During a conversation I had with an L&D Manager of a large high end retail company a few interesting points were raised. Allow me to take a look a some of those points … I’ll take them one by one.

Where should learning sit in an organization?

Learning should sit with Organizational Development. The most important reason being that the learning strategy of an organization absolutely must be aligned with the goals of the organization. Common sense? Wrong! This is often assumed but also where most problems arise. Ask yourself how many times you have worked in an organization where different departments act as competitors rather than colleagues. Is it possible a lack of alignment with corporate goals and learning goals could be causing this behaviour?

Ambiguity in the learning environment

The role of the learning professional is often faced with ambiguity and multiple changes on a daily basis. Does it help to have a PM frame of mind?  Being process-driven tends to build frustration when working with changing content and timelines.

Vendor relationship

As an L&D Manager you source and manage your vendors. They should be a network rather than simply an outside resource. Thus, it is important to maintain long lasting relationships that are built on trust and partnership. Transparency and openness (from both parties) is crucial.

Learner analysis

I have often heard learning professionals discuss the needs analysis of the training strategy, but rarely does one discuss a “learner analysis”. Who is your audience? How do they learn? What tools reach out to them best? With four generations in today’s workplace a thorough analysis of the learner is an absolute must.

Where do you stand on these topics? Leave a comment and let us know!

Philip Rocca is a Learning & Development Professional with Design & Delivery Management expertise specializing in Wealth Management and eLearning solutions. The following post outlines his thoughts on the effectiveness of webinars.

Are Webinars truly engaging?

I recently attended a webinar on facilitating interactive, engaging online webinars.

Ironically, nearly all the good points provided in the webinar were not actually put in place during the session.  There was essentially no interaction; the Q&A was only 5 minutes at the end of the session; there was nothing fun or engaging. 

I was neither engaged, nor was I interacting with the system!

The live aspect of Webinars….

In these instances, I have to ask “Why is this offered as a live event?”  Given there was only a brief period of time at the end to ask questions, wouldn’t it be a better use of time if this was a recorded on-demand event that was linked to a moderated discussion forum?

This would allow attendees to rewind, pause, or fast forward past sections that aren’t of interest.  It would also provide an avenue of discussion (through the forum) that would provide more direct feedback and guidance than the live session.

Webinar versus classroom…

Don’t get me wrong, I believe there is great value in a live event, but we should remember that the live event should mirror its offline counterpart, i.e. classroom, seminar, meeting, etc.

Let’s focus on classrooms.  Outside of college or university, would you ever conceive of having a 1 hour classroom whereby the facilitator lectured in front of the class for 55 minutes?  Even in post-secondary institutions, I would question its merit.

During that live classroom event, the facilitator would typically open the session, have participants introduce themselves, discuss objectives and agenda items, position the session, and then ask questions to create discussion and interaction.  There may be role-plays, story-telling, energizers and other fun activities.

Why would we not do any of these similar activities during a live online event?

Final thoughts…

Participants must get involved.  Facilitators must prepare (and practice) some key provoking questions that will demand a response.

Unless there is feedback required by the participant, I would suggest the event should not be live at all, and can have the same impact by simply providing an on-demand session.