THE “IF” IS BIG
So, why do you invest time in training your company’s workforce?
And, for that matter, why does your organization commit dollars to training initiatives?
Those answers seem obvious, don’t they?
“Our workers will acquire the skills necessary for improved performance and that will result in a better bottom line for our company?’
In a perfect world, those answers are completely valid.
‘nuff said.
But, it’s not a perfect world and those answers both depend on a single qualifier:
IF!
Actually, all training is not equal.
All courseware titles are not equal in scope or production design.
All trainees do not come to you from a single learning culture.
Many studies have proven that traditional “lecture/reading/testing” training programs no longer give the payback in skills acquisition and ROI that they once did.
For individuals born after 1960, their learning culture has become a multi-sensory culture. Full motion video, fully animated graphics, gaming and a word-for-word audio option are all essential to today’s workforce. (The word-for-word audio option allows the nearly 40% of your trainees that assimilate little written above a 4th grade reading level to learn.)
That is why, beginning with interactive laser videodisc (IVD) and CD-ROM, multi-sensory learning became the surest way to a training payback.
Today, we have evolved into an e-Learning training environment.
But, hold on a moment!
Far too many of the e-Learning programs currently available have taken us backwards into the “reading/testing” world. In their zest to make a quick buck, too many producers have taken the route of PowerPoint adaptation and written procedure adaptation into the e-Learning arena. The much more effective multi-sensory approach has largely disappeared from these cheaply produced e-Learning offerings.
The consequences are great. Skills are no longer being acquired as readily. The bottom line contribution of training has shrunk. And all because we have forgotten to insist on a continuum in the multi-sensory approach to learning.
We should all stand up and insist that those training initiatives that actually contribute are the ones that incorporate multi-sensory production — and we must summarily reject those adapted PowerPoint and written procedures that never belonged in an e-Learning environment in the first place.
And if we don’t, but continue to buy and/or build converted PowerPoint and converted written procedures, we are wasting our organization’s money; depriving our workers seeking opportunity; and, cheating our company from acquiring those additional skills that they will need to become more efficient and more profitable.
If that type of pseudo training is incorporated into your e-Learning initiatives — then why bother!!!
So, “yes,” effective training can significantly increase skills and contribute mightily to the bottom line — but only IF we demand a multi-sensory approach to our e-Learning initiatives and purchases.
And that, my friends, is a very big IF!
More on Monday – – –
— Bill Walton, co-Founder, ITC Learning
May 16, 2018
www.itclearning.com/blog/ (Mondays & Wednesdays)
“THE WORLD RELIES ON THE HANDS OF ITS MEN AND WOMEN”