Targeting learner and business outcomes is more important than ever.

2020 continues to be a year of change and challenge. Many people find the prospect of change scary and hold back, preferring to do things the traditional way in the hope of staying afloat.

But the days of sticking to the status quo are over. As business’ pivot so do support teams such as Human Resources and Learning and Development. In this post, we will be discussing the benefit of creating a learning avatar to determine the best way to engage and train employees. With more employees than ever before working from home, our workplaces are demanding more dynamic ways of learning and developing their skills. Resources are slimmer than ever, with every dollar being watched, ensuring that learning has a clear return on investment is now more critical than ever.

Now is the time to shake off those shackles of timidity and take braver, bolder steps towards creating targeted learning programs that are relevant and timely.

Now more than ever, it is essential to determine your audience requirements. One way to do this is to create a learner avatar (no, not an eLearning character.) Avatars are commonly used in marketing.

A customer avatar, or buying persona, is essentially a profile of the perfect customer or client. When you understand who your ideal customer is, what they look like, their habits, interests, challenges, aspirations, in fact, everything about them, you’ll be much more effective in marketing to them. Sounds good, doesn’t it? These principles can be applied to your learners. After all, they are your customers.

It’s safe to say the needs of workers and customers have changed significantly in a short period.  So we need to review the way that we engage and train our internal customers, the learner.

When you intend to offer a product or service, including learning programs, it’s essential to understand who your ideal learners are.  These are the individuals that will be completing your training offer and stand to gain the most from it.

Your model learner is an individual.  He or she is a living, breathing person with feelings, hopes, aggravations, pains, ambitions and desires.

This person exists right now, waiting and hoping for your training offering will be relevant to their needs now as the work environment continues to change as a result of Covid19.

Creating a Learning avatar.

Done well, a Learning avatar will identify further information to help create a truly tailored learning solution and works well in conjunction with a training needs analysis.  You can consider that a learning avatar is the next step post-TNA. Ideally, you would create a new learning avatar for each new course or program.

A learning avatar starts with answering the following questions.

• Demographic:  Our learner is VERY LIKELY to be:
• Age
• Gender
• Age or number of Children (this is important for those who will now be increasingly exposed to distance learning via their children)
• Location and/or Demographic Placement (such as affluent areas in the suburbs, low-income regions, etc… Consider regions where you’ll find him/her)
• Career range – New starter, tenure etc
• Education level – including recent training conducted on the course topic or theme
• Occupation – this will help to ensure targeted examples, use of language and learner scenarios.
• Is there a defining demographic characteristic? (such as subject matter expertise, industry, department, knowledge worker, skill-based worker, front of house, office based worker etc)

Demographic information helps define parameters to target learning styles, needs and engagement.                                                                                                      

Missions and Objectives:   Our ideal learner is driven by or is hopefully optimistic of achieving:

• Learners’ Main Mission: Ex: To develop an engaging leadership style…Find ways to incorporate coaching into my daily routine….

These drivers of desire and hope characterize their internal dialogue.  He/she is attracted to mediums that discuss, visualize, and explain the experiences of others.  From the items below, he/she will seek to find/apply ideas, avoid obstacles and discover information that will support his/her mission.

Current Sources of Insight, Self-Help and Positive Influence:

•  What are the popular programs or products already being used by similar individuals?
•  What books and magazines does he/she read? (This will help to determine if self directed learning is an option)
• What blogs, podcasts, news outlets or social media pages does he/she follow?
• What support organizations, groups or conferences might he/she be involved with, or have vetted out?
• What well-known authority figures are the evangelists for those that are defined by the causes, missions and objectives listed above?

Realistic Goals & Objectives: 

Ex: … Achieve a more engaging leadership dynamic that the rest of my team  will adapt to easily by the end of  this financial year

These answers will help you identify where he/she hangs out and what types of media (and from which sources) he/she is most likely consuming right now.  Ponder how your learning module or program can achieve “being present” among the media he/she is consuming.

 The following defines the “Why Not?” predisposition of the learner.   Why isn’t the problem solved already and what may the customer be using as a predetermined stopping point in pursuing their goals?

 Greatest Obstacles and Sources of Predetermined Doubt:

• What are the greatest challenges your learners are facing?

Ex: Manager won’t approve or be supportive, Can’t find a real and trusted source, can’t afford it…

• What are the most common complaints among these groups of people?
• Why do they hesitate?  Why haven’t they solved the problem or satisfied their desire already?

Ex:  Results for similar learning programs seem too unrealistic, fear of being unsuccessful or less than fulfilled by what’s being offered…

• What are the common objections that your prospective learners may have?

Role Reversal Exercise

Imagine that you have only ten seconds to speak with the perfect learner that fits the theme of your descriptions above.  What will you tell them about:

True and Definite Outcomes. 

• What is your flagship offering and why are you offering it?  Is there a lower level and a premium level that might suit learners better in special circumstances?
• How are you qualified to offer it?
• What is unique about you or your learning product, course or program?
• Is there a “Wow factor” in what you’re offering that is proven and real?
• What does success look like? How will it be measured

To confirm if your learning avatar is correct, you will need to consult with your stakeholders. Find out what tools your people need to do their jobs faster and better.

Talk to your people and ask them what kind of topics/areas of expertise they need training for, as well as the tools they need to make it happen.

Ensure that you become expert on how people learn in this new learning environment. Increasing remote facilitation skills and gaining ‘deep’ expertise in the full capability of video facilities will assist.

 

Having a clear understanding of how learners learn is integral to the L&D function. Stop and reflect to determine what needs to be deployed versus ‘nice to have training.’ Chances are your learners have their hands full with adapting to work from home, and for those that have children, keeping them engaged and completing home based learning.

Attention spans are likely to be shorter when learners are stressed or in crisis.  Ensure that your training is engaging and consider the timing of deployment.

Is the training mandatory? Are you using the learning to engage learners? If so, then consider if self paced and self directed learning will be more effective.

Gather as much data as you can and share it with colleagues to back up the rationale behind your initiatives. In turn, this improves motivation and learners engaging with the proposed learning solution.  Stakeholder engagement is key.

Now is not the time to be the learning and development team that works and creates solutions in isolation.

What process do you use to determine your learners’ needs? Do you use an avatar process? Let us know in the comments below.

Facilitated Training 

Targeted,  professional development courses enable you to deliver effective training sessions that get the key message across and retain participant involvement.

• Save hours of research and development time. We have done all the hard work so you can focus on the training delivery 
• Own complete rights to edit, copy, and reuse the training materials. You can even brand it with your business logo and name.
• Download all training courses and courseware packages immediately in their source files.

 Each training course includes: 

• Detailed Trainers / Facilitator Guide
• Targeted explainer video
• Learner Workbooks
• Adult centred training activities
• A self-paced learning plan for learning application back in the workplace
• Learner Attendance Certificate
• Attendance record
• Training evaluation sheet

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Facilitated Training has the solution that you need. Editable training materials that can be used again and again. Insert your company logo, add in case studies or examples from your workplace, or train using the quality training materials, as is.

Facilitated Training is your one-stop-shop for world-class, customisable training and professional development resources.

Facilitated Training offers training and organisational development resources to facilitators, trainers, coaches, HR managers and individuals.

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About the author: Colleen Condon

Colleen likes to keep things creative in all that she does, often using marshmallows as a source of inspiration.

Everyone knows that ongoing learning is essential for both personal and professional success and yet, for many, this means hours of attending dead boring training or completing’ losing the will to live’ eLearning modules. Colleen’s mission is to end tedious professional development while ensuring targeted outcomes for learners and businesses.

Colleen has honed her skills over the last 20 years across multiple industries and locations. Her previous role saw her overseeing the training and development needs of over 60, 000 employees across 13 countries in the APAC region.  This enabled her to hone skills that celebrated diversity and understanding human commonality through learning, and that in the absence of a common language, flip charts and coloured markers helped her to overcome most challenging situations.

After taking a ‘go away package’, in 2019, Colleen founded her own business, Facilitated Training, harnessing her global learning experiences and sharing them through ready to use learning resources, specialising in leadership, mentoring, guest speaking, creative problem solving, filling the gap of high quality, customisable training resources and tools.