Who Needs Training, Again?

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At
some point in time I am sure we’ve all found ourselves with an answer
staring us in the face, but we just haven’t managed to see it yet.

Spending
money, time and effort providing face-to-face training or eLearning
courses for workers in an attempt to equip them to use new processes and
systems as they’re rolled out across our organisations is one of these
cases.

Most of us know there are better solutions, but few Training and L&D people utilise them.

The Systems and Processes Training Dilemma
Many
of us have faced the challenge of ensuring that employees can navigate
and use new processes and systems as they’re deployed across our
organisations. All of us in corporate or organisational L&D roles
are tasked with ensuring new hires come to terms with their ERP and CRM
environments and with other specific processes and products quickly and
efficiently.

Almost without exception this challenge is met
with some form of training solution. Equally, there’s usually a call for
more training when systems and processes change or when the initial
training hasn’t ‘stuck’ first time around.

However there are
far more effective and efficient approaches than training that address
this challenge of improving ‘speed-to-competence’. It’s just that they
seem to be out of the range of vision of many L&D practitioners.

The Power of Performance Support – Integrating Learning into Work
One of the most powerful alternatives to the ‘train-and-train-again’ approach is some form of Performance Support.
Performance support has been part of the toolkit for building human
performance and productivity for centuries. In fact the
master-apprentice model is based on the concept of performance support
and it’s been around almost since the dawn of mankind. A worker with a
higher level of mastery ensures on-the-job support is always at hand as
the apprentice develops their own mastery.

Over the years a
wide range of job aids, whether delivered with the help of technology or
not, have been used as simple forms of performance support. However the
implementation of performance support tools and solutions as a more
effective alternative to training is still on the periphery rather than
at the core of how workforce development is done.

ePSS
Most of us know quite a lot about ePSS – Electronic Performance Support Systems. They are job aids’ younger brothers.

ePSS has been around in reasonably developed form for at least the past 20 years. Gloria Gery’s excellent 1991 book ‘Electronic Performance Support Systems: How and why to remake the workplace through the strategic application of technology
which emerged from earlier ideas at AT&T was an important waypoint
for the concept and practice and should be on every L&D
professional’s bookshelf.

Although ePSS as a mindset has grown
up considerably since Gery wrote her book, it hasn’t been adopted by the
L&D community.

Gloria Gery – a prophet ahead of her time
Think about the following extracts – taken from a 1994 interview by Training & Development Journal with Gery:

At
the heart of an EPSS attitude is a belief that most organizations today
face a performance crisis that training alone cannot solve….

….conventional
training events are inefficient learning tools compared to an EPSS that
makes learning just a point-and-click away.

….an EPSS
provides task structuring and puts learning tools and data at a
performer’s fingertips–something conventional training can’t do.”

Gery goes on to say:

“When
you strip away the collusion about what is working and what isn’t, you
have to face the fact that training methodologies are based on a set of
fallacious assumptions from public education in the 19th century”.

“Until
the 1960s the only model for transfer of knowledge was the Socratic
dialogue and the apprenticeship. And that only changed because the
number of people needing training grew too large for one-on-one methods.
That’s what gave us group training.”

“Group training may have worked in simpler times but now work complexity and instability of knowledge lessen its effect.”

“Training
events remove novices from real life and from the experts who really
know the work. People are trained and outfitted with manuals and job
aids, but they still don’t have the competence of experts. Back on the
job, most can’t perform at the experts’ level on tasks they were trained
to do. And for tasks not covered in training at all, they are left to
their own devices.”

All the above still makes great sense. Remember, Gery was making these statements almost 17 years ago.

What
have we learnt in the intervening time? Have approaches employed by the
majority of Training and L&D professionals when faced with the
roll-out of a new system or process altered, adapted and improved?

Not much, I would suggest.

Most
organisations are still spending large amounts of time and money
developing and deploying structured training programmes to accompany new
system and process initiatives. Yet we know the impact of training
usually isn’t great. Workers still tend to turn to their colleagues (or
floor walkers or help desks if they exist) for support the first time
they need to work in the new environment because they haven’t actually
learned much from the training.

Training for these purposes just doesn’t work.

Yet
every ERP and CRM deployment plan I’ve ever seen has had a ‘training
budget’ line in it. Programme and project managers seem to feel that if
for no other reason than there is money allocated, structured training
is an essential part of any roll-out.

Thinking about alternative
and better ways of ensuring workers can use new platforms and processes
is often considered just too hard.

The Range of Performance Support Approaches
Over
the past 20 years the Web has provided a platform for the development
of some sophisticated integrated performance support tools and
environments. Some of these are being used by more enlightened
organisations that are focusing on ‘working smarter’ and can see the
benefits of integrating workforce development with work.

As a
result there are some excellent performance support tools and approaches
available for today’s learning professional. Some are very simple (a
paper-based quick reference guide often works for simple systems) and
others more complex, ‘smarter’ and more closely integrated into
workflow. Either way, they are available and generally far cheaper than
the cost of training.

Business Process Guidance
Recently a new label has appeared for advanced performance support – ‘Business Process Guidance’.

Business
Process Guidance can be seen as ‘performance support on steroids’ and
is specifically focused on ensuring policies and procedures are followed
by providing context-sensitive on-screen assistance at any time within a
rich support environment. These systems take context-sensitivity to a
highly granular level (often down to a specific field in an input
screen) and provide what Wayne Hodgins described to me almost 10 years ago as:

“Getting just the right content to…
Just the right person at…
Just the right time on…
Just the right device in…
Just the right context and…
Just the right way…….”

A few organisations offer solutions in this area. Panviva and LearningGuide are two companies at the top of the pile, both with excellent ePSS/BPG suites of tools.

Work=Learning. The Challenge for L&D Practitioners
The
core principle of ePSS and associated solutions is that learning and
work should be integrated and that workers need easy and ready access to
the right information to help them with their jobs at the time they
have a problem to solve, not some time beforehand and out of context.

In other words ‘just-in-time’ not ‘just-in-case’.

The
challenge for L&D practitioners who focus on training solutions
alone is that training principles are based on preparing workers for the
possibility of challenges they may face sometime in the future in a
context that hasn’t occurred yet.

In other words, a great deal of training design is based on high-level assumptions at best, and on guesswork at worst.

Integrating Learning with the Work
In
the next few years I believe we will see ePSS/BPG replace most of the
systems, process and product training that is carried out today. The
rising interest in workplace learning, integrating learning with work
and ‘working smarter’ will help drive this change.

I have no
doubt that the sooner performance support practices find a firm place in
training and development portfolios the sooner we will stop wasting
time, effort and money on using a sub-optimal train-and-train-again
models.

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