Learning to flourish

Many organisations investing in learning technology are seeing improvements in productivity, engagement, consistency of messages, and training quality.

However, the Towards Maturity annual industry benchmarking survey reported in 2015 that while 88% of organisations want to use learning technology to improve business responsiveness, only 24% say they’re achieving this. 89% want to improve efficiency, but 41% make it happen.

As learning professionals, we can be enthusiastic that our organisations want to use learning technology to meet these business needs. But we must ask ourselves, “Why aren’t we reporting greater impact?”

The L&D function is highly valued for its potential to deliver operational change, but how can you develop a strategy for achieving these goals?

Acteon’s experience in working with companies on award-winning blended learning campaigns tells us that three practical, easy-to-implement ingredients are essential to delivering impactful change:

Aiming for action means pushing beyond the request for ‘a course’ or ‘an update’ and identifying the tangible change that is important to the organisation.

It answers the critical question, “Why is this needed?”

When you begin planning your learning programme, start with the change that is needed. Make sure this is crystal clear. Work with the Subject Matter Expert or the business customer to identify the main objective of the programme. This will not only help you design the programme, but will also help you measure its effectiveness.

As you hone your aim, it’s important to ask,

Sometimes it’s not obvious. Sometimes the metric you want to see move is counter-intuitive. For example, the business might say, “We want more people to report potential conflicts of interest.” Really? You want more reports of conflict of interest? “Yes. If it’s happening out there but it’s not being reported, yes, we do want more of those potential conflicts to be recognised and for the appropriate procedures to be followed.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. If the programme can raise awareness of the correct procedures, instil an attitude to do the right thing and protect the organisation, we might expect to see the action of reporting increase.

Before you set out to design your learning programme, make sure you know what you’re trying to achieve. And remember... “to refresh the course” is not an answer.

Your organisation is counting on you. Aim for action. And don’t stop asking “Why do we need this course?” and “How can this help the organisation?” until you get to a measurable and important reason.

We’re convinced that when people commit to their aim — when they really commit to seeing the change happen in a measurable way — business as usual will not always cut it.

‘Re-inventing the intervention’ involves focusing on your aim and your audiences, and then taking a fresh look at all the communication and training tools you have at your disposal.

Re-inventing doesn’t mean big budgets or longer timelines. It just means challenging business as usual in the light of your important aim.

In the ‘Aim for action’ step you established a reason for your learning programme. It now matters to the organisation in a clear and tangible way.

Will doing what you’ve always done get the results you’re after? Will a one-off e-learning course or classroom session be enough? Will that raise awareness, instil attitudes and change actions?

One way to fuel creativity for your blended learning project is to ask, “How would an advertising executive tackle this problem of awareness, attitude or action? How would they get people to change?” Advertising agencies live or die on their ability to drive behaviour change. Maybe we can learn something from an industry so intent on realising change.

For example, when the UK government wanted to change driving behaviour, they created a 30-second video, narrated by a child saying, “If you hit me at 40, there’s around an 80% chance I’ll die. Hit me at 30, and there’s an 80% chance I’ll live.”

Powerful. Behaviour-changing. All in about 30 seconds.

Think about all the communication and training channels you have available in your organisation and see what you can bring to bear to meet your aim.

Start by considering what has and hasn’t worked in the past.

Now that you have a list of the possible channels for reaching your audiences, take some time to think about your different audiences.

For each unique audience group, consider how you want to change awareness, attitude or action.

Now consider what will be the best method for affecting this change.

In the final step, we’ll organise the mix into a coordinated campaign.

When delivering positive, lasting change, there are
no ‘silver bullets’. Real change rarely occurs from a one-off training or communication intervention. If your organisation wants to meet the aim, you’ll need to campaign for change!

A campaign is a set of interlocking, coordinated activities using potentially different media and different channels to achieve a shared objective.

If your aim is important, it’s time to take the fresh interventions you listed and put together a time-phased and audience-specific campaign.

Sometimes people see the communication plan as only part of driving adoption of the main feature of your programme, whether it be an online course or face-to-face event.

Acteon’s approach is to design the campaign so that the communications will be a key part of changing behaviour and meeting your aim.

Think about your learning intervention the way a marketeer would. When an advertiser wants to change your buying behaviour, they campaign. They use multiple channels over a period of time to change your awareness, attitude and activity.

For example, posters could be used to raise awareness, or intranet teaser videos to change attitudes towards the subject.

Acteon and Channel 4 used this technique when creating a programme to increase awareness of, and adherence to, the organisation’s Code of Conduct.

Acteon designed a six-week campaign to staff around appropriate conduct and its importance to the reputation of Channel 4.

Posters were delivered on internal graphic message boards with striking images and provocative headlines to capture attention. A ‘Message of the day’ was displayed to all staff when they last logged into their computer each day. E-mails were sent from the Chief Executive at key points during the campaign, and video teasers on the intranet asking difficult ethical questions that caused the audience to doubt their understanding of the issue. They were then encouraged to seek the answers through the online e-learning programme and the Code of Conduct policy provided.

As you plan your time-phased, audience-specific communications, start with your aim and work from there.

Acteon facilitates a communication planning session for clients and we develop a detailed plan and timeline for the blended learning campaign.

We then work with our clients’ internal communications team, IT stakeholders and senior leaders to coordinate the campaign.

Here are some helpful questions to ask as you consider your different audiences, the audience objectives, and which methods and channels to employ.