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Will Kitchen is a principal of Contacts Count, which specializes in designing and delivering training in business and professional networking.

Will Kitchen

October 2013 - TD Magazine

Internal Networking: Time-Waster or Value Creator?

Matt Donovan is the senior vice president and chief learning and innovation officer at GP Strategies. He is a recognized name in learning, bringing more than 25 years of experience crafting learner-centric solutions and leading high-impact development teams. Not only has he received a large assortment of industry awards, including being named one of Training Magazine's Top 10 International Trainers under 40, his articles are regularly published and presented at a variety of national and international conferences. In his current role, Donovan has collaboratively implemented and grown GP Strategies’ Innovation Kitchen. You will often find him presenting at global industry conferences or writing articles for industry-specific publications.In his former role as the global leader for digital learning strategies and solutions, Donovan oversaw the multifaceted team responsible for creating an extensive portfolio of engaging learning experiences employed by Fortune Global 500 companies. Many of these courses have received industry awards and recognition.Donovan joined GP Strategies in 2009 with the acquisition of Option Six. He has an M.S. in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University.

Matt Donovan

If you work at an organization with a large deskless workforce, you know just how difficult it can be to upskill and reskill employees. Deskless workers are often on the front lines or hard at work earning revenue for the business. They’re interacting with patients or customers, doing work out in the field, or on the road—delivering goods or offering services. Employers may be hesitant to take them “off the job” for training. Patty Gaul, senior writer and editor for the Association for Talent Development, explored this topic in a recent article.“An L&D leader may learn that a company doesn’t include training time as a bucket of employee time,” she writes. “The organization encourages their managers to hurry their direct reports to their stations or positions (such as the manufacturing line, cash register, or delivery route) rather than giving employees the time to learn how to do their immediate work well. This negatively affects workers’ knowledge and, in the end, motivation.” Research shows that poor training also puts staff in danger—instances of human error causing occupational accidents are more likely when workers are under-skilled.There’s an opportunity cost as well. Gaul writes: “Too often, leaders train these workers only when there’s a problem, not taking advantage of the opportunity that development affords.” Employers that do not invest in training may be leaving productivity gains and a competitive advantage on the table.With all the benefits L&D offers—and all the challenges it can help your organization avoid—how can you train your deskless workforce in the most effective way possible? Giving learners more options to complete their training can help. Employees don’t have to be chained to a desk or sitting in a classroom to learn and develop. A little bit of L&D creativity can go a long way. Read on to discover four strategies to motivate your deskless employees to fit training into their busy schedules.1. Give Learners the Flexibility to Learn Wherever They Happen to BeMost workers want to learn new skills and are intrinsically motivated to improve and develop. A recent survey shows that seven out of 10 workers feel more connected to their organization when they’re learning. A further eight out of 10 say learning gives them a sense of purpose at work.Giving deskless workers the opportunity to access this kind of purpose can drastically improve their job satisfaction—and extend their tenure too. Research shows that having a strong culture of learning can improve employee retention by up to 57 percent. Some employees may associate learning with taking notes in a lecture hall, or sitting in front of a computer—but “studying” shouldn’t have to equal “desk.” The solution to helping deskless employees learn and develop is already in their pockets. When staff can complete their training right from their mobiles, wherever they happen to be, a whole world of opportunity opens up to them.Did you know that Bridge LMS, an all-in-one solution for training and upskilling staff, comes with the intuitive, user-friendly Bridge Learning app as standard? The app, available for both iOS and Android, makes it simple and easy for employees to complete their learning, whenever, wherever.Learners can even access content without Wi-Fi. This makes the learning experience seamless. They can start their training in a break room, for example, and effortlessly keep their momentum going when traveling to a field site. They’ll have key insights on the topics that matter to them at their fingertips—even in the most remote locations. With Wi-Fi-less learning, a bus, a train, a factory floor, their kitchen, and even the most far-flung location can instantly become an inspiring classroom.2. Help Staff Keep Their Learning on TrackResearch shows that there’s a strong correlation between motivation and learning outcomes. Setting smaller goals and steadily working toward them can help people stay committed to their targets. Breaking a big learning target down into less intimidating, achievable goals can be tremendously helpful. This is particularly true for deskless workers who may work in isolation or don’t get much contact with leadership. Boston Consulting Group stated that: “[A] major issue is the limited access deskless workers have to corporate communication systems like email and intranets. These tools are often designed with desk-based employees in mind[...]This communication gap can lead to a sense of isolation, making these workers feel disconnected from the organization’s broader goals and culture.”Choosing an LMS that helps you keep every learner on track, wherever they happen to be, can make all the difference. With Bridge Mobile, push notifications remind learners when a course is due. This relieves them of the cognitive load of managing their own learning and development schedule.Admins can easily track enrollments, missed deadlines, and course completion rates. They can generate intuitive reports in a few clicks and share data-powered insights with the wider organization. This empowers managers to intervene with support at the right time. Regular contact from well-informed managers means reports feel less at sea and more empowered to meet the development goals that matter to them.3. Be Realistic About Learning Challenges and Prepare for HiccupsAs useful as remote training is, it does come with challenges. If it’s not properly managed, it can open the door to miscommunication or inefficient learning. Workers may encounter technical difficulties, for instance, and feel that these headaches are a significant burden after a long shift on their feet or on the go.Tech challenges can have a big impact on morale, even among younger generations. Research shows that just under 50 percent of young graduates surveyed across the globe feel their level of technical expertise has left them unprepared for the workforce. As many as one in five young workers say they feel “judged” when they don’t know how to solve a tech issue. Tech headaches can be exacerbated for deskless staff who work far from a central IT team and may not have admin time built into their schedule. The key is to accept that challenges may arise from time to time and prepare for them in advance. Your first line of defense will naturally be to choose a mobile LMS with a very simple, clean interface, and intuitive, user-friendly features. Bridge Mobile offers a straightforward experience with uncomplicated dashboards. Learners can easily navigate between their courses, learning libraries, and agendas. User-friendly design isn’t the only factor though. Choosing an LMS provider known for meticulous onboarding and responsive customer service can also help you stay ahead of tech challenges. The last thing you want is for a learner to lose their motivation for good because of a minor technical hiccup that could be solved with a few simple instructions. This is why Bridge offers comprehensive onboarding. Our expert teams work with your admins to make sure they fully understand our app’s capabilities. When admins know features inside out, implementation is easy—and they’re empowered to help their team as and when required. It’s thanks in part to our outstanding onboarding that we recently achieved a customer satisfaction score of 93 percent. We also offer tech support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This means deskless workers with unusual hours don’t need to fall behind on their learning just because they need a bit of extra support. We have an excellent service team—and we’re proud to share that our customers love us for it. A representative from US-based construction and engineering company Rudolph and Sletten said: “Bridge LMS is exceptionally user-friendly, featuring an intuitive and clean interface that simplifies navigation for both administrators and learners. The customer support is outstanding—easily accessible and remarkably patient in understanding and resolving even the most challenging scenarios.”4. Offer Accessible, Engaging, and Personalized Learning for AllWhen staff feel that instructions are passed down from some invisible authority, they may feel less motivated to learn. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation—wanting to complete a task because it is fun, interesting, or helpful—can be a crucial factor for successful learning. Employers can promote intrinsic motivation by making employees feel competent and autonomous.To achieve this, personalizing learning is key. Especially when you consider the type of tasks deskless workers tend to do. Deskless workers are the lifeblood of many organizations. Every hour away from their daily tasks is an hour away from crucial activity that drives their company’s revenue or underpins their organization’s ethos. When the stakes are this high, cookie-cutter learning content can feel like a waste of time.Bridge Mobile can help you steer clear of one-size-fits-all courses. It empowers you to deliver personalized learning journeys for every employee. Managers can assign courses that align with specific, individual targets—and employees always have a clear view of their progress over time. This means that they’ll have a little bit of motivation to keep learning, and easy access to that learning wherever they are.Because the app stores tasks, ideas, achievements, and due dates all in one place, employees have their own, personal space to work toward their goals. This can help them feel like your organization is invested in improving their experience at work, instead of just forcing standardized training en masse.Crucially, Bridge also makes content more accessible for every learner. The app supports 20 different languages, so you can keep your employees of all backgrounds engaged and inspired. It also complies with WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) at AA-level. This means:It’s easy to use with assistive technologies, like screen readers.There’s good color contrast between any text and background.Content is organized under clear headings, in a logical order.Navigation buttons or elements are consistent across the app.

4 Ways to Effectively Train Your Deskless Workforce 

Consider the following scenario: You’ve recently purchased a nice plot of land and are in the process of engaging a builder to construct your new home. During your first meeting with the builder, you let him know that you want a three-story house. He asks for additional details, of course, and learns that you would like the house to be approximately 3,500 square feet, modern design, and offer lots of light. In essence, you want “the most recent trends in modern homes, but not necessarily everything.” Then, you ask him for an estimated cost to build the home. He asks you to make more decisions on details about the types of materials you would like in the house (tile, hardwood, custom kitchen elements, and so forth). But you insist that he just give you a “ballpark estimate” on what it costs to build a three-story house—because you have not made those decisions yet. Sound familiar? Alas, this scenario is reminiscent of the headache that many of us encounter when we try to estimate the expense and time commitment of an e-learning project. If you plan to work with a vendor or contractor, there is the effort of finding the right person to design and develop it. Then, how do you effectively communicate the scope of your project? Is there something you could do to better prepare for your e-learning initiatives? Often, organizations will base the scope of their projects on the “run time” of the deliverable. For example, some may use this chart (derived from surveys in 2003 and 2009) as a guide to determine the number of hours it should take to develop one hour of e-learning. Although this information could be used as an extremely generic resource, there are many factors that could dramatically skew even those time estimates. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to prepare for a more accurate estimate. Let me share my “consultant’s view” to scoping a new project. To determine the real level of effort, I request some time to conduct an in-depth analysis before quoting design and development hours. Not only does this help me provide a more accurate estimate, it also allows me to partner with the project owner to ensure that we have a “blueprint” for the right training solution. This process includes the following steps: Interview the Project Owner I have a form that is chock-full of questions to help draw out the project description and goal, learning objectives, technical evaluation (operating system, screen resolution restrictions, LMS requirements, delivery method), and an existing content evaluation (to identify what source content is currently available as an input or resource for the project). Most importantly, this is when we work together to determine how we will define success. To make the most of this process, include all relevant stakeholders in the meeting.   Create a Content Map Not long before I began working in mobile learning, I started using mind maps over other visuals, such as an outline document or typical flow chart. Mapping a project helps me clearly visualize the components of the solution (as well as validate those components with the project owner). Here is an example of a content map for a recent project:Tie-In the Source Content Once I have mapped the project, I can connect the relevant content to each of the components of the solution by adding notes to each. This content has typically already been identified during the interview(s) with the project owner, so it only needs some paring-down at this point. Meet with Key Stakeholders You will want to meet with key stakeholders to validate the map, or blueprint, and present the solution(s). In this step, my goal is to ensure that we have included all relevant information and are in agreement for the type of solution that will best meet their needs. Bottom Line Not to go all “ADDIE” in here, but starting each project with a thorough analysis and a project “blueprint” will result in a more accurate estimate of the time necessary to move forward with design and full development of the project solution. And, much like with building a house, having a thoughtful plan helps mitigate the risk of getting deep into the project and not getting the results you had intended.

E-Learning Estimates Made Easy: Start With a Blueprint

I try to play it cool, but if I’m being honest, AI is a little scary, especially from a professional perspective. Imagine you’re a renowned chef stepping into a kitchen you know like the back of your hand. But now, the knives sharpen themselves, the oven predicts your next move, and the blender … talks. That’s sort of what the new AI-powered workplace feels like to me. You can’t rely on the same old recipes—it’s time to rethink the entire menu.That’s the challenge today, and if talent development professionals don’t evolve, they—and their organizations—risk falling behind in a world where artificial intelligence is rewriting every rule.Beyond Prompts and PlatformsThe discussion isn’t just about writing better prompts or learning the latest tools. Talent development must move beyond tactics into transformation. AI is reshaping the workforce at breakneck speed, with disruption already touching everything from customer service to search engine operations. Some workers are thriving while others are falling through the cracks.To meet this reality head-on, we need to recognize four types of employees. Most conversations center around upskilling and reskilling. But we must also account for the underskilled and the unskilled. Failing to address the latter two categories means failing to build a truly inclusive learning culture, plus losing valuable talent in the process.Equal Access or Gated Pathway?Is learning in your organization open to everyone, or is it only available to those who have their manager’s approval? Too often, development opportunities hinge on subjective approvals. That’s a legacy model, and in an AI-powered world, it’s a liability. Democratizing learning means removing barriers and giving every employee—regardless of background or bandwidth—equal access to growth opportunities.When people don’t participate in training, it’s easy to assume they’re resistant. However, the real reasons are often deeper: caregiving responsibilities, digital access gaps, and burnout. Talent leaders must listen first, then build pathways that meet people where they are.The 5 Roles Talent Leaders Must MasterVisionary Cultivator. Focus on potential, not just performance. Envision growth beyond mere job descriptions and design ecosystems that make it possible for less boisterous, silent talent to thrive as well.Empowering Coach. Help employees own their learning journeys. Create motivational structures and use language that resonates to ensure people feel supported.Inclusive Innovation Catalyst. Build culturally diverse teams that use their differences to develop creative results. A bevy of perspectives leads to better decision making and stronger learning cultures.Collaborative Ecosystem Builder. Tear down silos and facilitate interdepartmental knowledge sharing. In an AI-enabled workplace, collaboration is no longer optional!Boundary Pusher. Challenge assumptions about who can grow and how fast. Create stretch assignments, microlearning opportunities, and space for employees to explore, fail, and adapt. Rethinking the Conversation Around AIHow we talk about AI is just as important as how we implement it. Expressing excitement in AI innovation can sound like a threat to job security. We must shift the narrative:AI isn’t replacing people—it’s redefining what people can do. Talent leaders must become translators who guide the workforce through change with empathy, clarity, and purpose. That means using language that acknowledges fear while also lighting the path forward. It means adapting delivery methods—like podcasts for deskless workers or short-form training for time-starved teams—to make learning accessible to everyone.Yes, the tools have changed, but the goal hasn’t, which is to empower people to grow, thrive, and succeed.

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