As promised, I’ve put together a video to go with the post from earlier this week regarding the 70:20:10 principle. I firmly believe that the 70:20:10 ratio can work, however thus far it is failing to deliver on its potential due to a lack of structure and resources.
I am indebted to Moovly, whose wonderful software I have utilised to create this video, and to http://www.bensound.com for the wonderful backing music. As always, I appreciate any and all feedback, hope that you enjoy the video, and invite you to share it if you feel that it suits your needs.
Social Learning and Millennials seem to go hand in hand. The focus on social media, communication and gamification tick all the generational stereotypes when L&D professionals try to appeal to the increasing numbers of Millennials and Post-Millennials joining the workforce. The key to success with Social Learning is to ensure that it is created on a level playing field where everyone’s expertise and ideas are valued; the tech-savvy youth of today know when they are being talked down to and when appeals for their participation lack authenticity. Remember, Millennials may have been raised in a technology obsessed world, but they are not a uniform group, no generation is, meaning that those entering the workforce in need of development need to be treated as individuals with individual development requirements and unique skill gaps. Social Learning is a highly beneficial way to identify those needs, and create a community around bridging the gaps.
For more information on Social Learning and how to get started, you can read my previous blog post here.
Social Learning and Millennials appear to be a match made in heaven!
The biggest mental barrier to creating videos as learning and development resources is the perceived need to invest excessive time and money into unfamiliar and highly technical equipment and software to produce a premium product. Videos can be hugely expensive, and creating a micro-learning gallery of videos can be perceived to be well beyond the reach of smaller organisations. Costs incurred in instructional design, filming, editing and final production values make companies that are dipping their toes in the online learning environment very reluctant to move in any direction where ROI can be complicated to calculate, and upfront costs are many and varied.
This is an outdated stigma. Video doesn’t need to be this complex to create. It doesn’t need to be expensive and involve a lot of heavy production values to make it engaging, informative and effective. An excellent example of this is the Paperslide video series; these training videos are created in one take using a mobile phone, immediately removing the financial barrier of entry for smaller organisations looking to begin offering resources in this format. They are visually engaging, and cleverly utilise the short time given to the micro-learning topic presented.
There is no longer any excuse not to embrace video as a part of your learning and development offering, and to do so on a minimal budget with highly effective results.
The future of L&D is here now: while Gamification is still too expensive for many organisations to fully embrace and pursue, there is a need to adopt better analysis of training metrics, offer more flexible mobile learning access as well as provide micro-learning to complement the medium, and to personalise offerings to ensure that you don’t have a one-size-fits-all mentality to staff development. There is no reason why your organisation can’t be adopting and adapting new ways to boost and measure the effectiveness of your development offerings.
Gamification is definitely a subject I am interested in doing more with professionally. There is a reason why so many people (77% listed in the below infographic) choose to spend their time gaming. The personal rewards and enjoyment that come from ‘levelling up’, discovering new capabilities and progressing in the game due to increased skill all sound like music to a trainer (and training designer)’s ears!
Clearly industry leaders are pursuing gamification as a means of developing their staff, the infographic lists Deloitte, IBM and Xerox as pioneers in this field, and I look forward to seeing what comes from development and research into this area over in the near future.
LearningYourDevelopment 