When Learning Happens
Supporting Learners after Class
I think the person who plays the largest role is the supervisor in the follow-up arena.
—Catherine Vaughn, Continuing Education Coordinator, Lee County Library System
Talk to most learners in the days after they return from a face-to-face or online session, and you will hear what we call the Learner’s Lament: “I wish I had time to use what I learned.” This, of course, raises a question for all of us: what are we doing here? “Too many times, a person comes back to their place of work and is never asked to discuss, demonstrate, implement … what learning took place in a session. If learning is not reinforced soon, much is quickly lost,” Lee County Library System continuing education coordinator Catherine Vaughn says, capturing the heart of the challenges we address in this chapter. We have already discussed the dirty little secret that really is not a secret among those involved in library and nonprofit workplace learning and performance programs: most training does not lead to changes in the workplace. It is, to be blunt, time wasted.
As we look specifically at what happens in the hours, days, weeks, and months after someone completes a lesson and returns to the workplace, we realize we are about to face a critically important issue. If we, as leaders in workplace learning and performance, do not create an environment that supports the changes encouraged through the lessons we are offering, we might as well not waste our time, our colleagues’ time, and our organizations’ time.
Now that we have bluntly and harshly described the challenge we all face, let’s consider what we and others are and can be doing to reverse this situation. Providing effective learning opportunities is, after all, far from being an insurmountable challenge; we have all had those moments of success and celebration when we learned to do something we needed to learn to do. What we need to accomplish with greater regularity is moving past the idea that training is what happens while the student is with us and embrace a larger and far more positive belief that training is an ongoing process drawing from the creation of communities of learning. Workplace learning and performance initiatives are most successful when everyone involved displays a commitment to use what is learned in the broadest possible terms to the benefit of all we serve.
A Modified Model for Success
We have already, in a brief way in chapter 4, reviewed one of the linchpins of training-teaching-learning: the ADDIE model and its slightly updated sibling, ARDDIE. As we focus on what happens between the time a learner completes a lesson and the time when we complete and review the results of formal evaluations, we realize there is yet another missing link that many of our learners readily and ruefully acknowledge: follow-up designed to help learners absorb and apply what they have learned. It is not our intention to add to the already jargon-laden world of training, so we are not going to suggest an ARDDIFE model—mainly because we have no idea how we would even begin pronouncing that newly coined acronym—but we are going to acknowledge that printed sources and training colleagues we are citing throughout this book agree that follow-up is every bit as important to the learning process as the other steps are.
Evaluation being the important and often undervalued element of workplace learning and performance that it is, it is the entire focus of the next chapter; for now, we explore what happens between completion of a formal learning opportunity and implementation of an effective evaluation process.
Management consultant and trainer Pat Wagner is someone who displays an instinctive sense of the importance of making learning a process rather than taking a day-of-the-event approach. Even while engaged in the presentation of material to learners, she thinks ahead:
My closing exercise is to ask people how they are going to apply the information from the class or, if they were teaching a class on this topic, what would they include from the material I presented. Or, even if it’s not something directly related to the class … “what do you think you’re going to apply when you return to your workplace?”
Anything I can do to get them to reflect on the material and then come back with something that is about how they will apply it—it can’t be about my success, it can’t be about the Pat Wagner Fan Club. Whatever happens outside of the classroom, if it inspires change, it is a success.
“Overall, I want to find out if the experience was a productive and rewarding one for both attendees and instructors,” Denver Public Library learning and development manager Sandra Smith agrees. “I … regularly speak with staff, both informally in following up with individuals about their experiences and needs and informally on-the-fly in hallways, around meetings, in the parking lots, etc., to get reactions … to what’s being offered.”
“When it comes to my leadership role in providing follow-up to training, I’m more of a coordinator,” Gwinnett County Public Library training manager Jay Turner observes of his own approach.
I may send follow-up activities [for] my learners to complete within a given timeframe after class, and then the responsibility is often placed on that staff member’s supervisor to ensure that the follow-up is completed. … Likewise, I may send a behavioral checklist to a trainee’s supervisor so that the supervisor can observe for performance changes. Also, depending on the training initiative, I may send follow-up assessments to staff and supervisors to see if the learning is being used in the work environment.
Taking that level of interest in and sustaining that level of involvement in follow-up efforts is not easy, Catherine Vaughn admits: “Follow-up is sometimes a difficult task to manage. I feel the trainer-facilitator can play a role. However, I think the person who plays the largest role is the supervisor in the follow-up arena.” It is with this comment that we find ourselves directly in the middle of what is missing from so many learning opportunities: the personal involvement and support of key players and stakeholders, and a personal and organizational commitment to creating the sort of workplace where, when learners return from formal lessons, they are encouraged to implement what they have learned.
Let’s not forget that this is neither academic nor theoretical: it is about people, performance, and results. Even though we all appreciate and acknowledge how difficult it is for us as individuals to find or make the time to engage in this level of support, we should be puzzled and even somewhat disappointed in ourselves that we acquiesce in letting those limitations of time and resources stop us, since so much has been written about the importance of follow-up and workplace support. We must instinctively know—even if we have not seen the research available to us—that what we are doing could be much more effective than it is, but we do not seem to have reached the point where we feel compelled to invest the time and effort it requires to be strong advocates for the improvements our minds and hearts are nudging us to pursue. We are not even encouraged by those in positions above us to follow up continually with our learners and make sure that a transfer of learning has taken place from the learning space to the workplace. Instead, we are rushed from one training assignment to the next without the time to complete effectively the assignment we are pursuing.
James Kouzes and Barry Posner provide great guidance and inspiration for us as we consider what we might be doing better as learning leaders; they effectively document throughout their book The Leadership Challenge the obvious and important influences leaders have on those around them. Their “Five Practices and Ten Commitments of Leadership” include reminders that leaders “model the way,” “inspire a shared vision,” “challenge the process,” “enable others to act,” and “encourage the heart,” and their suggested commitments include one to “set the example by aligning actions with shared values”—ideas that we all too often set aside as we deal with the varied and conflicting directives coming our way.1
Furthermore, citing their extensive research, Kouzes and Posner remind us of the tremendous influence leaders—we—have: “If you’re a manager in an organization, to your direct reports you are the most important leader in your organization. … The leaders who have the most influence on people are those who are the closest to them,” they write. “You have to challenge the myth that leadership is about position and power.”2
There is no reason to believe that such influential leadership would not carry over into the realm of influencing and supporting learners, and there is every reason to believe we might achieve better results for our learners, our organizations, and all whom we ultimately serve if we managed somehow to push a few other challenges aside long enough to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the positions we hold or hope to hold. After all, if we and those around us do not feel it is important enough to model what we offer and to support its implementation, we can hardly be surprised by the awful and frankly embarrassing news that what is learned is generally implemented by approximately 15 percent of those attending training sessions.3
Because this number is so staggering, we should stop for a moment to reflect upon it. If only 15 percent of what is learned transfers back to the job, what happens to the other 85 percent? Does it float out the window as the learner daydreams during class? Does it pass into the realms of social networking as learners update their Twitter and Facebook statuses during class, or are we teaching ideals that are simply not possible in the real world of today’s libraries and nonprofit organizations, which are constantly under threat of closure or are facing imminent reductions in funding?
If we dive one level deeper and return to the idea that training is all about change, we find encouragement in Everett Rogers’s Diffusion of Innovation as we contemplate the influence we might have within the change-facilitation aspects of the learning process, and much of this comes within the follow-up phase we are promoting in this chapter. “Opinion leaders” and “change agents,” Rogers maintains, are critical in providing a setting in which change can occur. As Kouzes and Posner maintain and Rogers tells us, “Informal leadership is not a function of the individual’s formal position or status in the system. Opinion leadership is earned and maintained by the individual’s technical competence, social accessibility, and conformity to the system’s norms.”4
“Innovation champions”—those who actually champion the innovation being suggested in any context, including library and nonprofit organization’s workplace learning and performance efforts—furthermore, “can play an important role in boosting a new idea in an organization. … Past research shows that an innovation champion is often important in the innovation process in organizations,” Rogers maintains.5
One such example of an innovation champion is Helene Blowers, former technology director for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Blowers saw that classroom training was not getting enough staff up to speed fast enough with Web 2.0 technology, so she created a list of “23 Things” that all staff needed to know about Web 2.0 (see chapter 2). Lists of competencies are nothing new, but the stroke of brilliance with the Learning 2.0/23 Things program was the follow-through conducted to ensure that participants understood what they were learning.
As participants learned each thing, they were required to write blog posts summarizing the lesson. Many participants, however, went above and beyond what was required by not only summarizing what they learned but also actually performing the lesson in the blog posts. In “thing five,” for example, participants were assigned to “explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.” Many participants created Flickr accounts, uploaded photos, and then embedded those photos in their blog posts. This was the transfer of learning that trainers crave.
It is no wonder that this program has been replicated by libraries around the world. Michael Stephens, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in Illinois, has been conducting research in Australia to understand the impact on library staff and institutional culture and makeup after a Learning 2.0 program. In a survey given to Australian library workers who had completed the Learning 2.0 program, 89 percent of the 318 respondents said they were now confident or very confident in learning new technologies.6
In a 2007 article in Computers in Libraries, Blowers herself reflected on the intangible benefits the program provided to her staff: “In the end, the program not only created a bond among workers at individual branches but also helped to strengthen our staff community systemwide.”7
From a trainer’s point of view, what makes the 23 Things program work is that it takes training out of the classroom and puts learning front and center in the hands of the learners. The trainer is there to create the exercises and to guide and encourage staff along the way, but the responsibility for learning is ultimately in the hands of the learner—where it should be. This self-directed approach to learning rather than training allows the learner to apply immediately what is learned in relation to the learner’s job or personal interests. This immediacy and this choice of how to apply what is being learned are what makes the learning stick.
It is clear, as we resurface from this brief exploration of a few well-respected and well-established models, that we have our work cut out for us. If we move directly from delivery of learning opportunities to the evaluation of the results produced by those learning opportunities—or, even worse, if we focus on the moment of delivery as the entire learning process rather than see the moment of delivery as part of a much more important, long-range, and potentially effective process that benefits all stakeholders—we miss a critically important phase of the process—the follow-up that leads to positive change. The result, of course, will be the continuing and pathetic 15 percent success rate mentioned by Brinkerhoff and others.
“I do believe that the ultimate measure of success [in training] is success in behavior after time in the classroom,” Wagner says. “I don’t work in an institution and I don’t supervise, so the best I can do is to be sure that every supervisor is a trainer. … It is in that supervisory role that … change is dispersed throughout the organization.”
Wagner also offers support for the idea that there must be an alignment between what is offered through learning sessions and what is supported in the learner’s workplace: “If I am the staff member attending the program, before I even go to class I [need to] have that conversation with my supervisor about the class and, after the class, I have a debriefing [about what is usable and what will be applied]. That kind of planning is very important.”
“That should happen most of the time if the supervisor is doing her job before and after the class”—but it rarely does, Wagner adds:
I would say [it happens] five to ten percent of the time. Mostly what I see and hear from the training staff of libraries—and I believe what they are saying is legitimate—[is that] someone in the institution says, “Train everybody in whatever,” and people are not given enough time and not given enough information. There’s no institutional follow-up, and there are no positive or negative consequences, so if I go to a class and study real hard … when I come back, nobody says anything about the class. If I apply the materials, nobody says anything. If I don’t apply the materials, nobody says anything. That’s where I become apathetic. … There’s a dual message I hear: “You go to training, but we really don’t care.”
Wagner has described a fundamental breakdown between management and training. If library and nonprofit leaders refuse to put methods in place to hold employees accountable for not only knowing what was presented in training but also for applying those lessons back on the job, then once again we must ask ourselves, what is it that we are really doing here?
As trainers become leaders within their own organizations, they must find ways to educate members of administration and management about the important role they play in training. Without strong support from those key players, training is a waste of time. The employees know it. Often the trainer is the last to admit or realize this grim reality. No one wants to be set up to fail.
What Our Colleagues Say and Do
Sandra Smith, with her Denver Public Library colleagues, takes the most comprehensive day-to-day approach we encountered among our colleagues in terms of supporting change through learning after formal lessons have been completed:
I … do a post-wrap with any stakeholders—executive team, managers—to inform them of what has happened … to both keep them informed and to let them know of reactions, further needs, failures, and anything else they need to know for immediate and strategic purposes. For our larger initiatives, I do create reports showing aggregate info from evaluations—I always make sure that I have some quantifiable data, as well as open responses—so this data can be a part of our measurable and ROI organizational needs.
I do not do this for every simple info session [there are more than 150 each year at Denver Public] but do for the “biggies” that have been specifically targeted. I also track data about who attends each class, their positions, etc., so I can at any time pull up info on the demographics of our learning program and I use this in an annual report.
As is often the case with those who seem to be most innovative and far-reaching in setting expectations for themselves, Smith adds a caveat: “I need to do more with individual learners’ post-sessions, and that is a priority for me in the coming year.”
We have already made it clear in this chapter that we believe we need to shift our priorities a bit to take into account the need for more follow-up. We should be equally explicit that this does not simply mean taking on even more responsibilities and hastening the inevitable moment of burnout that causes great organizations to lose equally great employees; we need to find a way to remove some of the dross that comes our way and focus on, as well as advocate, the sort of balanced workload and job description that allow us to produce the results our colleagues deserve.
When someone higher up in our organizational hierarchy tells us that we are being assigned to yet another committee or project that has nothing to do with our workplace learning and performance responsibilities, we need to make a case—diplomatically and convincingly—for returning to the overall priorities the organization has set for its training programs. There is no use pretending that any organization can thrive in a setting where no good deed goes unpunished or every goal successfully reached is immediately rewarded with two new tasks to complete. We are, after all, trainer-teacher-learners at heart; we rely on a well-developed knowledge of educational techniques, highly refined communication and facilitation skills, and an aptitude for effectively creating communities of learning. If we remind ourselves that we have and can employ these skills and do all we can to advocate effective use of those skills, we will sleep better at night, and our colleagues will gain more from us than if we allow ourselves to be pulled in so many directions that we accomplish bits and pieces of everything without fully achieving anything substantial.
Still, in the new reality many organizations are facing, trainers in fear of job cuts are taking on other roles to avoid being affected by layoffs. Many trainers serve dual roles simply because of their place on an organizational chart. Trainers who work in a human resources department often take on other human resource tasks. Likewise, trainers who work in information technology departments take on help desk responsibilities. The worst situation is faced within organizations that do not have the funding to support a full-time staff development position. Training within libraries and nonprofit organizations facing those situations is piecemeal and often offered by staff members torn between their customer service, staff development, and other responsibilities.
“Ideally, I would be more involved in the transfer of training process, but I’m a department of one. My reality is that I spend a significant portion of my time dealing with the daily minutiae of managing the training function. I have an LMS to oversee, a budget to run, papers to push, and fires to extinguish,” Jay Turner readily admits in words that almost everyone we know who is involved in library and nonprofit workplace learning and performance programs could repeat.
Smith offers a reminder that we cannot hear enough: “My job as a leader is to see that the scale remains overall in balance.” “We, as learning leaders, need to have high expectations for what we want our staff and organization to look like and then take those expectations and match them with the realities of organizational resources, culture, needs, and human capacity and capability,” she quickly adds. “It may look one way for my library and another way for someone else, but as long as we each are honestly and with our best integrity and skills striving to a high expectation, it is enough and should be celebrated.”
Her comment about celebration offers us even more food for thought in terms of what we can do to implement effective follow-up: remember to celebrate large and small achievements—something we build into the learning process only infrequently.
One of us, in working with a group of learners who were facing large challenges in adapting to a new technology their organization was introducing, could see that the learners not only were drained at the end of each session but were walking away a bit discouraged. It was clear that they were learning what they needed to learn, and it was equally clear that they were too immersed in the process to recognize how much they were achieving—all they could see was what they still needed to learn, not what they had already learned. Those of us working on that particular learning project, during one of our end-of-the-day reviews of how the lessons had gone, noted that we needed to do something to reduce the learners’ overall stress level and inject a bit of levity into the process, so we decided to introduce an upbeat “victory dance” video from YouTube into the next day’s lesson.
When the learners returned the following day for what everyone knew was going to be the longest and most intense of the formal lessons, we outlined our lesson plan and referred obliquely to the victory dance we would do at the end of class. It was obvious from the learners’ body language and smiles that they knew the course was about to take a shift in tone, so we suspected we were onto something positive. As promised, when the lesson ended and the learners had demonstrated their mastery of the material covered, we projected the brief video onto a blank wall in the front of the classroom, and though no one actually stood up and emulated the victory dance we had discovered, they all left the classroom smiling. The real payoff came at the end of the lesson on the following day: a few of the learners looked at those of us leading the latest session and asked, “Don’t we get to see the dance again?”
Surprised and pleased that what we had done produced the desired effect—and, by the way, helped strengthen the sense that a community of learners was continuing to develop among the participants—we brought the video back up for those who wanted to watch it again. Having learned our own lesson from that experience, we then built celebratory, humorous video vignettes into each subsequent module of the course, and we continue to remember and promote the idea that the little effort it takes to build celebration into the learning process produces results far beyond what any of us might expect.
Returning for one final pass over the theme of what our colleagues offer as best practices, we once again find Smith offering great hands-on, practical guidance:
I encourage staff teachers to follow up with reminders … [and] questions to people about what’s happening with them around their daily work and the training. I also make sure that an atmosphere of “call on me anytime” is put out there by staff teachers and myself—cultivating an open communication process. … Teachers are encouraged to check in, and we just now have on our Intranet Learning Pages, an online forum where all staff can contribute their thoughts about anything in the learning arena—comments, sharables, questions, suggestions. These come directly to me … and everyone who looks at them on the Learning Pages.
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has a similar model—Learning Discussion Forums—on its intranet. Employees are encouraged to post to discussion boards created for each course and to use those boards as a follow-up after training. For online training—both synchronous and asynchronous—posting to the discussion forums is not only required but built into the online lesson modules. At the beginning of any self-paced course, a link is posted to the discussion board and learners are encouraged to post questions there about the content of a course. Near the end of a course, learners are instructed to post a reflection of what they learned.
Catherine Vaughn also takes a supportive approach through the leaders within her organization:
I encourage managers … [and] supervisors to follow up. This not only helps the supervisor get an idea if anything was retained, it also allows them to make the employee feel important. An employee can be the center of attention if sought out to get their opinion, ideas, etc. about the recently attended session. The employee may also feel, “Wow, he … [or] she does care. They [members of management] want me to do well.”
I do get to travel to most of our locations a few times throughout the year. When I am at a particular location, I try to follow up face-to-face with some of my participants. This shows that I remember that they attended, and it gives them a chance to tell me what they are using from the session. It also gives me great feedback about what got through and what didn’t.
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library is among those sending all of its managers and supervisors through courses before the sessions are open to frontline staff. This ensures that the leaders in the organization know what the employees will be learning and makes it easier for managers to follow up with their employees.
Turner’s current practices include additional complementary elements: “I consistently invite learners to reach out to me with questions … if they want to further explore the subject. I’m also a proponent of teaching only need-to-know info, but I invite further exploration for my learners by including supplemental resources to explore.” “Finally—and particularly with new employees—I’ll sometimes contact my trainees, see how what was taught is jelling with the reality of their work environment, and then do something [to further support what has been learned]”—a comment that makes us want to be learners in any organization where those doing the hiring have been smart enough to hire Jay and turn him loose with learners.
When we turn to the question of what we wish we could be doing, Turner offers an ideal that many of us might envy:
I would first evaluate the learning experience for the trainees and assess whether learning occurred. From there, I would send the learners back into their job environment but would include a place—likely online—where they could go and continue conversations relating to class. About a month out, after the training halo has worn off, I’d follow up with the learners and see what, if [any], skills learned/reinforced from training are being used in the workplace. I would also ask their supervisors the same and compare those forms of feedback.
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has a goal to follow up training with Level 3 or 4 evaluations about a month after each course—a topic we examine in chapter 7.
What Our Colleagues Avoid in Learning and in Follow-up
Just as there are numerous things we can and should be doing to lay the ground-work for successful learning through follow-up, there are things we need to remind ourselves to not do with or to our learners. “Whining about what’s taken place is a no-no in my book, especially doing it with people who you want to ultimately respect your efforts—and you theirs,” Sandra Smith says. “Don’t criticize the sincere efforts of those who are working with you in learning events. You’ll taint the waters and never get back your credibility as a resource or leader.” “Yes,” she adds, “I indulge in occasional whining—but with folks I’m not serving as a role model!”
One of our mentors refers to this habit of whining or gossiping as “rolling in the mud” and frequently says, “You can’t expect to remain clean if you are constantly rolling in the mud with other employees.” As trainer-teacher-learners, we often have a unique connection with those we serve. We have interacted with nearly every employee in our organizations, and in many cases we have heard thoughts shared in the private setting of a classroom. Though it is easy to become comfortable and at ease with our coworkers, we need to remember that these same colleagues have also trusted us with their thoughts. This level of professionalism and ethical behavior is one of the attributes that set a great trainer-as-leader apart from a good trainer-as-leader.
Tips and Admissions
One of the practices we most admire in our colleagues is how much they take us back to basics: Pioneer Library System training coordinator Louise Whitaker, for example, tries to return to learners to see what they have retained: “In four months we follow up to see if they are using the information from the training, and if not, why? Was it not clear, or was it not directly job related?”
She also engages in follow-up at an even more basic level:
I make a note of any questions that weren’t answered and follow up to answer those, call them by name when I see them so they know I recognize them as an individual, and I keep in touch with supervisors so they feel free to call about [their] needs. I think all of our supervisors feel comfortable contacting me about training needs, whether it is something new or something that was just conducted. I often travel to our branches and conduct trainings for just the staff at that branch, which makes it more personal, and they feel freer to ask questions. … I think the new follow-ups we are implementing will be helpful, but I really wish we could conduct a secret shopper campaign to see the level of service from the customer perspective.
Jay Turner, in attempting to be effective in providing learning opportunities that stick, does not place himself above his learners, nor does he focus on learners’ responsibilities to the exclusion of a trainer’s critically important role: “A trainer should have a good feel for his or her learners before engaging in follow-up,” he reminds us. “I know that we often have prepared follow-up activities built into our training outlines, but sometimes the learners you’ve worked with don’t necessarily need your canned follow-up.” “Be flexible,” he adds.
Turner recalls a time when he was preparing to offer a webinar and, after working with the learners for nearly two weeks, decided to change the format of what he was preparing completely:
I kept the webinar scheduled as planned, but instead of forcing them to attend and visit information that they probably had already mastered, I e-mailed my scripted PowerPoint presentation to them, told them to read it, and then dropped into the WebEx session I had originally scheduled to teach the class. If they had questions or wanted to discuss [the topic being taught], then I’d be there in WebEx for two hours willing to work … [or] discuss concepts with them one-on-one. Half the class popped in at various times to have the one-on-one time. In essence, empowering the new hires to review the PowerPoint at their leisure was the class, and the WebEx session was the follow-up—a flexible form of follow-up.
As facile as Turner is at facilitating both online and face-to-face learning, he agrees that follow-up presents a challenge. So does Sandra Smith: “I do want to say that this [follow-up] is the area that I and others know we need to work on more purposefully. It is, I think, a harder part of our jobs, as it’s the more analytical piece, and most of us trainers love the ‘people’ piece most and get our internal rewards from that most often. But the follow-up is critical for both the success and survival of anyone’s learning program.”
Notes
1. James Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge, 4th ed. (San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons, 2007), 26.
2. Ibid., 338.
3. Robert O. Brinkerhoff, Telling Training’s Story: Evaluation Made Simple, Credible, and Effective (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2006), 40.
4. Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation, 5th ed. (New York: Free Press, 2003), 27.
5. Ibid., 414.
6. Michael Stephens and Warren Cheetham, “The Impact of Learning 2.0 Programs in Australian Libraries,” http://research.tametheweb.com; Michael Stephens, “PLA Learning 2.0 Presentation,” www.slideshare.net/mstephens7/pla-learning-20-presentation.
7. Helene Blowers and Lori Reed, “The C’s of Our Sea Change: Plans for Training Staff, from Core Competencies to LEARNING 2.0,” Computers in Libraries, February 2007: 10–15.