Engage Your Team With Employee-designed Learning: Part 2

Talent Report+THRIVE

Description: In part 2 of this episode, we delve even deeper into the transformative world of employee-driven learning journeys. Join us as we address the crucial challenges organizations may encounter when implementing this approach and reveal expert insights on overcoming them. Plus, we'll take a fascinating peek into the future of employee development, exploring emerging trends and innovations that promise to reshape the landscape of professional growth and learning within your organization. Don't miss this essential follow-up episode for answers to the remaining key questions and get a complete roadmap to success!

Resources:

Amanda's Article in Association for Talent Development's TD Magazine

MRA Learning & Development

MRA Membership

About MRA

Let's Connect:

Guest Bio - Amanda Mosteller

Guest LinkedIn Profile - Amanda Mosteller

Host Bio - Sophie Boler

Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

00:00:03:14 - 00:00:24:17
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.

00:00:24:19 - 00:00:49:18
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. All right, Well, welcome, everybody, to part two of our employee Design learning conversation. So I'm joined with Amanda Mosteller, our director of talent development here at MRA, once again to cover some remaining key questions of this topic to really ensure that you are confident in implementing this style of learning into your organizations. So thanks again, Amanda, for joining us.

00:00:49:19 - 00:01:12:11
Unknown
We're excited for part two. Yes, I love talking about this. Oh, yes. Well, last episode, you kind of gave us an overview of this concept as well as some examples and some strategies to use while using employee design learning. So before we kind of kick it off, do you want to give us a little refresher of what this concept really means?

00:01:12:13 - 00:01:56:13
Unknown
Absolutely. Employee designed learning is an instructional design approach that organizations can use where the instructional designer actually moves into more of a consultant role to a team of employees that have volunteered due to a passion of their own around developing their peers due to a desire that if they, their peers and their future individuals in their team are going to be going through this learning program, they have a desire to help shape what it looks like, and they have a perspective that often stakeholders and means might not be heading in what the true day to day of the average team member in that role is like.

00:01:56:15 - 00:02:39:12
Unknown
So they can really help shape the design and development of the program. So employee designed learning is an instructional design approach where the idea team member is consulting a team of employees in designing classes to Thrive business strategy or the team strategy or the Gap area forward. And I would definitely encourage listeners if they haven't listened to part one, to go back now and kind of get that overview of this concept, because Amanda also highlights some great examples in real life stories of how she's kind of how to implement this in other organizations and some great success stories.

00:02:39:12 - 00:03:05:10
Unknown
So I would urge you to go take a look at that. If you haven't, I second that for sure. We'll kind of dive in a little bit deeper. One concern might be that employee design learning could lack structure or consistency. So any advice on how organizations can really balance that individual customization with the need for the standardized learning outcomes?

00:03:05:12 - 00:03:35:22
Unknown
Absolutely. That is where the instructional designer really is in charge and taking the lead. So the Learning committee, the learning team, the design team, whatever fun word you want to call your employee design group of individuals, the instructional designer has to make sure you're following instructional design best practices, whether Addie makes sense, whether the SAM design model makes more sense, whether you're doing a agile approach, which is part of Sam.

00:03:35:22 - 00:04:10:05
Unknown
But additional waterfall approaches can apply whether you're doing, you know, quick brief stand up meetings for design on specific objectives. Whatever the strategy of design is that the instructional designer feels makes the most sense, They need to own driving that and helping the employee team learn what the design process looks like. Additionally, the stakeholders do have a part to play here, so this isn't a employees are just designing what they think would be neat.

00:04:10:05 - 00:04:33:10
Unknown
The the process starts off as we talked about in the last episode with the designer, the instructional designer talking with the stakeholders about what we're trying to accomplish, what strategy are we trying to Thrive? What skills do your team members need to help you get there, or what gaps are we trying to close and what objectives are we creating to help get there?

00:04:33:10 - 00:05:11:13
Unknown
So understanding the need is going to help the instructional designer Thrive the team in the right approach. Then they're responsible as part of that consulting piece in making sure we're following industry best practices in terms of what design approach fits, what type of program we're building, our timeline, how big it is, things like that. You can really run into a risk of things running wild if you put all the power in the design committee's hands, because that's not their expertise area.

00:05:11:13 - 00:05:33:02
Unknown
Their expertise is the job role. Their expertise is the day to day. Their expertise is what to expect and what their own gaps are and how the organization has helped in the past or opportunities as an organization to Thrive development in these areas that haven't been there. And the instructional designer is the expert in the in the IDE approach process strategies.

00:05:33:02 - 00:06:05:21
Unknown
And then they're actually developing the materials too. So they again, they aren't they're just a consultant. They also when the when we get to PowerPoint or whatever, you know, neat visuals you are making to go along with the program, when you get to a worksheets, when you get to takeaways, the designer is also playing the heavy role of building and creating those pieces with the employee group helping guide and make sure it's what it should look like.

00:06:05:21 - 00:06:30:02
Unknown
Make sure it's meeting what the vision was, those kinds of things. So the designer has a very pivotal role in ensuring there is some structure and a method to whatever madness they've created. So it sounds like it's it's very much a team effort and an all hands on deck kind of thing. Yes. And that's part of how this is different than an instructional designer owning the project.

00:06:30:05 - 00:06:59:10
Unknown
Talking to me is maybe one, two, three me interviews to really get some information and then sending it back saying, right, because in the traditional approach, the instructional designer is doing a massive amount of the heavy lifting and, and they now have this group of employees that are really invested in a different way than your typical SME who's been tapped, who's told, you really know how to do this, we want you to help.

00:06:59:10 - 00:07:21:15
Unknown
And they might not have time or a desire or a passion. And so their investment is different and that falls on the instructional designer to bridge that investment gap. This approach, the investment is almost the instructional designer saying, hold on, I know you really want to be hands on, but let me take this one, Mark. But you're suggesting there's no objective in the world that's going to meet that.

00:07:21:15 - 00:07:46:02
Unknown
And I don't know how to design something to meet this non-existent objective. So that's part of that role. Well, we just talked about that. The concern might be the lack of structure or consistency, but do you have any other potential challenges or pitfalls that organizations might encounter with employee design learning initiatives, or any advice on how to overcome them?

00:07:46:04 - 00:08:11:16
Unknown
Yes, I can think of two big ones that I've run into in the past. One is the famous phrase too many cooks in the kitchen. So sometimes you have a lot of employees volunteering, and their motivations behind volunteering might not be just passion and desire and a like to help develop their peers. Maybe they perceive it as getting out of their day to day job.

00:08:11:18 - 00:09:04:18
Unknown
So really refining the expectations of the committee to make sure it's understood partnering with the leadership teams of the employees to make sure the people that are volunteering, they also think should or would be good at helping design. Or they do have a knowledge that they would love to replicate and have future individuals coming into that role do it that way as well, and really coming up with how many folks are the right amount of folks Instead of we'll just take anyone that volunteers because you can get way too many opinions and way too many competing ideas for what a great exercise could be or what should be a structured learning experience versus what should

00:09:04:18 - 00:09:33:00
Unknown
we point folks towards blog articles or podcasts or YouTube channels to watch. If you have too many opinions involved, you will have a frustrated team, potentially an instructional designer who is struggling to manage, said team and the program can go awry and then it doesn't get the buy in from the stakeholders. That was the whole purpose in the first place.

00:09:33:02 - 00:09:56:24
Unknown
So that's one that I can think of. And the other one I kind of alluded to of that. First of what someone's motivation to joining, we have to be crystal clear that this is a stretch assignment, an experiential learning opportunity, a volunteer opportunity. This does not abdicate team members from their day to day expectations of their roles as well.

00:09:56:24 - 00:10:22:18
Unknown
This is a volunteered in addition to so really figuring out one is what is your employee base. If you have hourly employees, for example, then we have to find a way to involve them in this design during their shift. Or is the company so invested in this approach for a very important program that really will be key in driving us to our strategy?

00:10:22:20 - 00:10:47:20
Unknown
And so are we willing to pay overtime for the hours for those folks that join? So thinking about the expectations and how we get the employees involved and help depending on hourly salary is another thing to pay attention to, because of course, legally we we're asking them, even though it's voluntary, we're asking them to participate in something. So we need to pay them for it.

00:10:47:22 - 00:11:12:24
Unknown
And then additionally, even if I'm salaried, we have job expectations, productivity, goals, deadlines, our own things that we have to meet in our day to day is as well. So just being very clear with with the team members that volunteer, here's the expectations around what it means to be a part of this committee to Thrive designing a learning program.

00:11:13:01 - 00:11:40:07
Unknown
But you also will still be expected to get all of your day to day work done as well. So this is not abdicating or in place of the regular expectations of your job. So those are some watch outs to many folks, making sure that we're focused on who is volunteering and the instructional designer. You know, they might not be as involved in understanding shifts and hourly versus salary and all all of who's volunteering.

00:11:40:07 - 00:12:11:04
Unknown
So making sure there are some controls or really clear partnership with the managers of these teams so that you have the right number of folks helping the managers understand this is a development opportunity, so it's great for folks to volunteer. We will not be taking away from what their productivity is going to be to your team. We're just helping add to the value and benefit of the program, the expertise in the information that we're sharing and investment in your employees.

00:12:11:04 - 00:12:44:11
Unknown
They like that. So let's allow them if they're ready. But those are some of those big watch outs that best practices are, of course, your usual right. Are you really clear in what it is and communicate it well after talking about some of these watch jobs, feel like we got to get on more of a positive note. So I think I think some of our listeners would be curious to know in what ways does employee design learning contribute to employee engagement and motivation and just overall job satisfaction?

00:12:44:13 - 00:13:15:24
Unknown
I think they'd also want to know if there's any specific metrics or just indicators that they can use to measure these outcomes. Absolutely. So there's a few things to think about. One, you get feedback, especially in the in the talent development space in the L.A. world around do the programs feel like they fit my job and are they clear in my expectation and and so am I going to be able to apply this in my future.

00:13:16:01 - 00:13:47:07
Unknown
So from an overall team perspective, employees feel more impacted by the programs when it's more than just I talked to the one super high performer as ask me, I really had my peers help design this. I really am new to the organization and realizing that I'm working side by side with some of the people that helped build the 30, 60, 90 day onboarding, learn my job role experiences and classes and programs that I'm going through.

00:13:47:09 - 00:14:08:21
Unknown
And man, they really did a good job because it is real on on applicable to my job as I walk out of the class kind of stuff. So this really helps enhance what instructional designers know our best practice in terms of adult learning theory. How are we able to immediately apply what we're learning to our job? That's what we care about.

00:14:08:23 - 00:14:44:04
Unknown
It's don't waste my time. And so overall, you're going to have satisfaction there from a folks that are volunteering to be a part of this program and are are allowed to do it. They are finding a way to shine in their expertise. Show highlight what they know to their leadership, to their peers, because at the end of the day, we know we have emerging leaders, we know we have folks within our teams that really do have a lot to share and a lot to develop.

00:14:44:06 - 00:15:11:09
Unknown
There's only so many things we can make and do for people. We can't create jobs just to keep somebody around. So doing something like this allows people to step out of their normal day to day, demonstrate their expertise, practice being in an influence without authority, space practice, you know, communicating and driving change, which is what a lot of folks move into leadership.

00:15:11:15 - 00:15:35:21
Unknown
When I talk to a lot of new leaders and I say, Why are you here? I hear over and over and over again, I wanted to have a seat at the table to help Thrive the change that my team kept experiencing. I wanted to be able to impact it. And so this is another way for folks that don't have that position yet or don't really want that level of authority and therefore responsibility.

00:15:35:21 - 00:16:05:01
Unknown
But they do want to help Thrive, change, help Thrive what they and their peers are being impacted by. And so from an engagement and retention perspective, something like this, you're building anyway, you have to build it anyway. The organization's going to build a program towards this anyway, so why not tap on those folks, have them step in and help in a different, much more involved way and feel like they're getting that impact.

00:16:05:03 - 00:16:47:23
Unknown
They're flexing their muscles. It's a great experiential learning and stretch assignment approach and we know that people are looking for that. Absolutely. Are there any other I know we talked about just how this can contribute to employee engagement and motivation, but any other specific metrics or indicators that you can really take away from those? Sure. So often when you think from a learning program perspective, because because it's not just the volunteers on the committee, we're really looking when we do program surveys is it's so easy to get to.

00:16:48:02 - 00:17:11:04
Unknown
I have my instructional design hat on today is I'm thinking of all the the Bloom's taxonomy and Kirkpatrick's evaluation levels. It is so easy to get one and two for the evaluation level. One is the session itself. Did you like it? Was it helpful? And often if people like the facilitator, they'll rate things like because they like the person.

00:17:11:06 - 00:17:42:08
Unknown
So that's great. That helps me know a little bit. Then level two is are you getting that knowledge growth? Are you demonstrating it whether we do it through pre and post assessments or role plays or different exercises within the sessions or within the experiences themselves to demonstrate that knowledge gain? That's that's pretty simple to do as well. Three and four gets harder so level three and then if you're in the new age.

00:17:42:08 - 00:18:07:17
Unknown
Kirkpatrick World there's a level five, but going with the traditional level three is that transfer onto the job. So often we do something like a three month assessment back out to attendees of a program, and you would say, Are you finding you're using what we've learned, what you've learned, How has it helped? How has it changed? Give us some examples.

00:18:07:19 - 00:18:30:16
Unknown
So it's one way or we have touch base conversations. As a manager, I might have an intentional. My company has created kind of a coaching sheet in three months post session and then six months post session. I might ask some fun, some questions, or as an organization you might pull a three month or six month or both learning cohort touch base back together.

00:18:30:20 - 00:18:56:03
Unknown
Or we're talking about how is it working. Any one of those metrics strategies is a way to gather the information. And what we found, especially in the sales example when I was doing this at that international company was the program, because we did that regularly with big programs. I mean, they were investing my whole time for a year at a time would be towards a certain program.

00:18:56:03 - 00:19:34:13
Unknown
So we needed to have metrics to prove my salary was beneficial. Right? So we would, you know, yeah, it was helpful. These things were great. We felt like this these examples didn't really match what it was like. Once I got out into the sales field, once I was talking to customers and selling this stuff, and after we used this approach for the big multilevel multi-year development program, part of this big succession planning strategy, we found that those conversations and satisfaction in those 90 and six month touch bases went up.

00:19:34:15 - 00:20:02:20
Unknown
The examples were much more realistic. The situations that we would practice talking to customer rebuttals were much more realistic. They weren't standard things that I was able to find. That as me would say, Yeah, that work we needs were very real scenarios that the Learning Committee had gone through and helped us design and then helped us come through not only best practices but what made sense at that organization's culture.

00:20:02:22 - 00:20:32:24
Unknown
So very real. And that started to come out in those Level three evaluation checks. Level four is going to be a training department's bane of existence. It's kind of being the instructional designers hardest because you're talking ROI. I of show me your investment matters and that that could be in so many different metrics, especially depending on what the learning program is that you're building.

00:20:33:01 - 00:21:08:15
Unknown
If I'm building sales strategies around a new product, I can tell what were our pre program close rates versus our three months, six month a year later program closed rates for individuals that went through the program. We can compare apples to apples that way. If you're doing something more soft skill, though, I would recommend engaging in utilizing a balanced scorecard approach where financial numbers that you or any type of data metrics is only one component of what you're looking at.

00:21:08:21 - 00:21:43:07
Unknown
You're also pulling source information from those level three evaluations. You're looking at retention numbers, you're looking at external or internal customer impact satisfaction numbers. So you can pull a lot of different data pre and post to determine did this overall make sense for the financial investment, even if it's just our employees time and our full time training departments, instructional designers time to make that program makes sense.

00:21:43:09 - 00:22:04:24
Unknown
That works really well for soft skill development, especially when it is a big time investment. We're talking not because any leader is going to say, I want 16 objectives and I'm going to give you about 4 hours of my team's time, wants to meet it and every instruction designer is going to shake their head because that's not possible.

00:22:05:01 - 00:22:31:19
Unknown
And so if we can use the learning Committee to advocate to meet your needs in what's feasible, and then we can show you real ROI through a balanced scorecard approach of whatever four things we want to pull. To have those pieces make sense. Then you're really proof is in the pudding that this is worth being scalable, replicable, and having your folks spend the time.

00:22:31:21 - 00:22:57:18
Unknown
Yeah, those are those are all good examples of what metrics and indicators you can use and kind of take note of to see if you're successful. But we've also emphasized that team effort component and the importance of just having an all hands on deck with this. So we know that collaboration and communication are critical in successful instructional design.

00:22:57:20 - 00:23:26:17
Unknown
So my question is how can organizations foster collaboration between the employees? The subject matter expert is meis and instructional designers. In the process of creating these personalized learning experiences. So as you're going through the design process, there's going to be natural points where the committee is going to have to go gather some more information and bring it back to the next project meeting.

00:23:26:17 - 00:23:59:09
Unknown
So it really varies by how large the project is, how many programs you're creating. When I was creating the three year sales succession development program, after we got the buy in from the stakeholders of the design plan. So we followed the ADDIE model. So I won't talk to everybody. I got all of the needs analysis complete, got our volunteers, we set our expectations and then we came up with what makes sense to get us to these things.

00:23:59:09 - 00:24:27:11
Unknown
It was a big combination of live instructor led experiences, some on demand experiences. We created an intentional internal only podcast to develop selling through stories. So that was an opportunity that we wanted to grow, but we just really didn't feel like it made sense to teach a class about it and then we had some specific blogs and things that we were encouraging folks to subscribe to for certain ideas.

00:24:27:13 - 00:24:50:15
Unknown
So once we came up with that design, then it became creating who's owning which piece. So the instructional designers working with all of you to get it all done. Obviously we're working more heavily with our live instructor led things that we were building on demand. We had opportunities to source off the shelf type of experiences that made sense.

00:24:50:15 - 00:25:17:08
Unknown
So I helped with that group. But each of these small teams, then they went out and worked with everybody else. They went out and got some ideas. So if I had some volunteers from the committee say, We want to own the Self-Guided Self-paced Resource repository, which has your blogs, your articles, your books, you'd suggest to read different things, to listen to different YouTube channels, to go follow.

00:25:17:10 - 00:25:39:08
Unknown
They had ideas. They don't know every single thing out there. So they were walking around talking to their own internal network, so their own peers catching up with means and really connecting also externally like they had, you know, colleagues and peers of networks that worked in other companies that were like, Oh yeah, we're really big on this book, or we talk about this a lot.

00:25:39:08 - 00:26:06:14
Unknown
And they were bringing all of that together. So once you're getting into the development stage of instructional design, that's when it becomes just this huge partnership with anybody and everybody that has the resources and information to share. So they have to work very well together and have that good collaboration. And that's why that's such a great point, Sam, because that is why you're just taps me.

00:26:06:14 - 00:26:38:07
Unknown
Might not be the right person because I don't know how many smiles you can I've connected with since me, and some of them are fantastic and some of them are like, I'll give you 45 minutes once. And I'm like, okay, so they're not all they're not all known for being amazing collaborators, but so you might be a great information resource that one of our learning committee employees will reach out to and they will talk to you for that 145 minutes, you'll get us for sure.

00:26:38:09 - 00:27:00:21
Unknown
We'll kind of wrapping up here. Let's look into the future a little bit. That's a landscape of work. Definitely continues to evolve. How do you envision the future of employee design learning and its impact on professional development and any trends that you think that our listeners kind of need to be prepared to embrace or organizations need to be aware of now?

00:27:00:23 - 00:27:40:10
Unknown
Yeah, so I see it growing because I see it as an engagement strategy. I see organizations recognizing you have a lot of resources within your own internal current talent pool that can help you create very on target impactful programs. You do not need necessarily an entire specialized team for just that. You need some really strong internal consultants that know instructional design, know what's best practice, can really keep their finger on the pulse, and then engage your employee base.

00:27:40:10 - 00:28:15:00
Unknown
I mean, you have a lot of talent and a lot of knowledge just hanging out, working every day. So I really do see it growing because I see organizations needing to get more creative and more inventive and what engagement looks like. Engagement doesn't just have to be now. It should include, but does not just have to be the social aspect, the connectivity aspect, having swag and having great recognition and rewards programs, we have to do other things to foster everybody's thirst to continue to grow.

00:28:15:02 - 00:28:37:12
Unknown
And to your point on trends, we know we knew this in 2019. Gartner had a big research about employee engagement, and they came out with the data around how my own organization doesn't develop me, and yet I'm looking for it. I don't remember the percentage. I don't want to be wrong, so I'm not going to make one up.

00:28:37:14 - 00:29:03:13
Unknown
But the research was high in that employees continue to look to their organizations to develop their career. They're no longer doing that on their own. It's becoming an expectation of the organization. And so organizations are we've already done tuition reimbursement. We've we've already done development programs. What else could we possibly do? And this is another thing to do this this can help develop lots of skills for people.

00:29:03:18 - 00:29:48:03
Unknown
And that's really what people are wanting. They're wanting skill development. They don't want another I mean, who doesn't want another certification? But that doesn't have to be a big investment like that. This can meet that and the other future trend. Hold on to your hats. Everybody is internal employee influencers and new ideas that will internal employee influencers. So as the younger Gen Zs start to enter the workforce now and five years from now, Gen Alpha's elders will start to pop in to full time work capability.

00:29:48:05 - 00:30:19:22
Unknown
This is these are generations shaped by getting their knowledge from a person they trust through, not because their job role says you should trust them. So they're looking for If I want to grow in marketing, it's like taking mentoring to the next level and having an internal person who you would love to share their expertise and their knowledge with everybody, and they want it less and less produced and less and less fancy.

00:30:19:22 - 00:30:56:24
Unknown
So we're talking selfie videos posted on your Internet site around Here's my top to top tip Tuesday. You do things like that that's that's what and I mean talk about employee designed get your employees involved tell them the goal and let them run with it. You'd be amazed what they can do. You'd be amazed that it's for free, amazed at that really how impactful it's going to be and how much, as you think about recruiting, engaging and retaining the next generation, there's a there's a lot a lot going down in that world.

00:30:56:24 - 00:31:21:10
Unknown
And I think that's going to be the future and we'll be talking pretty soon on. General, coming up. So shameless plug, another plug that wasn't even on purpose this time. Oh, well, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast again and share your expertise on this topic with us for part two. Absolutely. Thank you for asking me back.

00:31:21:12 - 00:31:39:11
Unknown
Of course, Bill, to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, I'd urge you to comment something new you learn today and any questions you may have for me, I'm sure should be happy to connect with you or just anything you really want to add on to this conversation. We're curious to hear your thoughts on it.

00:31:39:13 - 00:32:02:00
Unknown
Don't forget to share this episode out and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. Like always, we have all the resources in the show notes below, including resources on this topic today. Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect.

00:32:02:00 - 00:32:17:03
Unknown
For more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes Thrive so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.