The 3 pits L&D has fallen into since lockdown

Like me you may have seen the joke on social media which went something like, “What’s had the biggest impact on your companies digital transformation - your CEO, CTO or Covid-19?” and what massive an opportunity for learning and development it is; finally we have a decent mandate to step change how we develop people as we are forced into this new reality.

As a society, we are in such a pivotal time. There is a strange juxtaposition, on the one hand this global pandemic is making us (in some instances, forces us) to be more local, shaping our future interactions, and, decimating our current ones.

Before we realise this amazing new panacea, I’ve noticed a few lessons on the journey into lockdown particularly 3 common mistakes that many of us have either made or flirted with since lockdown.

1 – Lift and shift

Face to face training has a special place in the heart of many of my industry peers and rightly so. Therefore, when lockdown hit, and it did feel like a hit, the natural reaction was to take that 3-day course and just run it virtually, lift and shift. This may seem obviously flawed now, but so strong is the bond between the physical classroom and a lot of L&D professionals and let’s not forget the state of desperation we felt when suddenly we could no longer leave our homes let alone get into the office and run some training. I saw a number of instances where the very idea of lift and shift very idea was proposed, although none came up with the flashy strapline ‘lift and shift’, rather more a stoic Churchillian ‘we shall fight on ’ mantra. The main issue with this is that while sitting on a long virtual call can be a bit taxing, being talked at on a long virtual training call can be torturous. The lift and shift approach forgets about the end user and their experience. There is a lot about a physical learning intervention that can’t be recreated virtually. If you are in any doubt, I challenge you to attend a virtual 3 consecutive day training programme and make your own mind up. Rather I would recommend starting again from the need you are looking to address, not wedging your ‘precooked’ face to face solution online.   

2 – We only talk about the icing  

It’s fair to say us L&D professionals loves sparkly, shiny, new things, and as an industry we have been talking about the intricacies of digital platforms for a while. What I have heard less about is how digital as a great tool can address capability gaps or more specifically help people get better at stuff. Since lockdown I’ve noticed a lot of (and I would say too much) conversation about platform details; Zoom is great for this, but Teams lets you do this, etc. A whiteboard may be useful, and a poll could be a good addition to a session, but honestly, I really don’t care (sorry). What I really do care about is how can we utilise digital to not only address the needs we have identified in lockdown but also in our future. To use the old analogy of putting a cart before the horse, the danger is we not just do this but fixate over the paint finish on the cart.    

3 – Now is the time to get all that learning done!

I’m putting my hands up on this one. As participant I have thought how many fire prevention/Health and safety/tree husbandry and many other compliance modules I could plough through while in lockdown, guilty.

More concerning is the thought that people will automatically have more time and therefore be more inclined to complete training they previously had no inclination of attending or completing. Aside from the fact that a good proportion of people have actually being busier than they were pre-lockdown, the mental strain of working and living at home and the uncertainty of when that will change. The issue is that a lot of ‘learning’ material was devised in a pre-lockdown world for pre-lockdown jobs, tasks and skills it wasn’t created for the situation we find ourselves in and may not be appropriate for our future. The other issue is that even if you strong-arm people to complete the desired training how are they reinforcing and practicing it in this restricted world, depending on your industry, is the learning anywhere near the flow of work? Therefore, is it going to improve skills and ability or simply be another activity to do and forget. Whilst for some digital and virtual skills this is a great time to be developing, I’d suggest for others it its time for a rethink. 

But this strange new reality is not all about pitfalls, I want to remind you we are in the midst of a massive opportunity given to us through adversity, we have a blank canvas to enable people to be better at their jobs. The opportunity to drive performance with the end user in mind, their motivations, feelings and considerations, and luckily there are endless brilliant resources and experts to help us navigate this. It’s obvious from the above pitfalls we can’t carry on as an industry doing what we do, which is not a new message; it’s now become a critical instruction. So, if you haven’t already started, I urge you to have a try at redressing your people development in a new digital way, avoiding the pitfalls above. If you fail, it’s a great opportunity to showcase learning and if you succeed you, will be an early adopter in our future industry!