top of page
agspacht

Worrying about making it easy for corporate learners is the wrong approach

Updated: Jul 14




As a trainer you want people to learn and have all answers at their fingertips no matter what the need.


So you crank out content.


Leaders want to impact the big picture topics such as revenue, net promoter score or talent retention.


So you put out more learning tools.


But all the learning efforts seem to be falling flat.


This is often when leaders will start saying, "there's too much information and people are confused".


"Make it easy for them to find things"


Don’t get fixated on making it easy for the learner.



I've experienced leaders asking for super-simple learning pathways so users can instantly find any topic, any time, at the tip of their fingers.


To design programs and learning resources so users don't expend any effort to find what they need.


They think it and what they need magically appears.


Heck, I've tried to build these sorts of amazing fantasy lands myself as I've churned out the content.


Here's the harsh truth....


No matter what system you build, no matter how logically it is organized, and how clear the instructions, if learning isn't important to the leadership it will NEVER be important to the user.


  • Users will always expend minimal effort to understand the system

  • Front line managers will always be confused & unaware of what's available

  • Leaders will always get complaints about or requests for topics that already exist

  • You will always be frustrated





 

Instead focus on making continued learning & development the culture and expectation


No matter how simple you make it to find and access, if the users don’t think learning is important it will never be “easy enough” to navigate your system.


They need to want it.


They need to understand the organization expects it. Their managers need to reinforce the importance of it.


Their compensation, development and promotional opportunities need to be linked to it. In other words, the firm needs to organically build training into daily life as a normal mode of operation throughout the firm. Change the mindset from being frantically busy executing activity with training as a sideline thing "over there" by building a learning culture.


Work with leaders and managers to build a learning culture instead of revamping your learning programs for the 100th time.


How do I know if a learning culture exists in my firm?

Here are some diagnostic questions:



✅ Do senior leaders support and reinforce the expectation for continued development?


✅ Is continued development and use of training materials part of the performance evaluation process?


✅ Is learning reinforced through compensation or promotion opportunities ?


✅ Are learning efforts celebrated and publicly visible?


✅ Do field managers promote and use learning materials to coach, guide and mentor?


✅ Do field managers carve out and protect training and development time from daily operations?


✅ Are end users routinely asked by all levels of leadership what additional learning topics & tools are needed?

The more you answer no, the more you need to focus on the learning culture before revamping your programs.


 


You can make the most wonderful learning pathway known to humankind, if it’s not important to the end users they won’t bother with it.


Leaders can push training teams to streamline and simplify all day long but if they don't actually support the training nothing will change.


First build a learning culture, then align learning to overall business strategies.


THEN make it easy for your learners to find things.


You will get far better results.

16 views0 comments

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating
bottom of page