The Future of Learning in Business

By Ted Gannan, CEO, Panviva Inc.

Workforce learning is at a turning point. Younger workers are entering businesses with a very different approach to learning than those who have gone before them, and older workers are exiting the business, taking years of business knowledge with them. Add to this the modern business environment with its growing quantity of rapidly changing information, and a very interesting training challenge begins to develop. All of a sudden, creating user manuals and running one-off training sessions just doesn’t seem to hold up.

Businesses looking to manage their business knowledge and training in the business environment of the future will need to reassess their approach. An effective strategy will include the following:

• “Give me what I need” approach

The solution must meet the needs and learning styles of the new generation of multi-tasking, fast-switching workers that grew up with computers, google and blogs and generally only delve into detail on an as-needed basis. The systems that support modern employees will essentially need to become like a GPS unit in a car. GPS delivers the right information at the right times to help you arrive at your destination quickly and efficiently. Support systems will need to be put in place to deliver the right information at the right time to help employees respond to customer questions, resolve problems, and maintain processes without having to thumb through paper manuals, ask their co-workers, or type key words into a search engine and hope for the best.

• Actionable knowledge

In order to give employees information they can use when they require it, information needs to be structured so it can be acted upon and communicated as quickly and clearly as possible. This differs from the ‘knowledge management’ approach of the past, which was simply about collating, cataloging, and storing information that exists. The new ‘performance centred’ approach is about applying what exists to situational and user context so it’s quickly comprehended for action.

• Employee involvement

Employees should be able to contribute to the body of knowledge they use – after all, they are the people using and applying the knowledge every day. This can be accomplished with an easy-to-use feedback process, where details of gaps, inaccuracies or other comments can be sent directly to the specific team member responsible for a document. When employees see their input has immediate and direct impact on the content, they are more likely to submit additional contributions. All of this means a better body of knowledge that is more relevant and applicable to users.

• Ongoing additions and improvements

Modern knowledge management is definitely not a one-time project. If employees repeatedly fail to find what they are looking for, or find obsolete or out-of-date information, they will lose faith in the system, stop using it, and be reluctant to try again. Business processes, software systems, and business rules evolve and change over time. As a result, a maintenance process is crucial to ensure content doesn’t become stale.

• Traditional training, but in a new way

One-time training followed by off-the-cuff support from the help desk is not sufficient, but using reference-based training, where the support tool is used to drive the training program and supplemented with specific training exercises, encourages the behavior required on the job — self-sufficient employees who refer to the performance support system first. At the same time, training can be refocused on core hard and soft skills, concepts, and understanding that are critical for users. More training time can be allocated to this effort, rather than to “button pushing” exercises that deliver detailed information that users simply cannot remember and that the performance support system will deliver when a user needs it on the job.

- Panviva are leading developers of performance support solutions that offer personalised, context-specific, self-service support that builds know-how at the moment-of-need. Panviva’s flagship product is SupportPoint. Visit: www.supportpoint.com.