Think about training with your heart!
Investing in the upskilling and reskilling of teams and employees continues to be a mission for L&D professionals. Perhaps an increasingly demanding and relevant challenge, if we consider the rapid and significant changes we have experienced in recent years. But how can L&D professionals continue to develop a training offer that mobilizes different generations and cultures and meets different needs? How to contribute to employee engagement and motivation throughout learning? And, above all, how to ensure that knowledge becomes a real skill, contributing significantly to the objectives and results sought by organizations? These are some of the challenges we face in our daily lives, side by side with customers and partners, and which mobilize us daily in the search for integrated and differentiated solutions that add value and contribute to significant performance improvements. The accumulated decades of experience we have allowed us to test and develop different models and approaches and conclude that, more than ever, learning experiences that lack emotion and “humanity” often have results that fall short of expectations. Above all, to be successful, we must think about training with our hearts and consider technology only as a means or support.
Developing human capital means developing emotions
As a rule, we have a greater capacity to remember and retain experiences associated with strong emotions. Therefore, any development program must be able to trigger emotions that capture attention and create an emotional bond with learning. This is to make it easier to remember and apply it to everyday situations. Therefore, it is essential to avoid isolated and/or one-off learning programs. To achieve this, experiences and learning paths must be developed that combine moments of formal and informal learning, practice in the workplace, feedback and reinforcement. Collaboration and connection must be promoted, through social learning with colleagues and peers, to take advantage of the emotional connection inherent in these moments of sharing and collaboration and increase relational learning, in particular, through experience and reflection. It will also be very interesting to use games, real-life scenarios and/or practical and immersive simulations, using Virtual Reality, 3D and Augmented Virtual Reality tools. This way, it is possible to learn to do things, make mistakes and learn from failures in a safe way, in addition to increasing motivation and emotional connection with the learning experience. But, above all, learning must be integrated into the normal workflow, promoting its application and transfer in the workplace. To achieve this, it is advisable to provide a diverse set of tools and learning media (mobile applications, interactive videos, animations, interactive PDFs, electronic books, podcasts and webcasts). Learning preferences are diverse among employees. Therefore, the diversity of media allows not only to reach different types of audiences, but also to have a set of microlearning tools, accessible just-in-time. In other words, available when employees really need support to apply or develop a skill.
To develop human capital you have to be empathetic and think with your heart
In short, success in L&D initiatives requires thorough knowledge of the teams' needs, objectives, desires and barriers to learning. For those responsible for these actions, it is essential that they assume an empathetic role and develop actions that not only promote the development of the necessary skills, but that also contribute to greater motivation, curiosity and willingness to explore the learning experience. While simultaneously promoting engagement with the organization itself. And this is only possible with the humanization of the learning experience, also making it an emotional moment. As a consequence, truly relevant actions will be created for individuals, teams and the organization, highly impactful from an emotional and results point of view!