It's our smallest episode ever! But it’s not the runtime that’s shrinking, it’s your learning strategy.
That's right—we’re talking about microlearning. Robyn Defelice, Consultant at RADLearning and co-author of Microlearning: Short and Sweet, joins JD Dillon for the latest on all things microlearning.
They break down the key principles of microlearning design, discuss how AI is making microlearning more effective and explain why it represents the outcome-focused approach L&D needs right now.
Plus, JD challenges Robyn to our first-ever Microlearning Melée game! They use their microlearning skills to solve common workplace problems.
For more about why Axonify is the proven employee enablement solution that equips frontlines with the essential tools to learn, connect and get things done, visit axonify.com.
It's our smallest episode ever! But it’s not the runtime that’s shrinking, it’s your learning strategy.
That's right—we’re talking about microlearning. Robyn Defelice, Consultant at RADLearning and co-author of Microlearning: Short and Sweet, joins JD Dillon for the latest on all things microlearning.
They break down the key principles of microlearning design, discuss how AI is making microlearning more effective and explain why it represents the outcome-focused approach L&D needs right now.
Plus, JD challenges Robyn to our first-ever Microlearning Melée game! They use their microlearning skills to solve common workplace problems.
For more about why Axonify is the proven employee enablement solution that equips frontlines with the essential tools to learn, connect and get things done, visit axonify.com.
JD Dillon (00:13):
Howdy friends, how are you doing today? It's great to see you. Welcome to the 47th episode of In The Know I'm JD from Axonify. And today's episode is all about microlearning. What is microlearning? It's a question L&D professionals around the world have been asking for almost 10 years at this point. Do you remember when a company tried to trademark the word microlearning? Wasn't that a wild time? Now, personally, I've been exploring microlearning since my days at Disney. I just wasn't using the word back then. And then it became a big part of my L&D strategy and contact center roles. Eventually, I started to write about and speak about my microlearning experiences. In fact, in 2018, at the height of the microlearning hype, I delivered a presentation titled The End of MicroLearning at DevLearn. Now, my goal wasn't to argue against the value of microlearning. Far from it.
(01:09):
Instead, I wanted to shift the focus away from the buzz and towards principles that were enabling me to provide right-fit support to the people that I was trying to help. That’s also when I wrote The Ultimate Guide to Microlearning to help L&D pros get past all the noise and focus on proven practices that we can use to advance our capabilities. And I have some good news. We just refreshed The Ultimate Guide to Microlearning and made it available to download for free. So head over to Axonify.com/microlearning right now to grab your copy. It's been a while since we talked about microlearning here on In The Know. So I've invited L&D's go-to microlearning expert to help us catch up on all the latest and greatest. Robyn DeFelice is here to explore microlearning solution design, including the impact AI is having on our microlearning practices.
(02:00):
Now, Robyn and I are also going to face off in a competitive microlearning battle, solving real-world problems with microlearning principles. And yes, it's exactly as exciting as that sounds. Plus, our LinkedIn live viewers can play along and potentially have a chance to grab a copy of Robyn's book, Microlearning: Short and Sweet. But before we welcome Robyn to the ITK stage, I want to talk about hype, because microlearning is a great example of a concept that has been held back by its own popularity. Rather than coming together as a profession and deciding what this topic really is, what it means and how we can make use of it, we got distracted by the word itself and all the noise that was surrounding it. This happens all the time with new ideas. Thought leaders emerge from nowhere and claim they know exactly what's going on when they don't.
(02:55):
And then every vendor in the marketplace suddenly does the new thing, even though they haven't changed their technology at all. All of this hype makes it much harder for people who are doing the job to figure out what's real and what's not. I know what you're thinking. I'm a guy who speaks a lot, hosts his own talk show, wrote a book and works in technology. I might be the best example of someone who should set off all the thought leader alarms. With that in mind, I'd like to provide a service by de-hyping 10 of the most buzzworthy topics in workplace learning and performance. And I'm going to try to do it in three minutes or less. So if you're ready, here we go. Metaverse, not a thing. People won't be living and working in a 3D world anytime soon. VR has a lot of niche meaningful training applications, but people are really waiting for AR to go mainstream so everyone can get Ironman stuff.
(03:53):
Number nine, gamification. That's the application of game mechanics like rewards, competitions and achievements in the workplace. I've been doing it for 15 years and I can attest it works when done well. Just make sure we're focused on the right behaviors and not distracting people because we think everyone wants points and wants to compete. Next up, soft skills. Let's just not get caught up in the words. It doesn't matter what you call them—human skills, power skills, interpersonal skills—it's the difficult stuff we need to get much better at developing and measuring, especially as the workplace changes around us. Number seven, the LXP. No longer a category. LMSs have improved their UI, they now aggregate and recommend content. The real learning experience platform needs to be the work itself. We should be moving learning closer to operations and operations tech, not just piling on with learning stuff. Next up, personalization.
(04:44):
This is about more than recommending courses. This includes the entire experience, from nudging managers to have the right coaching conversation to translating content into a person's preferred language. Now, if we want to get people the right support at the right time, we have to stay focused on measurement and identify gaps before they become problems. And that leads us to impact, meaning the job got done as intended because increased sales, that's an impact. Reducing safety incidents is an impact. Checking the box because the state of California requires you to do that is an impact. We just need to make sure we agree on the impact we're going for before we choose a solution. Number four, hybrid learning. We need to support people who are onsite doing the job and doing it remotely. But here's the thing, hybrid doesn't exist. You have digital, you have in-person.
(05:31):
When you mix the two, someone always gets cheated. So we need to design for work context. Even if the needs overlap, then there's learning in the flow of work. Lit Fo, as I call it, totally makes sense to provide support resources that are easily accessed when and where people do their jobs. However, it only makes sense if organizations prioritize learning just like other work tasks. If people aren't given time to focus on improving, it doesn't matter how easily accessed their resources may be. At number two, we have skills running our businesses through the capabilities of our people. Totally makes sense. In fact, I'd argue many businesses are run that way today, especially on the frontline, where skills are concretely defined and measured. The problem is how much we rely on inferred capability, how loosely defined taxonomies tend to be and how fast skill requirements change.
(06:17):
And that takes us to number one, the buzziest word of all: AI. But it's a trick question because AI is not a buzzword. It's a meaningful paradigm shift in how we live and work akin to the introduction of the internet or mobile devices we need to participate in, or AI will become something that happens to us instead of something that happens with us. And that is time with four seconds left, everybody. Outstanding. I know it was moving fast, but sometimes you just need to nail the point home to overcome the hype, get to the value quickly or sometimes find the lack of value in the conversation. But did I miss any buzzwords that you think need deciphering? Let me know in the LinkedIn chat, and we can tackle them in a later episode. But now it's time to decipher the microlearning hype with our ITK guest, Robyn Defelice. Robyn Defelice is a consultant, author and presenter with over 20 years of L&D experience. She is co-author of Microlearning: Short and Sweet, along with ITK super fan of the show, Karl Kapp, and has been researching training development trends for over a decade. Robyn's experience spans corporate to manufacturing, government to higher education and nonprofits to startups. Her passion comes from empowering her peers, and she's happiest when collaborating with L&D teams to get them to the decision-making table. Robyn Defelice, you're in the know. How's it going?
Robyn Defelice (07:33):
It's going great. How are you doing?
JD Dillon (07:35):
Okay. A lot of fast talking today, but it is about microlearning, so we're taking advantage of the time that we've got and getting the maximum value from it. So that's why we're going to dive right in with the question. The most popular question around microlearning is, what is microlearning? Robyn, can you explain microlearning in 30 seconds or less?
Robyn Defelice (07:54):
Yes, I can. It's a noun that's being used in three ways: concept, method and product. So as a concept, microlearning is about showing, not knowing, even though some people use it to demonstrate proof of knowing from a method standpoint, let's think about spaced learning and spaced repetition. So it's learning over time, it's a method. And when we talk about microlearning in the predominant sense, most people are talking about the tangible product. The thing that we actually engage with, Karl and our definition for our microlearning product is an instructional unit that provides a short engagement in an activity intentionally designed to elicit a specific outcome from the participant. And if you put a series together of microlearnings, that's a campaign.
JD Dillon (08:38):
There it is, microlearning in a micro amount of time. Everybody maximizes efficiency on In The Know. So five years ago, microlearning was all the hype and the biggest buzzword in learning and development, but today it's being surpassed by conversations around things like AI and skills. So I'm wondering, where does that leave the microlearning conversation? In your experience, what's the current state? Is it still a buzzword, or has microlearning been adopted as a core practice at this point?
Robyn Defelice (09:05):
For me in my experience, I think folks in L&D are still kind of mucking around about it and on it. And I think that's totally okay because it's organization-dependent and very much about the L&D function right now. And Carla Torgerson, another microlearning pro, and I were just talking about how people put microlearning into the mix. We were talking about how throwing microlearning into the mix just doesn't cut it because there's a ton of upfront planning that a lot of folks don't realize you need to do. We both agreed that we feel like you need more upfront planning to make a good strategy to actually implement microlearning into your learning ecosystem. A great example of why I still don't think it's totally there is, for example, at the end of last year, I did a presentation for a Fortune 100 company that I totally would've thought, wow, they've probably got this under lock and key.
(10:01):
They're decentralized in all L&D functions, and they're still struggling to find a common definition for the organization to work from. So it's not so much that I think it's a buzzword. Maybe to stakeholders, but for all of us in L&D, I think a lot of folks are just trying to figure out, how do I make this work for us? One of the interesting things I could tell you is right now, I'm working on a second microlearning book, and I have a lot of case study requests from people, I've been asking for them. I want them throughout, and I want micro case studies that reflect the totality of where people are at from the beginning, like the Fortune 100 company, to people who have actually executed. I have more offerings for people at the beginning stages than I can find for people at the end stages. So that's why I kind of feel like we're still getting to it. And again, because we're an organization, a lot of it is organization-dependent in capabilities and capacity, and L&D functions really impact that.
JD Dillon (10:57):
Gotcha. I may be able to help you out with that, but that's because I find that at this point, microlearning I think is more essential to L&D today than ever before. Especially as organizations are driving increased pushes for efficiency because if you look around, L&D teams everywhere are being asked to do more with less, handle more challenging problems, more organizational change and more skill demands, but often with the same or sometimes fewer resources. And then you have the people we're trying to support who are also crunched for time because they're seeing their resources limited as companies are reducing budgets and looking to maximize profitability. So if we're going to try to balance limited time and limited resources with the ability to deliver clear business impact—another word from earlier—I think that's where microlearning becomes an essential strategy that we can lean on. So in your perspective, how does microlearning make L&D more outcome-focused in our work?
Robyn Defelice (11:50):
I'm going to go food analogies on you because food, I don't know, it's almost lunchtime. I'll make everybody hungry. For me, what I think about is microlearning being more like a dual recipe for success in L&D. So, think of dishes in kitchens. So the dishes are the microlearning products, and the kitchen is the L&D function. And so what we're really doing is shifting, I think, towards intentional, outcome-focused training that not only employees participate in, but also it's challenging L&D to elevate its capabilities and capacity, which I just mentioned a moment before. So if what we're really doing is having L&D become less like order takers and more like outcome creators, that is going to shift everything we do. So the reason why I'm kind of back ending on the outcomes-focused question is because L&D's function has not typically been, let's make impact to make impact that actually is demonstrable through data and proof and aligned to business goals and employee development plans.
(12:55):
Those aren't the common things that L&D has been doing for the most part. And so that's why I think that, when we look at it, we have an opportunity to take this fast food thought and create more gourmet dishes, which I think microlearning is these very customized, very tasty, savory opportunities to experience things that we want to engage in and we want to be well at. I mean, who wants to learn conflict resolution just to say this is conflict resolution, now go forth and be a great leader. No, you need to experience the conflict and you need to be able to know how to identify that conflict as you experience it. And you need to understand and be able to be confident to deescalate conflict. And so that's what I mean when I say the kitchen needs to kind of be reshaped and not be this very fast food kitchen, but maybe a higher level executive chef kind of kitchen where we have the tools and the technologies that are more modernized to allow us to do that.
(13:50):
Now you said that it was being done on short budgets and limited resources and things like that. I do believe that what I just said might be like, well, I can't have a great budget for that. I think it's all about the process of how you think about shifting to getting there and how you reutilize your capabilities and capacity. It just means maybe your L&D team might need to become a little more upskilled in data and analytics, how they design learning, how they understand evaluative measures and impact. I think those are the things that are different in capability, and that's not necessarily a great cost to the organization. That's an improvement of an investment in L&D to be able to drive outcome-focused needs, which microlearning will do.
JD Dillon (14:36):
I use a lot of plumbing analogies when I talk about learning strategies. So I think the food analogies might be a better way to go. We'll gauge that with the audience later.
Robyn Defelice (14:46):
Okay, I'm sorry because I almost tangented in there. I won't say what I was thinking. Okay, go ahead.
JD Dillon (14:49):
Alright. Yeah, there's a connection you might want to make. Let's not make it here. So let's rewind a little bit. Let's cover a few critical basics of the microlearning story. So if there's an L&D team out there looking to provide support that fits especially into the reality of work, what are some key principles they need to keep in mind when designing a microlearning solution?
Robyn Defelice (15:07):
So these are the ones that I always offer up when I present. It's a framework that I provided actually kind of goes with the honeycomb with the six-sided cells. So first and foremost, align it with goals, KPIs, KSAs, OKRs, whatever your three letter whatever for achievement is, align it, please. And the next thing that's super important is defining the purpose and potential. I was just reading a post from Jessica Almlie, I always say her last name wrong, I'm sorry. But she was talking about, why measure things that you're not going to use? And so the purpose and potential are telling you, why am I doing this, and why would I even do this? What is my purpose, and what's the potential? What am I hoping to get out of it? Well, I hope those potentials are your goals, KSAs, KPIs and things like that. But most times those things get missed for some reason when you're making those alignments.
(15:58):
But you need all of that to make sure that it aligns. So those are some principles I would tell you. The next pieces are about comprehending the capability and capacity of not only your implementation but also your evaluation. Because sometimes now we're tapping outside of our L&D team to do things for our measures, our outcome-focused pieces. We might be maybe tapping into our managers saying, this is a new piece that you might need to review on a performance rubric. How are we making sure we're planning that piece and implementing that and making sure they're coached and trained up and know that that's a responsibility? So there's all these pieces where we might have to say, what if they don't have the capacity? And I just created a solution that nobody will be able to deliver? I've seen that actually happen. So that's why I always say know your capability and capacity for implementing something and evaluating.
(16:50):
The final piece is determining the spaced and learning and spaced repetition cadence. I think folks get really caught up in this piece because they want a magic formula and there isn't. So my recommendation is to try it out. If you have one group to pilot with, pilot something you think will work. You have to find a sweet spot. And if you're doing good outcome-based focused data and collecting data, you'll start to see trends in the data patterns where people, how are they engaging? What time of the day are they engaging? If I let them pull their own information, what does that do versus me pushing that data? And I think this is where not to be afraid, but to actually go for it and try different things with your spaced learning and your spaced repetition cadence, I think that those things are really important. But I do think people get fearful that the right combination isn't there, and therefore everything fails. So as a quick recap: goals, purpose, potential, implementation and evaluation and space learning and repetition, those are some key principles I would tell you to focus on as you go for it.
JD Dillon (17:55):
Got it. And the spaced learning piece is especially, I think, something I often find people struggle with, and that's a huge part of the reason I wrote that guide, The Ultimate Guide to Microlearning, available now at Axonify.com/microlearning. So be sure to check that out. And another huge plug for Jess Almlie just mentioned, she just started a podcast called L&D Must Change that drops the first episode this week. Why am I mentioning it? Because I'm the guest on that episode, why else would I? But no, Jess Almlie, check it out. We had a great conversation about the way L&D needs to adapt our mindset. Before we dive into the reason we're all here today, the real meat of our conversation, we got to touch AI briefly. So I'm curious, how are you seeing AI relating to microlearning, and is there a way that we can leverage AI to improve how we apply microlearning in our work?
Robyn Defelice (18:41):
Well, it's interesting because, and I've been doing this for a while with AI because I'm obviously writing my book, I fight with it because I don't like how it defines microlearning and what it says about microlearning. Sometimes I'm in my head going, because if people are using that, then that's a problem, but where can it help? I have four things that I can think of: personalization, content curation, engagement and accessibility. So with personalization, I think about adaptive learning paths, and again, AI logarithms would help you with this like that analyzation we just discussed in the previous comments was about the behavior, your performance and maybe your preferences. And I think that that's where you can get some of these really personal learning paths going on, content recommendations. So on the flip, I see that you do this all the time. How about I recommend this to you?
(19:33):
Oh, I see performance reviews are coming up. Would you like to refresh yourself on how to do a balanced performance review, that kind of thing? Content curation, what I think is really cool about AI is the tagging feature. And I think the more that you create content libraries and have things like that provided or knowledge bases for your organization, having tags that help people find things much more quickly is invaluable to employees. There's actually an article by Kevin Kruse in Forbes that talks about Kristy Callahan’s Microlearning, where they had an issue with a content library that was really heavy, and her microlearning solution was phenomenal for it. And I think this drives a great example. Engagement, think about chatbots, virtual assistants. I think Vince Hans working on that. I'm actually participating in a pilot with Alex, his professional coach, who will probably ping me here while we're in this to remind me of something.
(20:27):
Good. And then accessibility. I think you can do translations. I think there's the speech-to-text. We kind of all know those things, but for everything I just said, I think there are still improvements to be done with AI. There are certain things that I say that I know that it doesn't pick up properly, it doesn't hear me and it phonetically spells out. But anyway, I still think there's great promise and great results to be had, but I don't know. Do you have more? Because I know you're more into AI than I am. I’m just like fighting with it.
JD Dillon (20:58):
Well, since you mentioned it, I may or may not be finishing the next chapter of The Modern Learning Ecosystem called “AI meets The Modern Learning Ecosystem” right now, available soon at learngeek.ai. But that's enough plugs, and that's enough talking about microlearning, let's do some microlearning. Better yet, let's have a microlearning battle. It's time for the first-ever ITK microlearning melee. All right, here's how our game is going to work. We have five scenarios, each featuring common workplace learning and performance challenges. Before the show, Robyn and I reviewed the scenarios and came up with our own solutions for how we would apply microlearning to overcome each challenge. So today, our announcer, whose name is Chuck, by the way. Chuck, how's it going?
Chuck (21:45):
How's it going, JD?
JD Dillon (21:47):
Doing well, Chuck. Chuck is going to introduce each scenario and then Robyn and I will take turns explaining how we would use microlearning to solve that performance problem. And if you're on LinkedIn right now watching the show live, you can vote. Whose solution would you prefer? Would you mix and match some ideas? Do you have your own ideas on how to apply microlearning? Let us know in the LinkedIn chat. And then, after the show, we're going to pick a few random people from the LinkedIn chat to get a copy of Robyn's book, Microlearning: Short and Sweet. And, of course, like any good melee, there are some rules to follow. We can't remove people from the operation for more than 30 minutes as part of our solution, all the work's got to be done at work, so we can't have people doing stuff off the clock. We have to describe our solutions in 45 seconds or less because we have to get this show done. So Robyn, are you ready for a melee?
Robyn Defelice (22:34):
I'm ready. I even wore green to match the logo.
JD Dillon (22:38):
Love it, love it. Let's go into our first scenario, Chuck, what you got for us?
Chuck (22:42):
A theme park is struggling with declining customer satisfaction scores. They want to reinforce foundational customer service behaviors, especially how to overcome challenging customer situations.
JD Dillon (22:55):
All right. Now I worked in theme parks for 10 years, so this one's kind of right up my alley. So, Robyn, I'm going to let you go first. In 45 seconds or less, how would you apply microlearning to solve this customer service performance challenge?
Robyn Defelice (23:06):
Okay, well, my thoughts were creating a microlearning campaign that focuses on the top five to seven dissatisfactions of the customers. Through an interactive map of the theme park, a player can navigate to pinned points on the map where there are dissatisfied customers, they will help their coworkers deescalate those situations. I would recommend using a tool similar to Overplay. It's a tool to turn videos into video games. The employee would be tapping on the screen if the employee identifies the customer's dissatisfactions correctly by tapping on the screen, they would then be asked to order the deescalation process for that situation. Leaderboards would show scores for satisfaction as related to the games in the park, rides and concessions. And then as a follow-up, using infographic decision trees inside the booths and stands to help with customer satisfaction to reinforce the gamified elements that I talked about.
JD Dillon (24:11):
So I'm not going to say I may have designed something very similar for an instructor-led session about customer service for the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival, but I may have used that very similar idea. But in this case, I'm going to look, I'm going to the management team as a key to my solution because the key to promoting sustained behavior change, especially in a frontline environment, people working shoulder to shoulder. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to share scenarios with the managers as part of their huddle notes that they use every day with the team, and it's going to be their job to celebrate team members who have solved challenging customer situations in real-life to demonstrate what the right behaviors are. And then I'm going to do one more thing. I'm going to look at the time clock. I'm going to take the learning management system, integrate it with the time clock, and then I'm going to push one scenario based customer service question at each employee at the start of their shift to reinforce their core customer service knowledge. And then the cool thing is we can use the measurement from how people do in those scenarios to identify, do we potentially need a more structured solution to this challenge in the future. So that's no time away from the operation, leveraging moments and channels that exist in the flow of work. So let us know in the chat, which approach would you take to a customer service challenge? or maybe you have an alternative solution that you've applied in the past quickly. Let's move on. Next scenario from Chuck.
Chuck (25:22):
A logistics operation is struggling with safety incidents. They want to reduce safety incidents while avoiding the need to retrain every worker when something goes wrong.
JD Dillon (25:34):
All right, I'm going to dive in first to this one because we know it's a tricky situation. We're dealing with people's safety in a regulated environment, sometimes, you're not necessarily able to avoid that urge to retrain everybody, even if they don't need it. Sometimes that's just what you're told to do. So I'm going to lean into support in the flow of work. For this one, I'm going to make sure we've got clear, easy-to-use guides in place for common safety behaviors where those behaviors are demonstrated. So if someone's unsure how to complete a task, right in their face is going to be for example, a safe lifting guide where they often have to lift in that working environment. And then I'm going to add a work with the safety auditors. So there are people in the operation who are very likely out there observing behavior as part of their job.
(26:15):
I'm going to want to get access to their data so I can see where trends are changing. So if there's a person, a team or a location that's maybe trending in the wrong direction, I'm going to want to refresh the right behaviors before that challenge and that trend becomes a real problem. So we're going to have quick 15-minute refresher sessions in a training room with a member of the team who's going to demonstrate how to do it right, and then the team member's going to demonstrate how they're demonstrating the right behaviors. So that's what I'm going to do in a safety situation. Robyn, what do you have?
Robyn Defelice (26:43):
Well, again, I'm starting with data. Use the data from safety incident reports or write-ups and find out the most prevalent ones. Then the campaign that I was recommending to create was actually in the flow, but it was in the safety huddles. So it was very similar to your theme park one where you would provide pensive questions, practice-based opportunities and performance-related activities, and the supervisor would be guiding those to reinforce because they're the ones looking over the workgroup for the day. They would guide the conversations while engaging the team and determining safety risk or not, kind of like this risk or not. Some activities may involve having team members take the lead for a huddle to discuss a topic based on an experience, such as Let's examine the blind spots on a forklift, so that we can all have the community share in that responsibility for safety. Other activities may include having team members team up to determine if a situation is also risky or not. Much like you, I'm suggesting infographics on the floor in the back of trucks being loaded that support the key risk reductions as safety numbers improve. Share data with the logistics operation. If bonuses or incentives hinge on safety, tie opportunities to promote loss and gains as a visual way to incentivize employees.
JD Dillon (27:55):
As you can see, everybody, there's a variety of ways we can mix and match and apply different microlearning principles for similar types of challenges. So it's up to you. You have to understand your workplace, your challenges and your data, as we've been really reinforcing in the conversation. And if you need help, remember to grab a copy of the microlearning guide at Axonify.com/microlearning. Onto scenario number three from our friend Chuck.
Chuck (28:17):
A retailer is struggling with shrink. They want to make sure every retailer associate knows how to identify potential theft and take the appropriate action.
JD Dillon (28:28):
Alright, Robyn. As you can tell from Chuck's demeanor, this is a very serious and real problem that a lot of retailers are facing. How are you going to address this?
Robyn Defelice (28:36):
To me, this has a similar flavor to the theme park. So I still see some similar format here where you could use a microlearning campaign that focuses on maybe watching videos or using imagery to identify potential theft. But I think there's also an opportunity to create live interactive moments, assuming the retailer hires plainclothes security officers, uses them on a monthly basis to reinforce common situations that lead to theft and see how fast someone catches the thief. Create a leaderboard that shows the theft technique area in store and time it took. Show the dollar amount of total losses and money saved.
JD Dillon (29:10):
So I'm coming in from the perspective that all these retail associates have been trained on theft prevention during onboarding, but they were also trained on how to check their schedule when the company was founded and why they need to upsell the loyalty program during those same few days. So I'm taking a three-pronged approach to making sure they're applying what they learned in their initial training. First, I'm going to make sure the rules of theft, that includes internal theft and what people are expected to do as related to theft, they're going to be documented in a place people can actually find. Not the handbook, not the portal, intranet somewhere. Somewhere in the store, the resource or knowledge repository people actually use. Maybe even post it in common areas where people are doing their job every day. Second, I'm going to leverage a hotline, an actual phone number where people can call a loss prevention officer real-time and ask how they should handle a situation.
(29:58):
And I think not just from a learning and support perspective, that's a huge confidence boost because people know that we're taking this seriously, so they have someone they can lean on if they face something unfamiliar in the store. The third thing I'm going to do is something that we used to do at Disney called the Unusual Condition quiz. I'm going to require each store manager to go up to three associates every day and ask them how they would handle a specific theft situation. And managers are going to record when people get it right and when they get it wrong. So we're going to get that data in a digital form, and it's going to really build muscle memory so people know how to react quickly instead of freezing during a potentially dangerous situation. So anyone out there who's supporting a retail team, let us know in the LinkedIn chat, how are you addressing loss prevention and theft-related challenges? But now, as we start to run out of time on the show, let's head to scenario number four. Chuck, what do you got?
Chuck (30:45):
A financial services firm is struggling with coaching. They want to improve manager's ability to provide feedback to their team members.
JD Dillon (30:55):
I've yet to find a company that's just nailed coaching because upwards of 80% of bosses are accidental managers with little to no training in how to actually do their job. So there's the conversation around robust management training to be had another time. But I'm going to take a proven practices approach and curate a collection of short-form videos on how people handle specific types of feedback conversations. So not coaching as this big thing, very specific types of challenging conversations. Then I'm going to find managers with street cred, people who their peers believe are really good at this. I'm going to sit them in front of a camera. I'm going to ask them how they handle these specific challenging situations, maybe replicate a few real-world examples of them doing those specific conversation moments. Then I'm going to make this playlist available so managers, when they're experiencing these challenges, can pull those resources and not get one way to do it, but maybe get a couple of different ideas on how to go into this conversation and really find their own approach to coaching. Robyn, how about you with coaching?
Robyn Defelice (31:53):
Totally love it. I'm taking your videos and I'm putting 'em in my answer, which is called Interflexion, a mobile app that does exactly what you're saying. So you craft your scenarios based on employee engagement survey data, because, again, I try to make sure I reinforce data here. If the company has engagement data and the company culture, I think those two pieces are very important. Each scenario or act would have three scenes to build upon to provide that full feedback. The first and second scenes within the act are about identifying the opportunity to give feedback and then gathering information in the second scene so that in the third, you're providing that full piece of coaching feedback. The criteria on the back end of the app, grades, coaches and prompts the manager. The manager has an unlimited ability to practice at a point in time and can watch or rewatch the preferred way. So the videos you created would be the preferred way that the organization would like to see the scene play out. So they have this opportunity to just do it over and over and over again.
JD Dillon (32:58):
We're aligned. So many ideas per minute on this episode of ITK, but we're running short on time. So let's get to our last scenario. Our last visit from Chuck,
Chuck (33:06):
A contact center is struggling with turnover. They want to accelerate onboarding to get new agents on the phone faster.
JD Dillon (33:15):
Robyn, let's accelerate our way to an accelerated speed-to-contribution strategy. Whatcha going to do?
Robyn Defelice (33:20):
Review the current onboarding process and determine if there are pieces of the process that are time gluts, for example, all-day training or workshops on topics that could be converted into e-learning. Then review the job roles of the agent and determine the priority of tasks and skills and the level of proficiency needed at the bare minimum to get them on the phone the way you want, and especially those skills that need to be built over time. So prioritize and map those skills and their development progression to that, both things to the onboarding timeline. Select key skills to craft microlearning around it to develop and reinforce their daily tasks. Provide opportunity, so this is attached to you, and provide the opportunity for coaching and mentoring as part of the solution to validate the effort of new employees, monitor progress and adopt all job responsibilities and tasks to that specific level of proficiency to get them on the floor more quickly.
JD Dillon (34:12):
My answer is yes, and you should definitely be listening to this podcast at half-speed right now. But when it comes to onboarding for me, as you said, the biggest challenge is the amount of stuff that we've got to fit into a limited amount of time because people say we have to for reasons. So microlearning is going to help me solve this by pushing, like you said, the topics that people don't need before they get on the phone until later. And that's because we're going to embed those microlearning resources, short-form content, performance support tools, knowledge, resources. They're going in the flow of work for agents so they can continue to learn, get the support and have the crutch as they learn to do the job. That's why microlearning is going to transform onboarding to ever-boarding in this situation. We're going to cover less in the first few days and spread learning out to the weeks and months that follow, frankly, because that's just how learning actually works. And with that, that's a wrap for today's microlearning melee. Let us know what you thought in the chat, what suggestions you have and what was your favorite idea shared during today's episode. And, of course, we have to thank Chuck for his contribution to today's show. Thanks, Chuck.
Chuck (35:11):
Chuck. My pleasure, JD. Great to meet you. Robyn.
Robyn Defelice (35:15):
Great to meet you, Chuck. Thank you.
JD Dillon (35:17):
Robyn, thank you again for joining us and sharing your practical insights into the current state of microlearning. How can people connect with you, follow your work, and maybe grab a copy of your book?
Robyn Defelice (35:26):
Oh, awesome. Well, thank you for having me. This was total fun. Loved it. You can follow me on LinkedIn. I checked today out of curiosity, there isn't really anyone else on LinkedIn with my name, just one other individual, but they spell it a little differently, and they know Italian, which is cool. So I'm the non-Italian, Italian who doesn't speak it. And JD, just out of curiosity for a fun fact, or 13, JD Dillons,
JD Dillon (35:53):
Oh, believe me, with my SEO practices, I'm very aware.
Robyn Defelice (35:56):
Okay, well, as far as the book, folks can visit ATD’s Bookstore or Amazon, and if they're going to the Learning Guild at the end of this month, Learning & HR Tech Solutions, happy to see you there. And if you're at ATD Ice in New Orleans, I'll just come say hello.
JD Dillon (36:14):
And I will be seeing you there. So thanks again so much to Robyn Defelice for catching us up on the latest and greatest when it comes to microlearning for our LinkedIn Live viewers. Keep an eye on your DMs because we might be selecting you to grab a copy of Microlearning: Short and Sweet by Robyn and Karl Kapp. Plus, everyone can grab a free copy of my Microlearning guide, The Ultimate Guide to Microlearning, available now and for download at Axonify.com/microlearning. If you had a good time today, be sure to subscribe to ITK. Head over to Axonify.com/ITK to sign up for show announcements and reminders. You can also binge-watch all the past ITK fun and goodness on Axonify’s YouTube channel and listen to In The Know on your favorite podcast app. And you may need a few reruns to tide you over because we're off until May at this point.
(36:58):
But that's only because we're taking the show on the road, sort of, because I'm heading to London for Learning Technologies, Europe's leading workplace learning conference, taking place on April 17th and 18th, where Axonify is going to be showcasing our latest frontline tools in the expo. And I'm going to be speaking three times during the event. So first, I'll be chatting with Maxine Grundy from Sage, who's going to share how her L&D team is using data to increase agility, make smarter decisions and measure the impact of learning. Then I'll be demonstrating how Axonify enables frontline teams in five minutes per day and also how we're partnering with Vyond to overcome the barriers of traditional off-the-shelf content. So if you're going to be in London, be sure to stop by and say hello. Then I'm heading back to Orlando to jump straight into one of my favorite events of the year.
(37:41):
As Robyn mentioned, that's Learning & HR Tech Solutions. April 22nd to the 25th, I'm presenting during the all-day AI symposium and also presenting content from that new chapter of my book, “AI meets the Modern Learning Ecosystem”. So let me know if you're going to be in Orlando, and if I don't catch you out there on the road, I'll see you back here Wednesday, May 1st, at 11:30 AM Eastern for the next ITK. Until then, I've been JD. Now you're In The Know. And always remember to ask yourself the important questions: did you know it's illegal to laugh out loud when visiting Hawaii? Yeah, they ask you to keep it to a-low-Ha (aloha). I'll see you next time. In The Know is produced by Richia McCutcheon and visually designed by Mark Anderson. Additional production support by Andrea Miller, Maliyah Bernard and Tuong La. The show is written and hosted by JD Dillon. ITK is an Axonify production. For more information on how Axonify helps frontline workers learn, connect and get things done, visit Axonify.com.