Managing Learning and Development (L&D) during COVID-19

In the face of the current crisis, organizations have had to change the way they work. They are devising and implementing new operating models that could be a blueprint for the long term.

Here are some ideas and models that you can implement to ensure your Learning and Development programs succeed during COVID.

WHAT WILL ORGANIZATIONS NEED TO SUCCEED?

Adapting employees and their skills to these new operating models will be crucial to the success of these initiatives. For example, managers must learn how to manage teams virtually. Similarly, team members must acquire skills to communicate effectively using emails, instant messengers, and virtual meetings. These are just a few of the many instances where organizations will have to invest in reskilling or upskilling their employees.

Therefore, organizations cannot afford to pause their employee learning programs. Organizations must find ways to support employees in ways that were not needed earlier. One of the ways that organizations can achieve this is by setting up a Learning Response Panel (LRP). The panel can be composed of stakeholders from different parts of the organization including Learning and Development (L&D), Human Resource (HR), Operations, and Sales and Marketing. The primary responsibilities of this panel must be to:

1. Locate learning opportunities
2. Reimagine experiences
3. Produce content

We examine each of these responsibilities and explore how L&D can gain from LRP.

Locate Learning Opportunities

As organizations finalize their operation models, they must also list the skills that would be needed to implement the model. Once this is done, the organization can evaluate the currently available skill and identify which skills are needed. Some of the learning opportunities that the LRP can target immediately includes TILE, which stands for Technical, Interpersonal, Logical, and Emotional training opportunities. Let’s examine each of these.

1. Technical: The crisis will hasten the adoption of technology and automation as organizations move to a technology- and data-enabled model. This would necessitate that employees must understand concepts like big-data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics. In addition, some employees may need training on best using collaborative tools such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom Meetings, and WebEx.
2. Interpersonal: Due to the nature of the crisis, team members might work from separate locations. Therefore, employees would need skills to communicate properly over emails, instant messengers, and virtual meetings. They would also need to learn negotiation, persuasion, and influencing skills to find a mutually agreeable outcome when working with others while working remotely.
3. Logical: One key method to increase team effectiveness would be to provide more autonomy to teams. It is here that employees would needs skills to drive prioritization, decision making, and project management. These along with other logical skills like problem solving and decision making would ensure that teams can identify and resolve problems.
4. Emotional: Majority of employees who are accustomed to work with other team members will suddenly find themselves isolated. Such employees will need coaching to build their self-awareness, confidence, and image. In addition, these employees would also need help in controlling their emotions and persevere in challenging circumstances.

L&D teams can use this opportunity to integrate with the business side of the organization and align learning and business strategy.

Reimagine Experiences

Social distancing norms, travel restrictions, and safety requirements have made running physical classroom sessions difficult. Perhaps now is a good time to define new ways to reach your employees. LPR can implement this by designing for VICtory where VIC to represent Virtual Sessions, In-time Information, and Complementary Learning.

1. Virtual Sessions: Moving physical classrooms online requires a substantial (if not complete) redesign of training material based on the limitations of the underlying tool. To maximize session effectiveness, design activities for before, during, and after the session. For example, before the session, share the meeting details and the pre-requisite materials. During the session, use tools and features like polls, chats, and breakout rooms to encourage participation. Finally, after the session, provide any follow-up information, solicit feedback, and promote sharing on social media. This will ensure a highly effective learning program that will lead to desired outcomes.
2. In-time Information: Design a learning program that allows employees to access very targeted information and internalize right exactly when needed. To implement just-in-time learning, work to identify the relevant topics, narrow the focus to develop bite-sized pieces, provide examples and scenarios, and make the information available through multiple channels. In-time learning is especially useful to train employees on specific processes and procedures. For example, a salesperson traveling to meet a customer can hear a podcast on ways to manage cost-related concerns of a customer.
3. Complementary Learning: Encourage employees to create and share assets that complement the formal learning program. The assets can include videos, podcasts, blogs, forum posts, etc. This will result in the creation of a learning culture that is distributed and collaborative in nature. Employees would not stop at just learning and applying their knowledge but would share their knowledge with others. For example, managers can write blogs that identify ways to perform specific tasks using an application. At the same time, the comment section can be left for all employees to share their experiences to promote interaction. Additionally, these assets can be curated as part of a weekly playlist that can be shared with employees.

This is also a great opportunity for L&D to launch learning paths tailored to allow employees to master a product or a role.

Produce Content

The biggest challenges of the current crisis are the scale and speed at which organizations had to adapt. This is true for learning programs as well. As the situation changes on a regular basis, learning requirements will also change and the training assets would need to change to target different skill sets. Therefore, in times like these, a stretched-out development cycle for training assets might be counterproductive to the end goals. LPR can use this crisis and implement agile methodology to develop training as it accepts uncertainty as a given. To do so, L&D must embrace LAAp that is Launch Training, Assess Response, and Apply Feedback.

1. Launch Training: As part of this step, work towards building the simplest training assets that meet the requirements of the organization. At this point, the key focus is to move fast and address skill gaps with the goal to show value.
2. Assess Response: During this step, measure and collate employee feedback to the training asset. Analyze the feedback and prioritize its implementation based on variables like implementation duration, complexity, interdependency, etc.
3. Apply Feedback: Based on the prioritization look at ways to improve the training design and development process. Review the produced assets based on the feedback and its prioritization, rework it, and release the asset.

Implementing LAAp

The best way to implement LAAp is for L&D to act like a small company. Small companies are more successful at implementing agile as they know their requirements and do not need to work around multiple departments when implementing newer methods. In the context of a learning program, L&D working as a small company will have a better understanding of the skill gaps. They would also be able to pull disparate channels together to create a more efficient learning program. L&D must use the crisis to change the way they go-to-market and remove the pressure of perfection.

During the initial days of the crisis, the obstacles looked insurmountable. However, things have changed. Organizations have moved away from asking question like ‘why us’ and ‘why now,’ and are answering questions like ‘what next’ and ‘how to.’ This is where a Learning Response Panel can help organizations succeed.

At Check N Click, our learning philosophy revolves around finding ways to help our customers create a learning culture. This will help them adapt their employees’ skills to new operation models and ensure that they build new competitive advantages in the post-pandemic world.