eLearning Livestream - L&D Lessons Learned | July 1st, 2019

Tune in Monday, July 1st at 12:00 EDT | 16:00 UTC for another eLearning livestream. This time we will be discussing L&D lessons that you have learned. Please share your ideas for this topic and more specific examples with me in the comments below or the comments over on YouTube. If you wish to participate in the live chat, be sure to watch the live stream on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/_CebjDMKN0I

What Is The True Cost of Training?

Jean Ventose was doing some shopping at his local Walmart store in Calgary and had picked up a set of headphones from the electronics department. As he continued shopping he noticed that a store employee was following him and not at a discrete distance like you might expect, but rather in a manner that could be construed as a way to harass him. The employee wore a security uniform. It was at this point that Ventose decided to take out his smartphone and begin recording the incident. Here is his video directly from his Facebook page.

Jean Ventose's video from his Facebook page

My guess is that Walmart Canada is now in crisis mode, scrambling to come up with solutions to the public relations nightmare that has already begun. Hundreds of thousands have already viewed and commented on this video from across the country. All the major news agencies have covered this story and it has brought the kind of attention on Walmart Canada that I'm sure they didn't want. I suspect that many regular Walmart customers may end up buying their merchandise elsewhere this week. The cost to Walmart Canada could easily be in the millions of dollars. 

It would be easy to suggest a training program that would include learning in the areas of preventing discrimination, harassment, creating a respectful workplace, customer service and so on. This would certainly be the week to propose to the higher ups that more and better training is required. Unfortunately, your proposal for such training typically happens when things are going well for your company and there isn't a crisis that needs to be addressed. My advice is to share this story now with the persons in your organization responsible for approving the additional budget for training so that you can remind them what the true cost of training really is. 

And don't forget, I have designed training for large corporations that would address all the issues that this video has demonstrated and I am available to hire to design similar learning solutions for your organization as well.

Learning to Fly

Have you ever gotten to that point in the storyboard where you suddenly realize that you don’t know how to achieve the desired effect or interaction? I know I have. Especially early in my career. over ten years ago I worked alongside a more seasoned eLearning designer/developer who saw me struggling with a difficult project. He said, “Why are you so stressed out and trying to reinvent eLearning?”
I said, “I want this eLearning course to be really good.”

He said something I have never forgotten, which I first thought was just an older designer being lazy, “Never add an interaction to your eLearning course that you are not 100% sure you know how to deliver.”

I said, “But don’t we always want to raise the bar and continuously improve?”

He said “Yes, but not while you are supposed to be building your project and meeting or exceeding your project deadlines.” He went on to say, “While you are searching the internet and asking questions online on how to build this particular interaction, who’s working on getting your project done?”

I told him, “nobody.”

“Exactly”, he said, “When you have some downtime work on reinventing the eLearning wheel and add those items to your eLearning tool belt for the next project. When you have a hard and fast deadline, get the job done with the tools that you have right now.”

I learned a lot that day and I think it’s something that we can all learn from. Sometimes I get questions from designers who have taken on more than their current knowledge can produce. My advice is to master the basics before trying to turn your first eLearning into something epic. Don’t worry, you will get there. It just takes time.