I’ve participated in the Inside L&D: What Your Managers Really Need MOOC course by Good Practice and HT2 Labs.
The very last activity in the Massive Open Online Course is to reflect on the programme and how to support managers. This is relevant to those on the course as well as those just interested in good L&D research and how to apply it.
Reflection
The linear programme looked at the excellent research commissioned by Good Practice to understand more about how manager’s learn and deal with the challenges in their work – in order for Good Practice to better support them with their products.
This, and other research that the company have done, has been really useful to understand more about the challenges that manager’s self-report, how they like to learn (or deal with those challenges) and how they like to use online resources.
One interesting piece of information I tweeted:
Finally finishing the #InsideLD #MOOC from @GoodPractice & @HT2Labs Interesting how few #employees use #corporate #social networks #ESN Why? pic.twitter.com/fV0cnxs9dh
— Jo Cook (@LightbulbJo) December 31, 2016
Below is my comment from within the MOOC about the lack of social network use by managers within organisations:
Another curated resource was some research about senior management successfully transition into their roles. I wrote a reflective blog on that here.
All of the information from Good Practice research and the other curated resources are useful to make me think more about managers, the broader learning population, and what they need or what from L&D.
There is a strong theme that emerges from this course that we should ask more questions of our learners in order to understand them and what support they need to do their job well.
Supporting managers
I don’t directly support managers in my role with Lightbulb Moment, however many of my clients do – directly or indirectly. This research and the discussion points in this programme have reinforced my belief that we need this kind of broad information to use as a starting point to focus more specifically on the groups and contexts within the organisations we work.
This will allow us to find out about their specific challenges and the help they need to succeed for the bottom line of whatever the organisation does and the people involved with it – be that their staff or clients of some description.
This has to be some kind of further research with staff when a learning need is presented, as well as supplying information in the ways that people want to learn – that is harnessing the technology that is already successful in a company as well as implementing something new where appropriate and doing it really well.
Finally, that point about the technology that people are using well — it could be a mobile communication tool like Slack or WhatsApp, an enterprise tool like Yammer, or five minutes in the kitchen with someone that leads to a development or coaching conversation. They are all highlighted in this research as important and the blend of them mustn’t be forgotten.
