This week my son finished his first year of Kindergarten. As someone who works in the learning space, I watched on in interest throughout the year to see what he would experience. I have been so impressed with Kindy’s approach to learning and the methods they use to engage the children in the learning process.

As the year draws to an end, it has me reflecting on how significantly this approach shifts as we grow. I often have clients contact Personified to seek advice because learning almost feels like a punishment to their employees. While these workplaces are committed to investing in their employees’ development, when we consider the dollars spent against the learner experience and outcomes, unfortunately many couldn’t consider the expenditure an investment.

There are a number of components that I observed my son experience this year that seem missing from adult learning. While as adults we obviously experience different environments and pressures than at kindergarten, with forethought and creativity the same techniques can be evolved and create just as much impact.

Here are 5 key approaches to learning that we shouldn’t be leaving at kindergarten:

1. Experience-Based

Adults quickly disengage from the learning process if training feels irrelevant. Shifting from heavy content to experience-based learning can create more purposeful and engaging opportunities. Importantly many of these don’t necessarily need to be offered via “classroom” style. Facilitate employees to work on a new business improvement project or support a senior leader to step through the customer experience directly with customers. Experiences can be facilitated to use existing opportunities within your workplace and reinforce the capability goals you are targeting.

 2. Reflection

There is a popular John Dewey quote, “We do not learn from experience – we learn from reflecting on experience.” Experience-based learning includes a reflection component to reinforce opportunities as learning and bring a sense of awareness and thought to the experience. Learning opportunities can otherwise be missed as we “process” throughout the day. Schedule thinking time in at the end of meetings, during training, and throughout the day to create a culture where thinking becomes the norm.

3. Creativity

Opportunities for learning are endless. There are many creative possibilities that are often missed as people focus on ticking off modules or stepping through frameworks. As previously mentioned, learning opportunities already exist in your workplace. Many adults will switch off as soon as you sit them in a room so become more creative with your approach and as a business choose facilitators wisely. Consider what approach and skills a trainer or facilitator is bringing to the workplace and whether they will genuinely target the capability goals you have set.

4. Learner-Lead

As more workplaces strive to build skills such as independence and problem-solving, learning approaches also need to evolve to achieve this. While each workplace determines its corporate learning priorities, these can still be delivered in a learner-led approach.  Take the time to ask employees what they enjoy and build on these ideas by developing a mixed learning program. As an example, if we have a client looking to improve a targeted skillset for a large group we can advise the workplace on how to reinforce this skill in different ways for different people.

5. “Soft-skills”

Looking to enhance communication in the workplace? Build leadership? Negotiate better? Get the workplace practicing. Using content style training to develop soft-skills without considering opportunities to practice them is an ineffective way to build capability. If training is being used to build these type of skills then it is essential that attention is given to how these sessions will continue to be reinforced within the workplace. Ask staff to gather examples of using these skills throughout the year to provide an opportunity for purposeful development discussions with leaders.

If your workplace is looking to review its current approach to learning in 2018 then please feel free to contact me directly to discuss the different ways we can provide support. You can also read more about our approach here: Workforce Capability

Please note that Personified will be closed for Christmas from 22/12/2017-03/01/2018.