Jack L. Dyer

Since World War II, millions of dol-lars have been spent on training super-visors. Most executives today agree that training is an integral part of industrial concerns.

Are We Getting Our MoneyS Worth In Supervisory Training

Continuous learning and development is the ultimate growth engine to future-proof your team and maintain a competitive edge in an ever-evolving world. But learning isn’t just essential for performance; today’s employees prioritize L&D in their job search and career path.Based on research from Zippia, 45 percent of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their learning and development, and companies with comprehensive training programs have a 24 percent higher profit margin.But boilerplate training programs of the past have become obsolete and irrelevant. To fuel organizational growth and employee engagement and retention, companies must focus on providing personalized learning programs for diverse employee preferences and learning styles.As organizations grow and expand, it becomes increasingly essential to tailor training programs to the unique needs of your team members. A stagnant, unengaged workforce, gaping skills gaps, and a lack of inspired leaders can wreak havoc on your company’s success.Understand the importance of embracing personalized L&D and actionable strategies you can use to tailor learning for your employees’ needs.Why Personalized L&D Is EssentialA one-size-fits-all training approach may have worked before, but mediocre training leads to mediocre performance.Employees crave opportunities to learn and grow, and fostering an environment of continuous learning is one of the best ways to develop and maintain a competitive edge.Embracing DiversityAs your organization scales, diversity between employees is likely to increase. Team members from different backgrounds, experiences, and skill levels unite to create a dynamic and innovative environment.By personalizing your L&D approach, you acknowledge these differences and offer training programs that cater to individual learning preferences, needs, and career aspirations.Nurturing TalentYour company’s most valuable asset is its people. With growth comes the need for more leaders, specialists, and experts.Personalized L&D helps identify and nurture emerging talent within your organization. By tailoring training to employees’ needs, you empower them to take on greater responsibilities, fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth.Adapting to Learning PreferencesPeople have different learning preferences—some love visual aids, others prefer hands-on experience, and some excel in collaborative group settings.Personalizing your L&D allows you to offer a mix of training methods and e-learning content, ensuring each team member can grasp and retain information effectively.Boosting Employee EngagementOne-size-fits-all training can be monotonous and disengaging. Conversely, personalized L&D shows your employees that you care about their professional development.This sense of investment and care motivates team members to stay committed to their roles, increasing employee satisfaction and retention.Addressing Skills GapsAs your organization scales, new roles and responsibilities emerge, creating skills gaps.Personalizing your L&D strategy allows you to target these gaps directly, providing training that bridges them. By doing so, you can future-proof your workforce to ensure your team remains equipped to handle the evolving demands of their positions.Addressing skills gaps requires an evolving approach where you consistently create and update content based on your organization’s needs or employees’ required skills.How to Personalize Your L&D StrategySo, how can you go about personalizing your L&D strategy? Discover six effective strategies from industry experts and L&D professionals.Assess Individual NeedsStart by conducting individual skills assessments and career discussions with your team members.Understand their strengths, weaknesses, and ambitions. This valuable information will form the foundation of personalized development plans.“A personalized L&D strategy means that the learning path meets the professional and career development needs of each individual,” Meredith Fish, PHR, WorkRamp’s vice president of people and culture, says. “While there may be shared, standard foundational training across teams or departments, there should also be an element that meets the employee where they are and what they as an individual wants or needs to learn.”Curate Learning PathsBased on the skills assessments, curate learning paths that align with each employee’s goals. This could include workshops, online courses, mentorship programs, or on-the-job training opportunities.“Personalizing L&D content for each employee allows you to create learning paths that suit your team members’ different needs and support their career growth by impacting the right knowledge and skills,” Doris Joyce, co-founder of Electrly, shares. “Moreover, it allows you to leverage their best learning approach to deliver the most value.”Doris shares two examples of how her team curates learning paths for employees:Allowing employees to specify their learning style and choose the materials and modalities they want to be included in their learning contentEncouraging social learning so employees can exchange knowledge to enhance comprehensionEncourage Self-Directed LearningEmpower your employees to take control of their learning journey. Provide access to learning resources and platforms, allowing them to explore topics of interest beyond their immediate job requirements.Promoting learner autonomy allows employees to choose their own path and drive their learning and development. This strategy increases learner engagement by encouraging team members to play a more active role in their development.“Self-directed learning is a partnership between the employee, their leader, and the organization,” Meredith says. “The employee drives the process with their leader providing guidance, opportunities, and resources along the way. The organization sets up the foundation, resources, and framework for successful career development.”“How this might play out in the learning process is that the employee and manager first identify an area of opportunity. Next, they determine how best to work on that opportunity. This is where leaders can identify personalized training opportunities.”Leverage TechnologyHarness the power of technology to personalize the learning experience. Use a learning management system (LMS) to deliver targeted content and track learner progress.An LMS enables organizations to gather and track valuable data and insights about each employee’s learning preferences, strengths, and areas for improvement. Understanding how many employees are completing courses and analyzing test scores at the end of modules can help you discover which employees may need additional training or which team members may benefit from different learning content.This personalized approach fosters a more efficient and engaging learning experience, as employees feel more empowered and motivated to develop their skills, leading to improved performance and job satisfaction.Evaluate and IterateAs with any strategy, regular evaluation is crucial. Collect employee feedback, track the impact of L&D efforts on performance, and be prepared to continuously adapt and evolve your approach and training programs.“Incorporating feedback loops in the learning process is a creative and successful method we’ve executed,” Sarah Watson, psychologist, certified coach, and COO at BPTLAB, says. “Employees give continuous feedback on their learning experiences, and this data is used to tailor future learning content. This not only keeps the content relevant but also gives employees a sense of ownership in their learning journey.”Create Bite-Sized Training ContentWith an endless to-do list, deliverables, and meetings, employees at all levels struggle to find enough time. Creating long, arduous training materials is daunting and a sure-fire way for employees to tune out and disengage with their learning and development.Boost engagement and retention with microlearning and create short, flexible, personalized training that employees can complete independently. With an LMS, you can give employees on-demand access to training content, so they can complete courses when it’s most convenient for them.“Our L&D team focuses on microlearning and breaking down learning materials into smaller modules,” Nat Miletic, owner and CEO of Clio Websites, says. “This allows employees to participate in learning programs at their own pace without disrupting their busy schedules. Short, focused learning content enables learners to access specific topics when needed and revisit areas where they need to refresh down the road.”“Bite-sized modules are also more convenient to manage and build over time. Our team can add new information and emerging trends when necessary.”Maximize Your Team’s Potential Through Personalized L&DPersonalizing your L&D strategy keeps employees engaged in learning and empowers them to excel in their current roles and future endeavors.Invest in your most valuable asset: your people. Foster a culture of continuous learning through personalized L&D and help your employees thrive in an ever-changing environment.Create engaging, personalized employee training programs with the Learning Cloud from WorkRamp. Create a learning culture and empower your employees to reach their full potential. Contact us today to schedule a free, personalized demo.

Personalized L&D: Future-Proof Your Team and Maximize Your Potential

 In the field of neuroscience, there are a number of "neuromyths" — a term that is now being used to describe misconceptions and inaccuracies about brain functioning. These are myths that pervade popular culture, education and business, including many L&D departments. According to research, there is no more widely believed and yet "thoroughly debunked" neuromyth than learning styles. While learning styles is an umbrella term that can refer to a number of different categorization models, the most well-known is VAK: visual, auditory, kinesthetic (seeing, hearing, doing). It is important to note that people who believe they may have a particular learning style—what's known as "study preferences"—is not being disputed. There are many people who believe in the idea that they are, for example, "visual learners" or "auditory learners." What is in dispute, however, is the idea that having educators match the delivery of content to learners' stated preferences will improve learning. The Meshing Hypothesis This central point of contention is what's known as the meshing (or matching) hypothesis. As noted in “Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence,” the myth of learning styles is the myth that matching for preference necessarily leads to better performance. "Most critically, the reality of these preferences does not demonstrate that assessing a student’s learning style would be helpful in providing effective instruction for that student. That is, a particular student’s having a particular preference does not, by itself, imply that optimal instruction for the student would need to take this preference into account. In brief, the existence of study preferences would not by itself suggest that buying and administering learning-styles tests would be a sensible use of educators’ limited time and money," write authors Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork. The problem for proponents of learning styles is precisely that there is no credible scientific evidence to support this hypothesis, having now been reviewed and tested rigorously by several independent sets of researchers. For example, a 2012 survey of teachers in the United Kingdom and Netherlands (242 primary and secondary school) revealed that the learning styles meshing hypothesis was the #1 neuromyth, believed by 93 percent and 96 percent respectively. Another study of 938 teachers in five countries, conducted by Paul Howard-Jones in 2014 of 938 teachers, placed the figure at 96 percent. Yet, the widespread acceptance of this teaching paradigm is in sharp contrast to the research that has been published in scientific journals and the growing campaign that is trying to raise awareness about these findings. 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology (2009), Great Myths of the Brain (2014), and Urban Myths about Learning and Education (2015) are just three recent books that tackle the issue. Meanwhile, an array of scientific and mainstream articles have been written to set the record straight, including authors, scientists, and journalists from the likes of Psychology Today, Popular Science, Scientific American, Washington Post, Wired, Inc. Magazine, Business Insider, The Guardian, Slate, and BBC radio.  Even The Onion offers its own satirical take on the issue with the article, “Parents Of Nasal Learners Demand Odor-Based Curriculum.” The OECD established the “Learning Sciences and Brain Research" project in 1999 as the authoritative resource dedicated to education on the subject of neuroscience and highlighting misinformation, which targets neuromyths such as learning styles. The exact origin and spread of learning styles is beyond the scope of this post; however it is often associated with Howard Gardner's influential theory of multiple intelligences, who notes that people frequently credit him with inventing the term and some even believe the two concepts are the same thing. Gardner, keen to relieve the "pain" and "distraction" this misinterpretation has caused him, wrote a piece featured in the Washington Post, “Howard Gardner: 'Multiple Intelligences’ Are Not ‘Learning Styles,'” in which he explains, “If people want to talk about ‘an impulsive style’ or ‘a visual learner,’ that’s their prerogative. But they should recognize that these labels may be unhelpful, at best, and ill-conceived at worst." Complexity and Evidence While there has been a long list of researchers who have raised questions about the existence, identification, application and commercial exploitation of learning styles in education from a variety of different angles, there are two major reviews in particular that are often cited in the research literature. The first is the 2004 review, "A Critical Analysis of Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning: A Systematic and Critical Review," by Coffield, Moseley, Hall, and Ecclestone. Commissioned by The Learning and Skills Research Centre, the four prominent cognitive psychologists identified 71 models of learning styles, with 13 categorized as "major models" from 3,800 papers. According to the review, "The enormous size of these literatures presents very particular problems for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers who are not specialists in this field. It is extremely unlikely that any of these groups will ever read the original papers and so they are dependent on reviews like this one, which have to discard the weakest papers, to summarize the large numbers of high-quality research papers, to simplify complex statistical arguments and to impose some order on a field which is marked by debate and constructive critique as well as by disunity, dissension, and conceptual confusion. The principal tasks for the reviewers are to maintain academic rigor throughout the processes of selection, condensation, simplification and interpretation, while also writing in a style accessible to a broad audience. In these respects, the field of learning styles is similar to many other areas in the social sciences where both the measurement problems and the implications for practice are complex." In the 2004 review, the 13 major instruments were analyzed and matched against four "minimal criteria" (internal consistency, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and predictive validity), with "only three of the 13 models—those of Allinson and Hayes, Apter, and Vermunt—could be said to have come close to meeting these criteria." The researchers go on to say that "some of the best known and widely used instruments have such serious weaknesses (e.g., low reliability, poor validity and negligible impact on pedagogy) that we recommend that their use in research and in practice should be discontinued." Despite the lack of scientific rigor by most publishers of learning styles inventories, the uptake and popularity of testing (particularly in the United States and United Kingdom) is widespread and attributed to several reasons, including very small-scale research efforts conducted by test publishers (rather than independent researchers) that initially appeared to support the hypothesis. This is addressed by the 2004 review: "It is important to note that the field of learning styles research as a whole is characterized by a very large number of small-scale applications of particular models to small samples of students in specific contexts. This has proved especially problematic for our review of evidence of the impact of learning styles on teaching and learning, since there are very few robust studies which offer, for example, reliable and valid evidence and clear implications for practice based on empirical findings." This point is further emphasized by cognitive psychologist Josh Cuevas: "The strongest empirical studies published on the topic since 2009 have shown a consistent trend—they have found no effect of learning styles or the matching hypothesis (Allcock & Hulme, 2010; Choi, Lee, & Kang, 2009; Kappe, Boekholt, den Rooyen, & Van der Flier, 2009; Kozub, 2010; Martin, 2010; Sankey, Birch, & Gardiner, 2011; Zacharis, 2011). Two experimental studies did claim to find that elusive interaction effect, but one of those tested different behavioral outcomes rather than academic learning (Mahdjoubi & Akplotsyi, 2012) and the other used such a small sample size (N=39) and only a single 15-minute treatment (Hsieh, Jang, Hwang, & Chen, 2011) so the results would need to be replicated if we are to trust their credibility, particularly in light of so many other contradictory findings." Probably the most often-cited and devastating critique of learning styles was the 2008 review by Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, and Bjork. They concluded: "Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis. “We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number. However, given the lack of methodologically sound studies of learning styles, it would be an error to conclude that all possible versions of learning styles have been tested and found wanting; many have simply not been tested at all." Indeed, learning itself is an incredibly complex activity. What’s more, there isn't room here to sufficiently summarize all the research on learning and pedagogy or, in a similar fashion, what neuroscience tells us about how the brain processes information and how we might improve the quality of learning interventions based on these most recent findings. But we can recommend a good book: John Hattie's Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn (2013), in which he aptly sums up the current position on the issue of learning styles: "There is no recognized evidence suggesting that knowing or diagnosing learning styles will help you to teach your students any better than not knowing their learning style."Editor’s Note: This post is reprinted from the DTS International Blog.

Jack L. Dyer

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