Understanding the importance of why

Relevancy – the connection between learners and business goals

When a learner finds meaning and relevancy in workplace learning and development support - engagement increases, outcomes improve, and training goes from compliance and box ticking to engendering meaningful change and showing value.

Relevancy is the connection between the business’s goals – employee personal growth, it's the base ofr learning culture.

Understanding the importance of why

We’ve all had eye rolling moments in our careers, being ‘required’ to undertake some box ticking training that we know isn’t going to make a difference and will be ‘a waste of time’.

This is why why is so important:

• Why are we (the business) creating learning opportunities – what’s in it for us?
• Why is this training the right thing to solve our business problem
• What will we (the learner) get from doing the training?
• Why do we (the learner) want/need to add to this knowledge, skill set or capabilities. 
• What do we want to measure and record to show ROI
  

No two learners within your business will have the same answers to the why that motivates them to learn and deliver change. But as an employer if you can :

• connect to their career and professional development aspirations, 
• put inspirational benchmarks in place, 
• and a good implementation plan to create buy-in

You can give your people agency over their learning, taking on the benefits of training as they become clear to them in the context of their lives and career goals and by watching progress through a learning management system.

When you and the learner know what they need to learn to achieve, this can be put together into a personal portfolio of learning that they are engaged in completing.

Learning portfolios that deliver relevancy

People intrinsically want to grow and succeed in their roles and in doing so fulfilling business goals. But to do so they are going to look for information in one of two places:

• Outside of the organisation (i.e. Google), finding information that may meet their immediate needs but may be at odds with the goals of the company or lead them to find opportunities outside of your business that leads to a ‘retention’ issue.
• Within your organisation, through collegial ‘support’ which will reinforce appropriate behaviours that reside within company culture, or through training materials and programmes delivered as ‘official’ learning and development that connects directly  to their role..

By building and maintaining a micro-eLearning portfolio learners get the workplace training and growth they need at the time they need it, in a centralised place that allows them and their managers to build personalised professional development portfolios. This creates minimal impact on work flows, if the content is relevant to connect with the learner. And the results will  deliver meaningful change .

Tailoring builds relevancy

When your training reflects your brand, has images and language that learners identify with and scenarios and tasks that reflect learners workload, this context only helps to strengthen the  relevancy bond.

The value is in learners having an experience that reflects their experiences that they can take into their real world situations – the development stage of learning and development.

With Skillpod micro modules you start with elearning that is developed by subject matter experts, compiled into a portfolio of learning that meets your and your learners needs, is tailorable to reflect your brand and learner experience and supported by material such as discussion cards that takes the learning off the screen and into the real-world. Supporting team development and meaningful change to achieve your business goals.

Check out our Smartskills Deck or Product catalogue and get in touch to start your teams learning journey to support your business goals and your team's success.

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