knowledge delivery and facilitating work-based learning. Online, on demand courses, supplemented with online webinars and coaching is delivering for many organisations efficient core knowledge delivery. Complementing this with work-based learning and the tactical use of external coaching and consultancy can turbo charge the commercial learning strategy to deliver more learning, at lower cost and resulting in higher added value outcomes.