This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies.

Designing effective learning on a budget can feel like a real challenge, but here are some key things to avoid:

• Underestimating the power of simple, helpful resources
• Trying to convert face-to-face into a live-online session without making some significant changes. Think ‘virtual first’.
• Forgetting to build in-line manager, mentor, or coaching touchpoints into your learner journey. They matter now more than ever.

1. Underestimating the Power of Resources

A well-thought-through and carefully designed PDF is a valuable tool and shouldn’t be underestimated as part of a blended program. It works well as a just-in-time resource available at the point of need. That doesn’t mean it has to lack creativity—using top tips, case studies, anecdotes, quotes, thought-starter questions, and suggested practical activities can lift simple PDF content.

Think about layouts and consider imagery carefully. Doing a great job on basic components doesn’t need to be time-consuming, but it does need design rigor applied.

A series of multi-faceted PDFs can instantly create a wealth of core material to be used within a blended program. Consider supplementing these with judicious use of more expensive video or eLearning micro-content in a supporting role to maximize your budget and effectiveness.

2. Directly Converting From Face-to-Face to Live Online

In the current climate, it’s likely that you’ve been asked to convert existing face-to-face training into a digital or online format.

Often, the quickest route is to use live online delivery in an attempt to salvage as much of the training format as possible. You could even recreate the experience in a digital environment to prevent additional expense.

While this may appear to be a budget-friendly way of doing things, it’s also a clear reactionary response to our change in circumstances. Now that we have had time to adjust, we must ask ourselves: ‘What is actually best for the learner?’

Is a direct translation really going to be as effective? In the majority of cases, the transition from a live event to live online will not be a seamless one and the learner will need different things from the delivery and facilitator. We’re now in a position to optimize what we’re doing. We refer to this change in design approach as a move to ‘virtual first.’

As facilitators of live online sessions, we need to have much more planned in advance. There is less capacity for spontaneity as the technology itself needs to be able to keep up with your ideas. For example, free-hand drawing of explanatory diagrams and off-the-cuff activities could prove problematic and would need to be anticipated and created prior to the session.

That said, facilitators need to be more spontaneous than ever before. Reading a room that they cannot see means paying extra attention to the signals that learners are sending. Empathy matters now more than ever.

Depending on what you use, your video conferencing application will likely contain enhanced features such as break-out rooms and whiteboards. You can take interactivity further, and for free, by using online tools to help improve your sessions and activities. Consider running polls (particularly for larger groups) to gauge audience reaction, design ‘sticky note’ exercises for workshop activities using Google Jamboards or equivalent.

Like anything, these free tools will need a bit of practice beforehand and links will need to be shared with participants prior to the session to iron out any technical difficulties.

3. Forgetting In-Line Manager, Mentor, or Coaching Touchpoints

This should really be a core part of any blended learning journey, and there is plenty of research to suggest that successful learning programs must have manager buy-in. But as more people work and learn from home, this kind of touchpoint is even more valuable. 

On a budget, it makes sense to leverage the talent you already have and use this as an opportunity to provide targeted advice, feedback, and aid sense-making. It helps to build a joined-up experience for your learners to then start applying their newly-found knowledge to real situations.

Bonus: Focus on Minimum Outlay for Maximum Results

In addition to things to avoid, this is a critical part of the learning design puzzle. Remember, expensive doesn’t always mean effective and being on a budget shouldn’t prohibit the delivery of a great learning experience.

The key to delivering effective learning on a budget is to keep your learning targeted and engaging. Encourage active participation and, critically, tailor your learning to the objectives at hand and the learners you’re working with. We know a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work, which is why effective learning journeys are created through careful and deliberate learning design.

If you’re looking to push your learning to the next level, but don’t have the budget to invest in a whole host of new tech-focused initiatives, start with an audit. Chances are, you already have a lot of what you need, and auditing your current content can allow you to free up more budget (by removing unnecessary content from your catalog), make your learning more efficient, and get a better understanding of what really works and why.

Make use of content and expertise already within the business. This can include training your SMEs to become facilitators, making use of User-Generated Content (UGC), encouraging your employees to learn from each other, and using key information already circulating in other areas of your organization.

Finding ways to encourage self-directed and continuous learning can be a fantastic win-win. You’ll likely see increased engagement with learning without having to extend your budget. Creating toolkits from information and experts already in your business is a great way to achieve this without breaking the bank.

About the Authors

Alex Steer

Se você concorda que o principal ativo de uma empresa é sua força de trabalho e as habilidades com que ela contribui para sua causa, provavelmente também concorda que nenhuma empresa tem sucesso sem uma área de Recursos Humanos (RH) eficaz e Treinamento e Desenvolvimento (T&D) impactante. O pessoal de T&D é responsável por garantir que a força de trabalho tenha e continue desenvolvendo as habilidades necessárias para produzir um produto ou serviço desejado, agora e no futuro.

Cada vez mais as áreas de T&D estão adotando uma forma ágil de trabalhar. Muitos departamentos de TI usam a metodologia ágil para maximizar a entrega de valor. Os profissionais de RH e aprendizagem estão descobrindo que, com apenas algumas modificações, uma abordagem ágil fornece uma estrutura para uma entrega consistente, rápida e informada da área e das necessidades de aprendizagem das pessoas. Ele faz isso de uma forma que maximiza o valor da maneira mais eficiente e conveniente.

A pandemia de 2020 e o bloqueio resultante da força de trabalho forçaram o mundo dos negócios a se transformar. Em vez de oferecer o aprendizado tradicional em sala de aula, as empresas tiveram que transformar rapidamente essa entrega em algo que fosse menos dependente do local e do tempo. À medida que as salas de aula fechavam e o treinamento presencial era cancelado, grandes empresas se esforçavam para encontrar uma maneira de trazer o treinamento mais recente e relevante para as pessoas. Mais do que nunca, as empresas precisavam de uma solução segura, rápida, mas bem pensada. Aqueles que resolveram esse dilema alcançaram uma enorme vantagem competitiva sobre seus pares.

Algumas dessas equipes de T&D descobriram que a solução para esse problema estava na área vizinha, o famoso TI. Eles perceberam que adotar práticas e formas de trabalho ágeis pode ser extremamente útil para rapidamente:

• Estabelecer prioridades de aprendizagem com base nas necessidades imediatas da força de trabalho
• Encontrar e desenvolver o aprendizado necessário
• Buscar uma maneira de fornecer aprendizagem que seja eficaz, sustentável e segura

Na GP Strategies, a pandemia nos obrigou a enfrentar o desafio de mudanças diárias no que era permitido ou mesmo possível com recursos e orçamento limitados. Usar o método tradicional em cascata para gerenciar o desenvolvimento e a entrega do aprendizado era de pouca utilidade porque o nível de incerteza e risco era muito alto. Porém, descobrimos que, em meio a toda essa incerteza, o uso da forma ágil de trabalhar manteve o foco do pessoal de T&D. Usando um scrum diário, uma estrutura desenvolvida para o gerenciamento ágil de projetos, nos concentramos nas prioridades que levam à entrega de todo o treinamento necessário. As interações subsequentes permitiram que a equipe adicionasse atualizações de baixa prioridade e do setor no futuro, conforme necessário. Promover uma mentalidade ágil permitiu um pivô mais rápido da sala de aula tradicional para o aprendizado virtual. Também permite uma mudança do desenvolvimento demorado para a aquisição de soluções com curadoria aprovadas pelo setor que mantiveram os funcionários engajados e animados para aprender. A adoção de uma mentalidade ágil nos manteve focados em nosso objetivo de maximizar a interação com o cliente e obter o feedback atualizado e relevante.

Os profissionais de aprendizagem sabem que o aumento da interação e do feedback com os profissionais da organização ajuda a estabelecer as prioridades corretas e a produzir uma solução com aceitação mais rápida do cliente. Isso elimina o desperdício e permite que as equipes de T&D produzam soluções que atendam às necessidades imediatas da força de trabalho. Eles agora veem esses princípios embutidos na maneira ágil de trabalhar. Usando a mentalidade de melhoria, as equipes de T&D continuam a modificar essas soluções para necessidades futuras.

Um ciclo de feedback constante entre o pessoal de T&D e a força de trabalho a que servem reduz o tempo gasto na criação de soluções de aprendizagem elaboradas e aumenta seu valor para os profissionais a serem capacitados. Atualizações menores ou lançamentos para soluções existentes, entregues em intervalos mais curtos de tempo, contêm a combinação ideal de recursos e conteúdo de aprendizagem desejados. Essa mudança resulta em um aprendizado valioso que chega aos alunos quando eles precisam, mantendo-os na vanguarda de seus respectivos campos e níveis de habilidade.

Embora os benefícios do uso do ágil pareçam simples, o caminho para o T&D ágil nem sempre é fácil. Algumas organizações começam por esse caminho, mas depois decidem voltar à sua velha maneira de fazer as coisas. Existem vários motivos pelos quais isso ocorre, mas o motivo mais comum é a falta de valor percebido com a mudança. Eles vêem isso como muito difícil, com base nas dependências departamentais, ou acham difícil conquistar o apoio da alta direção.

Para que isto funcione de maneira efetiva, as empresas devem decidir mudar para as formas ágeis de trabalhar com base em sua situação única e objetivos de negócios. E o Agile não é válido para todos. No entanto, se as empresas decidirem mudar para esse método, elas devem fazê-lo com bastante atençao. Eles devem assumir o compromisso necessário e se concentrar na jornada, e não na resistência que pode existir.

Eu experimento essa resistência com bastante frequência e supero-a concentrando-me em fazer pequenas mudanças agora, com olhar na mudança maior no futuro. Um exemplo é implementar pequenas mudanças em vez de uma revisão completa ou redesenho da metodologia, ou seja, um pequeno “piloto”. Uma empresa pode simplesmente não estar pronta para esse tipo de mudança. É verdade que o sucesso gera sucesso – e com cada sucesso, a resistência diminui. É aqui que o termo “dar passos de bebê” entra em cena. A experiência lhe diz quando avançar mais rápido ou optar por um método estratégico para iniciar a mudança necessária.

Outros exemplos de concentração na jornada são aumentar lentamente a quantidade de interação do aluno para cada projeto de T&D e procurar um sponsor executivo que esteja disposto a lutar por sua causa. Esses exemplos não exigem passar por uma reformulação de T&D em toda a empresa. Quanto mais sucesso você tiver na implementação de mudanças menores, mais lealdade receberá de líderes e colegas. A busca pela melhoria contínua, não importa a velocidade de uma transformação geral, sempre o levará para mais perto de onde você deseja estar.

Muitos que fazem essa jornada ágil percebem que o aprendizado ocorre diariamente. É realmente uma jornada e não um único evento. Os profissionais de RH e de aprendizagem que não têm medo de arriscar melhorias são frequentemente aqueles que colhem os maiores benefícios de seus esforços. O principal objetivo do consultor de negócios é ajudar o cliente a melhorar o desempenho e a eficiência. É impossível fazer isso sem recomendar soluções que se alinham a este conceito e aos objetivos específicos do cliente. Agile tem tudo a ver com maximizar valor e eficiência. Ajuda a produzir tempos de desenvolvimento mais curtos, o que permite reações mais rápidas e maior eficiência.

Dê uma olhada mais de perto e decida se sua equipe de RH e T&D pode se beneficiar com a maneira ágil de trabalhar. Descubra se ele está de acordo com o que você deseja alcançar em termos de resultados. Não tenha medo de examinar como os outros estão lidando com seus problemas. Você pode encontrar uma solução nos lugares mais improváveis – e quem sabe? A solução pode estar na porta ao lado. Quais suas experiências em agregar valor por meio do aprendizado em um ambiente de pandemia? Eu adoraria iniciar uma discussão e compartilhar ideias sobre o que tem funcionado positivamente para as áreas de T&D e RH.

About the Authors

Carl Ramsey

Carl Ramsey is a certified project management professional (PMP) and retired senior military officer where he spent over 30 years leading troops and solving problems. He brings that drive and experience to GP Strategies as a senior business consultant with over 14 years collaborating with clients to solve their most wicked problems while ensuring their current practices produce the greatest business value.

If you agree that the main asset of a company is its workforce and the skills they contribute to its cause, then you probably also agree that no company succeeds without an effective Human Resource (HR) department and impactful Learning and Development (L&D). L&D personnel are responsible for ensuring the workforce has and continues to build the skills required to produce a desired product or service, both now and in the future.

More and more L&D departments are moving toward the agile way of working. Many IT departments use the agile methodology to maximize their value delivery. HR and Learning professionals are discovering that, with only a few modifications, an agile approach provides a framework for a consistent, fast, and industry-informed delivery of workforce learning needs. It does this in a way that maximizes value in the most efficient and expedient way. 

The 2020 pandemic and its resulting workforce lockdown forced the business world to pivot. Instead of delivering traditional classroom learning, businesses had to quickly transform that delivery into something that was less dependent on location and time. As classrooms closed and in-person training was cancelled, large companies scrambled to find a way to bring the latest and most relevant skills training to the workforce. More than ever before, businesses needed a safe, fast, but well-considered solution. Those who solved this dilemma achieved a huge competitive advantage over their peers.

Some of these L&D teams discovered that the solution to this problem was sitting next door in their neighboring IT department. They realized that adopting agile practices and ways of working can be extremely helpful in quickly:

• Establishing learning priorities based on the immediate needs of the workforce
• Developing or locating (or curating) the required learning
• Finding a way to deliver learning that is effective, sustainable, and safe

At GP Strategies, the pandemic forced us to face the challenge of daily changes in what was allowed or even possible with finite resources and budget. Using the traditional waterfall method to manage learning development and delivery was of little use because the level of uncertainty and risk was just too high. However, we discovered that, in the midst of all this uncertainty, using the agile way of working kept L&D personnel focused. Using a daily scrum, a framework designed for agile project management, we concentrated on the priorities leading to the delivery of all required training. Subsequent iterations allowed the team to add lower-priority and industry updates in the future as needed. Fostering an agile mindset enabled a faster pivot from the traditional classroom to virtual learning.  It also allows a change from time-consuming development to acquiring industry-approved curated solutions that kept the employees engaged and excited to learn. Adopting an agile mindset kept us focused on our goal of maximizing customer interaction and obtaining the latest and most relevant feedback.  

Industry learning professionals know that increased workforce interaction and feedback help establish the correct priorities and produce a solution with faster client acceptance. This eliminates waste and enables L&D teams to produce solutions that meet the immediate needs of the workforce. They now see these principles embedded in the agile way of working. Using the mindset of relentless improvement, L&D teams continue to modify those solutions for future needs.  

A constant feedback loop between L&D personnel and the workforce they serve reduces the time spent creating elaborate learning solutions and increases their value to the workforce. Smaller updates or releases to existing solutions, delivered in shorter intervals, contain the optimal mix of desired learning features and content. This change results in valuable learning that gets to the learners when they need it, keeping learners on the cutting edge of their respective fields and skill-levels.

While the benefits of using agile seem straight forward, the road to agile L&D is not always smooth. Some organizations start down this road but later decide to revert to their old way of doing things. There are several reasons this occurs, but a reoccurring theme is a lack of perceived value gained from making this change. They see it as just too hard, based on departmental dependencies, or they find it difficult to win over executive support.

To make this work, businesses must decide to switch to the agile ways of working based on their unique situation and business goals. And agile is not right for everyone. However, if businesses decide to switch to this method, they must go into it with their eyes wide open. They must make the necessary commitment and concentrate on the journey rather than on the resistance they are more than likely to receive.

I experience this resistance quite often and overcome it by focusing on making small changes now, with an eye toward the greater change in the future. An example is to implement slight changes rather than a full-blown methodology revision or redesign. A company may simply not be ready for that type of change. It remains true that success breeds success—and with each success, resistance decreases. This is where the term “taking baby steps” comes into play. Experience tells you when to push or opt for a strategic method to initiate needed change.

Other examples of concentrating on the journey are to increase the amount of learner interaction for each L&D project slowly, and to search for an executive champion who is willing to fight for your cause. These examples do not require going through a company-wide L&D redesign. The more successful you are at implementing smaller changes, the more allegiance you will receive from leaders and peers. The pursuit of relentless improvement, no matter the speed of an overall transformation, will always bring it closer to where you want it to be.

Many who take this agile HR journey perceive that learning occurs daily. It is truly a journey and not a single event. HR and learning professionals who are not afraid to risk improvement are often those who reap the greater benefits from their efforts. A primary goal of the business consultant is to assist the client in improving performance and efficiency. It is impossible to do this without recommending solutions that align to this concept and the specified goals of the client. Agile is all about maximizing value and efficiency. It helps produce shorter development times, which enable faster reactions and increased efficiency.

Take a closer look and decide whether your HR L&D personnel could benefit from the agile way of working and its outcomes. Find out whether it aligns to what you want to achieve. Do not be afraid to examine how others are addressing their problems. You may find a solution in the strangest places—and who knows? The solution could be next door. What have been your experiences in delivering value through learning in the pandemic environment? I would love to start a discussion and share ideas of what seems to work for HR L&D departments.

About the Authors

Carl Ramsey

Carl Ramsey is a certified project management professional (PMP) and retired senior military officer where he spent over 30 years leading troops and solving problems. He brings that drive and experience to GP Strategies as a senior business consultant with over 14 years collaborating with clients to solve their most wicked problems while ensuring their current practices produce the greatest business value.

When we talk about technology and the experience of it, what we are really doing as humans is measuring and comparing our experiences between our consumer grade experience (non-work tech) and our corporate tech experience (tech used at work).

There are six key areas to consider when talking about consumer grade technology. The first being Collaborative. Does this technology allow me to collaborate not only with my team, but also extensions of my team, and with the wider business? If there is no place to collaborate, your people will go outside of the technology already in place to fix that problem, which can lead to all kinds of issues for the IT team.

When we design technology and talk about it being an enabler, we first need to look at what technology has already been implemented, as well as where it is being used within the organisation. This needs to happen before we begin to look at alternative, new technologies.

Quite often, the solution is already in place for you to use. Either that or your team has already found a technology that enables them to overcome their problems. Usually, that type of technology isn’t on the IT whitelist, and would need further approval. This then drills down to whether you provide your teams with consumer grade technology vs corporate technology. Depending on which route you go down, you will subsequently be providing two entirely different experiences.

It’s crucial to note that we don’t need to recreate the wheel when it comes to technology. All we actually need to do is look at how we can fine-tune what is already being used as a collaborative space.  

If this was fight club, the first rule of fight club would be take a look around at what tech is already in place and what work arounds your people have come up with to get around that poor experience.

The next area of focus is Stackability. Social media is the perfect example of something with stackable qualities. For example, I can schedule out a social post right now on my Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and Twitter. Alternatively, I could utilise platforms such as Buffer or Sprout to do it all for me in one go. Essentially, the tech you use needs to be able to talk and play nice with other technology.

A great example is Android vs Apple. Android works pretty much with lots of other technologies, whereas Apple has specific limitations in regards to applications and functionalities. Apple works really well with other Apple technologies, such as syncing the Apple Watch to the iPhone. However, as soon as you bring in another technology, it becomes more difficult to use to the point that you start to look for work arounds and hacks. This can often be seen in the hacker space and the demand for someone to jailbreak the latest iOS.

When we talk about consumer grade technology, the last thing we want to do is make things more difficult for people. You don’t want to bring a technology in that only works well with certain other technologies. When we talk about stackable, what we’re talking about is how well does it play with other technologies – do I get more from the tech in the form of performance insight if it plays nice with others?

All this is great, as long as we have a frictionless user experience. We are rarely taught how to use the likes of Instagram, WhatsApp, or Spotify. All of these platforms have great user experiences that often match our mental models (what a person believes based on what has happened in the past). We all typically understand what a like button does or what an online shopping experience looks like based on past experiences.

The User experiences need to be frictionless and match the mental models that we already have in place. If it does this efficiently, then the technology itself becomes effortless to use. If you find yourself having to create copious resources or some form of training in order to become familiar with the technology, then the chances are it’s a bad user experience.

Next up is data and insight. This is primarily about having the right tech and ecosystem in place that allows us to move from this reactive to proactive approach. When it comes to design, trends analysis, and predictions with one of our biggest clients, we are now at a point where we know what type of content Bob likes, and the specific time of day he usually consumes information. This isn’t about keeping a mindful eye on people, it’s about using that data insight to provide valuable insight to the business around ROI and performance, as well as creating a better personalised experience for our people.

The next area is something that impacts us every day, be it through the tech we use or in our real life and it’s that little beauty we call Nudge. We experience nudges everyday, yet they are often overlooked. Nudges range from the petrol light in our car going off, to the little red dots on our phones telling we have a notification. We are constantly bombarded with notifications. For me, the nudges can get too overwhelming, and I opt to turn my notification off in the end.

Technology frequently uses nudges to influence customer experience, from Apple watch notifications to the reminder to wash your hands update (during COVID-19).

There are lots of ethics around how we should design these nudges. When used correctly, they can help slowly change direction, both physical or behavioural. If used incorrectly, we may end up turning these nudges off, which effectually would mean that your technology is dead and buried before it even got going.

The last, but by no means least is Community. All great technology needs two different types of communities: a slow burn and a fast burn. A slow burning community is the typical approach that we find on most social media platforms. These incorporate comments in status updates, or content where the thread slowly burns out to be this wild fire. However, a fast burn community is the experience we get from Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. This tends to be the “hello I need some attention” or “I need a question answering” – a way of communicating quickly and efficiently.  

Teams is a great example of a platform having both type of communities. It is ready at the point of need, allows users to be just a click away from a specific channel, focusing on a challenge or trend, but at the same time, they are able to reach out to SME’s to call on as and when. However too many teams, channels and notifications result in us losing out on the opportunities that well designed tech can bring.

They are two industries that call their people users, the software and the narcotics industry. We would be well placed to remember at the end of every technology experience is a human, and if we design for their need, match the experience they expect with technology outside of work, and it provides the data insight needed for the business, we would all be in a happier place.

About the Authors

Danny Seals

Danny Seals is the Director of Experience & Design at GP Strategies. His background lies in Learning and Organizational design and development, and has expertise in a variety of design disciplines such as design thinking, service design, system thinking and experience design. Using this blend has helped Danny create strategic change through transformational design. He is the creator of a number one rated podcast in learning & development, and a frequent speaker at conferences and on podcasts around human centered design.

If you are in the Learning and Development (L&D) space, you may be familiar with The 5 Moments of Need^® for creating and sustaining effective on-the-job performance of employees and work teams by Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson. Over the years, many large organizations have embraced The 5 Moments of Need as an organizing framework for their learning solutions, and the approach continues to evolve over time. The model focuses on the five moments when employees need learning or performance support to do their jobs. These moments are when:

• Employees need to learn something NEW.
• Employees must APPLY what they’ve learned on the job.
• There is a CHANGE to what the employee needs to do on the job.
• Employees must SOLVE a problem and need help.
• Employees want to learn MORE to do a new job or to do their job better.

Traditionally, learning solutions for technology adoption tend to focus on the NEW moment. Many organizations plan elaborate training solutions to get employees up to speed before go-live. Organizations may also provide employees with performance support (help) content that they can use as they APPLY what they have learned on the job. However, often the moments of CHANGE and SOLVE are not part of the learning solution, and employees are left on their own to try to learn MORE in the future.

In his article, “Becoming an Effective Learner in the Age of Digital Evolution,” GP Strategies’ Matt Donovan talks about the need for a range of resources to be able to meet learners’ five needs, explaining that, “Developing a range of resources requires a learning network, and learners need to think strategically about their networks. These networks need to include support for innovation and skills mastery.” So, a network is needed, but what does that look like? Back in the Before Times, it might have looked like a group of people working together in a common physical work space. Having colleagues available was a convenient way to get help SOLVING a problem or learning MORE. Currently, many of us do not have this option.

Fortunately, new technologies have emerged that provide companies with new and creative ways of extending their solutions to meet the five moments. In fact, solutions are extending beyond what Donovan refers to as a learning network to meet even broader needs of the organization. Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) now offer capabilities that meet The 5 Moments of Need for employees while also driving business results for employers. For example:

• NEW learning can be integrated into the flow of work to address knowledge gaps at the time of need. Rather than forcing everyone to take learning before go-live, organizations can use DAPs to ensure employees receive training at the time they need to perform tasks.
• DAPs’ context-sensitive help capabilities can ensure that learners have access to the right performance support content at the right time as they APPLY what they have learned on the job.
• As systems and processes CHANGE, DAP solutions can push new learning and performance support content to employees, effectively eliminating the need for formal training as Cloud updates are rolled out.
• In the absence of the colleague next door, employees are challenged to find assistance when they need to SOLVE problems. DAPs now offer the opportunity to facilitate problem solving through threaded discussions, distributed content authoring, and other knowledge facilitation.
• The last challenge for DAPs is to support employees’ needs for MORE learning. In many cases, organizations rely on a learning management system to fill this role, but as the format for learning evolves beyond the traditional course (classroom or eLearning), DAPs provide excellent capabilities to provide this learning at the time of need. In addition, learning can be pushed out based on data collected by the DAP related to content usage or data provided from other sources, such as enterprise systems.

What I find most promising in looking at digital adoption platforms and The 5 Moments of Need is the promise of DAP technology to reframe the conversation about how we support employees who are adopting new technology. Mosher and Gottfredson recognize that the five moments are really about performance support, not learning—what does the employee need to do their job?

Looking at DAPs through the lens of performance support, not learning, there are many interesting opportunities. For example, many DAPs now include guided performance, where the DAP technology walks users through task performance. Other DAPs provide robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities, freeing employees to work on more value-added activities by automating basic job tasks. While some of these capabilities are still on the development roadmap, others are available today. Keeping them in mind as you are thinking about how to drive adoption of new technology will help keep you ahead of the curve as you design your user adoption solution.

About the Authors

Linda Lamppert

Linda Lamppert has worked for over twenty-five years in the field of human performance technology helping clients improve the overall performance of their organizations and employees. In addition to a strong background in instructional systems design, she has over twenty years of experience designing and delivering solutions for companies implementing traditional ERP and cloud-based systems. Linda’s solutions typically include blended learning approaches, training and systems documentation, online performance support, documentation of policies and procedures, business process reengineering, and change management. Most recently, she has been focusing on the people-related challenges associated with global process and system transformations as well as integration of mobile and micro learning strategies to streamline platform adoption.

With the widespread and rapid adoption of distance learning among organizations worldwide, learning tools and technologies have never been more important. But beyond simply using these tools, how can we begin to understand the impact learning is having within our organizations? And why is it important that we do? This guide is a collection of useful resources, articles, case studies, and ebooks to help you develop from measurement beginner to intermediate and, ultimately, advanced practitioner.

Measuring the impact of learning on business goals and KPIs is a vital step towards having a fully integrated, effective, and scalable learning strategy. This short guide is full of useful resources to help you with everything from getting started to proving learning ROI and ROE (return on expectation), and helping you create business cases for future learning initiatives.

You’ll find links to resources from GP Strategies, our sister company Watershed, and external research that we’ve found useful and insightful on our own journey to understanding the impact of learning measurement.

To help make things more digestible, we’ve split the resources into the following sections:

• Why measure the business impact of learning?
• Results and reports from our annual measurement surveys
• Getting started with learning measurement
• Gathering and understanding learning data
• Proving learning ROI/ROE and getting stakeholder buy-in
• Measurement in action: Case studies to help put the theory into context

Why Measure the Business Impact of Learning?

With tools and technologies now more widespread than ever across the L&D profession and wider organization, data is much easier to come by. Measuring learning’s impact, even at Level 1 or 2 in the Kirkpatrick Model, is incredibly important when it comes to understanding the learning habits of your employees, as well as proving the value of L&D programs.

Simpler measurements can include completion rates, time spent in a learning management system (LMS) or learning experience platform (LXP), attendee counts from your virtual classrooms, and self-reported behavioral change. These can provide you with some useful insights, but you’ll find the most value in the analysis of wider sets of data.

Through proper analysis and meaningful reporting, these broader data sets are where you can begin to understand the impact of learning programs. In order to do this, you need to align learning goals and measurement with business KPIs and objectives.

There are many benefits to measuring the business impact of learning, but the top ones include:

• Understanding impact of learning beyond participation and uptake
• Visibility of learning engagement – what’s working and what’s not
• Proving learning ROI and learning ROE
• Aiding the process of getting stakeholder buy-in
• Improving learning design through strategic, evidence-based decisions

Results from Our Annual Measuring the Business Impact of Learning Survey

Every year, for six years now, LEO Learning (now GP Strategies) and Watershed have run a survey gauging attitudes and behaviors around measuring the business impact of learning. We’ve asked L&D professionals a range of questions to help understand where they are with the big issues—from executive pressure to measure and success measures, through to whether they have the technology available to do so.

Some headline stats from 2022’s report include:

Below, you’ll find links to each of the reports. Take a look at how much has already changed and get insights from experts at the top of the field about the future of learning measurement and business impact.

Below, you’ll find links to the reports. Take a look at how much has already changed and get insights from experts at the top of the field about the future of learning measurement and business impact.

• 2022 Report
• 2021 Report
• 2020 Report
• 2019 Report
• 2018 Report
• 2017 Report 

Getting Started with Learning Measurement

If learning measurement isn’t something you’ve done much or any of in the past, it can feel a little daunting. These resources should give you a helping hand when it comes to embarking on your learning measurement journey. Or perhaps you’ve started but want to make sure you’re on the right track.

Either way, the resource below will help you understand where to begin and in which direction to move forward.

ADDIE: A Five-Step Process for Effective Training & Learning Evaluation

Gathering and Understanding Learning Data

So you have a grasp of the basics and where to begin. The next step is to gather your data together in one place (most likely from varied sources), review the quality and depth of what you have, and then begin to analyze it using an appropriate tool or methodology. One of the most effective ways to do this is through a learning record store (LRS) or Learning Analytics Platform (LAP). But if you don’t have access to, or budget for, one of these tools, there are other things you can do to help you understand the data you’ve collected:

How to Use Data Insights to Shape Your Learning Strategy

How to Measure Learning and Development’s Business impact

Five Steps to Get Started with Learning Analytics

Getting Stakeholder Buy-In

Another key focus of your learning measurement journey is what to do with all of that analyzed data. As well as reporting on value to your business, it is of course, a good idea to use this data to inform your learning strategy.

However, beyond this, you can use your data to aid the process of gaining stakeholder buy-in for technologies, budget changes, and future learning initiatives. In order to make a real impact, start by aligning learning and business objectives.

Use your data to show what has been achieved and what can be achieved for the business through your learning initiatives. The resources below should help get you started.

Aligning L&D with Business Goals

Aligning Teamwork Goals: How to Get Stakeholder Buy-in For L&D Success

3 Key Ways to Adapt Your Learning and Measurement Strategies in 2021

Measuring Learning Success

Ready to start your learning measurement journey? Or do you have questions about measuring the business impact of learning? Our experts are here to help – get in touch.

About the Authors

Geoff Bloom

Geoff is a Principal Consultant and has worked in learning technologies and learning design and delivery since 1980. He joined LEO (now GP Strategies) in 2008, and has worked with a comprehensive range of clients across industries to deliver learning content, and define and evaluate a variety of learning strategies. Geoff was heavily involved in designing the NHS Leadership Academy, working alongside KPMG and the Universities of Manchester and Birmingham to develop over 1,200 hours of blended online content for a Master’s in Healthcare Leadership program. In addition, he has worked on a range of blended leadership initiatives for clients including Volvo, British Airways, and BP. Geoff holds an MBA. He enjoys watching rugby, swimming, and going to see live music. Follow Geoff on LinkedIn.

This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies. 

Virtual workshops provide a great opportunity to engage with your learners in a live online setting. A step up from less interactive live-online delivery methods like webinars and lectures, these workshops should be structured to generate engagement, maintain interest, and encourage collaboration throughout.

Building Trust and Engagement

The way we design virtual workshops is closely aligned with the Gilly Salmon model of learning engagement. Each of the five stages builds on the last in a way that builds trust and enables fully-engaged participation from the learners.

Building trust is crucial to sustaining learning engagement, especially in a remote or virtual setting. In a workshop environment, your job is to facilitate interaction and engagement, so opening up, sharing your experiences, and perhaps some mistakes you have learned from can be a great way to break down barriers and begin to build trust with and between your learners. Your learners will be significantly more engaged and willing to participate in the material if you remove a focus on the top-down structure typically seen in lectures and webinars.

The 5 Stages of Building Trust and Engagement

Before we dive into the five key stages of building trust and engagement, the first and most crucial consideration is the access your learners have to the technology you’re using. For many, this may be the first time they’re using these tools, so it’s important to ensure they can effectively navigate the tools and play or contribute effectively in the session.

1.) Connecting

The first stage is to build connections between participants. This is particularly valuable for socializing learners from different teams, departments, or organizations. In-person workshops often offer breakout sessions, group activities, and icebreakers. Virtual workshops are no different.

Virtual icebreakers have a slightly different purpose. In a virtual learning environment, these activities seek to break down barriers between participants, and often offer a replacement to the pre-session small talk that takes place over a coffee in the foyer or during set up. You may be surprised to see how open participants are to forming these connections, especially as we’ve been apart for so long.

The icebreaker, in addition to the normal getting-to-know-you activity, enables the facilitator to see who is present, active, and able to use the technology to contribute either verbally or visually.

2.) Sharing

This leads us nicely into stage two… Sharing is an important part of trust-building. As the facilitator, you can begin by sharing your own experiences and lead by example. In some knowledge-sharing sessions that we ran with senior L&D leaders, we would ask everyone to share something they learned during lockdown that had nothing to do with work, and we would always answer first, leading the way for other contributions.

You can repeat this sort of exercise in smaller groups if your workshop doesn’t allow for individual contribution in a total group setting—for example, if you’re working with more than 10-15 people in a session.

This initial sharing of experiences makes participants feel more comfortable sharing and contributing later in the session. It also helps to build empathy and understanding for the other learners involved. Ultimately, the goal here is to encourage learners to become confident to share their opinions safely with each other and in the group setting.

Of course, much of the sharing can take place in a shared workspace such as a whiteboard. To get this sort of activity moving it’s important to start simple. For example, ask people to type three words that represent their current challenge or to share a website that they regularly refer to.

3.) Collaborating

Collaborative and social learning have been buzzwords in L&D for a while now.

But in a virtual setting, where we are all working and communicating at a distance, collaboration has never been more important to the learning experience. However, the introduction of various technologies to this experience can make it feel intimidating. Once we have established a connection between learners and built trust between participants, it’s time to introduce more varied and sophisticated collaboration.

Collaborating on tasks, challenges, and problem-solving is a great way to strengthen connections between the learners and really engage them in the learning process. This can be achieved through group breakout sessions, through shared documents (Teams and Office 365, Google Suite, etc), or virtual whiteboards (Mural, Miro, and embedded whiteboards in tools like Zoom or Teams). Or simply through tasks to be completed in pairs. Whatever the activities are, make sure the shared objectives are clear and everyone involved has the means to contribute.

4.) Innovating

With this type of collaboration comes innovation.

Particularly useful in workshops designed around business impact, getting people’s heads together is a great way to see things differently. Done right, one of the best things about running virtual workshops could be the amount that you can learn from your learners.

In order to facilitate and foster this type of innovation with a group that may have only recently come together, the real essence of learning design comes into play. It’s important to set up activities in advance. And when you do, you should focus on activities that can collect and collate ideas, provide the mechanisms for problem-solving, and enable learners to share their lightbulb moments. These activities should bring together the best elements of in-person and virtual workshops.

As with some of the other steps, whiteboards can have a useful part to play, but pre-designing and pre-populating activities can really enable and elevate the creative process.

5.) Living

The ultimate goal of any form of workplace learning is sustained behavior change. Once the connection, sharing, collaboration, and innovation are complete in a group setting, your learners should feel more comfortable and confident in these newer forms of learning.

One of the great things about virtual classrooms, even more so than live workshops, is the ability to revisit and refresh. For example, the sessions are easily recorded and transcribed, making review very easy for both the facilitators and the participants.

Tools like whiteboards can also be left open after the session. Chats and discussions can be continued, allowing for a cohort to become an ongoing ‘community of practice’. This helps to effectively transition the learning environment to a shared workspace.

The way this model of virtual workshop design works should result in learners becoming more actively engaged in the sessions and more open to collaboration. This can also have great advantages to their work life, especially if they’re still primarily communicating with colleagues online or at distance.

Designing sessions taking these five forms of engagement into account also encourages the building of soft skills like problem-solving, time management, creativity, and critical thinking alongside collaboration and the main learning or business objectives driving the training. There’s a lot to be taken from these sessions, and using this model to increase trust and engagement should result in the changes you seek.

If you would like to know more about conducting effective training in a virtual workshop or classroom environment, get in touch.

About the Authors

Geoff Bloom

Geoff is a Principal Consultant and has worked in learning technologies and learning design and delivery since 1980. He joined LEO (now GP Strategies) in 2008, and has worked with a comprehensive range of clients across industries to deliver learning content, and define and evaluate a variety of learning strategies. Geoff was heavily involved in designing the NHS Leadership Academy, working alongside KPMG and the Universities of Manchester and Birmingham to develop over 1,200 hours of blended online content for a Master’s in Healthcare Leadership program. In addition, he has worked on a range of blended leadership initiatives for clients including Volvo, British Airways, and BP. Geoff holds an MBA. He enjoys watching rugby, swimming, and going to see live music. Follow Geoff on LinkedIn.

Andrew Joly

Andrew leads the strategy and consulting faculty in the Learning Experience team, which is at the frontline of delivering creative, innovative and effective learning solutions. He focuses on his personal passion: how technology-enabled learning experiences and communication blends can transform behaviors and performance in the workplace. Andrew has a passion for exploring how new modes and strategies for learning and connection can make a real difference to people, teams, and global organizations.

Today, large enterprises run hundreds of applications simultaneously, creating countless integration points to optimize and manage. However, traditional integration approaches no longer suffice for several reasons. Established methodologies cannot cope with the fast pace of technology innovation and business change. The separation between application, data, business-to-business (B2B), cloud service, mobile app, and Internet of Things (IoT) integration technologies and skills is unsustainable. In addition, ad hoc approaches, such as do-it-yourself integration employed to achieve rapid integration, pose governance, security, and compliance challenges, as well as technical debt risks.

Given this complexity, every business needs a methodological approach to integration that not only reduces complexity and cost, but also lets you turn integration into a source of competitive advantage. To turn data into meaningful insight, enterprises need to integrate all of their functions and processes based on a harmonized data model, get the complete picture in real time, and make decisions with knowledge of all interdependencies within the organization. Otherwise, you cannot make use of the data points to offer personalized experiences for your customers, or manage demand and supply seamlessly in real time.

Most companies will look at solutions as part of their approach that will help them combine their current environments, which are typically on-premises, with cloud-based applications (where it makes sense). Hybrid deployments will be the solution of choice for most companies in the years to come, making SAP Cloud Platform Integration (SAP-CPI) a strategic piece of the puzzle.

The benefits of moving to the cloud can be summarized in the following major pillars:

1. Faster Deployment
   • Full deployment in weeks
   • Mobile grade user experience translates to less training
2. Access to Innovation
   • Multiple releases per year
   • Customer feedback to provide updates
3. Agile Deployment, Configuration, and Integration
   • Rapid process configuration
   • Faster adoption
   • No lengthy upgrade cycles
   • Standard integration packages
4. Faster Time to Value
   • Prepackaged integrations

In addition to the benefits outlined above, some of the key features of the SAP-CPI are:

• Out-of-the-box connectivity support (IDoc, SFTP, Rest/Odata/SOAP/HTTPS, SuccessFactors, API, SFAPI, Onboarding APIs, Learning APIs, S4/HANA, SAP On-Premise).
• Security features such as content encryption and certificate-based communication.
• Preconfigured integration patterns, providing many options for the configuration of data flow between participant systems.
• SAP Cloud Connector to allow secure connectivity via a VPN tunnel between your on-premises environment and cloud instances.
• Connectivity adapters (endpoint types) that allow participant systems to connect through both proprietary and open protocols (IDoc, OData, JMS, HTTPS, EDI, Ariba, AS2/4, etc.).
• Diverse integration scenarios: Link processes and data using both application-to-application and business-to-business integration scenarios.
• Multiple endpoints: Integrate various SAP and third-party applications and data sources based either on-premises or in the cloud.
• Pre-packaged content: Use pre-packaged integration content to jump-start integration projects and get productive quickly.
• Customize integration: Extend preconfigured integration scenarios to include custom requirements.
• Increase business agility with connected processes, applications, and data that drive a real-time enterprise.
• Extend business processes across hybrid environments for greater efficiency.
• Expand competitive advantage with deeper data-driven insights, irrespective of the data location.

By leveraging the solutions provided by SAP-CPI, you can enable your organization to rapidly implement integrations in and out of your current landscape environment. SAP-CPI is a delivered middleware platform that allows you to take advantage of the standard integrations that will help you accelerate implementation and reduce costs, and take advantage of the key benefits listed above.

About the Authors

Cesar Hinojosa

Cesar has over 20 years’ experience with SAP HCM development and configuration and 25 years of experience in computer systems implementing and developing custom software solutions on various platforms/operating systems, including SAP Integration Suite, Boomi and BIB. His experience spans all phases of the development cycle including gathering/analyzing user requirements, designing, coding, testing, and documenting.

This blog article was written prior to LEO Learning becoming part of GP Strategies.

“When things get back to normal…”

This turn of phrase dominated conversations in businesses, schools, and households from spring to summer of 2020. However, as stakeholders, educators, and family members resigned themselves to the reality of a burgeoning pandemic, a new expression—“the new normal”—took its place.

Although this saying also soon became cliché, the concept continues to resonate, as it conveys a sense of hope for an improved future. As the World Economic Forum contends, the post-pandemic landscape is full of “challenges and opportunities” alike. 

The realm of education technology is no exception to this future-focused shift. While eLearning and virtual classroom solutions gained momentum prior to the onset of the pandemic, they are now viewed less as auxiliary or supplementary alternatives and more as valid options for learning and training. Although face-to-face interactions can never be replaced, virtual learning’s rise to prominence will certainly affect the ways we engage moving forward.

Opportunities for Innovation

We partner with organizations who rank themselves along a spectrum of eLearning readiness. For some, whose stakeholders were already accustomed to working and networking remotely, the pandemic required a simple pivot from part-time to full-time online engagement. For others, although receptive to learning and even socializing virtually, the shift from conference-and-classroom interactions to an entirely online format caused greater growing pains. Those who remained open to new and promising opportunities quickly reaped the benefits of creative and seamless innovation. In the case of post-pandemic learning, this innovation is borne from necessity.

Training and development stakeholders around the world found that eLearning and blended learning solutions, when implemented with intent and know-how, can revolutionize the way organizations “manage, plan, deliver and track” learning. Such solutions are crafted with audience in mind to ensure that learning activities are accessible and even replicable across similar contexts. 

Transform, Don’t Transfer

The classic “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” advice transcends industry and sector. In terms of the transition from face-to-face to virtual learning, we encourage customers to consider what works well and to adapt accordingly. This diagnostic planning style is known as appreciative andragogy, and it equips learning designers with a framework for “nurturing relationships and [increasing] the instructor’s [or facilitator’s] presence within an online classroom environment.”

To be clear, this transformation of elements that “work” in a face-to-face environment involves repurposing methods and media, and is not always a direct shift. This process requires varying degrees of effort depending on the ultimate goal. However, the benefits of transformation far outweigh the risk of training becoming stagnant, and organizations are able to gain buy-in from all stakeholders involved—including instructors, facilitators, and participants.

In the L&D industry, we have observed a proliferation of revamped tools, platforms, and strategies that facilitate the transformation of interactive elements, often aimed at combating the notion of widespread “Zoom fatigue”. Incorporating assets such as video (even leveraging user-generated content recorded remotely), polls, and discussion forums can help maintain a sense of familiarity while capitalizing on a general willingness to try new activities.

Balance Style and Substance

As discussed earlier, transformation requires time, effort, and dedication in varying degrees. Each organization’s and learner’s unique needs must be gauged in terms of the three components that comprise quality: scope, schedule, and resources to assess overarching and non-negotiable priorities. For example, if timeline is the ultimate factor that guides decision-making, resources and scope may be scaled accordingly, and so on. The quality of each learning initiative fluctuates as a result, for better or worse.

Due to the limitations associated with lockdown, content designers and creators often have to make do with tools and resources at hand. Even with these constraints in place, learning professionals don’t have to sacrifice style or optimal aesthetic experience for substance, or vice versa.

Consider these tips for transforming face-to-face learning while maintaining the integrity of your ultimate goals:

• To demo a new tool or skill, consider video – As mentioned above, user-generated content can provide a multimedia splash without breaking the bank. It also encourages users to view and even comment on each other’s content.
• To incorporate role-playing, try scenario-based learning – Learning from characters, whether real or fictional, can boost engagement and provide far greater value and context than many top-down models of learning.
• To enable hands-on experience, build simulations-Simulations range from low-tech in the form of screen capture videos all the way to high-tech in the form of augmented or virtual reality, the next frontier of blended learning solutions.

The Power of Social Interactions

One of the largest identified gaps between face-to-face and virtual learning is the lack of in-person communication and non-verbal cues. Facilitators and instructors, whether tech pros or beginners, both point to the absence of body language and visual cues as a potential inhibitor to learners’ progress as well as rapport building.

To mitigate the consequences of lost interpersonal interactions, LEO co-designs blended learning opportunities that incorporate social learning theory. Psychology Today summarizes this phenomenon, originally observed by psychologist Albert Bandura, by stating that “people learn by watching other people.” Although simply put, this notion has profound implications: learners advance by comparing best practices, building on one another’s lived experiences, and even tracking progress on mutual tasks.

This collaborative method of discovery alongside one another, although often asynchronously, is commonly referred to “as learning in the flow of work.” It occurs naturally and in a true-to-life context, which contributes to an overall sense of community and shared knowledge. Designing learning for social and collaborative opportunities is known to increase retention of information.

The Importance of Social Learning

How, you might ask, are these goals achievable in a virtual environment?

Thanks to forward-thinking learning management systems like Docebo and Adobe Captivate Prime, as well as learning experience platforms like Instilled by PeopleFluent, learning designers are able to set up online interactions that feed into discussion forums where participants can keep conversations going. Such interactions emulate some of the critical features of peer-to-peer conversation.

LEO has worked with partners across sectors and industries to boost instances of social learning throughout their learning design.

From the use of online collaborative whiteboards such as Miro on a micro scale, to the development of global, app-based competitions and incentives on a macro scale, social learning serves as a key step toward creating meaningful experiences in distance learning. According to a 2021 article in the Harvard Business Review, when used to accent a larger blended learning journey, these moments of social learning and collaboration become more intentional and increase impact.

What Does This Mean for the Education Sector?

Striving to deliver high-impact learning solutions in a post-pandemic world has provided its fair share of insights. From sudden pivots in strategy to the increasing importance of social learning, the future will be characterized by a drive to challenge expectations and to drive innovation. Regardless of corporate or classroom environment, an increased desire to improve efficacy and efficiency while maintaining industry standards of excellence will act as a force of momentum.

In this sense, we expect blended learning, in both the corporate and higher education worlds, to remain firmly a part of the “new normal” as we look ahead to learning beyond the pandemic.

Learning culture, technology, and learners’ needs are changing all the time, and we must not be afraid to try new things as we adapt. The best learning often comes from trial, error, and further exploration.

If you want to know more about how GP Strategies can help you transition your learning strategy and content, get in touch with our team.

About the Authors

Derek Phillips

Women’s history month comes to a close at what feels like a turning point for women in the workforce and in leadership. It’s a confusing landscape. In the most senior-level leadership roles in the United States, we see women making history: Kamala Harris is the first woman and person of color to hold the office of vice president. The United States is on track to have 12 cabinet positions held by women—including eight women of color (Harris included)—shattering previous records.

But what do Kamala Harris and these 11 other women have to do with the many women in leadership across the United States who need to work but who are also being pulled heavily toward home with children to care for and virtual school to support? Are we at a positive inflection point, or is there more work to do, given how many women are struggling to remain employed and hold onto the progress they’ve made advancing their careers?

Countless recent articles and research have highlighted the layers to the challenges facing women in the workforce. The crushing weight of the pandemic has forced record numbers of women to leave their jobs, either temporarily or permanently. Nearly three million women in the United States have dropped out of the labor force in the past year, plagued by the competing responsibilities of work and home.¹ Further complicating the challenge is the fact that gender roles continue to dictate that women bear the brunt of home and childcare pressures, reinforcing the inequities they have, for years, battled against. 

The result? Not just lost wages and the personal toll, but lost productivity and lost innovation. This loss will hit companies where it often hurts the most—the bottom line. Company profits and share performance is almost 50 percent higher when women are in leadership positions.² More women and people of color means greater diversity and the increased likelihood that new talent will be motivated to join companies.

Just as women are reaching previously unimaginable professional successes, many have been forced to abandon them—and the companies lose out too.

How do we address this paradox? Do we celebrate our successes? Or do we redouble our efforts to support women in all areas of the workforce, including leadership positions? The answer is, we do both.

We need to take actions at macro and micro levels to address the challenges women face, not only to advance to senior-level positions, but, for many, to simply remain employed while balancing the additional burden, and joys, of caring for children and maintaining household responsibilities. We need to look at the boulders, and the pebbles, that are in the way of further progress.  

Here are a few ways to address the paradox:

• Examine policies and procedures. Examine policies and practices to evaluate who is being hired and promoted. Are those policies inclusive? Is there an inherent disadvantage in policies for working moms? Look for hidden biases that might disadvantage women and create barriers to entry. For example, screening criteria that look for gaps in employment can disadvantage working moms whose lapses come from pregnancy, childbirth, and caring for small children. 
  • Ensure that you are hiring for qualifications and not for “fit,” which can often be code for “like us,” so you can improve diversity.  If, as an organization, you articulate the value of inclusion, make sure that your corporate policies and leadership practices are, in fact, consistent with that value. 
  • Extend the same transparency to promotional practices. Be clear about what standards individuals need to meet in order to move up, and evaluate all individuals equally and fairly against those standards. 

• Be an ally. By taking an active role in advancing the culture of inclusion through intentional efforts, you can become an ally. Attend Employee Resource Groups, take on policy and procedure review, and support policies such as flex time and paid parental leave.    

• Self reflect. Ask yourself what you are doing as a leader to let the women on your team know that they are heard and valued. What are you hearing from the women in your organization? What are they saying they need to be successful? Have you asked that question and then truly listened for understanding?
  • Sharpen your active listening skills and notice how often the women on your team contribute. Are they getting equal “airtime”? Are their voices being diminished or amplified? When they contribute a strong idea, is that idea validated and carried forward? Or does that only happen when it’s repeated or reframed by a male colleague? Anchor back to their contributions and acknowledge their ideas.
  • Draw out your more reticent employees and give them the space to share their thoughts at a pace that works for them and respects their communication style.

• Be a sponsor. Sponsors are people who actively champion a project, group, or person and use their positional power, expertise, advocacy, and influence to help others. Be a sponsor by exploring development opportunities—both formal and informal—for the women on your team. Learning journeys, stretch assignments, coaching, and mentoring are opportunities for employees to develop. Proactively engage in career conversations and help women expand their career communities so they can network more easily. When your organization is discussing promotions, make a conscious effort to advocate for the contributions of the women in your team.

• Take action. Be responsible for yourself but also hold others accountable. Watch your words and those of others. The words that we say matter and the context in which we say them matters. Women who are on the receiving end of verbal or nonverbal behavior or actions that make them feel less than or othered, often known as microaggressions, feel their impact profoundly.
  • Tune in to these painful slights and spend time reflecting on their impact and strategizing how you can address them. Speak up when you see them happening, even if those conversations are difficult. Model the behaviors of an inclusive leader.
  • Empathize by putting yourself in the seats of the working moms in your organization.  This doesn’t mean swapping stories about your kids’ latest escapades. Instead, stop and tune in to what these moms share. Put yourself in the shoes, in the mind, in the heart of that parent to understand the struggle. Do you hear the pain and frustration? Listening to working moms is about relating in a way that gives space for the struggle to be heard and not judged. Because the struggle is real. 

So, what is the single biggest thing that leaders, men and women, can do in your organization to address the paradox—to celebrate women’s accomplishments while continuing to support the women in your organization? From Washington to Zoom calls to the kitchen tables of working moms, what can leaders do to support the women on their teams? In short, clear away obstacles—both big and small. The obstacles that prevent good, strong, talented women from being hired and advancing. And the obstacles that prevent them from speaking up, staying engaged, or simply remaining employed. As leaders, that’s our job. Whether it’s a barrier to inclusive hiring or challenges associated with childcare, women aren’t asking us to solve their problems. But what we can do is partner with them to clear the obstacles that are in the way of their solution. Work together to take the boulders and the pebbles and line them up so they no longer get in the way, but instead create a path to greater progress.

¹ Pew Research

²Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle, Kevin Dolan, Vivian Hunt, and Sara Prince, “Diversity wins: How inclusion matters,” May 19, 2020.

About the Authors

Leah Clark

Leah Clark is the Leadership Practice Lead at GP Strategies, as well as an author and the founder of LeaderConnect. With over 28 years of experience in her field, Leah brings a unique perspective on the mindsets and skillset that are critical to leadership success to her coaching and consulting. Her clients benefit from her collaborative approach to crafting a well-connected and thoughtful leadership development strategy. Leah holds a Master of Arts; Organizational Psychology, Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts; English and Sociology, Boston College.