Recorded Webinar

Transcript

[00:00:00] Azure Rooths: Hello, hello, hello. Good day, everyone. Thank you so very much for joining us. I am Azure Rooths and I am joining you from Northern Virginia. Rachel, tell us a little bit about who you are, and PILOT.

[00:00:21] Rachel Crice: Thank you, Azure. I am PILOT's Head of Product and Delivery, and I am here at PILOT to help drive the creation of impactful coaching products. I work very closely with participants in our program to energize them and challenge them while finding some inventive ways to meet our HR customers needs for a scalable solution for employee development.

[00:00:41] Rachel Crice: So, very quickly, I'm going to tell you about the PILOT program and then we'll have A quick poll and we'll let Pinar introduce herself as well. PILOT was founded to help everyone feel powerful at work. So we're showing employees how to effectively self-reflect, solicit and accept feedback, advocate for themselves, and take effective action in their organizations.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Rachel Crice: And we do that through four modes of learning. Engaging group coaching sessions that drive cohorts of employees towards putting insights into real world action, which we'll talk a little bit about today. Insight inducing self reflection activities that increase their self awareness and boost confidence.

[00:01:14] Rachel Crice: They can be done asynchronously on their time and on any device. Inspiring executive fireside chats that give employees access to leaders where they decode and highlight some career successes and tips. And growth focused manager feedback sessions where employees and managers come together to focus on development and aspirations separate from performance review and performance conversation.

[00:01:35] Rachel Crice: So that's a little bit about PILOT and I'll hand it back to you, Azure.

[00:01:39] Azure Rooths: Thank you so much. So, Rachel, I just had you jump straight in, but I need to go back a little bit and I need to let this amazing team of 75 people know who you and Pinar are. I'm sorry, I was just so excited to get into it, but let's go back.

[00:01:53] Azure Rooths: Rachel is the engine for the product and development team at PILOT, where she [00:02:00] drives the creation of impact coaching products. She works closely with our participants to energize and challenge them while finding the right solution. inventive ways to meet our HR customers needs for scalable employment development for proven results.

[00:02:17] Azure Rooths: Thank you so much for being here, Rachel. I want to go back up and say hello to Pinar. Hello, Pinar, and thank you so much for being here today.

[00:02:27] Azure Rooths: Pinar is a learning strategist and instructional design with a few decades of experience designing programs, both digital and in person. remote live and hybrid. She works with PILOT to design programs with the learning and principles we're sharing today to ensure great learning experiences. We are so excited to have you with us today, Pinar.

[00:02:54] Azure Rooths: Ladies and gentlemen, will you please be so kind as to go in and say hello and welcome to [00:03:00] Pinar. Hi Pinar, how are you feeling today?

[00:03:03] Pinar O'Flaherty: I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited to be here and talk about learning theory and strategies and how to bring it all together when you've got people working from home, working in the office, both and trying to deliver powerful and effective training and learning experiences.

[00:03:19] Azure Rooths: Perfect. Thank you so very much. And with that, let's get into our first polling question. What is your level of experience in designing and delivering programs for remote and hybrid employees? We're going to launch the poll our very first poll. And for all of our participants, I'm curious. Would you say, I'm an expert, I've been involved here and there, or I'm just getting started?

[00:03:51] Azure Rooths: These answers are coming in hot off the press, ladies. 46 percent say, I've been involved here and [00:04:00] there, shortly behind it. I'm just getting started with 39 percent and 15 believe that they are experts. Either of you want to add anything or say something interesting about this data?

[00:04:18] Pinar O'Flaherty: I just want to say that, I think even when we're experts, there's always something to learn.

[00:04:22] Pinar O'Flaherty: And when we're just getting started there's something that we can bring to the table with a fresh perspective. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, great that you're here and there's always something to be brought to to the experience you provide for others. So it's all good.

[00:04:36] Azure Rooths: Perfect. I love it. So now that we have that information, Rachel, why don't you get us started?

[00:04:42] Rachel Crice: Let's get started. So before we get into the nitty gritty details of how to optimize programs for kind of the new ways of working, just a reminder of where we are currently and how the way we work has changed over the last five years or so.

[00:04:56] Rachel Crice: So in 2017, we saw just 52 percent of people working [00:05:00] remotely and technically those folks were hybrids still going into the work at least one going into the office at least once a week. And we all remember what happened in 2020 right so skyrocketing with remote work in 2020 and now we're at a point where that seems to be leveling out and giving us yet again this new normal with about.

[00:05:17] Rachel Crice: 80 percent of people that we need to engage, retain and develop that are working remotely or hybrid. So lots of changes over the last few years, and they're happening quickly, even though they're happening over years. So, Pinar, anything else you want to add on?

[00:05:32] Pinar O'Flaherty: I don't think so. I think that this just tells us that we've leveled out in the last five years.

[00:05:36] Pinar O'Flaherty: I think that the hybrid and remote working has shown that it's here to stay. I think a lot of people got to try it who wouldn't have other tried it wouldn't have otherwise tried it in the last few years. And so that means this is a challenge and an opportunity that we're looking at that's here to stay.

[00:05:50] Rachel Crice: Yeah. All the more important need to invest in these folks.

[00:05:54] Pinar O'Flaherty: That's my prediction. On that just a little bit, a few more stats to think about, and a 2022 Gallup [00:06:00] poll it, this kind of covered, this is a great poll, and Azura, you might have mentioned this, we're going to share all the links to the research or various things that we, sources that we cite today.

[00:06:08] Pinar O'Flaherty: In the 2022 Gallup poll, some of the advantages that came in at the top was that people had a better work life balance, they had better control of their hours and where they were working. And we can assume that that meant like some people were less stressed and maybe more content. There was also a really high level of more efficient use of time, which is really interesting, higher productivity and burnout mitigation.

[00:06:28] Pinar O'Flaherty: So a lot of times we're looking at training programs because we're trying to achieve those effects. Increasing retention, reducing burnout, helping people grow and evolve, not just stay quote unquote stuck in their roles. So in that poll, they also talked about at home time, what people were doing when they were at home, and 80% of that they reported as being heads down, kind of independent work tasks away from the distraction of the office.

[00:06:50] Pinar O'Flaherty: And, that we can extrapolate that they're talking about flow. They're talking about time where they could really go deep into something and do some critical thinking and reflection and real [00:07:00] problem solving. There were disadvantages too that were reported in this in the survey, and one of 'em was feeling less connected to the organization's culture.

[00:07:07] Pinar O'Flaherty: There was an impairment to collaboration and building relationships, which we know is really important both in all facets of our lives not just at work. And also having the right tools to be effective at work. We all remember those zoom bombs of 2020. People were really struggling a little bit with technology initially, but again, this has opened up some opportunities that we have, as well as revealing some challenges that people have.

[00:07:29] Pinar O'Flaherty: And they reported that on site work time, 60 percent of that was spent collaborating with colleagues. Connecting with their manager and using technology that was unique to their location. So connecting with others is still at the top of the list, whether you're at home or in the office in terms of being a priority.

[00:07:44] Pinar O'Flaherty: So we break this out into two things, how we interact with others and our relationships that we build with others. And then also how we work independently. I refer to this I like to think about it as time together, time apart. Because both things are essential for the way that we work and getting work done.

[00:07:59] Pinar O'Flaherty: But this is how we work [00:08:00] now. And this both. looks at learning needs and needs for how we work and the opportunities that we present. So that's where we're landing with things right now. And Rachel, I think you have some more statistics for us about how not just how we're working differently, but how we're learning differently.

[00:08:14] Rachel Crice: Yeah, how we're developing people has definitely changed over the last few years. And a few years ago, the kind of main way that we're developing people is in that kind of in person traditional classroom model of getting together. It's very extroverted, focused and that's Changing with more budget spend going towards online learning modes.

[00:08:33] Rachel Crice: And that's globally. So you get to bring other people into those learning environments because they have a new way of accessing that learning and connection that Pinar was talking about. And 2023 trending is some conversations about spending more on how do we use, virtual reality or augmented reality in our learning programs.

[00:08:51] Rachel Crice: I'm not the expert on VR or AR, but this is just what, what's trending. So we're moving more towards how do we make this inclusive for folks who [00:09:00] are all over the world and create that connection amongst employees while they're learning with one another.

[00:09:07] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yeah, I think that actually that actually brings us to this.

[00:09:10] Pinar O'Flaherty: People are investing in the technology. That's sort of the trend we're seeing, but fundamentally, great learning design. Sorry, great learning is about great design. And this has always been true. If you're a learning person or just getting started, design that considers how human brains actually encode and embed information is really important.

[00:09:27] Pinar O'Flaherty: In fact, well designed virtual learning has shown to be as effective as in person learning, and often moreso. We have actually, if you really like reading academic papers we looked at a 2006 really interesting study that was done and funded by the U. S. Department of Defense, and what they did was they looked at they had they funded an academic meta analysis of 96 different studies that showed that virtual learning was often 19 percent more impactful.

[00:09:53] Pinar O'Flaherty: than in person learning. So that's huge. And that was about 17 years ago, right? So if we think about all [00:10:00] the tools and technology and platforms that have bubbled up and become a way of working and a way of learning now we know that across the board, virtual learning can be as effective if not moreso for a lot of learners.

[00:10:11] Pinar O'Flaherty: So let's look then at what the four principles we're going to touch on today.

[00:10:16] Rachel Crice: Yes, let's get into the good stuff. We're going to spend some time talking about the key things you'll want to include in a learner's experience to make inclusive programs. So Pinar, I want you to define these for us.

[00:10:26] Rachel Crice: Give us your instructional design expertise on these four things.

[00:10:29] Pinar O'Flaherty: I'm going to do something very meta. I'm going to level the playing field so that regardless of your prior experience or knowledge coming to this webinar, we all have the same definitions about what we're talking about. So, cohesion and structure.

[00:10:41] Pinar O'Flaherty: This is really the flow, continuity, and the overarching architecture. of the learning experience. So this is how do learners or participants in your program experience things from day one through the end of the program. And this is aligning sort of what you want to deliver with how, when, and why.

[00:10:58] Pinar O'Flaherty: Focus on real [00:11:00] world action. This refers to being able to think about, practice, and work through concepts and problems in the same way that people will apply those concepts and new skills to the way that they're actually working. So we really want to connect, especially for work environments, right, for professional development. We wanna connect with the way we learn, with the way we work. And so real world action is really important in, in making what you're learning, transferable to how you're working. And then community connection relationships. We've touched on this one a lot already.

[00:11:28] Pinar O'Flaherty: We know that people need these connections, provides meaning and motivation, and that's general psychology, not just learning psychology, but it does really apply to the way we learn. And finally, design for intent with styles of all working and learning. This sort of sums up that last point I referred to, time together and time apart.

[00:11:48] Pinar O'Flaherty: We have independent ways of working learning and we also need time together both when we're learning and when we're working. So when we think about hybrid program designs, we're thinking about all the different delivery [00:12:00] methods and that means like delivering content or learning materials through e learning.

[00:12:06] Pinar O'Flaherty: That's like self paced or done independently by learners, delivering content through group sessions, whether that's in person or virtual delivering content or skills or practice experience through small group or large group, whether, again, that's virtual or in person, or also like independent work that might not be e learning, that might be something like taking a reflection exercise and developing that skill.

[00:12:28] Pinar O'Flaherty: Which is a really wonderful reflection is a really wonderful leadership tool. I always feel I see a note in the in the chat about how number four seems like it's a tricky one. And we're going to talk a little bit more. We're going to dive a little bit deeper into these specifically, and I'm going to give you some best practices for all of them as well.

[00:12:45] Pinar O'Flaherty: I believe you have a little question on that, that actually that that chat was almost kind of...

[00:12:51] Azure Rooths: It was a great segue. Great learning design. Let's take a really quick poll, and our next question that we're going [00:13:00] to poll is which of these do you find yourself reaching for most often in learning programs?

[00:13:08] Azure Rooths: Let us get to our next poll. All right, there we are, and it is launched. Do we have our next one launched?

[00:13:28] Azure Rooths: All right, so our questions are cohesion and structure, prompting, enabling real world action, building community connections, or allowing for different learning styles.

[00:13:41] Rachel Crice: We've got the previous poll up, Azure.

[00:13:46] Azure Rooths: So we have

[00:13:50] Pinar O'Flaherty: This is very meta. These are the kind of things that happen when you're in a hybrid environment and we'll talk a little bit about how to adjust to these. One way we can adjust right now is if you want to, you can put in the [00:14:00] chat, whether you reach for, whether you reach for in design for cohesion structure, prompting and enabling real world action, building community connection, or allowing for different learning styles.

[00:14:11] Pinar O'Flaherty: Maybe what you reach for the most, or if you want to say, here's my biggest challenge or here's my biggest consideration, you can pop that into the chat, or see real world actions coming up. Yep, real world examples. Yeah, love that. Community connection. See a few of those coming up.

[00:14:31] Pinar O'Flaherty: Give it a couple seconds more if anyone wants to add to the chat. More real world action, community connection.

[00:14:38] Pinar O'Flaherty: Depends on the project. Absolutely. Depends on what the needs are, right?

[00:14:44] Rachel Crice: Lots of real world action. I love it.

[00:14:47] Pinar O'Flaherty: Makes sense?

[00:14:53] Pinar O'Flaherty: Time is always a huge barrier, right? How do we make time for learning?

[00:14:58] Azure Rooths: Yeah, these are great. So with [00:15:00] those, Pinar, I believe you're going to start delving a little deeper. Rachel? Pinar?

[00:15:09] Rachel Crice: Yeah, let's start with cohesion and structure. Pinar, why don't you talk more about why this is important just in general in a learning experience?

[00:15:16] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yeah at best cohesion structure, like how you structure and design your program is based on learner needs and the objectives or what you need them to be able to do better or new skills that they need to have after the training or the learning experience. But, as somebody just said, let me mention time, it's often influenced by logistics or practical things like scale, budget.

[00:15:35] Pinar O'Flaherty: The type of content or the type of skills you need to develop or just logistics. Like, how do you find time for training? And often time for training is linked to budget. There's a lot of interdependencies there, but the purpose and the reason why this is so important, the purpose of designing for cohesion and structure up front is.

[00:15:52] Pinar O'Flaherty: Organizing the concepts and the ideas into a sense making experience. When we design for learning, we're thinking about learner [00:16:00] experience and good user experience design applies to learning just like it does to anything else. A great example I like to use is when you're taking a trip, you're booking online.

[00:16:09] Pinar O'Flaherty: You know, how does that go? You're checking your bag in at the curb. How does that go? You're, waiting in the security lines. If you think about all the pain points, challenges and or things that make that experience wonderful, that kind of good user experience also applies to learning.

[00:16:22] Pinar O'Flaherty: So we do want to think about that whole cohesive structure and all the different touch points. And then how do we build on concepts and skills? So this is often referred to as scaffolding. How do we start? Like we did at the beginning of this program by defining things, leveling the leveling, the playing field for all learners.

[00:16:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: Figuring out where their prior knowledge or experiences and building on that. And then strategizing where and how learners can practice. So whether it's like reflection or action planning or getting coaching, where other opportunities for them to start applying to those real world actions. And that's part of structure too.

[00:16:56] Pinar O'Flaherty: These things all interplay with one another. So we think. [00:17:00] What experiences does the learner need to be able to have to do something new or different? And what are the parameters, limitations, or possibilities? What are those logistics? So, an example that I have, and this is, I'm going to get to this as a best practice but on the next slide, there's a very high level snapshot of a kind of anonymized curriculum plan that that I designed recently for customer service agents at a particular company.

[00:17:24] Pinar O'Flaherty: And, some guiding principles here when we're talking about remote and hybrid working and learning. is aligning the type of learning with the type of practice and the type of application. So type of practice meaning for example, performance reviews. How do they need to learn about doing a performance review?

[00:17:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: How do they need to practice, maybe through role playing? And then how are they going to apply that, right? They're going to actually have those conversations with their direct reports. So there's a lot of value of pulling this to a 10, 000 foot level view and looking at what kind of learning is happening.

[00:17:55] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I like to use a little color coding to think about, you know, maybe there's foundational skills in those [00:18:00] light green those dark greens are, maybe a VILT or instructor led training sessions that are happening. And then there's some opportunities for other types of modalities some e learning some coaching sessions or office hours, different ways of working, and then you'll see that that fades over time in the structure.

[00:18:19] Pinar O'Flaherty: So some best practices to sum it up on the next slide is create a bird's eye view. So you can get a good snapshot like of what that structure and that experience is going to look like. Does the learner have a foundation? Are we considering their prior knowledge and leveling that playing field?

[00:18:33] Pinar O'Flaherty: Are they building on concepts over time? Are concepts becoming increasingly more complex and are we laying the foundation for them to reach that level of mastery? And then as that scaffolding comes down, there should be more ownership on the learner. We know for a fact that learning theory tells us that when our learners own their experience and their development, they're more motivated and they're more engaged.

[00:18:55] Pinar O'Flaherty: So how do we move from less, from content and learning to more practice [00:19:00] opportunities, whether it's e learning or coaching. And then when and how do they get the balance of independent learning and social learning? So. alone time, together time. And remember we need that alone time to process and get deeper as in our thinking and our understanding of things as well as that together time.

[00:19:17] Pinar O'Flaherty: So we do want to think about the variation and opportunities for small group chats or peer to peer chats or different levels of that social engagement. And then when should the support in the program decrease? When does the scaffolding come down and allow for more practice and application to real world?

[00:19:34] Pinar O'Flaherty: So those are some best practices that I think about when I think about structure and cohesion and I'm going to move on to the next slide when we talk about learning design prompts and enables real world action. So, if it's not anchored, this is really straightforward, if it's not anchored in the real world.

[00:19:50] Pinar O'Flaherty: Especially for when we're talking about professional development, it's really hard to apply it in the real world. It's really simple that when we're talking about learning for work, we need to anchor [00:20:00] it to the real world. If we look back on the next slide to that curriculum program, you'll see the last half of that program, is really, there's a shift, there's a shift in the type of content.

[00:20:10] Pinar O'Flaherty: So we're revisiting the snapshot to talk about going from learning, the learning experience, and focusing on that, to the applying experience, and focusing real world action, and maybe in between, someone was mentioning scenarios and examples. which I'm going to get to again, that touches on one of our other key four principles.

[00:20:27] Pinar O'Flaherty: But a key consideration with designing for real world action is meeting the learner where they are, not just in terms of remote versus in office, but where they are in their work. And a great strategy for that is, using open ended questions. So here's an example. You may have a bunch of participants in a professional development course and they have different roles.

[00:20:47] Pinar O'Flaherty: They have different levels of experience. So if I'm using open ended questions like, how will you apply this principle to your role? How will that help you meet your goals? That helps regardless of the person's like [00:21:00] level of experience or their role responsibilities. That helps them to start transitioning what they're learning to applying it.

[00:21:06] Pinar O'Flaherty: to the real world. So we need to think about, again, this is a principle that applies regardless of whether you're doing remote and hybrid or in person, but you need to think about how you support transitioning that learning. So some best practices is aligning the how of learning to the how of work, not just the what, not just a topic list, but, actually how they're going to do that.

[00:21:27] Pinar O'Flaherty: So here's some key best practices that are very practical. Train them on the tools. train them on the tools they're already working with, and train them on the tools that they might need for this learning program. So for example don't set up a big Teams chat for a learning program if you know that your team's always just chit chatting on Slack or Skype.

[00:21:44] Pinar O'Flaherty: Use the channels they're already using. If you're going to deliver live sessions on Zoom, maybe not all of your learners are familiar with Zoom, so maybe you spend 15 minutes in the first session doing some warm up where they learn how to use chat, they learn how to use a reaction, we do some polls and then consider the [00:22:00] actions that learners need to take.

[00:22:02] Pinar O'Flaherty: So you start with the end in mind. So for example, if they, if you want them to, what if one of the goals of the program is professional development, you want them to work better with their manager, then part of the learning should be reflecting on what they need to say. Like, how do you phrase things?

[00:22:15] Pinar O'Flaherty: How do you talk? And they could have activities and role playing and reflection that talk about how do I communicate my needs to my manager? And then, as you get toward the end of the program, you're like, all right. Your assignment is, this is very hybrid and remote. You might be talking about it in a coaching session, reflecting on it individually through an e learning experience, and then you're given this action item to go and talk to your manager using the reflection notes that you put together.

[00:22:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: So train them in the way they need to work, both for the alone time and together time. For example, do they need to brainstorm and collaborate? Then use brainstorming and collaboration in your design. Do they need to reflect better? And again, reflection is a wonderful self leadership and leader leadership of others tool.

[00:22:57] Pinar O'Flaherty: So I am going to share I think [00:23:00] actually We have a poll coming up. So Azure, if you want to, I think we're gonna do this one via chat.

[00:23:05] Rachel Crice: Yeah. While we're doing that I'll just add this in particular, prompting and enabling real world action is one I often do not see represented in development experiences.

[00:23:15] Rachel Crice: A lot of programs are content absorption. Watch this TED talk very much like school when you kind of cram for your test, watch this thing, take notes and take a test and then never use it again. And it's like the old school kind of look, we're going to go to a conference and learn all this stuff.

[00:23:29] Rachel Crice: And I come home with this big binder and then I never look at it again. But really putting it into action is what's going to make it sustainable, and it's what ties the cohesion and structure to real world action. That's how you pull in the real world action. Because without that in person facilitation in our traditional classroom model from a few years ago, you really need the employee to take the ownership.

[00:23:49] Rachel Crice: So you have to enable them to take the ownership of their own learning, and you do that by leaning into meeting them where they are. To Pinar's point, if they use Slack, don't open a Teams channel. If they use, [00:24:00] Teams, don't do stuff on Zoom find ways to embed this learning into their work environment.

[00:24:05] Azure Rooths: Thanks so much for that, Rachel. And here's an opportunity for our participants to engage via chat. What real world action do you want your team to take as a result of your next program? Let's go in the chat right now. Evan said, I love the align how you work and learn. Rachel, to your point of, if they're on Slack, don't do something new, right?

[00:24:30] Azure Rooths: Don't add that extra step. So we have Microsoft Teams, Beyond Messaging.

[00:24:39] Pinar O'Flaherty: Which is why build action is so important, because you need to actually do to like really see that knowledge and You could theoretically teach somebody how to ride a bicycle. Not going to happen until they get on that bicycle.

[00:24:52] Azure Rooths: Until they get on the bike. Yes. Jack said there's a difference between knowing versus doing. Meet them in the flow of work. [00:25:00] Find the type of learning to the role and learning style. It's always important. Having managers and leaders using self awareness. Pinar, how has self awareness played into the development of the programs that you create?

[00:25:18] Pinar O'Flaherty: I use reflection to build self awareness in a lot of different types of programs. And Rachel probably can speak a little bit more how PILOT uses it. But if we can, for example I showed you that curriculum map that I was talking about with customer service training.

[00:25:31] Pinar O'Flaherty: One of the things that we have up front is we have them talking about, and actually I've used this across the board it's really good for onboarding training to say for example here's your roles and responsibilities. You were hired to do this job. These are the expectations. Take a moment to reflect, self assess, and build some awareness around what skills are you going to need to build to do this job.

[00:25:52] Pinar O'Flaherty: I would always hesitate to hire somebody who comes in and says, Oh, I know how to do everything. A, because they probably don't, but B, because there's no growth opportunities for them. And [00:26:00] if there's no growth opportunities, you're likely to lose them in six months, just when they're really settled into their role.

[00:26:05] Pinar O'Flaherty: And they really get the company culture and they really understand what they're supposed to be doing. After six months or a year, if you don't feel like you're, you have the opportunities to learn something new you're probably going to, not be super happy. So self reflection is part of that part of kind of checking in with oneself.

[00:26:18] Pinar O'Flaherty: And actually, Rachel, you can speak a little bit to how PILOT does that, because that's what it's all about is really driving self development and professional development. And do you want to talk about how self awareness and reflection are used at PILOT as a example?

[00:26:31] Rachel Crice: Sure. Yeah. I think the big thing is letting the employee be their own expert on themselves.

[00:26:37] Rachel Crice: They oftentimes have the answer. You just have to ask the right question. And it raises the importance of like, okay, here's the gap. Here's where I am now. And here's where I could be or where I want to go. And, you know, it's a lot around habit formation too. It's when you're forming a new habit, whether it's growth, or you're learning something new, or you want to embed this new thing into your routine, you have to be very intentional about that thing [00:27:00] for a period of time until it just becomes like autopilot in the future.

[00:27:03] Rachel Crice: And self reflection is allowing you to do that. When you're, I'm thinking of an example, let's say when you're learning to tie your shoes they're like your first attempts at tying your shoes are very conscious and effortful. which is that kind of self reflection time. And the more and more you practice that, the more it's going to become a habit, and then it's just automatic.

[00:27:21] Rachel Crice: You're not really thinking like, okay, I've got to, loop, swoop, and pull, right? You don't have to think that anymore. And that's what self reflection is doing. It's putting you into a growth mindset so that you're asking yourself those powerful questions.

[00:27:34] Azure Rooths: What a great perspective. And Rachel, before you move forward, how do you believe learning styles matching to employees learning styles works with the real world actions?

[00:27:47] Rachel Crice: Yeah, I think it's a challenge for some folks. If you're more introverted, you're probably more into the self reflection and you're doing the writing and the journaling. And in order for you to get out into the real world, it might be a bit of a stretch for you. And the things that you're going to have [00:28:00] to get over in those areas is that gap between knowing and doing.

[00:28:04] Rachel Crice: And that gap, there's a lot of stuff that goes on there. There's self limiting beliefs, there's helplessness, there's a lot of things that you need to jump over in order to just finally take the action. But again, that employee is their own best expert. And the thing that builds their confidence over time is them finding their own answers and going, I knew that.

[00:28:23] Rachel Crice: So the more reflection you do, the better you're going to get at taking action.

[00:28:27] Azure Rooths: And Rachel, to your point of Valerie in the chat says a good question to ask. If you know the employee knows, what does your gut say? So to your point, reaching back to them. What does your gut say? And allowing them to be the expert by reaching inside of themselves.

[00:28:46] Azure Rooths: Thank you so very much, both of you for chiming in. I think we're ready to move forward.

[00:28:52] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I'll just, yes, Andrew, your gut check reflection takes gut checks a little bit further. It can be for example, well, how are you feeling about [00:29:00] that? Right. But it shouldn't stop there. Why, why do you want to make that decision?

[00:29:05] Pinar O'Flaherty: Why do you want to put your budget there? And thinking, and that's part of any decision making we, we do. And in learning design, we need to give learners opportunities to say, I think I'm going to do this. And often the learning content helps them to decide why, like, well, this is our company policy, or this is our approach, or this is the rubric that we use and then helping them to practice and apply to real world action, those reflection points. Like, I want to do this. Why? And sometimes it's very revealing. I want to do this. Why? Well, that's my instinct. And then you look and you're like, well, my instinct's only partially right. Cause it doesn't follow the rubric that we need to use here. Or it doesn't really align with having budget for next quarter.

[00:29:45] Pinar O'Flaherty: So, yeah, that's where reflection really helps people to dig deeper in decision making. So it's a wonderful skill to practice. And it's usually almost always applicable to any learning program. So, there's a segue here. Rachel what did you [00:30:00] see happening in the chat and talking about community connection?

[00:30:05] Rachel Crice: There is a lot in here around community connection, and I think it's building more and more importance over time. The more we work from home, cause learning doesn't happen in a silo, right? We have the opportunity to learn from one another. And oftentimes what I'd see, at least with. Participants in pilot programs and other programs that I've been a part of is they get to do some peer to peer coaching in those moments as well.

[00:30:25] Rachel Crice: And it doesn't have to just be the HR person or the L and D person or the consultant that you brought in to be the expert. That's your opportunity to really customize your program so that they fit into your organization's goals is let the employees talk about, here's how I see this working in our culture, and here's how I see this working with our values and our business goals because a lot of times when you bring in an external, whether it's a vendor or a consultant or someone to come in and do some training for you, they are not as well versed on your values, right?

[00:30:52] Rachel Crice: And they're going to come with a program that could be a one size fits all, but let your employees customize it through connecting with one another and peer to peer [00:31:00] coaching.

[00:31:00] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yeah, and we have a really interesting diverse range of people on this webinar today and we are connecting as a community and sharing thoughts and ideas through like the poll we've just done and people saying 'yes, and' to each other in the chat and here as presenters as well.

[00:31:15] Pinar O'Flaherty: So, it's very meta. We can see how well we can learn from our communities. So there are a lot of stats out there that talk about how important relationships and communities work. I'm sure you've all heard about people leaving leaving their job because they don't like their manager.

[00:31:29] Pinar O'Flaherty: That's a big stat that comes up a lot when we talk about retention. And we know that a culture and a sense of belonging is important. In one study done in Gallup of about seven, just over 7,000 U. S. adults, they did say that they left their job at some point in their career to get away from a manager and improve their overall life.

[00:31:45] Pinar O'Flaherty: That's how people feel about those relationships. We know that in and out of the office, relationships and community are really important. It's part of a school of the psychology of happiness, which I know that sounds a little bit light and fluffy, but when you dig down into it, it's also part of learning learning psychology.

[00:31:59] Pinar O'Flaherty: We're [00:32:00] much more motivated when we are happy and engaged and find things meaningful. So. We want to talk about the way that we can connect to others and the way that we are in our communities at work and learning. We can talk a little bit about that. So building community and relationships is a means to the end, right?

[00:32:19] Pinar O'Flaherty: We work with others, so we need to learn and build those relationships effectively when we're learning. And part of this is the fact that, as we said, we tend to learn from our community. We tend to learn from peers. Here's a really good way of summing it up. Have you ever been in a training program and somebody says, well, can you give me an example so that they can understand what you're saying better?

[00:32:38] Pinar O'Flaherty: What they are asking for is a story about others. They are asking to connect with others experiences so that they can situate and contextualize this new information in real world action and in with other people. In the area of self development or any professional development, we are asking to connect with others to grow together, learn from each other, get [00:33:00] feedback and share learning experiences, provide those opportunities, things like communication feedback, which are so important in our day to day collaboration and work experiences.

[00:33:09] Pinar O'Flaherty: So a team that learns together tends to work better together. And that's what I mean by building community relationship is a means to the end. Gosh, we don't have to do trust falls anymore. We don't have to go bowling anymore. We can actually bond through more meaningful experience.

[00:33:22] Pinar O'Flaherty: Not that bowling is not fun, but we can bond through more meaningful experiences. So simply put community is super motivating. It also can hold you accountable very succinctly. It's Saturday morning. You need to go to the gym or it's Saturday night. You should get yourself off the sofa and go to that party that you're not sure you want to attend.

[00:33:39] Pinar O'Flaherty: How much more likely are you to go if your friend or partner, whoever texts you and says, Hey I'm hitting the gym or, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to check out so and so's party tonight, you want to go? It is very motivating and increases accountability to be connected to others.

[00:33:53] Pinar O'Flaherty: So it's definitely a means to an end. So some best practices. Here's some considerations. What kind of skills or [00:34:00] tasks do your learners need to learn to work with others? And how are you making that part of your program's objectives? Large group work is a great way to share stories, learn from peers, brainstorm, practice collaboration.

[00:34:11] Pinar O'Flaherty: Online forums are good too, but this is really important. Not only do you have to choose the right platform, you have to have a moderator. You have to have somebody who's going to keep people engaged, who's going to ping questions going to call out when, just like we're doing here, somebody puts something great in the chat, you need a moderator to be like, Hey, Suzanne, great point.

[00:34:29] Pinar O'Flaherty: Or, Hey, Josh I'm so glad you brought that up. This is a good question. Let's turn it over to our peers. Let's ask the group in a group. Let's, the answer is within us. as a group. So, small group work is motivating too and definitely builds stronger relationships, but you do need to keep those small groups accountable.

[00:34:45] Pinar O'Flaherty: So if you are asking them to do action things outside of the program, whether it's in a small group or individual things like, hey, reflect and bring that to your manager, you do need to keep them accountable in the program. So when you're thinking about remote and [00:35:00] hybrid you might want to say, Hey, take this action item, everybody post what they're going to do in the community forum or everyone share at the end of the webinar or how even in the e learning, if you have the facility to do it, send the learner, like an email, that's like, here's what you said you were going to do.

[00:35:18] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I usually like to include like by when, include a date, who else is involved, who do you need to recruit? So. When you're talking about working together, it is good to encourage that and work that way, but also put some like hard grammars around it, who you can work with, by when. So those are some best practices in terms of community relationships.

[00:35:37] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I think we're on time to, to move to learning styles. Accommodating different learning styles.

[00:35:44] Rachel Crice: Yeah. We're wrapping up here soon, so, we're ending on, the best part, in my opinion is making sure the programs are inclusive for all different types of learners and schedules, because the more remote and hybrid we get, the more different our schedules are gonna be.

[00:35:56] Rachel Crice: So Pinar, tell us why this is important. [00:36:00]

[00:36:00] Pinar O'Flaherty: You know, people always report a range of need for styles but this also ties back to real world action that we need to learn and in an environment that kind of is similar to the where, how we're going to apply that learning to to the way we work.

[00:36:12] Pinar O'Flaherty: Having a range of delivery methods and multiple modalities, as we would call them, meaning like videos or interactive quizzes or small group chats or brainstorming sessions. That's really important. And it's important for all the things that we've listed above, connecting with community, real world action having really thoughtful, cohesive structure and experience.

[00:36:34] Pinar O'Flaherty: And we talked a lot about reflection. So having others some things, some people might need a little bit more. a little bit more of a push. So, you might think about your learner profile and the range of styles and think like, okay, we're going to incorporate some coaching or a social situation that might give them a healthy push out of their comfort zone.

[00:36:51] Pinar O'Flaherty: You might have some content that's delivered for individual, independent reflection and some that's sort of group reflection. You might do things like [00:37:00] surveys or, like, I often like to start a program with a pre assessment survey, which kind of gives you as a program manager insight into where your learners are, and it helps you to measure where they land, as well as giving them an opportunity to see their own growth, which is super motivating and really important.

[00:37:18] Pinar O'Flaherty: And then things as well, like text, visual, audio, there's a lot of different things, but about 10 years ago, I had a performance. We want to train our managers to get better performance reviews and we want to do it with an iPad e learning experience.

[00:37:31] Pinar O'Flaherty: And I thought, well, what about role play? If they have to have conversations, maybe they should have a learning program that allows them to have conversations. So. There's always that matching that. So on the next slide when we think about this different modalities. Hybrid remote environments.

[00:37:46] Pinar O'Flaherty: I'm sure you have all heard even those of you who are just getting started learning, when you ask people like, well, how do you like to learn? Like, how should we design this program? And you start having that conversation, they'll say, well, I'm a visual learner. If you Google it, you'll see like [00:38:00] billions of results and say 65% of people are visual learners.

[00:38:02] Pinar O'Flaherty: However, let's look at some neuroscience and we do have a link to this study if you want it. It's I'll tell you the name of the study. The study is called, it was from 2019, it was called Classification of Visual and Non Visual Learners Using Electroencephalographic Alpha and Gamma Activities. So basically what they did was they looked at people who were classified as visual and non visual learners, and they actually monitored brain activity and and recall retention for what they were learning.

[00:38:32] Pinar O'Flaherty: And what they found was whether you are a visual learner or a non visual learner, most people had some pretty high level of retention when they were looking at animated visuals without audio. So, Whether you think you're an introvert or an extrovert, you prefer reflection and independent learning, or you really like to watch a video, or you really like to be in a large group discussion we gain something from all of these modalities, which is why variety is really important.

[00:38:58] Pinar O'Flaherty: Because we don't typically work in an [00:39:00] environment where we're only watching videos, right? Where we're only having discussions. So it's something to think about, and often I think about video too, is video is, when it comes to learning theory and instructional design, video is, it often lands well, it's really popular, and one of the reasons why is human brains are wired to do.

[00:39:19] Pinar O'Flaherty: Get our information from real world experiences and video is a vicarious real world experience. It has often faces or animation, motion, audio, time passing, and that's basically a vicarious experience of life. You want to think about videos, for example is it better to have a large group remote webinar where somebody is.

[00:39:44] Pinar O'Flaherty: talking learners through a screen recording of how to do something in a software program, or would that be better as a video in an e learning module and then have a discussion or office hours where a facilitator could answer questions during it? So that's one way to think about it. Does [00:40:00] the, learning experience, the remote learning experience match the way that the person needs to digest that information.

[00:40:07] Pinar O'Flaherty: And this brings us back to the fact that we are humans and we learn well in social situations. And we also need that independent work time to think. So we do both at work, right? So we need to do both when we're learning. So moving on to the best practices for this one. It can be a little overwhelming when you're choosing your, the delivery method or the modalities you'd like to use.

[00:40:25] Pinar O'Flaherty: I'd like to keep logistics as like a framework to think about it. So large group facilitated live sessions, the bigger the group, the less engaging. Chats are great. But you might want to think about things like small group breakouts so that people can have discussions where they can be more participatory.

[00:40:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: I like to keep you know, kind of like if I'm doing a learning experience, I would say 20, 25 people is really good for a large group. You could break people out into pairs or groups of three or four. You can schedule small groups to work together on their own time, make sure again that they're accountable, give them a list of here are the things you need to complete [00:41:00] and post in the community forum or bring back to our next live group session.

[00:41:04] Pinar O'Flaherty: So, I always like to have a report back or share action item. If you're using e learning for independent learning, consider reflection. And I really like e learning platform, again, that can send the learner, like, here were your responses to this quiz, or here were your responses to this reflection activity in the e learning.

[00:41:21] Pinar O'Flaherty: That gives them the opportunity to keep that record refer to it. Also they'll do the reflection activity when they get that email, if they actually read it, that repetition actually increases their experience and their reflection on their reflection.

[00:41:36] Pinar O'Flaherty: If they say oh right, I thought I should talk to my manager about that. I wrote that in my reflection. You know what, actually I should talk to the manager about that. You could even include at the end of the reflection, what are the two or three things that you're going to do? And again, by when and who does that involve?

[00:41:49] Pinar O'Flaherty: So you can do that. You can do that through e learning. You could do it during a V I L T or an I L T, a virtual instructor led or instructor led coaching session or learning [00:42:00] session. We've been able to do this for decades. I really like practice for, via multiple choice in an e learning or branching multiple choice.

[00:42:07] Pinar O'Flaherty: You can work through scenarios. We were talking earlier about examples and scenarios by what would you do in this situation? Knowing this concept or this skill, how would you respond? And then, oh, okay, that's your choice. So the next question is then if that's your choice, why? Right? Giving people that kind of, it's almost like a virtual coaching, giving them points to work through.

[00:42:26] Pinar O'Flaherty: And of course that can be done, in group situations as well. And then, also people like feedback and it's a really wonderful way to get a lot from e learning. Those quizzes that I was talking about, like how much did you get right? And that can also say I've seen programs where it's How on point did you feel or compare your response to an expert's response and give yourself an assessment and plan like where's your gap.

[00:42:49] Pinar O'Flaherty: So it's really great to give them feedback. And if you have the opportunity things like coaching sessions or small group work is another way for them to get either peer feedback or to [00:43:00] help them prepare to ask for feedback from a manager, for example, like, Hey, I've been working on this development program.

[00:43:06] Pinar O'Flaherty: Here's where some gaps that I've been working on. How do you think I'm doing? Right? Here's a couple of specific, not just well, what do you have to tell me? But here's a couple of specific things I've been working on. How am I showing up in my role and getting that kind of very specific feedback from a manager?

[00:43:20] Pinar O'Flaherty: We covered a lot of information. And actually Azure, I'm going to turn it over to you because we have goodies for you to take on your way.

[00:43:28] Azure Rooths: Thank you so very much for sharing that, Pinar. And yes, as she shared, we do have a number of goodies and thank yous for being here with us today.

[00:43:40] Azure Rooths: In the chat, you will see I've shared the SHRM Activity ID as well as the HRCI ID for those of you who may need professional development credits and hours. That is the code that you can utilize for the time that you have joined us today. In addition to that [00:44:00] Rachel shared a number of resources with us, and I've shared the links to those seven habits, seven Seven steps to successfully roll out your new HR initiative.

[00:44:11] Azure Rooths: We have an ebook that we provided and also the Harvard Business Review that Pinar discussed a little earlier in the chat. as well. As we begin to wrap up our session, we'd like to say thank you so very much for being here. We want to thank you for your participation and for your engagement. And finally, you would like to stay connected.

[00:44:47] Azure Rooths: We encourage you to please go in and gain some additional information about who we are, what we do, and how we can best service you, your team, your community [00:45:00] at large. It has been a pleasure to be here. I am Azure Rooths, and I have served as your host and producer today. Rachel. Is there anything that you would like to say as we wrap up our session for today?

[00:45:15] I would love to know just one insight round robin, everybody in the chat. What are you taking away from today?

[00:45:23] Pinar O'Flaherty: And as those are coming in, I echo that because what I was going to say is I loved having this opportunity to like, as I was watching the chats come in and different ideas and questions that people had.

[00:45:33] Pinar O'Flaherty: And we did have four different points that we touched on, but I certainly feel like I've gotten a lot from community and connecting with this group and just seeing different ideas and inspiration. So thank you all the participants for being here, for showing up, for putting information in the chat.

[00:45:50] Pinar O'Flaherty: You know, love to continue the conversation. So yeah please reach out and thank you so much. This was a really pleasurable experience, even though I got to do most of the talking, I was watching what [00:46:00] people were saying. So, it's really great. Thank you so much. Real world action. I love that that one's coming up.

[00:46:06] Pinar O'Flaherty: meeting teammates where they are not physically but professionally.

[00:46:09] Azure Rooths: You have community and connection. People absolutely did receive that. That's wonderful. A few new best practices shared. Thank you so much, Erica, for sharing that.

[00:46:19] Rachel Crice: Fantastic. Yeah, I'm taking away just the big picture of these programs and how they really are a story.

[00:46:24] Rachel Crice: They've got like this arc in the middle where you're taking that scaffolding down and pushing towards real world action. But you really want to give these folks little mini stories inside of that to give them something to look forward to. If they're, really looking for connection, have them do a little bit of reflection and then have, connection time there.

[00:46:38] Rachel Crice: So they have something to look forward to.

[00:46:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: Yeah. And opportunities for them to share their stories as well. There's so much peer to peer learning that happens in professional environments that brings a lot of value to the table. And as we know, like for anybody who's ever attended a book club. Like, it's great to talk about a shared experience, or like you talk about, Ted Lasso, I don't know who's [00:47:00] watching Ted Lasso, but boy oh boy, I've had conversations with everybody from my neighbor to my mom to my colleagues, my kids.

[00:47:06] Pinar O'Flaherty: We like to share and talk about shared experiences. And so, you know, learn, we should think about the learning programs that we have, whether they're hybrid and remote or in person and the ways that we give peer to peer connections even like the conversations that we have with random people about podcasts, you know, any information that you're, that's coming in.

[00:47:25] Pinar O'Flaherty: Is an opportunity to make those connections, to share those stories. And rich, I like, liked what you talked about, having that, that arc and those stories and then space for reflection for people to, to think about what the story is that they wanna share with their peers and get that feedback and then hear from others.

[00:47:40] Pinar O'Flaherty: Time and time again I often hear one of the people's favorite things about - especially now that we do have some people working remote - one of their favorite things about engaging in learning programs is learning from others, having the opportunity to build a community, and then also improving the ways of working.

[00:47:57] Pinar O'Flaherty: Even when the workshop is about another [00:48:00] topic entirely, people often come back and they're like, I really love that brainstorming we did. Why don't we do that more? We've come up with such better ideas if we thought about the way we work, when we're learning, applying to the way that we work when we're working.

[00:48:12] Rachel Crice: Yeah, I hear more and more people in programs that, they want to be challenged, they want to stretch, they want to be inspired, they want to learn new things, but they don't want to be challenged in the ways that like stuff should already be figured out, which is like the design of the learning, right?

[00:48:25] Rachel Crice: Making it easy for them to access and interact with. Their challenge should really be with their own growth and putting it into real world action instead of like, where is that email? Or did I get that thing? So the design of the experience is really important. I appreciate you all being so active in the chat today and sharing.

[00:48:40] Rachel Crice: Thank you for sharing your insights with us.

[00:48:42] Azure Rooths: Thank you so very much. And again, we encourage you to book a meeting. Thank you to everyone who has shared their information. Please be sure to connect with us. Pinar, hopefully you've shared your information in LinkedIn. If you have not, we encourage you to do so.

[00:48:56] Azure Rooths: Rachel, this will be a wonderful time for you to do so as well. And for our [00:49:00] last 50 Members, if you want to share your information to make sure that you connect with one another, this would be a wonderful time to do that. On behalf of our amazing team, thank you so very much for participating in today's Learning Modalities webinar.

[00:49:15] Azure Rooths: We hope you have a great day and an amazing weekend. Take care, everyone. Bye bye.