Modern Learing On The Air: Ensure Consistency Across a Global Organization

Welcome to this episode of Modern Learning on the Air. Today, we're set to explore the ever-evolving landscape of corporate training with insights from two distinguished leaders in the field of learning and development. Joining us are Jennifer Hofmann, the Founder and Chief Strategist at InSync Training, and Karen Vieth, the company's CEO and President. With your host, Jeff Brown, we'll explore the ever-evolving landscape of corporate training with insights from two distinguished leaders in the field of learning and development. 

Together, they have been instrumental in reshaping the ways businesses empower their teams through learning, particularly in these rapidly changing times. Stay tuned as we discuss real-world strategies for fostering effective training within a global and dynamic workforce. Let's get started.

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Transcript:

Jeff Brown
Welcome to modern learning on the air. I'm your host, Jeff Brown, creative director at In-Sync Training. It's fantastic to have you join us today as we dive into the future of corporate training. Today, we have two incredible minds in the world of learning and development. Jennifer Hofmann, Founder and Chief strategist
at InSync Training. And Karen Vieth, CEO and president.
 

Jeff Brown
They've been at the forefront of reshaping how businesses empower their teams through learning, especially when everything around us today has been changing at lightning speed. Join us as we explore genuine strategies for effective training across the global and ever changing workforce. So let's dive in. Jennifer. Karen, welcome. 

Karen Vieth
Well, thank you, Jeff. And it's exciting to be here with Jennifer. I mean, there's so many things over the course of the last couple of decades that have changed as we have moved into different roles throughout the organization. But, you know, in training itself, there's been some massive changes, haven't there, Jennifer? How are you? Jennifer? Up there in Maine. How's the weather.


Jennifer Hofmann
There? Whether it is it's pouring rain, but where, you know, going into spring. So that's to be expected. How is it? Wisconsin?

Karen Vieth
Same. it's a little bit gloomy today, but, you know, the weather's been really strange. We've had some 60s, some 50s and 40s, and I think we're expected to get some 30s again. You know, it's just major change over the spring. We never see anything consistent.

Jennifer Hofmann
And I think that's very appropriate for our conversation today because we're focusing on change and the role that training has in enabling a change across the enterprise.

Karen Vieth
Yeah, it's so true. I mean, when we think about the last, you know, a couple of decades of of training, I mean, there's been so many different massive of massive changes within the training industry. And you've been there since the beginning. Right. So what are some of these different changes that we've gone through? I mean, I know everybody knows what happened, you know, a couple of years ago with the pandemic, but we've been going through some massive changing, changes with training over the course of the last several years.

Karen Vieth
Jennifer, would you kind of walk us through what that looks like? Because I know you've been there since.

Jennifer Hofmann
Yeah. It's interesting. I've been here since the beginning of virtual training, not training at Pine Pier.

Jennifer Hofmann
That. You know, we started in sync in 2000. It was really small virtual training. The virtual platform was really, really knew what was coming out of the.com boom, where everybody was buying technology to do everything, but nobody knew what to do with it. And eventually they were going to implement the virtual classroom because they could see that there were advantages.

Jennifer Hofmann
There were, economic advantages. We didn't have to fly people places. We didn't have to set up classrooms, and we could get training out quicker. But that's a big change. We've been learning in classrooms all of our lives for thousands of years, and now we want to go virtual. So people were resistant to that change. The first big uptake, the first big adoption period for virtual training was after a disaster.

Jennifer Hofmann
It was the 9/11 attacks in the United States where people were limited in their flying. There was an economic impact of the 9/11 attacks, where people didn't have the budget to fly, and we needed to figure out how to get information out and get training out in a different way. So people said, we already purchased all of these virtual classroom licenses.

Jennifer Hofmann
We might as well start to use them well. People absorb the change. People adapted. There was an uptick, not 100%. Again, people still wanted to use the virtual classroom more. And then what happened was the 2007 recession. We ran out of money again. How are we going to train people? So organizations that were early adopters started using virtual classes more and more from the economic perspective.

Jennifer Hofmann
And of course, we all know what happened on March 30th, 2020. Life was normal. And then the next week the pandemic hit and suddenly we were putting people on line for four day programs that might go 8 or 10 or 12 hours a day. And that was a major, major change that kind of created the new era. Now people were really, really, I think, adaptable.

Jennifer Hofmann
We were also frightened, I think, and we all wanted to do what we could to contribute. People were very willing to spend eight hours a day learning and teaching online multiple days a week. but now we're beyond that. Everybody's kind of exhausted. You've heard the term zoom fatigue. It's just learning fatigue in general. All of those changes have really encouraged us to use these technologies to train people more and more.

Jennifer Hofmann
And we've seen success stories. We've seen that they can actually work. So now I don't like to use the word new normal, because obviously these examples in and of themselves, they just tell us, well, you know, we don't know what normal is going to be in two weeks or a year or five years. So technology's become that tool.

Jennifer Hofmann
And the virtual classroom is now part of our learning strategy.

Karen Vieth
You know it's funny a couple of things that hit me when you were talking is the I mean the longevity of virtual training. I mean it's been around for a very long time. But if you think about it, you know, it's like virtual was occasional as it started. Right. And then the pandemic hit and it was such a global impact, and such a massive change that everyone had to embrace it no matter what.

Karen Vieth
Before that, it was a you know, I think this is a good idea and know I think we should try this. And, you know, if you asked us ten years ago, we were like, yes, we're going to beg people to listen to how impactful virtual training can be. But then when the shift happened globally and the massive change happened with the pandemic, it became a virtual first scenario.

Karen Vieth
And not just with organizations. I mean, it was vital that organizations, you know, once they shut down, had to figure out how to do business again. But it's actually turned into more than that. So first we shut down, we have to figure out how to do business. We go to virtual. We become very popular. Right? People are like, yes, I want to learn about virtual.

Karen Vieth
And then the employees started to kind of sink their their heels in the sand and say, I don't know, I kind of like this. This is kind of nice to be able to work from a remote office. And then organizations started another change movement of, you know, I think we want to come back to the office. And those employees are like, well, I don't I don't really want to go back to the office.

Karen Vieth
So that virtual first mindset that hasn't happened because of a massive change in the way that we work, happened again, maybe about a year and a half ago when organizations started to adopt hybrid learning and the hybrid workforce.

Jennifer Hofmann
So when you think virtual first, I want to build on that a minute, Karen, because virtual first, what organizations are saying is we've proven that virtual can work. We've proven that there is a cost savings involved with it because we're not building classrooms and we're not sending people on airplanes, and we're not impacting people's personal lives as much.

Jennifer Hofmann
And we can get a two hour training out where used to be, we wouldn't bother with a two hour training because it wasn't worth pulling people together for it. So organizations have seen that this will work, and now they're saying, prove to me why this needs to be face to face, and there are some content we're going to need to do face to face.

Jennifer Hofmann
That face to face sales training. We probably should have a more authentic face to face environment in which to train. But the opening argument in many organizations is we're going to go virtual and hybrid first. And that's really the major change right now.

Karen Vieth
No, I agree with you at that. Where I was headed with the employees kind of driving this force a little bit on their side as well is that organizations have adopted this virtual first mindset. Prove to me why we need to be in person. But it's also, the idea of prove to me kind of why I need to attend this training in person or not.

Karen Vieth
Now, when we think about the hybrid workforce, that's a whole nother shift in itself, right? Is is being able to provide training as a pivotal role in this successful adoption of the hybrid work model. We have to make sure that all of these employees who are demanding right to be in this remote office, and these organizations who are demanding that virtual is the way that we do business, we need to make sure that we are equipping our employees with the necessary skills to operate, you know, effective work environment, effective training environments, so that we can start to really help these organizations be consistent across their training that they're offering to their global organizations.

Karen Vieth
So, Jennifer, when you think about consistency, so we've got all these changes, and you and I have been through a lot of these changes with organizations. But how do we help organizations ensure that the role of training stays consistent when we're moving through these global change?

Jennifer Hofmann
I actually think the technology is enabling us to do that better. Now. Used to be in the olden days, we would create a training program that we had an intention of getting out globally, but it would be taught face to face. So we in a great scenario, we bring in trainers from all over the world. We'd have an intensive training, the trainer program, and then we'd send them out to all corners of the world in order to teach it.

Jennifer Hofmann
But at that point, we didn't have control over the ultimate quality. Maybe in one country, they decided a three day training class could be taught in one day, and we cut out all the activities. maybe in another pro, another organization or another office. A manager would deliver the training instead of, professional trainer. So the quality might not be where we need it to be.

Jennifer Hofmann
Or maybe it wouldn't get taught at all, because in that particular office, they didn't see it as a priority. So the first way we can ensure a consistency across the enterprise is the fact that we can create a roll out schedule. We can monitor all of the facilitators globally and ensure that the training is actually happening in the way we intended it to happen.

Jennifer Hofmann
So I think that's a big plus. And of using the virtual classroom, another thing that we can do is we can record everything. And I'm not a big fan, Karen, of using recordings as the training tool. We can use it as a quality monitoring tool, not to go out and say, you know, bad Karen, you didn't train this well.

Jennifer Hofmann
But to see how this is being delivered in different countries, Japan might have a very different way of delivering content than we do in the United States. And learning about those adaptations can really, help us create more consistent training and ensure that the messages that we want to get out are getting out in the way they were intended.

Karen Vieth
Yeah, yeah. I mean, technology and and all of the technological systems, they're critical. They're critical to helping us with efficiency and effectiveness. Right. They help us get the training materials out. And a lot of organizations are really good at that. Right. So consistent messaging. I've got seven different trainings I need to get out. And we're good about creating, this ability to educate our workforce.

Karen Vieth
But I think one of the things that we have to talk about is the, the element of, of kind of the human element, if you will, of change management, it's often overlooked. Right. And if we think about the hybrid environment in the hybrid workforce as part of this massive change, human element has really been overlooked. We have we have adopted through multiple tools.

Karen Vieth
Right. The ability to allow Sally in Tennessee to sit in on training via zoom with her colleagues in, you know, Virginia, right. But we haven't focused on how to really consistently connect Sally with Jim and make that connection happen in a human istic way so that that individual can continue to learn, continue to grow, continue to develop a mindset that's open to change, and that will then kind of create some sort of behavior change back at the job.

Karen Vieth
I mean, as we think through the importance of the people within our trainings, it's not a matter of can we provide training globally? No, the answer is yes. Right? I mean, we all know that, even every grandmother now can be on zoom, everybody. But it's what we do within those, those sessions, those virtual sessions to create a a consistent message, a consistent collaboration, consistent communication that fosters that collaborative spirit and facilitates, you know, an exchange of ideas and meaningful learning experiences that I think if we're going to make some true change within our organizations through training, that's how we can keep things consistent, is really looking at the people and making sure that we

Karen Vieth
can connect the people. I know, I know, there's a client of ours, Jennifer, that kind of went through this global change that you were part of.

Jennifer Hofmann
a great example of this process is Siemens, which is a global organization that does electronics and electronical engineering. And I think probably every piece of electronics, we all probably has a Siemens port in it. And when the pandemic started, they implemented a permanent new, new normal. They called it this is their word new normal working model. And they never intended it to be a stopgap until the pandemic ended.

Jennifer Hofmann
But they said this is the change. We can see it being a permanent change, and they planned for it. And what that new normal was, is that they were always going to allow employees to work from anywhere 2 to 3 days a week, and that was pretty cutting edge back in 2020. Right now, it seems normal just shows you about how fast this change happened so that they did is they created a change plan, a training plan for their employees that really focused on what they call digital upskilling and fostering a change ready mindset, because we don't know what change is happening tomorrow.

Jennifer Hofmann
Now the big change is I and how that's impacting our work. So change is constant. So we need to not just train about the change but prepare the workforce for that, for that change that we don't even know what it is yet. And Siemens gave a lot of training on digital upskilling. And to me that means how do we collaborate, connect and communicate in this virtual environment?

Jennifer Hofmann
We all know how to turn on zoom and talk, but is it really impactful? Is it really, moving the conversation along and I think put a big change in looking at the training function in organizations is the fact that we're not just training people how to sell a car, or to fix electronics, or to provide good customer service.

Jennifer Hofmann
We're also training them how to work in this hybrid environment, because think about it, Karen. If we can collaborate, connect, communicate well in a training situation, those skills are going to spread out. And when we get together to work collaboratively but not physically together, we have those skills. So training and the training function I think is becoming an even more important partner to the business.

Karen Vieth
Well, it almost sounds like our job in learning and development is to support this change management. It's to help empower an evolving workforce and really to sort of work towards a new mind shift right in, in a growth mindset that's going to help everybody from leader all the way down to, you know, learner. And I think as we support this change management, you know, we at it at kind of as an industry learning and development as an industry need to really focus on how we can help continue to, embrace this and empower individuals.

Karen Vieth
And I think it starts with the four strategies that that we've come up with as far as how we hear it and think can really help to support change management in the first one is really promoting that ownership of change, right. Making sure that we all are addressing and owning our part in that.

Jennifer Hofmann
And what you say all it's the learning and development team. It's the managers across the organization and people actually learning.

Jennifer Hofmann
We can't just wait as a learner for you to give me my new leadership training or to teach me about the new human resource management system, we need to actively be involved in that process. I know I need to learn this because, but that's the messaging that the training organization can provide. They can say, why is this important?

Jennifer Hofmann
What moment of learning need will you use this information? Where can you get more information? But it's up to you individual to implement this change and to actively participate. If our job is to create a learning environment that has the right information that aligns business goals with learning needs, your role learner is to own that actively participate and give us feedback, and the managers have a role to managers and supervisors have to make sure that two hours of virtual learning or learning from home is just as valued as going to a classroom and support that time away.

Jennifer Hofmann
To be able to learn, to be able to grow, to be able to develop, and that helps the individual. And it also helps the organization.

Karen Vieth
Well, it tailors, it tailors everything right to the training programs, the training, communications. It really caters to the unique needs of each individual, but also each individual business goal. And I think alignment is something you hit on. Jennifer, where as we as we think about this ownership of change in each level of us, within the within the organization has that ownership.

Karen Vieth
I think we have to figure out how do we each align this, this ownership that we have in learning? How do we how do we, align that to the change that needs to happen back on the job? How do we align that change back on the job in my own cubicle to my manager, there's, expectations of the department to the his managers or her managers expectation of the business school.


Karen Vieth
Everything needs to align in this, in this change in order for us to really make a global impact. And it starts with training, but we have to understand what the training is needed for. So we have to do some sort of needs an s a needs analysis, if you will, and to figure out then not only to train the individuals, but to help reinforce those change messages so that the individual getting train understands how that is going to impact their day to day job, because if they don't understand how it's going to impact their day to day job, they're not necessarily going to see the importance.

Karen Vieth
And that then will, you know, kind of roll up into am I actually meeting my business goals as a.

Jennifer Hofmann
And and training does it. And when we issue the digital badge right. It's not an event anymore. It's a journey. It's a process. So we don't teach for two hours or two days or two weeks and then say, okay, this is over. But we keep finding ways, like you said, to reinforce these messages, whether through some kind of learning community or, maybe manager training, so they can reinforce the what you've learned.

Jennifer Hofmann
But we can't end an initiative when when the digital badge is issued.

Karen Vieth
You know, it's almost like a circular process if you really think about it. I mean, we've got this initiative, this, this goal at the top, you know, that kind of we have identified a need. And then we go through the training. And what happens a lot of times, right. As we get the training out, we check a box and we're like, yes, we did it.

Karen Vieth
But what we're not following is that that reinforcement of communication, that reinforcement following back into the workforce. Right. And then that nasty word of evaluation, we're not evaluating in the moment or after the fact, and then analyzing that data to figure out what worked, what didn't work. We're kind of getting stuck halfway down the circle of training, if you will, and just checking a box that says, we've done it.

Karen Vieth
And really, if we're going to have consistent, change within our training initiatives, we have to measure the impact. So as a learning and development specialist, we can play a vital role in measuring the impact of all training, not just at the at the training level. Ooh, did they like it? But how does it impact their day to day business change or behavior change.

Karen Vieth
How does that behavior change then impact the business goal. And I think, Jennifer, it's more I get really passionate about this because it's more than it's more than the survey. It's more than the quiz. It's more than the smile sheet. It's more than the one on one interviews. It's what what am I doing as a facilitator in that training with these individuals to make sure that I can see those light bulbs going on?

Karen Vieth
What am I doing to be agile, to change my my exercise in the moment, to make sure that I am clear that their practice and their knowledge is going to leave that training and actually be effective back on the job, and then step back and take a picture, look at the picture, the big picture of that data and really look at what did the training initiative do?

Karen Vieth
What did the on global, aspect of this critical mission topic have on, you know, the business outcome? Are we reaching our goals? And if we're not, I mean, it takes me back to a company, initiative that I worked with. Gosh, I bet it's over 15 years ago. And this organization was a face to face, training organization.

Karen Vieth
And they would go into the, organizations and they would do an all day training on this software. Right? And everybody would be at their computers, and we would learn everything there was to know about this software. And what happened was when we left, because it was a one and done, we laughed in those individuals would I mean, the call center was just coming off the phone.

Karen Vieth
I mean, there was so many people from that, from that organization that were like, I don't understand. I don't remember there was so much information. And then about a month into implementation, silence and then we went, went back in six months to see, you know, what was happening and how they were utilizing the the software. Nobody was using it.

Karen Vieth
Guess why? They were overwhelmed. Right. And so when when we measure that impact, we can change the training initiative. What they did was they broke it up into smaller bite sized pieces, virtual training to be able to give a little information, go out and practice it, come back. Let's have a little, you know, session around feedback and then go off and use it again.

Karen Vieth
So measuring that training at the base level, but also at the kind of organizational level, helps us to see the impact that we're actually making.

Jennifer Hofmann
Part of the problem with measuring the impact of traditional training for a global training initiative, or a global change initiative, is the fact that, okay, this week we're teaching it in Peoria, next week we're teaching it in London. That next week we're teaching it in Japan. And if it doesn't work in Japan, it's already almost too late to fix it because now it's being taught in Paris.

Jennifer Hofmann
Right. but with us, if you roll out a change initiative, the a virtual tool like zoom or MSN teams or WebEx or whatever it is you're using, we can evaluate in the moment what worked and what didn't work. And by tomorrow, potentially, depending on what needs to be redone, we can update the content, make it even more meaningful.
 

Jennifer Hofmann
Or we can say, you know what? This isn't working at all. We're going to stop the rollout without rolling out bad training that doesn't have an impact. and we have seen people do that sometimes just I want to make a little bit change, a change to this breakout activity so we can collaborate a little bit more. We can make that change and have it roll out tomorrow, so that measuring the impact has so much more, reach and, and is more of I was because it was more impactful.

Jennifer Hofmann
I was trying not to use the same word to define the word, but but we can do things quickly and see the change in our programs. So to me, that's what they get to about agile design. Be ready to implement.

Karen Vieth
Yeah. Right. Well, and it's funny because it takes me back to the days of academia for me. And it it really hits on something that we have said year over year, moment over moment is you. We as training and development, as educators, we want to develop and cultivate a world of lifelong learners. Right. And if you think about training and we think about continuous improvement, the only way to develop this is to create training where people actually see an impact from the training.

Karen Vieth
And so if we're able to be agile, if we're able to jump in and evaluate a piece of training and change it the next day so that we can show that end user we're listening. And this is how it can impact you and maybe make you more efficient, maybe make you more effective. We're going to start to see a shift in our employees desire for training, because they're going to want to start to think, oh, how can I learn X in order to, you know, do my job better?

Karen Vieth
And I think if we can start to cultivate a change ready mindset within our employees all the way up through, you know, high level management, I think we're going to start to see a fundamental change and that's going to, you know, really help overall help us with a successful training. And I mean.

Jennifer Hofmann
We don't need to you know, I always kind of say change is hard. You go first, right? because we're change is hard.

Karen Vieth
But it is.

Jennifer Hofmann
But we're resilient people. And I think our civilization has proven its resiliency over the last couple of years. We don't need to resist or be scared of change. We need to have the tools in place to navigate that change and maybe use it to grow. Even more. And training nowadays is much more than an order taker. I need 30 people chain trained in Excel in May, but we're we've got a role to play that we're not just teaching Excel or we're not just teaching leadership, but we're teaching people how to exist and how to be effective and how to contribute in, in today's workforce leverages that change so people can grow.

Jennifer Hofmann
And it's more than a tool just for developing skills. and I think that this new globalization, the hybrid workforce and whatever change is coming down the pike next, we can manage it if we're strategic and we don't just train for the problem but train for the future.

Karen Vieth
Yeah, it's a transformative process that focuses on people, that helps them to upskill and reskill so that we can continue this this cycle of meeting the need of the business of the individual and handle change as it comes. Absolutely.