Doing better work

(Employee learning and organizations who want you to succeed)

How do you quantify the learning experience? Where do you start if you want to learn a new skill for work? We wanted to see if it’s really possible to measure how employees improve their skills; how it’s currently being attempted, what modern techniques for continuing education exist and which organizations are investing in their employees’ futures.

To start, how do we currently measure learning experiences and results for people at work?

In a given working environment, many factors influence worker performance.

On-the-job training (OJT) includes techniques used to train employees about their job and is particularly suitable for teaching manual skills and procedures useful to reach a company’s goals. The trainer is usually an employee’s supervisor but can also be a colleague who has the required education and knowledge to do this.

There are also ‘practice and skill checks’, which allow learners to practice the real tasks they’ll do on the job and then check for skill development. These checks provide criteria for the practice partner to help them evaluate how well the learner performed and provides a way for coaches/supervisors to give them feedback.

There is the use of ‘balanced scorecards’, which is a deliberate way to value the impact of training on performance. This methodology requires dedication to analysis and tracking. The scorecard contains some results related to supervisor’s opinions, strategy of the company, actions and plans, and also desired measurements.

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LinkedIn endorsements are another popular way of evaluating skills and learning experience. It seems to be one of the most transferrable options when taking your skills from one job to another.

What is the current “state of the art” in workforce learning?

Job training has a long history of being poorly enforced, but now resources are going into the continued learning of employees in order to retain them. Since many employees are leaving their jobs as a result of the lack of options for growth, this area is one of the most important for millennials in their career choices. So on top of job training, new skills and investment in learning are becoming totems of organizations who want to hold on to their staff. One way of doing this is by an increase in online learning platforms for job-related skills. A study released by Technavio in 2016 showed global e-learning expected to increase to $31 billion by 2020.

When looking for state of the art innovation in continuing education, it’s really a question of how companies invest in their employees smartly. Leading organizations in this field make training a high priority, create a culture of accountability and allow for managers to promote people who develop their soft & hard skills.

Another factor having to do with positive employee development is the who. Unsurprisingly, leading organizations in good training practices for employees are companies like Amazon and AT&T, among others. Many companies encourage workers to use popular online classrooms, (MOOCs like Coursera and Masterclass). Tutorials on Youtube and platforms like SpeachMe are also made for specified employee training. Other training programs with large-scale availability and transferbility are LinkedIn’s Learning program and the European Skills/Competences Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) initiative ‘escobadges’.

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‘Badges’ are also a popular new way for employees to show off their skill sets. A digital badge is a visual representation of a soft or hard skill. It’s available online and contains metadata which describes the badge: its meaning, origin and destination. A simple example could be an employer, who wants to certify that his employee has a certain skill. Escobadges allows employers to verify skills for employees and IBM has a program called Open Badges, which allows IBM employees to earn and issue badges.

But there are undoubtedly issues in attempting to continue and quantify employee education.

During our research, we noticed challenges surrounding continued learning & quantification:

Challenge: How do employees choose their learning path?

Possible solution: Through using more data, personalized learning experiences and finding the best learning path are possible. This could help employees make a choice regarding what skill to learn next and visualize for them the journey that they have already put behind them.

Challenge: Traditionally, skill metrics are often internal and not transferable but we’re now living in a time where employees change their jobs on average every five years.

Possible solution: Considering we live in a time where people change jobs more often in their lifetimes, a common set of metrics which are validated and improved upon (think LinkedIn endorsements 2.0) would make skills acquired in one company transferable to another and could be invaluable.

Challenge: What about the gender pay gap which still exists and how can women be assured that improving their skills will be taken seriously and paid accordingly?

Possible solution: When it comes to closing the gender gap in industry & pay, women have more barriers to overcome than simply doing more job training. However, the hope is that the ability to quantify learning and assess skills will decrease the amount of lying that goes on in interviews and CVs, (more often by men).

Challenge: Though widely popularized and affordable for companies, there are drawbacks to online courses, as a study done by Columbia University’s Community College Research Center shows. Student attrition in online courses is high, due to the preference for face-to-face courses and the inability of online courses to accommodate students’ needs. Although hybrid courses (online & face-to-face) exist and are usually successful, they are much more rare and still being developed.

Possible solution: Increasing the number and use of hybrid courses could be the best choice to retain learners if face-to-face courses aren’t feasible and online courses aren’t being completed.

Our recommendations for improving the learning output of workers:

For employers:

• Design the performance appraisal in a way that it allows employees to reflect on their learning and future ‘SMART’ (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) learning objectives. The appraisal should also be designed in such a way that it allows for a 360 degree feedback (appraisal for employee’s manager, peers and direct reports). If the feedback is informative, it will help the employee know what adjustments to make and hence define his learning objectives.
• Encouragement by employers for employees to teach / share their learnings with other colleagues is necessary(i.e. in-house training by employees). This process will strengthen the knowledge of the one who is teaching and it will allow other employees to gain relevant knowledge for their work.

For employees:

• Manage yourself. In a Harvard Business Review, Peter F. Drucker points out that ‘Companies are not managing their knowledge workers’ careers’ and therefore “it’s up to the employee to carve out his place in the work world and know when to change course”. Although Drucker wrote this in 2005, it still holds true today. Employees must find internal motivation to keep themselves engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years. In order to grow, it is important to know your strengths, weaknesses, how you learn, how you work for others, what are your deeply held values and in what type of work environment can you make the biggest contribution.
• Have a mentor to guide and challenge you.
• Continue your education online (MOOCs, video tutorials, expert advice on digital platforms) : this is usually a very affordable way to receive a certificate for a new skill and more knowledge. And get certified in new or specific subjects (i.e. machine learning, blockchain technology), relevant to a specific job.
• Position yourself: communicate your strengths, achievements, desired contribution effectively on your personal profiles. Although this doesn’t increase the learning output, it will make skills more visible so they can be better valued by prospective employers. Also personal websites, portfolios and blogs.
• Attend conferences & workshops, organize or go to meetups, utilize social networks & networking (i.e. career-themed facebook pages) to understand trends in similar and different industries and to see how people are evolving in the different industries.

This article was researched & written by EdTech masters students, Kelly Gibbs, Pascal Kolbe, Filareti Paka and Divya Singh, at the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity in Paris.