Hi all,
I have taken over a new role in a trade association that represents its members in the automotive industry. Membership of our association is subscription based and as part of that membership this gives access to industry specific training, such as technical knowledge and compliance. Members themselves are small to medium businesses but also cover large organisations such as banking finance arms and motor manufacturing firms. Training is already being delivered in house for a number of our members for the key elements such as product, technical and compliance, while the SMEs are often short resourced or unwilling to pay for training due to not seeing the value, not having the money or both.
I can see the problems here - we offer something that a large number of members don't need or, if they do, they have access to provision themselves. It is clearly the SMEs that need support, so I am targeting that. However, as a trade association that expects members to comply to an approved standard of conduct, there is scope to plug the gaps and pull things together.
My question is this - unlike running L&D in a business organisation, where employees work for the business at some level, in my role our members are outside organisations who need L&D guidance and support. We want to provide training where needed. I wondered what approach you might take in terms of devising an appropriate L&D strategy to support members? I have my ideas but wanted to compare notes. Can you help?
3 Responses
Hi there, you need to develop
Hi there, you need to develop your digital delivery capability. You need a learning hub of digital content that includes video tutorials and best practice content. People pay a subscription (like Netflix) – make the subscription simple and straight forward and as long as they subscribe they get access. In addition to this you could hold webinars that they can access where they are .
If you look at where people learn most naturally, it’s at home, most people now are watching video tutorials on yoyutube. The reason people like itt is it’s on-demand at the point of need and doesn’t rely on the timetable of a central knowledge expert like a trainer or tutor. Plus people can watch it once or 3 times or 10 times and that helps embed knowledge. You can also go to a point 2mins into the video and watch just that bit over. If you can recreate that for your membership it gives them the control over when and how they consume the content. If you get an App version too it means that it’s truly flexible. Hope that helps
clive boorman wrote:
[quote=clive boorman]
Hi there, you need to develop your digital delivery capability. You need a learning hub of digital content that includes video tutorials and best practice content. People pay a subscription (like Netflix) – make the subscription simple and straight forward and as long as they subscribe they get access. In addition to this you could hold webinars that they can access where they are .
If you look at where people learn most naturally, it’s at home, most people now are watching video tutorials on yoyutube. The reason people like itt is it’s on-demand at the point of need and doesn’t rely on the timetable of a central knowledge expert like a trainer or tutor. Plus people can watch it once or 3 times or 10 times and that helps embed knowledge. You can also go to a point 2mins into the video and watch just that bit over. If you can recreate that for your membership it gives them the control over when and how they consume the content. If you get an App version too it means that it’s truly flexible. Hope that helps
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Hi Clive,
Thank you very much for your response. It was very helpful and, in fact, supported my initial thoughts on what should be done. I feel reassured.
Hi Jonas,
Hi Jonas,
Clive’s comment about improving your digital resources is right on the button. Given the inevitable geographic spread of your members and then need to be able to do stuff pretty much on demand, digital is going to be the only way to go.
You might like to consider another angle when you are thinking about what style of digital resources to supply. Think about how the users will use those resources. Do they want to learn something, or do they want to find out something? If the primary goal is learning then things like podcasts, recorded webinars and e-learning will fill the need. If the primary goal is to solve an immediate problem, that is, find out enough about something to deal with a current work issue, then you need to have the resources formatted differently so they can skim through them more easily and cover more ground and find that one sentence or one paragraph that will make the difference to them there and then.
In effect, you need to ensure that form follows function. The user interface and form of your resource needs to follow the function for which it is can be used. To use a motoring analogy since you are in the trade, you can certainly commute in a large truck but it would not be ideal. Likewise you can certainly carry cargo in a car, but it is not going to do as good a job as the truck. The form of each vehicle follows the function.
Given the variety of needs of your members, it is almost certain you will need a mixture of ‘know it’ to learn, and ‘find it’ type resources to solve a problem.
I wrote a best practice guide on this some time ago and I’ll happily send you a copy if you send me a message.
My best wishes, Paul