Moving from Training to Learning

Transcript

Lachy Gray  00:02

Today we're talking about learnings role in upskilling staff. But over the past few episodes, we've talked to the speed of change in skills, and that 70% of the workforce is likely to need upskilling, rescaling or 25. So that's only two years. That's a huge change. And I can't wait to see how we're going to get there with the current approach to workplace learning. Which is often doing the least amount of training possible, if any. So Karen, what do you think needs to change in workplace learning for us to hit some of these opening predictions?

Karen Kirton  00:48

Yeah, because it is a big shift that we're talking about and I think to that, then companies need to be really intentional about learning and habit as more than just a development planning performance review, which is typically where it sits. So I know it's through our experiences working with different organizations when we ask about you know how do you too late in development, that's often a lowest scoring area of engagement surveys, that I'll be taller people can do whatever training they like, they just need to nominate it in their development plan. So there's not really that understanding of it's a bit more than that. And it shouldn't all be on the employee. And in preparation for this episode, I was reflecting on a focus group I did recently with some staff and you know, even within two focus groups at the same organization, there were big differences in the employee perceptions around learning and development, and also free opportunities. So it's we had some people saying, well, I'm actually quite happy with I know that if I want to do a training course I just asked my boss and I go on the training course, versus other people that were saying, Well, no, like I actually want someone who's much more interested in my learning. It shows a personal interest in me and my career, so that I know where to go. And then again, you had the flip side of saying But hang on, we're a small organization, you don't have anywhere to go. And then side but you still should enable me to be able to build my career, even if it's not here. So it was, it was really, you know, interesting discussion. And so as part of that, we talked about the generational differences, because it we've got to remember, we have we're saying five generations that were passed that same time, I think that fifth one's probably retired now. So let's say that we've got four. But, you know, there's still a big difference and McCrindle, who were Australian social researchers, you know, had a look at their predictions. And you know, they said that for Generation X one in four had a university degree and Generation Y or millennials, it was one in three, and they're predicting that Gen. Zed will have one in two. So, you know, I think already, you therefore say, well, people in that Gen Zed generation are likely to have that learning mindset. They're going to want to continually develop they're going to want to have a career path. And Gen Y and Zed and now the majority of the workforce are outnumbering us Lachy. outnumbering Gen Zed, and the baby boomers, so I thought that, you know, was actually really interesting. Have you seen that kind of generational difference in your organization?

Lachy Gray  03:38

Yeah, I think so. I mean, being a learning organization, it is something that we are focused on and we talk about a lot. Yeah, I think that yeah, perhaps how we learn has changed. I think when I before ya know, I thought of learning and training is quite a formal event and that's what that school isn't it and university, very structured. Yes. And then you get into the workplace. And a lot of it is quite informal. And you learned from your peer or the person who's got the most knowledge and who's willing to share it with you or could be a mentor. I'd certainly say that with younger people coming through. Yeah, I mean, the people we've had been so impressed that they really hungry to learn, and to adapt and change really fast. And I don't know if that's the environment they've grown up with and perhaps with a phone, they've got access to information all the time and that changes. So that is their normal. Yes, it is. For me, it wasn't like we just didn't have access. I don't think I got a phone until I finished uni. Right easy to think about. So

Karen Kirton  05:01

it was a phone it wasn't a computer.

Lachy Gray  05:05

That's right, 109 60-character text messages. But you're learning from books like textbooks and things where they might not change for years. Yeah. Totally different mindset. And yeah, I do think it's having a big impact.

Karen Kirton  05:24

Yeah. And, you know, also with that McCrindle, the 2023 trends of the year, there was two that I pulled out that I thought were relevant to today's discussion, and one was that they were saying we're going from industrial to artists, and so it's kind of like it's counter trend for mass production to quality niche and unique products and services as a business, but then also our workers are looking to be more creative and fully engaged in the work to be able to create that value. So I think that goes into that learning culture. And the other was the rise of the intrapreneurs. So, you know, people are looking for meaning for careers, that sense of ownership but don't necessarily want the the risk and the cost and, and the fun of owning their own business. So, you know, so you had this intrapreneur who's you know, really engaged in innovative and they're like an entrepreneur, they want to work inside a business. So I think you know, how do we reach those targets of upskilling then we need to accept it as a cost of your life for the business to grow and thrive just like we accept costs, like marketing or advertising for a business whereas I think that your training and development is often just been seen as a cost has easily severed from the business if we don't have the money at the time. And I think also to clearly articulate that to employees that this is our strategy that we are upskilling our people and because then you get the benefits of attraction and retention but you know, I mentioned that as a trading company is so lucky, you would see both sides with organizations either being fully on board with training and others that perhaps don't give your salesperson a call back.

Lachy Gray  07:05

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, because we're, we're unique, we're probably a very, I would say, performance oriented learning product. We're not a traditional learning management system, where you just upload everyone and you have a bunch of content there and you just expect everyone to go through it. Very tick a box style learning. That's, that's not us. So we don't, you know, we don't work with organizations who want that. Yeah. We do work with organizations who have that currently and want to move away from it. Because I mean, what is it achieving? The, it's called ticker box because that's what it literally is, and often the driver to do it is not so much learning, but it's to show a regulator or a customer or an insurer that this course has been done by these employees. And therefore, you know, we meet your criteria. And, you know, when we first got into IANA on I thought, I didn't I just didn't know that this was how it was this really strange, strange way to approach learning. So then we work with organizations who are fully on board so they have their company strategy. They've got their key initiatives, and they identified how learning can help support and achieve those key initiatives. So there's full alignment. And they're able to articulate that strategy to the whole business and how learning fits into it. So they're giving that context. And so I think for the employees when they hear that it's like right, now understand why I am doing this learning and that the business sees it as an investment, both in the organization's growth but also my personal growth. I think that's really important. And I really think we need to move away from this idea of learning and training is a one off to learning is a continuous event, because I think we have to do it. First of all, if the skills are going to change and the jobs are going to change as much as the research suggests, they will. And we should remember that these are predictions they are guesses, but it could go even faster. Yeah, no one knows. Some roles will probably change faster than others and some might change a little slower than the prediction but if you're going to change so how do we support our teams through this? So in that future of jobs report from 2020, which we refer to in previous episodes, they found that 94% of business leaders that reported that they expect their employees to pick up new skills on the job, which sounded great from the employers perspective is a little bit unrealistic. from the employees perspective, like how is that going to happen? Yeah. So I think part of it is acknowledging that learning isn't only the domain of learning and development, HR, that we're all learning all the time. And we just might not call it Training. So training workshop or an E Learning Module, that is explicit training, but showing a colleague how to do a process or run a meeting. That's just like work, I guess, but it's still learning. So when we're sharing knowledge and understanding to help someone else, that's learning so I think there's a mindset shift that's needed there. And as you think you're we spoke with Chris tan from the winning Academy in the last episode. And I quite liked how he talked about different types of training and learning and he said, there's three buckets training for compliance, which is your say work health and safety, HR with policies in cybersecurity, perhaps. And then there's learning, learning for enhanced performance learning for growth. And I like that he spits it out and he says that log businesses, if they're doing training and just training for compliance, they just tick a box. They really need to be looking at the other two buckets and here's this just a distinguishes between training and learning. And it might seem a bit pedantic but we talk about this as well. And actually, I first heard it from an author called David market who has a great book called turn the ship around about leadership. And market says that training is passive, that it's something we attend. Learning is active. It's something that we do and regularly and I think that really fits this model that we're talking about here.

Karen Kirton  12:15

Yeah, I completely agree. And I really liked Chris's categorizations to and actually had some similar feedback from people on LinkedIn when I posted about our episode, though, like, Oh, that's such a good way to look at it. Because, like you said, like a lot of organizations stick with that training for compliance. But I would also say many small organizations aren't even doing the compliance training. You know, and I know it's hard because, you know, when you're a smaller business, and you're really focused on profitability, you know, a lot of service based businesses are focused on billable hours. So you know, maybe that's where you're getting the 94% of leaders want them to do it on the job. Because they've got a target of 90% billable hours, for example. You know, and I think that on the job is important, but we also need to consider is it transferable? So, you know, people skills that are transferable and lifelong are more in demand, so they're gonna future proof the person going to give them more career options. You know, but also, it's going to help your organization as well because they are difficult skills to develop in people, whereas the on the job often sticks with, you know, the technical or organizational specific information. And, you know, you could have people that are assigned as a buddy or your team leader, etc, who don't really know how to impart that knowledge either. So, you know, sometimes the idea of on the job training, I don't know I feel like it's a bit of a misnomer sometimes. Because, you know, is it is it really training? Is it more just, I'm learning about what my job is? And I think to sit back and just say, Well, yeah, all of our people develop because our business is so unique that every day is different, and therefore they're learning all the time. So yeah, okay, I get a little bit of that, but, but I think there's more to it. And, you know, also when I think about learning, we quite like doing programs of workshops that we put into a learning program versus one day in out workshop. And that's because, like, you're saying that people are very passive if they think that it's a trading course. And so it's usually one of the first things that I ask is, okay, well, why are you here today? You know, go around the room. And I'll have people that will say, because I got an email that told me to come up. So it's like, okay, so So now I know what basis we're coming from. And, you know, one of the sort of intro questions I always ask is, hey, what's your name? What's your role, but also what have you learned this week? And it just kind of puts people on notice of, oh, what do you mean, what have I learned? And so I did one yesterday, and I was actually on the train going into the city. And as I was sitting there, I noticed that all these people in the carriage were like watching videos on their phone. And because I know nothing about social media, I was trying to work out like what form are they on? And then I realized it was Tik Tok. And so all these people sitting there watching Tik Tok videos, and a lot of them were cat videos. Did you know that cat videos were still a thing. So so that was what I took to the session. Yesterday, I said, What I learned this week was I actually got to see Tik Tok in action because I've never seen it in action before. And I learned that people still watch cat videos and they're actually still quite funny. So it just kind of gets people thinking about oh, okay, well that yeah, that is a learning like it doesn't have to be something massive start actually brings really good answers and information because we often don't realize how much we're learning but we do need to be open to it. You know, if I was just sitting on the train on my own phone, what would I've learned I would have learned the word or Day of the Day. So yeah, so I do think we also do you need to be open to it ourselves as well.

Lachy Gray  16:15

Yeah, for sure. I learned that there's something called an edge you talk, which is tick tock videos designed to teach something Yes. That real worlds micro learning. Yes. Very short, punchy messaging and because videos. I go through Instagram and now tick tock. Yeah. So popular. Yes. Well, let's match the message to the medium. Yeah. That's where people are let's let's go there. Yeah, and I do think it is hard. In a in a small business, especially a large one like if there isn't the support from the leaders. If you're not encouraged to do it. Then you're not going to do it. That I do wonder if this is going to change because the skills are changing so fast. And with the younger generations coming through, who habit learning mindset are more likely to they're going to be pushing for it. And we're seeing at the moment if it's an employee's market in the job market. They want to they want to grow. We've got a job ad out at the moment. For a customer success manager role, and we spoke in the job ad about looking for someone who wants to grow with us. We're growing both the business but each of us individually, and we want that person to want to grow as well. And a few candidates have called that out. Like how refreshing that is. So I get the sense that there are some people who are looking for that it's important to them, and it does match. Josh Burson is the HR research for us. The research that he's done that found companies that focus on their employees personal growth 29 More times likely to let their employees unleash their potential. Now unleash their potential is in inverted commas. So I'm not exactly sure what it means. It sounds positive.

Karen Kirton  18:34

29 times that's a lot so it's obviously good.

Lachy Gray  18:39

Four times more likely to be innovation leaders, and the one that really stood out to me was seven times more likely to be best places to work. And I thought, Okay, well, what does that look like in practice? So, I have to remember, he's usually speaking with larger companies, granted, but these companies will facilitate, like a talent marketplace where people can build skills through projects and gigs and mentoring. And networking, so very much supporting the intrapreneur concept that you mentioned earlier. Capability academies that guide you to mastery of particular skills and topics, and also career pathways with tuition free education. So quite interesting. How like, the larger companies are taking this on, I guess in the past, they may have paid for an MBA or similar but, and there probably are some companies I'm thinking of big, fast food, where businesses are franchises where they would have their own, you know, University and a way of doing it and everyone goes through that. But outside of that, I do wonder if this is a very interesting area, we're getting into, but that's great. For a large company. What about smaller businesses? So ya know, we're a small business. We do learning in lots of different ways. So we do pitch coaches, which are seven minute presentations, maximum 20 slides, and each slide advances up to 20 seconds, automatically. So through fun way to share a topic that we're interested in with the team and also practice being succinct. We do lunch and learns where someone picks a topic. There's a longer form prezzo with more q&a, and we had some lunch, spoken before about the roleplay that we do giving and receiving feedback. And of course, we use the Yano platform as you'd hope couple minutes a day. But also, there's a lot of implicit learning and coaching to and to your point earlier. Not everybody wants to necessarily grow all the time. That's okay. And the book radical candor speaks to this sort of identifying people as rock stars and superstars. So the rock stars are awesome at what they do, but they don't want to necessarily grow they don't want to manage people like they're happy. They just been happy, really happy doing their thing. The superstars want to keep growing and pushing and they want the promotion and they want the leadership and that's fine. They're two different things. But if you put the wrong person in the wrong box, you have a whole world of hurt. And I do think he's challenging for a small business when you don't have the upward mobility options. So have we talked about it like how can we give our Jana was that one some leadership opportunities? How can we give them those to them without necessarily managing a big team? And I don't know yet but that's what we're working on right now.

Karen Kirton  22:12

Yeah, I think the fact that you're working on it is a lot further than many organizations. So you know, because it can be harder. It's for business, but I've also seen it not so great in large corporates, too. You know, and I think it's a good point that you know, not everybody wants to learn all the time and we look at strengths for example, you know, people doing like via character strengths, and one of them is a love of learning. Now may not surprise you love of learning is one of my top character strengths, but not everybody values learning. So, you know, we also I find that it's important also respect those differences as well. So, I guess in smaller business, I think in some ways it can be easier to understand the individual and also what their needs are. But then, as important as that is, we also need to lay rain. Okay, well, what does the organization you know, actually be? Sorry, my phone's ringing turned off. The policies are turned off everything. That's my office phone, which I completely like forgot that there's an office for this room.

Lachy Gray  23:29

How do you meet that?

Karen Kirton  23:30

I don't know. That's what I'm looking at.

Karen Kirton  23:35

Oh my god, there we go. Do not just do it. It's so funny. I put my phone on today and do put my computer on today and they forgot that I was in the office. Okay, I'll have to go back a little bit. Here we go. Three, two. So if we look at something like character strengths, and you could use VR character strengths, and there's one there called love of learning, and so that can help you to understand that, you know, for some people, they may not actually value learning as much as you do. So, for me, it's one of my top strengths. So it's something that I need to be cognizant of and respect that difference in other people, that they may not have that as something they're particularly interested in. So I think it's small business. Sometimes it can actually be easier because we can understand the individual we can talk to them about their needs. But we also need to lay in what does the organization actually need over the next step is short, medium, long term if there is a long term anymore. Things move so quickly. I don't know it's worth thinking long term at the moment, but you know, at least short or medium. And you know, for example, is it time now to train someone up? In your organization? I'm doing check GPT prompts, you know, and have someone assigned to be the person that they're the guru in that area. Maybe they've got a genuine interest in it. And then they can then share that knowledge with the team and I think they're the sort of more easier things perhaps, that can be done and, you know, I know within within our team, we've got a small team of five and it's something that we actually look at, okay, yeah, we need to look at what's happening in the market, because people are coming to us as the experts looking for contemporary you know, people and culture practices. So, so we actually split up different things across the year and say, Okay, well, you know, what do you want to look at? Okay, I want to go and research reward recognition programs. Okay, off you go. That's, that's your thing. So, so it is a learning activity, but it's also got that business aspect of it as well in terms of okay, we know that we're continually looking at what's happening in the market so we can provide those insights to our clients. And then you know, obviously on top of that, that we have the individual learning of what people are interested in, so, so I think there are ways to do it in small businesses, but you first got to do like you said before that mindset shift to actually this as an important part of our business. And now let's think about how we're going to do that.

Lachy Gray  26:11

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it has been seen as a cost needs to be seen as an investment and really table stakes. I think to thrive as a business for the rest of this decade. And to attract the right employees. I think we have to invest. I love the idea of someone going off and becoming a subject matter expert even in an area they're not familiar with themselves. In encompasses so much doesn't it? You do the research, then you've got to distill it down and then share it back with the team? Yeah, I think that's that's actually a really good way to especially if you start to help someone who does want to take on more relationship roles, right, well, you go and own this.

Karen Kirton  26:57

Yeah, and sharing things. Back it forces you to really learn it properly. You know, when you have to actually explain it to other people. It's, it's it really is a very big step from just that research to actually know now I need to distill this and share this with other people. You really do very quickly learn the topic in depth.

Lachy Gray  27:19

Really, hey, thanks for all the questions you can be asked. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I spoke with someone last week. And the way they do it is for each role that they have, they've got a bunch of capabilities, which are almost like behaviors, I guess. And then they asked each employee to self assess their capability, where they're at for each one. And then you use the results of that self assessment to inform where they're going to focus learning over the next months and and that year well, that was really cool way to do it. So for a salesperson, for example, their capabilities might be grouped into like lead research, and qualifying a lead and presentation, negotiation, and the objectives relationship building. Each of those groups may consists of a few capabilities. And I think that's a pretty simple approach that feels achievable. And that new skills can be at all capabilities can be added to it pretty quickly. So there's the visibility. It's like, Hey, here's what we've agreed is required for the role. Here's where we're at. Here's where you want to be. Here's the learning that we're going to do. And this that's where we can have that conversation so well. That learning. Yeah, you might go off and do a course come back. Share us. Share with us your takeaways. It might be taking on a become a subject matter expert in an area. It might be doing some formal training. So whatever it is, but then we can use those kind of same capabilities to also hire against on board against, trained for compliance, but trained for enhanced performance and growth too. So I think that is achievable. And I think it's necessary, because we need to lift employee engagement because the other thing that came out of the future of jobs report was that 42% of employees take up employer supported rescaling and upskilling opportunities. That seem pretty low to me. And I don't know what the quality of those opportunities are. Now, that was back in 2020, so a couple of years ago, so I'm hoping things have changed. But I am mindful that if the motivation isn't there, to upskill people in particular roles that are experiencing great advantage with rate of change, then those organizations just kind of fall behind. How do you approach this with your clients?

Karen Kirton  29:53

Yeah, and it is tricky because not everybody wants to develop as we mentioned before, so So I think it definitely depends on the client. So for some people it's looking at if they have a lot of roles that are similar, for example, so let's say you know, they've got 10 bookkeepers, then you might say, Okay, well, let's actually put some competency based development ladders in place that that show is similar to what you're talking about the salesperson you know, these are the things that that you need within that role. You know, they assess themselves and manager assesses them and then you've got a document that shows Okay, well level one is this level twos this level threes these so it helps people to have an idea of okay, this is how I develop my career through the organization also how I increase my salary as I go up through those levels. But in organizations, they're probably more like yours where you have people in very unique individual roles. You know, that's more difficult to do because you don't want to create a situation where you've got, you know, 15 employees and all of them are directors gone up through their development ladders. So, you know, so another thing that we do is upskilling programs so they usually five sessions about eight weeks apart, and the sessions are somewhere between two and four hours long. So we're trying to keep it manageable, so people don't feel like oh, you know, I've got so much on I can't possibly go there. But also try to keep it short so that the sessions can be iterative, and that people can learn in between them as well. So you know, as an example, we have one client focusing just on their management group as they have very specialized managers, you know, the half on the tools that half leading a team and we really just identified that we need to start with the fundamentals of management. So looking at leave requests and types of employment and Performance Management, and you know, then layer it up into Okay, well, how do we manage multiple generations, you know, situational leadership and then moving on into tools like whole brain thinking or emotional intelligence? They are another organization, it's open to everybody in the business and you know, tied it to the top 10 skills and the future of work, but also looked at the business context. So those workshops are things like resilience and stress tolerance and leadership, social influence, thinking agility, critical thinking, emotional intelligence. So yeah, I think the main thing for me where I see it work quite well is when it is a program so it's not just individual training sessions that are just tacked on to an all team day because we have two hours spare and we need to fill it which I know happens and that's okay as long as you keep keep on keeping on and just don't have one session once every two years. So I think you know, having something that's named as a program it's not a once off it's not a walk in walk out, you know, gives it a bit of prestige, a common understanding in the organization. It shows that the business is focusing on the employees as humans and we want to be able to upskill you for the future of work. So it's not just about the business, it's actually about you as an individual as well. I think it's a great opportunity for people to collaborate to have fun with each other, particularly team members that may not otherwise see. You know, it's a selling point to candidates like you said, with your job ad you know, once you start talking about individual growth, you know, that's a huge component to attract people in and retain them. So, you know, and I think the key for me is really just keeping it iterative, you know, having short sessions having homework and, you know, to plug Yana obviously have a micro learning aspect can really help with that as well because you can have people go into a session and then use the micro learning as something in between over those eight weeks where they're just spending a couple of minutes a day answering some questions. So it just keeps that learning active.

Lachy Gray  33:53

Yeah, absolutely. And, and encourages conversations, I think around the learning as well. And that's one of the things that I've been really surprised by wasn't something that we set out to try and achieve with Jana that yeah, so you do the workshop, one of your workshops they can and then you start asking questions, and how will this actually work in practice? And then you're having that conversation, where you find out there's a gap that you don't really understand as well as you thought you did. That's really important. That you find out that out the better. And then you can bring those learnings back to the next session and talk through them especially with the subject matter expert, which is you in this case. So I know we've certainly found that beneficial when we've worked with you on the training side

Karen Kirton  34:47

Yeah. And I think, to that difference between learning and training, right, so if it's, if it's just that one session, to me, that's more training. Whereas if you have something in between sessions, where the micro learning or some other form of higher work, or you have groups come together to discuss what they learn in that session, that's where you get more into that training, because you're right, having that conversation and the application and then being able to go back and ask questions. is really important and takes it out of that just training. backups if you like.

Lachy Gray  35:21

Definitely. Let's talk about some some takeaways from today's episode, I think, for me, really encouraging that mindset change. It needs to happen. I think, looking at their roles and maybe picking one starting to everything about capabilities. By it is about role, doing a self assessment, just using that as a bit of an experiment, see what that's like to then help inform some learning and some training doesn't have to be massive. Doesn't have to be expensive. But you've got that alignment and visibility that you can go back in and talk about as the as the leader and the employee. How about for you, Karen?

Karen Kirton  36:11

Yeah, I think that's really important. I think it's an easy thing for businesses to do. But I also liked what you talked about in terms of what you do at Yato because I think it's also about having multiple things that you're doing. You know, that don't have to be massive things. They can be short things or having someone do a presentation, do your lunch and learn you know, doing role plays. So I would encourage people that aren't doing those types of things at the moment if you do have the development plan in your performance review. And that's the limit of what you have at the moment then perhaps start to think about what are the other little things that we can start to introduce and you can build that up over time.

Lachy Gray  36:54

And ask, what have we learned this week? Yeah. It's a goodie.

Karen Kirton  36:59

Hey, we should start all our episodes with that saying that this season's about upskilling. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as I said, I have a love of learning so I love it. Because it forces me to sit back and go, Oh, yeah, what did I learn this week? And you can actually pull out some really interesting things and realize, yeah, I didn't know that before. And yeah, I like being able to do that. It's fun

Lachy Gray  37:26

to those links to articles and anything else we've discussed will be over on our websites yahoo.com Today, you amplify hr.com Today, you just follow the links to the podcast section. And if you've received value from this episode, we would love it if you could leave a rating or review at Apple podcasts,

Karen Kirton  37:47

And coming up in the next episode, we're fortunate to be speaking for the second time with Linda Marie. So we spoke with her last season, who is an executive coach, and in our next episode, we talked to her about skills that leaders need to develop and how they've actually changed over the past few years.

Lachy Gray  38:05

Yes, so that podcast episode is coming up two weeks from now. Click the subscribe button to get notified when it's available. Any final thoughts, Karen,

Karen Kirton  38:14

I would just invite people to send us through what have you learned this week, and we can shout it out on a future episode.

Lachy Gray  38:23

Fantastic. Thanks so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time on the Make It Work podcast.