Making ILT appeal to every Modern Learner
By: Ken Ballard, VP of Sales
Instructor Lead Training (ILT) is not dead!
In fact, LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report shows that ILT increased from 78% to 85% of companies offering some form of in-house ILT. Why? Because it works when done right. From millennials to your most seasoned employees, there is no better way to dedicate time for important learning and collaboration than instructor-led training. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use modern learning concepts to improve it.
Here are 4 Best Practices that Modernize your ILT Programs:
1. Digital Pre-Work
Everyone comes into an ILT session from a different perspective. Even new-hires come to onboarding ILT sessions with a variety of experiences. They may be boomerang employees (re-hires) and know your company well. They may come from competitors. They may be experienced in your industry but new to their role, or they may be totally new to everything!
You need to get everyone level-set on the topic and materials. This is best done through a preliminary eLearning course and light assessment. Don’t make it too serious! Set the tone and make it fun, so employees are excited to attend. For example, you can use the pre-work to designate the attendees by literally giving them names. “Newbies” should be encouraged to ask tons of questions. “Industry Sages” may be someone that comes from other areas of your industry and encouraged to provide new perspectives. “Wizened Experts” can be your boomerangs and competitor hires that provide experience and sage advice.
To accommodate different learning styles, this pre-work should be adaptive to any device and easily consumable. To clearly connect it to the ILT, use common assets and a similar look and feel.
2. Flexible ILT Course Materials
Effective ILT in the modern era usually involves a clear PowerPoint that is tied to a Student Guide. Embed the PowerPoint slides into the Guide and provide a narrative for context. Some will want the Student Guide in Word with an area to type notes directly into their document. Millennials have re-discovered pens, too. Provide them a pdf that prints with plenty of space to do mind-maps and bullet notes.
The key is to provide enough variety to accommodate everyone’s different learning styles.
We also recommend providing a distinct Facilitator’s Guide. Again, this should re-use the PowerPoint slides and text from the Student Guide, while providing the Facilitator with additional notes and anecdotes.
3. Follow-up eLearning
Combining ILT with follow-up eLearning is nothing new in fact, it’s often an organization’s first attempt at eLearning. Â The key is to use a consistent style and identical content (including those PowerPoint slides) to help build the student’s memory muscles. Repetitive content has proven to be the most effective way to “lock in” learning.
Remember to use those rankings to show the learner all the progress they made, too. Everyone loves to advance!
4. Job-Aids
It wouldn’t be surprising for a learner to forget a few concepts months after the ILT course. A simple job-aid will spark their memory and let them quickly progress on the job. Again, it is always best to re-use language, PowerPoints, or bullet lists that the learner saw in the ILT course and follow-up eLearning. Consistency is absolutely required in order to make a job-aid useful.
Don’t make the learner engage in a totally new experience! Instead, give them a consistent reminder and allow them to move on quickly.
Creating these four assets will help embed the learning topics in your employee’s minds, making them crave more ILT! And using effective authoring and distribution tools like Xyleme makes it easy for the L&D team, too.
Want to learn more? Contact us!
