How To Use A Learning And Mentoring Experience To Train In The Flow Of Work

By: Sue Ebbers, Ph.D.

When a curriculum for an extensive skill set must be developed, a “learning in the flow of work” or “journey-based” approach is highly effective. A Job Task Analysis (J/TA) must first be completed, identifying not only the domains, tasks and sub-tasks, but also completing relevant process workflows in sufficient detail to portray the ordering of the training to be provided. Once the J/TA and process workflows are complete, an extensive array of 1-2 hour learning experiences which we call “Learning and Mentoring Experiences” (LMEs) must be developed to enable individuals in their specific job role to learn consumable ‘bites’ of instruction. This enables them to integrate their new learning experience within their flow of work.

This article discusses how the LME design aligns well with workforces requiring rapid scalability.

Challenges Underscoring the Value of the LME

It’s no wonder that business scalability and sustainability are common issues for all successful organizations. Because the first thing you worry about after you’ve done all the right things, after everything finally clicks, and once business finally take off, is when will the challenges hit and what will they be? One central challenge is how to avoid keeping the workforce out of the flow of work when they have to upskill, attending workforce training of several weeks’ duration. This is especially concerning knowing that they will likely forget specific aspects of the training when, say, six months later, they are called upon to perform a set of tasks that they only vaguely remember from training six months prior. A ‘learning in the flow of work’ approach, using LMEs as the focusing initiative, can address this issue.

This is not the only concern regarding training and long-term organizational viability in the workforce, however. Other factors that must be considered when deciding to invest in a ‘learning in the flow of work’ training approach include:

Which long-term people on staff with valuable institutional knowledge present an immediate risk to the business if they were to pass away, quit for a better job opportunity, or retire?
How is valuable institutional knowledge protected and kept current in the face of a much larger, newer workforce?
What steps are being taken to ensure everyone performs the same tasks at the same level of quality?
Is the onboarding of new people done in a consistently common manner so they avoid lawsuits?
What is the process for new people at an organization to be mentored into the culture so they will do their best work?
Is the succession plan resilient so that staff have upward mobility and can grow in new ways?

Take this example: Company A has been in business as a financial cooperative for over 80 years. They provide financing, insurance, and related services to farmers, ranchers, commercial fishermen, and crop insurance customers within a region of the USA. Over the years, they trained their new insurance professionals over a six-week period of time prior to their engaging in their roles with actual customers. During the employee’s first year, they would have to rely on coaches or their training material notes to figure out their next steps. And while turnover was pretty rare, loss of institutional knowledge over time was inevitable.

This type of approach is a colossal waste of time and money, and often an organization will require a fully customized solution for one or more of the job roles in the organization. There are many ways to go about this, and your decisions will be based on a number of factors, such as cost, scope of work, rigor, time available to learn, and timeline.

So how does an organization upskill people in a complex job role such as crop insurance professionals while they are running fast doing their jobs?

The Learning and Mentoring (LME) Solution to These Challenges

The simple, short answer to all of these challenges is to develop an ongoing training program with brief daily or weekly training interjections that is unique to the organization for each complex role. Everyone in that job role is upskilled within the workflow of their growing responsibilities with brief 1-2 hour training activities that include personal research, mentoring or coaching by a solid long-term employee, and an application activity. That way, everyone will be onboarded and upskilled appropriately within the flow of work, eliminating the need to take 2, 3, 4 or even more weeks to upskill the individual away from that flow of work. We’ll portray the factors in the LME further below.

Company A considered using lengthy employee education materials, but management felt that this historical approach was outdated and resource-wasteful. So instead, the business chose the customized LME approach so they could keep the doors open and machines humming safely and effectively. By using this LME approach, Company A employees in a specific job role were far more likely to integrate and apply each smaller chunk of information successfully the point at which they’d need it. If a challenge arose for that specific person six months later, they could easily return to the specific LME which had been curated in an easy-to-find way on the organization’s learning management system. Downloading a one-page reference of relevant information and skills would quickly enable the individual to refresh their understanding and skill without a major interruption.

Also called a “Coaching and Learning Guide” (“CLG”), the LME is in its best form when it is only a one-page document. We’ll provide an example below and discuss the three main sections and other essential information.

Main Sections of the LME

Recall that the LME should be no longer than 1-2 hours. The three main sections of this LME include:

Section 1: Scoping the Specific Knowledge and Skills

In this first section, the following resources should be included as relevant:

An embedded Articulate RISE training that overviews a more extensive skill set. This is usually provided when there are several LMEs training on various aspects of a significant chunk of the job role’s skill set.
Standards, work flowcharts, org charts and other types of overview documentation.
Areas of one or more websites relevant to the topic, with embedded links that the learner would click on to review.
A possible gatekeeping set of test questions that the learner must pass at between 80 to 95% before moving to the next part of the LME.

Section 2: Meeting with Your Mentor / Coach

In this second section, the learner is provided with a series of questions and has been assigned a mentor, or coach. Together they discuss these questions and the right answers. The learner will be required to take notes. The coaches also have their own curriculum that supports their LME role and enables them to correctly respond to all of the learner questions. In this way, institutional knowledge is passed forward in a pseudo-apprenticeship fashion. It provides the learner with support in their journey to competence, and it also is a mechanism for transmitting the organization’s culture.

Section 3: Personal Application

In this third section, the learner is provided with a fairly brief application activity. Post-completion, the learner might need to return to their mentor/coach for feedback. Alternatively, if the application activity is a pre-developed set of case-based activities, with feedback provided, using Articulate RISE or Storyline as the host of the activity can be a useful approach. Post-tests delivered in a link that are hosted on the organization’s LMS are another way to demonstrate capability.

Introductory Information Section

Above these three sections in the LME, you find three overview sections that establish expectations for the learner. These include 1) an overview of what the learner can expect do as the result of this LME; 2) the list of learning objectives (no more than five in one LME); and 3) an overview of what the learner will be doing within this LME. Each part of this introductory material helps the learner access prior knowledge to make them more receptive to the new information and skills.

Click here to download an editable Microsoft Word version of this LME template.

Structured Support for the LME Learning Journey

In addition to your LME/CLG, companies will require additional items. These include:

Guiding documentation for the mentor/coach, including a shorter but essential set of LMEs for them
An overview plan of how to disseminate these LMEs/CLGs
A learning management system (“LMS”) set up to record completion of LME/CLGs and other metrics
A separate section in the LMS for learners to be able to access past LME/CLGs to refresh their understanding of a particular aspect of their skill set.

The good news with this approach is that it is far easier to update specific LMEs when processes or information change than it is to modify extensive weeks’ long training guides for instructors and learners. It also enables new learners to begin the upskilling process on Day 1, rather than having to wait until enough people are hired to send them all through the multi-week face-to-face training.

Additional Guidance in the LME

Keep in mind that your decision on what approach to take should be based on the critical nature of the job role to the results the organization seeks to achieve. Change by Design has deep experience in designing and developing learning materials that lead to an effective curriculum of any size. For a comprehensive case study detailing how Change by Design worked with an international big truck manufacturing company to help all dealership salesmen (beginners, intermediates, and experts) upskill the right way, read this white paper on workforce alignment to organizational results.