However, it can be a tricky process. One simple change can affect every single part of an organization.

If a new initiative is to be introduced in your organization, you need to be prepared. Most organizations focus on project management, process management, or some kind of implementation methodology. However, this overlooks one key area – the people affected by the changes.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown (Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success) explores the steps organizations need to take to implement change effectively.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading.

Why learning and development is key to implementing initiatives

The key to implementing a successful new initiative is to have everyone on the same page, aware of the changes, and eager to get involved. That’s where L&D professionals come in. Who else is better placed to understand people and how to drive engagement?

L&D professionals are uniquely equipped to see all areas of an organization and provide support where needed.

How to manage requirements across the organization

One way to start is to get it all down on paper and document the requirements of everyone. What does everyone need for this new implementation to be successful?

Start with the global requirements of the organization. What’s going to apply to anyone and everyone affected by this implementation?

Next, use a department or team-specific approach. Some things will only apply to a small subset of the organization.

You may walk away with multiple lists, but this can help you better understand how changes will affect everyone.

Triage the requirements

Once we have all this documented, the next move is to triage the requirements. This is where you work out which requirements are critical versus which are just nice to have.

When we designate something as critical, it’s vital to document and discuss everything thoroughly. The more specific these conversations are, the better.

Once you get a better understanding of what’s critical, you can reprioritize things and streamline the run-up to the big launch of your company’s initiative.

Engaging people in the initiative

The next stage is all about the people. How do you engage the people in your organization? Who do you need to be engaged in this project?

This is something a lot of places overlook. It’s easy for us to get locked into just identifying the active, core project team – the people who will be directly involved in executing the changes.

While these team members are key, you also need other perspectives.

You need your key decision-makers, those who will help make new decisions and keep the project oriented to its goals. You also need your stakeholders, those who have a stake in the project, either from contributing feedback or other input.

Also, think about those who don’t have process ownership but may be affected by these changes. You can split them up into three different groups:

1. The champions

These are the people in your organization who are advocates of the team or the new changes coming. They’re on board with the coming changes, have enthusiasm, and are willing to support others.

2. The anti-champions

These are the types of employees who have more of a “sit and wait” mindset. They may even openly challenge the ideas and are naturally skeptical.

It’s important to have both representations from champions and anti-champions to get a true slice of your employees’ mindsets.

3. The influencers

Look at where the influence is coming from in the organization and strategically bring these individuals into the fold of the project. These may or may not be reflected in your champions or anti-champion groups, but it’s important to get balanced perspectives.

If you only have champions in your influencer group, the initiative is undermined from the beginning. People will be suspicious of a project that people have only nice things to say about.

You may want to avoid any negativity, but be brave and get those visible anti-champions on the project as well. You may be able to convert them to advocates by the end of the project.

Get feedback

Once you have all the requirements written down, you can circulate them through the entire group to get feedback. The earlier you do this, and the larger the group, the more time you save in the long run.

By getting feedback early on, you’re identifying barriers and obstacles sooner before they negatively impact the project.

Be realistic about the launch of your initiative

The next tip is to be realistic. Sometimes we can all be guilty of delaying a launch because we want it absolutely perfect. The problem is that these delays can mean you miss out on the ideal timing when there’s engagement and momentum.

Instead, you could prioritize and deploy the changes that matter most in phase one. This shows that you are taking action, driving change, and are solving problems. It doesn’t matter if it’s not the whole thing yet, but it gets the ball rolling.

Communicate often

When making any major changes that affect the whole organization, communication is the secret ingredient to success.

Don’t be afraid to communicate often and throughout the entire project. Poor communication can cause even the best implementations to fail.

Even if your team is working hard, you’re hitting all the goals and milestones, you can still trip up if communication isn’t clear.

Introducing a new system or process is a big change, and everyone reacts to change differently. Finishing up your project, launching it, and expecting everyone to get on board straight away is just not realistic.

Instead, you should communicate throughout the build-up to the launch and afterward as well. Everyone will know what to expect then.

You can start communicating openly about this in a few ways.

1. Sow the seeds

One way is to introduce it when you start documenting requirements. You can start to sow the seeds here and build excitement, even if you don’t explain the full scope of the project just yet.

2. Use cascading messages

Make sure you also check in with your leaders at regular intervals. Get them involved from the start and let them see what’s changing. This will help them to better understand the changes, and they can start to instill confidence in the employees.

3. Use direct messaging to all employees

As well as going directly to the leaders, we should also go directly to the employees. Some company cultures make this harder but going to the teams that will be driving the process makes the project much more inclusive.

If you just rely on cascading messages, it can create the wrong impression and perpetuates a strict hierarchy of who gets the exclusive information.

4. Connect feedback to action

The final piece of communication advice is to connect feedback to action. Whenever we receive feedback, we should always approach it with the intention that we will act on it.

Everyone wants to be seen and heard, so when employees give feedback, they need to know that it’s contributing to real action. It shows you’re truly valuing your employees and their opinions, which is one of the quickest ways to build trust and confidence.

Remember to celebrate the success of implementing your initiative!

Finally, it’s also important to remember to celebrate. Sometimes we can be too focused on the work, the processes, and hitting all the timelines and budgets involved with the initiative that we lose sight of the celebration stage.

Celebrating is a clear signal of progress. It’s a way to create a positive connection across the organization and to just have fun. This is where you just let loose with all your thoughts and celebrate the milestones your team has reached.

If we can celebrate all of that, it creates an expectation for people. It shows that we should never stop learning. We should never stop growing and evolving.

The post How to Successfully Implement a New Initiative in the Workplace appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Many of us get caught up in our own heads, too busy with the day-to-day responsibilities to remember to do this.

However, the benefits are huge for us as individuals, our colleagues, and the organization as a whole.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success, takes us through this topic in detail. Matthew shares all the benefits that come with forging strong connections at work, the best ways to do this, and why you should try to interact more with different departments.

To learn more, keep reading or hit play on the podcast below:

The benefits of building strong working relationships

When we focus on building relationships that go beyond our primary functions and responsibilities, the benefits are huge for the business and everyone involved.

Don’t limit yourself as a learning and development professional to only building relationships when you need something. Instead, think about the below benefits of building positive relationships with everyone you interact with.

1. It helps to build trust

Building trust always comes from building relationships. We can see a measured increase in competence and productivity from employees and managers when everyone’s moving in the same direction.

2. It improves confidence

When you have increased trust, you also have increased confidence. You have more confidence in others and yourself to do what needs to be done. This can help ease any tensions, help you collaborate and communicate more effectively with different teams. This, in turn, then increases…

3. It increases productivity

When you combine increased trust and confidence, it can only mean more productivity across the board. When everyone feels more comfortable, you start to see people become more inspired to find new and effective ways to get things done.

This can have such a positive impact on the company culture.

4. Employees become more open

Another benefit is that employees become more open as they become more comfortable. This means you’re more likely to get honest feedback, and they’re more likely to say when they like or dislike something. All of this is key to developing a working culture that’s supportive and encourages productivity.

Learning and development professionals should lead by example

As L&D professionals, we sit in an interesting spot in the company. You are connected to the entire business and can therefore tap into parts of the employee experience that other managers or CEOs may not be aware of.

If we lead by example and create and nurture these relationships, we can implement positive changes for everyone.

You can also look for ways to help fill gaps within your team or the wider organization to inspire people to think and operate differently. The great thing about building relationships is that it’s a two-way thing. You can help inspire employees, but employees can do the same for the business and the people in charge.

Fostering a culture of collaboration and open communication has far-reaching benefits that you may not even realize at the time.

The four key areas of business to build relationships in

Aside from your own little bubble in the workplace, it pays to go beyond our usual functions and connect with different departments. Four key ones to forge connections with are:

1. Human Resources

The benefits of connecting with HR may be obvious, especially as L&D professionals. However, if we look closer at HR, they are essentially the keepers of policies and all things employee related.

This means that we could become more in tune with our organization and maybe even uncover the real needs of employees. We can use our conversations with HR to uncover the gaps and see where we could improve the employee experience as a whole.

Think about ways that you can arm the HR team with some great insights from the L&D team. In turn, try to also learn from them what’s happening, what insights they can share which might help you solve problems for your employees.

2. IT

Where HR is the keeper of employee information, IT is the keeper of technology. Building relationships here could be beneficial to help you build, maintain, and use learning technology.

This ensures that our learning tech and any other online experiences we want to deliver will feel cohesive and integrated into the business’ strategy.

The IT team is involved in all areas of a business because the world is so dependent on technology. If you want to drive transformation throughout your organization, the IT team should be one of your priorities.

3. Marketing

Marketing teams are full of creative, open-minded people who can also shine a light on both the consumer and employee experience.

Think of the marketing team as a group of builders and designers. Their jobs are often collaborative by nature, and there’s an enormous value in partnering with marketing. You can learn much more about the business and the people, but from an entirely different perspective.

4. Legal, risk, compliance, and security

Collectively, these groups are in charge of the safety of the company, and by nature, they have a difficult job. They have to keep up with all the legislation, regulations and always check that the organization is compliant. They also must ensure all employees and customers are safe from legal action, online threats, and so on.

This is a largely overlooked team, but they have a lot to offer. This department is always on the lookout for things that can go wrong. They’re good at anticipating problems and solving them.

This means they have a completely different perspective of the business, which makes them an unbelievably valuable team to connect with. You can learn a lot from them.

There may be other departments in your organization that fit into this list. Some of them may be obvious, like operations, others less so, like the finance team. Each and every department has something to offer, so take the time to get to know them. Build those relationships, help others, and share perspectives. By doing so, you can inspire some incredible change.

The post How To Build Work Relationships That Go Beyond Our Usual Functions appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

When employees look at learning and development professionals, they may think of us as superhuman in a way. Perhaps not on the level of Superman, but they may assume L&D professionals have all the answers and don’t make mistakes. This just isn’t true, though.

Learners are not really expecting perfection. Neither are the companies themselves; yet, L&D professionals can fall into the trap of overanalyzing everything they do. All that does is create a tremendous amount of pressure.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown, Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success, discusses how to be your authentic self as an L&D professional and why it’s okay to not be perfect.

To learn more, keep reading or press play on the podcast below:

The truth about perfection

The truth about perfection is that it’s OK to not be perfect. There are some scenarios in the world where perfection is important, for example, performing surgery, but for the most part, perfection isn’t essential.

In fact, it’s in our imperfections that we really display our humanity. And in our humanity is where we become much more approachable and personable. This is key to developing deep, trusting relationships.

This isn’t just about L&D professionals either. It’s crucial that we help employees feel able to be authentic at work.

To do this, learning and development professionals can show their true colors and show learners and employees that it’s okay to do so. There may, of course, be some restrictions on that. For example, turning your hair blue in a customer-facing role. But there are other ways to work around that and still bring your authentic self to the workplace.

You can do this in a number of ways. It’s all about finding what works for you, but here are some ideas:

1. Bring things you love into the office

The trick here is not to overthink it too much. It could be as simple as bringing in a picture, figurines, or colorful office equipment. If you’re primarily a remote worker, think about placing things in the background that reflect your personality on Zoom calls. This could be pictures on the wall, ornaments, trinkets, etc. It doesn’t have to be anything huge, just small hints of your personality will do.

2. Show off your sense of humor

We could all use a bit more fun and humor in the office. A lot of people, especially in corporate environments, are afraid to show their sense of humor. However, making an effort here can help to reveal the real you.

3. Tap into empathy and compassion

When delivering learning sessions, try to make an effort to emphasize the content you’re delivering with things like personal anecdotes and humor to really lighten the conversation.

For example, if you’re going through slides, don’t be afraid to inject a little personality, color, jokes, or even memes to keep people engaged and also show your learners that you’re human too.

4. Be an open book

When sharing anecdotes and stories, don’t be afraid to talk about the not-so-glamorous stories. Mention the mistakes and failures as well as the successes. This highlights that you’re not perfect, and no one else is either.  This can really open up the topic and help people feel understood and supported.

Don’t wait for perfection

A lot of us put too much pressure on ourselves to be perfect, but this can cause problems. A common example of this is not asking for help when we really should because we don’t want to appear incapable. This causes all sorts of problems down the line when you end up really needing help later.

If you’d have opened the conversation earlier, got some help, some feedback, or support, things may have been different.

Remember, it’s okay to invite people into the process when you’re still mixing the cake. It doesn’t have to be fully baked. In fact, involving others helps to foster a sense of inclusion in your workplace. It gives others a chance to share their opinion and feel heard and valued for their contributions.

Accept that no one has all the answers

The final thing to think about here is the fact that neither you nor anyone else has all the answers. It can be especially difficult for L&D professionals to accept this because of their position as the person delivering the learning. However, L&D professionals are people too, people who are still learning and growing.

Acknowledge that and emphasize it to your learners because the learning never truly stops. Instead of trying to present yourself as perfect, why not use this opportunity to inspire and motivate your learners to reach their potential.

Demonstrate that you are a real person. You have pains, struggles, successes, failures, and you are not afraid to continue learning. This will help you connect with your learners and foster a more productive, collaborative environment.

The post Perfection: How L&D Pros Can Let Go of It and Simply Be Themselves appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Even those who love learning can sometimes struggle to motivate themselves to learn. It’s a common problem across all industries, and one reason is because training is usually a must-do, not a want-to.

Even when training isn’t mandated, a lot of people are still stuck in that same mindset. It may come from school or other workplaces where training is seen as a necessary evil. It’s something that distracts you from your routine and responsibilities.

How do we get employees to want to learn? How do we teach them about the joy of learning for learning’s sake, not just as a box-ticking exercise? The best way to achieve success with training is to have enthusiastic and open employees, but for that to happen, some mindset retraining needs to take place.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success, discusses just that. He shares some reasons why employees are hesitant about learning and what we can do to change their learning mindset.

Listen to the episode below or keep reading to learn more.

Current mindset: Learning is often compliance-heavy

Since the first moment we were introduced to the concept of learning, we have been pre-programmed with some very specific expectations.

Going back to our school days, the teacher would stand in the front of the room. They had all the answers. They told you what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. But they didn’t always say why.

As a result, people have years of habits and preconceived ideas whenever they approach learning later in life. They associate learning with something they must do.

In an organization, this continues. When we think of learning activities, it’s all phrased in a similar way:

• You MUST do your security awareness/anti-harassment training
• You MUST complete your new hire training by a certain date

These phrases all have an undertone of compliance, so we need to be careful in choosing our language.

If we want highly engaging learning environments, we need to figure out how to reprogram some of those ideas. We need to democratize learning and build excitement.

A simple way to start is to try and adjust the language you use when talking about training. You’ll then want to try to tackle some of the bigger culture issues to help shift that compliance mindset.

It’s not that employees don’t want to learn. They’re not completely averse to it. It’s about breaking the muscle memory and retraining their brains to accept learning as a want-to, not a have-to.

Common excuses and barriers against learning

People often come up with reasons against spending time in a training session. One of the most common ones is “I’d love to, but I don’t have enough time.”

Everyone’s busy with their usual responsibilities, so it can be a big ask for them to take time out from their day to learn.

Another one is, “I’ve already done something similar. I already know the content.”

Do any of those sound familiar? We live in a world where workdays are already crammed, and so trying to squeeze learning in there feels more like a chore. It becomes a box-ticking exercise where no one really absorbs the content or wants to be there.

The issue of trust affects employees’ learning mindset

On a similar note, one roadblock could be a lack of trust in the workplace.

If your employees don’t trust that you have their best interests in mind, they will be less enthusiastic about getting involved in learning.

When organizations push training, it’s usually to tick boxes or to fulfill items on a job description list rather than to benefit the employee themselves.

Employees may not trust you because they feel you’re only giving them training for selfish reasons.

A different approach to learning

Our main job is to help employees learn how to be learners again.

In their own personal time, they will have no problem seeking out information they need to solve problems or learn something new. For example, if they need to fix a home appliance, they might watch a few YouTube videos.

The issue isn’t that they’re averse to learning as a whole. It’s all about how it’s presented and integrated into the workplace.

Another approach is to think about making employees excited to learn. Instead of just focusing on the job they currently have, introduce opportunities for them to learn and grow for the job they want to have. Perhaps even make time for them to learn about their own personal interests and hobbies.

Make learning and development a benefit for the learner, not just the organization. This will achieve two things. One, it earns their trust, and two, it can drive some exciting transformation.

As an employer, you could provide a library of content to satisfy a wide range of needs to help earn their trust. You might want to encourage employees to each carve out a protected hour or hours per week just for learning and development.

By doing so, you can start to remove some of those obstacles to learning and make it more integrated into everyone’s work lives. It won’t be a quick fix, but subtle changes in the way you approach learning and the language that you use can slowly start to shift your employees’ mindsets.

The post How to Shift Employees’ Learning Mindset from “Must do” to “Want to” appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Often the learning and development teams feel somewhat separate from the rest of the organization and are brought into the conversation way later than they would like.

This is a common problem in companies and can lead to a gap in understanding, which can have a significant impact on the training content that L&D professionals come up with.

If this sounds familiar, the best solution is to go from being just an order taker to becoming a strategic business partner instead.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s Matthew Brown (VP of Learning and Brand success) takes you through ways to help you shift from being an order taker to a business partner. He shares his insights into how to get to know the rest of the organization and use that information to improve your training content.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading.

Questions to ask to become a business partner

The best way to start becoming a business partner is to ask two key questions.

1. Does the business know what your team is responsible for?

What we mean by this is, does the business associate you only with the output, for example, a learning result or a training program. Maybe they don’t know everything that goes on behind the scenes.

2. Do you and your team know what each of the business leaders and departments are responsible for?

More specifically, do you know what their objectives and KPIs are? As a learning and development team is somewhat separate from the rest of the business, it can be easy for this disconnect to occur.

The result is that the learning team builds its own agenda based on what it thinks the business needs.

If, we nurture closer relationships with the departments and business leaders, we can start to really understand all the different perspectives and needs.

One department leader might have an entirely different perspective on what needs work. That’s why it’s such a worthwhile investment of your time to get to know the business, leaders, and employees’ needs.

By doing so, you can become less of an order taker and more of a trusted and proactive strategic business partner.

There are numerous benefits to becoming more of a partner, but the main one is understanding the business at all levels. This enables the learning and development team and the business as a whole to build proactive paths for career development and progression.

With more of an understanding of the rest of the business, it helps everyone give more informed and honest feedback to expose what is needed. This allows the L&D team to build only the most relevant training.  

Build engagement

When we shift into that role of a trusted business partner, it can dramatically impact engagement in training sessions. When engagement has improved, we start to see participation increase.

This means that the knowledge transfer and knowledge gained throughout the organization also increases.

If we can get to this place where the learning and development team is viewed as a trusted business partner, we have much more visibility to achieve what people really need and want.

There’s often a preconceived idea of what every department wants to focus on. However, the reality could be further from that. They may already have the skills and experience they need in their department, but what about beyond that? What about the next step in their career or business objectives?

Having visibility and feedback from engaged learners allows the L&D team to take that into consideration. This can lead to much better productivity, performance, retention, and a healthy working culture.

What can you do to switch from order taker to business partner?

There are plenty of little things you can do to make that shift. Here are the three key steps to start with.

1. Develop the relationships

The first thing to think about is how you develop the relationships. It’s not a case of showing up with an agenda and trying to fit that into the team. Instead, it’s about building a solid working relationship, getting to know the team, what they need and want.

One way you can do this is to request that someone from your team attends leadership or department meetings. This would help you get a better understanding of what’s important to that team.

When we can get into these face-to-face meetings, it allows us to earn trust, and we can see what our learners actually need.

2. Use surveys and polls

Once you have started to build that trust and credibility, a great way to get more understanding is to use surveys or polls. These surveys and polls get much better engagement if the respondent knows that the person behind the survey cares and understands them.

3. Follow up and create action plans

Once you have a deeper understanding of all the different teams and they’re in a position where they can give you honest feedback, don’t just leave it there.

Whenever you can piece together information like this, the next step is to follow up and create a plan of action.

One way to do this is to split it into three touchpoints.

Three touchpoints to becoming a business partner

Touchpoint one is a summary or recap of the main takeaways. For example, “When I joined your team meeting today, I learned lots of great stuff. The takeaways were 1, 2, 3, and here’s what the next steps look like.”

Touchpoint two is when you make an action plan. This is where you lay out everything for the team and make suggestions based on what you’ve learned. Show them what the next steps could look like and invite discussion.

Touchpoint three is where you express and acknowledge the team’s contributions. Let them know that they’ve contributed valuable and helpful information.

It also highlights their responsibilities in training. It’s not solely down to the learning and development team to come up with all the training ideas for the whole company. An L&D team needs input and feedback so it can do its job.

Highlighting your learners’ contribution is a nice way to round off a discussion that started with building trust and engagement.

This final piece of the puzzle helps to solidify the learning and development team as a strategic business partner. Not just an order taker on the sidelines.

The post How L&D Can Go From Order Taker to Strategic Business Partner appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

If you’re not regularly maintaining and revisiting your learning system, you could be missing out on opportunities to improve them.

Sometimes the systems we build and the content we rely on for workplace training becomes out of date. Your learning system won’t tell you this, though. Your employees might, but the best way to know if your system is out of date is to revisit it regularly.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success at Schoox, shares his seven tips for learning system maintenance. He takes you through the reasons why you should regularly revisit your system, tools, and content and the best ways to do this.

Listen to the podcast below or keep reading to learn more.

Why it’s vital to maintain and revisit your learning system

When your home needs maintenance, you’ll usually be able to tell. Something will break, or you’ll see a layer of dust. When your computer needs an update, you will typically get an alert and an automatic update.

However, unlike in those instances, learning systems don’t give you a warning or a signal that they need maintenance. It’s up to you to stay on top of it.

You may already regularly update your content, but what about the learning technology itself? If you use an external learning provider or tool, regular maintenance is something we tend to overlook.

Many of us are guilty of ignoring minor annoyances, but then those issues build up into something much bigger. You might find that a small issue keeps cropping up, but it doesn’t cause too much trouble, so you ignore it. Then it grows and starts to affect other things until it’s harder to ignore and fix.

This leads a lot of organizations to do the rip and replace approach, which means completely turning the system on its head and finding a new one. This can be highly disruptive because you have to start over. The good news is you don’t have to do this.

If you regularly maintain your learning systems, content, and technology, you can extend the life of it and avoid that drastic rip and replace solution.

To start maintaining your learning systems, follow these seven simple steps.

1. Create a maintenance cycle

One of the first things to do is build a maintenance cycle. Start by looking at the different components of your training system. Look at things like permissions, assignment rules, pre-built templates, reports, and any other features and functionality.

Make a list of all these things and set aside a maintenance check on your calendar each quarter. Make sure each quarter, you analyze whether the features and functionality you need are still valid, useful, and are in working order.

2. Update your user documentation

Once you get into the swing of doing these quarterly maintenance cycles, make sure that you make notes and update your documentation. This helps you keep track of what needs checking and updating each time. This is especially important if the tools or software you use go through an update.

In this documentation, make a list of all the features you’re using or not using. Write down all the assignment rules and automation processes in place, and so on. Make your notes detailed so that it’s easy to understand the next time you come to do your maintenance cycle. Turn it into a checklist.

For example, you could make a note of a certain configuration in the tool and why it was put into place. In this instance, you’d write down the details of it, why you did it, and what you were hoping to achieve with it. When you come to check again, you don’t have to wonder. You can just refer to your notes.

If you don’t already have documentation, don’t worry. It’s never too late to start chipping away at it.

3. Survey your learners to get honest feedback

Once you have more of the technical checks down, it’s time to look at the people who use the system the most – the learners themselves.

Regarding the content itself, learners are usually quick to tell us what works and what doesn’t. However, when it comes to technology, learners tend to be more hesitant.

To get honest feedback from your learners, create an avenue where they have a clear way to tell you what’s working and what’s not. Those who are behind the scenes, cranking out content, may have a tough time seeing it from their learners’ point of view.

4. Create a baseline of metrics for your learning system

This refers to understanding how the system is used. If you haven’t already, a great way to check the effectiveness of a learning system is to track metrics. This enables your organization to create reports on the system itself and learners’ usage.

Typical metrics you could track include login frequency, return visit frequency, and engagement with the content.

Once you have those metrics in place, you can look at the normal activity and see if there are any spikes or dips in usage. This could give you a quick and easy indicator that there’s an issue to look into.

5. Put internal support in place

As with any type of technology or system, there always needs to be support in place. Make sure there’s a clear path for your learners to report issues and get technical support, especially if this is a system your organization has built.

Being the administrators can leave us a bit blind to what the learners are experiencing, so open up that support channel for them to share their ideas. 

6. Set up a plan to review support issues

The next step is to review any support issues on a regular basis. Having a place for learners to let you know about issues and feedback is great, but you really need a system to follow up on those.

Try to keep this fairly regular, ideally on a monthly basis, so you’re really staying in touch with what’s happening. Some of the issues that come up may be isolated, but there will be patterns to pick out, and the sooner you can spot these, the better.

7. Communicate what you’re doing with your learning system

The final tip is to communicate, communicate, communicate!

Throughout this process, you will find everything easier if you’re open to communicating. Let your learners know what you’re doing, inform your managers and anyone else involved in the process. Help them understand that learning material and systems are a living, breathing thing that requires maintenance for maximum efficiency.

By being open, you may be more likely to get honest feedback and support from others in your organization.

Do this with your employees as well as with your learning vendor or partners. Make sure that you’re letting your partners know productively and aren’t just reporting when something is wrong. Do so in a productive way that brings a solution or recommendation to the table as well.

The post 7 Steps to Maintaining the Effectiveness of Your Learning System appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Capturing your audience’s attention and holding it can make the transfer of knowledge much more effective.

It’s more important than ever to try and create a memorable connection during the learning process. It’s not enough to simply check the boxes and have all the right content. The content needs to be arranged and presented in a way that sticks in your audience’s minds. You want people to walk away with as much knowledge as possible.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success at Schoox, has some great ideas on making learning more memorable. Listen to the podcast below or keep reading to learn more.

1. Use emotion

The first thing to note is that the best way to connect a learner to training content is to use emotion. This is often done by invoking one or more of the senses at the same time, and there are lots of ways you can do this.

Whether it’s virtual training or in-person sessions, ways to invoke the senses include the clothes you wear, the background you use in virtual learning, and other little Easter eggs that you use throughout your sessions. You could use interactive experiences that get participants to physically do something. This helps to invoke different senses beyond the visual.

When we do this right, it leaves a lasting impression that makes the learner want to come back for more.

Sometimes, this is difficult; for example, it’s hard to make compliance training fun. However, adding something different or unusual into your training can help participants pay attention and remember what you’re saying. When we do this, we increase the likelihood of engagement.

Why is that so important? Increasing engagement and attention in your training sessions means that they’re more likely to learn and remember things.

2. Leverage technology to make learning more memorable

Learning doesn’t have to be dry and boring. You can make it more fun for everyone involved. Of course, fun is going to be relative to the audience and company culture. However, at its core, what we mean is finding ways to bring in interactions, to keep it fresh, and to leverage technology.

You can do this in a variety of ways, for example, quizzes and games, breakout rooms, or collaborative experiences. These are things that can be applied to both in-person and virtual sessions.

If you want to check how well your participants are retaining information, mini-quizzes are a great way to do this. It breaks up any lectures or PowerPoint presentations and keeps the learners thinking and focusing.

3. Include your learners

Another way to freshen things up is to include your learners in your content. Ask them questions that force them to really connect on an emotional level to the content.

Generic questions directed at everyone can be very thought-provoking, but specific questions for individuals can go much further in creating engagement.

4. For memorable learning, do something unexpected

Including something unexpected in your content can also enhance the experience. Even something as simple as wearing a colorful shirt or changing your background can create a fresh experience every time your learners come back.

They may be focused on figuring out what’s different this time, but while they are in that receptive mode, they will listen and hear your content.

5. Make learning part of their day

Another thing to think about is ways to make learning part of their day. A lot of people see workplace training as entirely separate from their job. When it comes time to do a training session, it can feel naturally disruptive and jarring, which isn’t a great experience.

What we should be doing is making the training fit naturally into their day. Make learning more of a regular experience that people become accustomed to on a daily basis – rather than leaving it to once a year.

6. Create a safe space

Another thing that learning professionals and managers can do is to create a safe space for people to take risks and make mistakes. When employees engage with the content, it’s a lot more memorable and fun if they feel comfortable enough to try out new things and ask questions.

This creates a much deeper connection to the learning content at that moment.

7. Involve learners in the content review process

How do you know whether your learning experiences are fun and memorable – unless you ask?

Find a way to include your learners in the content review process to ensure they receive the kind of training they need and want. Hearing their thoughts and feelings about your content makes your learners feel heard. It also helps you tailor the content towards them for the greatest effect.

Honest feedback from your learners is an invaluable part of the content review process. Ask them, does the tone seem right? Does it have the right aesthetic/company culture feel? Are the interactions valuable?

Remember that if you open the doors to this type of feedback, you might hear things you’d rather not. But the most important thing to do is never ignore it.

The worst thing you can do is ask for feedback and then do nothing in response. All that says to the learner is that you don’t value their opinion, which just creates a negative experience for everyone.

While you don’t have to take action on every single piece of feedback, being able to follow up, explore new ways to improve and take feedback on board is crucial. If there’s something you decide not to change and have a good reason why, don’t be afraid to be transparent with your learners and explain why.

Involving your learners and making training a two-way process is such a simple way to make your content more engaging, memorable, and effective.

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If you decide to take things externally, shopping around for a vendor is not an easy task. You need to find a vendor who can provide exactly what you need, a solution tailored to your specifications.

However, a common mistake people make is rushing into it without a plan. For long-term success, you need to approach an L&D vendor with a solid plan of action.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown, VP of Learning and Brand Success at Schoox, discusses the best way to approach L&D vendors.

Do: Identify your organization’s primary learning solution need

The first step in approaching learning solution providers is to identify the primary need in your organization. This could be something like, “we need our training to be more digital.”

Whatever your reason, try to get clear and specific on what the problem in your organization is, the missing gap that you’re looking to fill.

Being specific here will set you up for success. It will help narrow your search down and get the ball rolling a lot faster once you approach a vendor.

Do: Take time to prepare for your conversation with the vendor

By going through these processes, you will save time in the long run, even if it costs more time to put in the groundwork now.

There will be less back and forth, with the vendor trying to work out what it is you really want. Once the vendor has provided a solution, it will be tailored to your needs and hopefully be effective to the target audience.

So, spend some time thinking of the following things:

• What exact problem are you trying to solve?
• How does this affect the rest of the organization?
• What are the primary values of your organization?
• What type of vendor are you looking to work with?
• What’s the company culture like?

Coming to the table with a clear idea of who you are and who you’re not, will give the potential vendor a lot more to work with.

Armed with answers to these questions makes any conversation you have with a vendor a lot more productive. In fact, they may be able to give you some tips and ideas during that initial meeting.

Do: Discuss your learning solution needs openly with the vendor

Another great thing about having a conversation like this is that it helps the vendor decide whether to work with you as well.

When the vendor has a clearer understanding of what you need, they can go away and assess whether you’re the type of client they can help.

They may have a training platform that ticks all the generic boxes outlined in an RFP template. But when it comes to delivering the solution, it may be perceived as a wrong fit because it’s not tailored. It might be too long or short or too inflexible, or just not a good fit for your type of business.

It’s one thing for a vendor to say, “I create training courses,” and another thing when they say, “I create personalized training courses that meet your exact conditions.”

Without knowing what those conditions and specific needs are, how can the vendor meet them? That’s why it always pays to be prepared, to be thorough in your research, and to discuss your needs openly with any third-party vendors.

Don’t: Use generic templates for RFPs

One mistake we see organizations make is when they use a “requests for proposal” (RFP) template. Many people stick with the same RFP template they’ve used at other organizations because it’s the simplest and quickest way of doing it. While using a template may not be a bad thing, watch out for this common issue…

When you briefly mention your needs on a generic RFP template and don’t go into much detail, it makes it more difficult for the potential vendor to assess how they can help you.

This can cause problems later down the line when potential vendors struggle to meet your needs.

A vendor might be able to tick a box and say, “yes, we provide digital training solutions.” But they might not be right for your business unless you give them more context to go on.

A template is fine as a jumping-off point to spark ideas. But don’t rely just on a template when you come to discuss your request with potential vendors.

Some learning and development professionals struggle with helping their customer understand the value and importance of going that extra step to explain exactly you need. Not just in terms of solution and content, but also in terms of tone and company culture.

One step in this is to clearly determine what you as the organization know and don’t know. What will your company resonate with or respond poorly to? Where are the gaps in your knowledge and existing training? Only you know this. But the vendor needs to know this, too!

Don’t: Rush into a decision when selecting a learning solution

Many organizations make the mistake of getting so focused on the time and budget aspects that they lose sight of the bigger picture. This leads them to speed through some really critical steps that could make the process a whole lot smoother.

Don’t make the mistake of highlighting a problem, for example, “we have no digital training solutions,” and then run into firefighting mode where you rush to find a solution.

If you rush, you may risk focusing too much on making sure everything comes under budget, and neglect what the organization really needs.

The best way to set your organization up for success in the long term is to lay the groundwork first and get specific about your needs.

Download our free Buyer’s Guide, Navigating Today’s Changing Learning Platform Landscape: A Guide for Choosing a Next-Generation LMS to learn more about finding the best learning solution for your needs.

The post The Dos and Don’ts of Approaching Learning Solution Vendors appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

Every employee, manager, or business owner likely has a different definition. It can relate to day-to-day experiences, recruitment, training and development, retention, and everything in between.

It relates to every touchpoint a business has with an employee, from when they first join to whenever they decide to move on. The experience they have in between those two points and even beyond carries an impact across the company. Even once they leave, their experience can still create ripples for a business, for example, through Glassdoor reviews.

That’s why it’s so important to think about employee experience and employee culture, as both those things naturally go hand in hand.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Schoox’s Matthew Brown (VP of Learning and Brand Success) is joined by his colleague Karen Clem for a discussion on employee experience and the role of training in it.

Listen to the podcast episode below to learn more or keep reading.

How the employee experience and customer experience are linked

What some organizations overlook is the link between employee and customer experience.

If you have happy employees, this improves the customer experience they give which can help to boost company profits.

Satisfied employees will be happier, more enthusiastic to help, and highly productive. Those aren’t just nice things to have in a business. They’re things that any business needs to have in order to grow.

Why? Your happy employees will provide a much better customer experience. Happy customers will then leave positive reviews and become returning customers if they receive a great experience.

That’s why it pays on so many levels to take care of the people first in any organization.

The role of learning and development in the employee experience

How can learning and development improve the employee experience? It’s all about how you implement it.

A common mistake that learning teams fall prey to is a kind of firefighting mode where the team sets out to do very aspirational things, but then there’s a setback in the business. In this firefighting mode, it’s easy to lose the connection to the employee experience that an organization needs.

Where do learning and development teams fit into this? The main elements of the employee experience that L&D teams impact are the retention, professional development, and culture of an organization.

That’s why it’s crucial that learning and talent development initiatives bring solutions that make sense and can really elevate talent to grow people’s careers. That could involve leadership development, management, personal development, or even career pathing.

The problem with mandated-only training

Most companies will have some mandated training, perhaps once a year. However, if you want learning and development to become ingrained in company culture, you need to move beyond those required sessions.

If your employees only associate training with being forced to go there, this can affect their ability to retain the information, become engaged, and grow within the organization. It’s so important to create a learning environment that encourages people show up willing, engaged, and eager to learn.

Training sessions like sexual harassment training or other compliance programs may be essential. But we need to create a learning culture where employees want to seek their own opportunities. As learning and development professionals, it’s our job to create engaging learning solutions.

This, in turn, creates a very engaged workforce where people want to stay and develop in their roles.

Why an event-based mentality is the wrong approach to learning

The best type of learning is continuous learning, but many organizations approach learning with an event-based mentality. Rather than being an annual event, you should try to make learning ingrained in the company culture.

This event-based mentality comes from the tendency for business leaders to compartmentalize parts of their business. They’ll put elements of the employee experience into different boxes and have training sessions tied to those boxes – for example, a training session on diversity or customer experience.

The problem is that the employee experience is hard to compartmentalize and measure. Every second of a workday has the potential to alter the employee experience. Every day, interaction, job, or project can change it. There are naturally highs and lows throughout an employee’s experience.

While we can’t build a training course for every single time an experience is altered, what we can do is get used to paying attention to those peaks and valleys. Figure out what’s going really well and what’s going wrong, and get ready to address those issues when they come up.

How L&D professionals can impact the employee experience

It’s all about intent and commitment. You can have great intent, but unless there’s real commitment behind it from the leaders, it can fall flat. Making sure everyone has the right commitment level will ensure that the employees have the right experience.

It has to be more than an idea. It’s about putting that into action and helping people connect to the same intent.

Another thing organizations can do is look for opportunities to change the engagement with learning. Look for a way to help shift the mindset from have-to-do to want-to-do instead. This isn’t an easy thing to do and will take some time, but overall, it’s about having trust in your employees and creating a culture where people feel trusted.

It’s also about helping employees feel comfortable expressing their opinions on what type of training is working and what isn’t. Sometimes leaders can remain stuck in their own heads with ideas about what type of training to implement. We have to make sure those training experiences are well-suited to the employees who receive them.

Another thing to bear in mind is the overall discussion about training. For companies who rely on annual training sessions and wonder why they aren’t solving the problems they set out to, perhaps it’s because the subjects aren’t being talked about enough.

Look for ways to keep the conversation going throughout the year. Don’t just leave those lessons behind in the training room. Look for ways to add more learning throughout an employee’s entire experience with your organization.

Remember that learning is not an event. It’s a process. It needs to be ingrained in the day-to-day experience of everyone in the organization for maximum effect. By doing so, you will lay a foundation for employees to have a great experience in the workplace.

The post The Role of Learning and Development in the Employee Experience appeared first on Schoox - A Learning Management System.

For companies dedicated to learning and development, content curation is a great way to add value to their employees.

In the context of learning and development, content curation is the process of gathering, sourcing, and organizing information that’s helpful for a team.

In many workplaces, the learning and development team is solely responsible for creating this type of content.

However, companies should consider the benefits of empowering their L&D teams to tap into their employee community to help provide curated content, too.

In this episode of The Learning Xchange, Matthew Brown (Schoox’s VP of Learning and Brand Success) discusses the benefits of content curation in workplace learning and development.

Listen to the podcast episode below to learn more or keep reading.

The problem with off-the-shelf learning content

When it comes to training, companies may purchase an off-the-shelf training solution that doesn’t quite hit the mark when it comes to your team, specifically.

For example, you might work in the restaurant industry and sit down to watch a training video featuring people in suits and ties. If it’s not something your employees relate to, it’s much harder for that content to resonate with them.

So, what if, instead of this, you had a training program curated by the very people it concerns—other employees?

Here are four benefits of involving your employees in content curation.

1. Increased trust and adoption

Including employees in the process and asking them to share things that work for them can increase trust and adoption.

Employees could go away and find articles, websites, training videos that they find helpful and share them with others. Additionally, they could take part in some content creation and create videos or process flows for other team members.

Therefore, when the people sourcing the material have experience in the same role, it’s easier to trust and take their advice.

2. Content with fresh perspectives

We can always benefit from a fresh perspective, especially in the world of learning and development.

Learning and development professionals may be too close to the problem. Even subject matter experts can be too close to it. The perspectives are too narrow and the training becomes less effective or even over-engineered.

Additionally, try to consider the perspective of the training course. Did a boss or learning professional design it? How well will that translate to employees?

Similarly, you may have experienced training programs squeezed into a four-step method just for the sake of being in that four-step structure. Maybe it’s the typical way your company does it. Perhaps it’s based on a template. And the cycle continues with that structure.

So, what if you had a different perspective? You might find a far better way of organizing your content or program. With outside perspectives, you can start tapping into other ways to articulate messages that resonate with their intended audience. In other words, sometimes it takes a different voice to spark a better idea!

3. Positive effect on employee engagement

A lot of companies tend to think too narrowly about career development and growth. For instance, they may design programs with the primary purpose of helping people move up the career ladder.

Consequently, the problem here is assuming that everyone wants to move up. Some people would prefer to move sideways into a different department or role. Some people don’t want to move at all and are happy where they are.

For instance, if you design your training resources around promotions and getting ahead they’re likely to fall flat for those who don’t share that goal.

Does that mean these people shouldn’t take part in learning and development programs? No. Everyone can benefit from learning experiences that help them learn and grow, regardless of their career aspirations.

By realizing that not everyone is searching for their next promotion or wants the same outcome, we can alter our training programs to focus on development, not a fixed end goal.

The key is to encourage participation. Encouraging different types of people to contribute can be a critical element of your employee development strategy. This ensures that your training programs aren’t serving just one select group of people.

This takes us back to the second point: Sometimes, all you need is a fresh perspective.

But most importantly, encouraging participation in content curation and creation can add value to employees, increase engagement, and ultimately improve retention.

4. Helps you avoid building a program just for your needs

If you don’t involve employees in the content curation process, you end up building a learning experience tailored to your needs, not the employee’s.

For example, you may design a program and exam to keep a log of everyone’s skills and knowledge. But what value does this add to your employees? What more can you teach them about, beyond passing an exam or being a statistic in your records?

This doesn’t mean you can’t have exams, of course. There are other things to consider from an employee’s perspective, not just from the stakeholders in the background. 

In conclusion, try to get different perspectives. It can be eye-opening to hear alternate views and combine them together into something that really harnesses the power of all that expertise, passion, and talent.

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