To Rapidly Upskill Your Workforce, You Need to Shift Your Focus Away from Learning
Upskilling, reskilling, and retaining talent have been on my mind lately. And I’m not alone. The need for upskilling has been noted by 87% of CEOs (McKinsey, 2020) and as a top priority by 59% of L&D professionals (LinkedIn, 2021). The question on my mind is whether we should do more of the same, or if it’s time to explore better strategies, designs, and tools that promise to deliver better results.
Recently, I was talking with a learning and development (L&D) colleague about this. He shared that high-performing teams in their company were struggling since they went hybrid. With some team members coming back to the office while others remained virtual, they noticed that their workflows, communication, and productivity all started to suffer. To address this, he said their L&D solution was to develop an eLearning course and a virtual Instructor Led Training (vILT). Without skipping a beat, I told him…
“You need to shift your focus away from learning-
it won’t even get you halfway to your goal.”
He replied semi-incredulously, “Not even halfway? Tell me more.”
Learning is Important, But What Comes Next?
As we talked, he had already identified his business need (low performing hybrid teams) as well as core content his employees needed to learn (new workflows and communication skills). Let’s suppose that the learning solution (eLearning and vILT courses) would effectively help his teams to understand the concepts. Great! We’re done- right?
Upskilling Architecture (version 1)
Learn
But then I asked, “Once you’ve pushed the content to them and they’ve learned it, will their[CC1] work performance improve to the level it needs to be? I wish it was that simple, but it’s not.”
What’s Missing?
I asked him to think back to the last time he learned a new workflow in Excel or some other software.
I said, “After you learned how to make an Excel pivot table by watching an online video, what did you do?”
He replied, “I tried doing it.”
“Did you do it perfectly the first time?” I asked.
“No, I needed to reference what I learned and practice a little bit,” he said.
“Oh. So you’re saying that practicing the skill you just learned helped you anchor what you’ve learned and shift from learning how to do it to actually doing it? And how did that make you feel?” I asked.
“Well, when I practiced it a few times, I felt confident- like I knew what I was doing,” he said.
“That’s great- it sounds like a success. Now let’s return to the approach you’ll use to upskill your teams. Did you include opportunities for them to practice their new skills?” I asked.
That’s when the lightbulb went on for him. He made the connection that his focus needed to shift from just learning the content to what comes next- practicing how to do it.
Upskilling Architecture (version 2)
Learn + Practice
They’re Good Now- But What About in 6 Weeks or 6 Months?
I told him that there was one more part to this story. I said, “Let’s say that they’ve learned and practiced their new skills. They feel confident and competent. But what about in 6 weeks or 6 months? Will they still remember everything?”
One fact most people don’t consider is that we tend to forget almost everything we learn. To be more precise, we forget more than 90% of what we learn after about a month. This phenomenon is called “The Forgetting Curve” and it can severely reduce the effectiveness of any L&D solution. Practicing a skill after learning it reduces the impact of The Forgetting Curve, but employees are still left with a gap in applying what they learned.
After I shared The Forgetting Curve, my colleague asked, “So how do you address this?”
I said, “After your teams have learned, practiced, and then forgotten some of what they’ve learned, they can quickly access performance support resources weeks or months later. These resources are designed to be “pulled” and help them quickly recall and apply what they’ve already learned. Think back to when you learned how to make a pivot table. Did you ever forget what to do?”
“Yes- there are a lot of steps. I can remember most of them, most of the time,” he replied.
“So, when you’re in the flow of work, building a spreadsheet, do you want to stop and take an eLearning course to find the answer?” I asked.
“Of course not. I just want the answer of what to do in the next step- I don’t have time to re-take a course” he responded.
“Sounds like you need access to a variety of resources designed to help you quickly recall and apply what you’ve already learned. That’s the last part of a complete solution,” I shared.
He exclaimed, “Oh, I see- learn, practice, apply. That’s why you said I need to shift my focus away from just learning.”
Upskilling Architecture (version 3)
Learn + Practice + Apply
This upskilling architecture is based on the award-winning Push-Anchor-Pull™ approach, which has been proven to increase engagement, reduce implementation costs, and improve learning/performance outcomes.
Are You Curious to Learn More?
If these ideas spark interest, take the next step and schedule a free 30-minute conversation with award-winning learning industry leaders. We’ll help you explore how you can shift your focus from learning to practicing and applying so you can rapidly upskill your workforce.
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