Chapter 8

Layers 5 and 6: Pull and Push Training

Make Structured Training the Last Resort

Did you know I was once the highest rated L&D facilitator at the Walt Disney World Resort? It’s true! I rocked a consistent 4.9 out of 5 in my Level 1 surveys. It’s a totally meaningless humblebrag, but the fact that I remember it explains my professional mindset in 2008.

Back then, my L&D team had just executed the largest training initiative in the history of the resort. We delivered two-hour instructor-led sessions to every operations cast member and manager on property as part of the company’s wholesale revamp of guest service standards. That’s more than 40,000 classroom participants in less than a year.

Feedback was great. Executives loved the program. We were in full celebration mode once implementation wrapped up. The company even hosted a recognition dinner for L&D at Epcot complete with a dessert party and private fireworks viewing. I have a picture from that night with me, an executive, and Mickey Mouse holding the statue that now sits prominently in the background of my home office. We were at the top of the proverbial L&D mountain. But what do they say about everything that goes up?

The size of our project team was reduced shortly thereafter. Most of our facilitators returned to their operational roles. We maintained enough capacity to deliver sessions to newly hired cast members. The team went into autopilot, delivering the same sessions over and over again. I still loved the work we were doing, inspiring cast members to deliver exceptional experiences for guests from all over the world. Nevertheless, I felt like we were stuck in place. After all, one class couldn’t change results long-term, could it?

This was the first time in my career that I was unable to personally observe the end results of training. As an operations manager and HR partner, I had always played an active part in fostering and sustaining behavior change. I designed the training, delivered the training, coached employees after the training, and measured business results related to the training. This time, I was part of a central L&D team delivering courses for people in every line of business—from retail and food service to attractions and housekeeping. Once people left my classroom, I typically never saw them again. I had no way of knowing if they applied what they learned, or if they retained anything at all from our time together. If I was experiencing this level of uncertainty, surely the rest of the L&D team had considered it.

I went to my boss and asked the question that had been on my mind since that night at Epcot: What happens next? The answer: Nothing. Our mandate was to keep doing what we were doing. People liked the classes (4.9 out of 5.0, after all), so we were going to keep delivering them until further notice. That answer didn’t sit well with me. There had to be more we could do to make sure the things we taught stuck long-term. Many of my team members agreed with my perspective, but we couldn’t shift the direction of the project given how popular it was across the company. So I started looking for ways to build upon our success and sustain the impact of our training.

That’s when I met Kim Possible.

Disney was planning a new Kim Possible–themed attraction at Epcot, and the management team wanted to include guest service training as part of their onboarding program. They turned to my L&D group due to the popularity of our classes on the subject. My boss knew I wanted to take on more instructional design work, so he assigned me the task of creating a custom program for the cast of the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure. This project would end up shaping my perspective on structured training for the rest of my career.

Management wanted a two-hour instructor-led session. That was what they’d seen us do before. That was what they knew. That was what I was expected to deliver. I didn’t argue. Plus, at that point in my career, I only really knew how to design and deliver instructor-led training (ILT) and on-the-job training (OJT). I didn’t have access to e-learning developers, mobile devices, or other tools needed to pull off a blended experience. So I built the most interactive classroom session anyone at the resort had ever seen (at least in my opinion). The PowerPoint was a mix of highly themed graphics and videos. I challenged participants to apply their guest service skills to defeat a made-up super villain who was terrorizing guests at Epcot in a very PG way (stealing strollers, littering, and so on). We even went on-location for part of the session, practicing our skills in the real job environment. It’s still the best course I’ve ever created. But it wasn’t the classroom materials that made it so important to my professional development. It was the way I approached the design that made a real difference moving forward.

I knew the ILT would be a big deal during the opening process for the attraction. Then, it would more than likely get eliminated after a few months to reduce costs. That meant cast members who joined the team after opening wouldn’t get the same training experience. It would be up to the location trainers and managers to foster the right job behaviors, and we all know how inconsistent that can become over time. That’s why I built sustainment tactics into the program from the start. I designed a themed poster with key takeaways from the session to post in the attraction’s break areas. I created a translation cheat sheet with themed language for the attraction to emphasize storytelling. For example, a guest ticket became a “passport” because scanning it at the attraction kickstarted their world showcase adventure. Finally, I provided a pocket-sized coaching guide managers could use to observe and reinforce desired job behaviors during everyday conversations.

By all accounts, the classroom session was great. It jumpstarted people’s experience at a new attraction and introduced a range of new guest service tactics. But it was still just two hours in a room with an instructor who wasn’t part of the team. The additional support materials gave cast members the best possible chance to retain and apply what they learned on the job. Yes, it was up to management to use the tools. Still, I walked away from Kim Possible feeling like I had provided a workplace learning experience that could be sustained long-term without L&D. I also realized how critical it is to align new tactics (performance support tools) with concepts stakeholders already understand and appreciate (ILT, OJT) when you’re trying to get people to think differently about the way learning happens at work.

And now you won’t be able to get the Kim Possible theme song out of your head for the rest of the day.

I have a confession. This was the most difficult chapter for me to write in the entire book.

It’s not because it’s chock-full of awesome information. It’s because I don’t have much to say about structured training. I’ve been writing about, presenting, and applying the MLE Framework for half of my career. When I get to these top two layers during a session, I typically say something like “And here’s where the standard L&D stuff fits” before quickly moving on (Figure 8-1).

I’ve never gone more in-depth about what’s included in these layers because this is where L&D spends most of our time. Push and pull training include a list of familiar tactics, such as:

•  Job training

•  Classroom sessions

•  E-learning

•  Webinars

•  Off-the-shelf courses

•  Job shadowing

•  Development programs

•  Apprenticeships

In this chapter, I’m not going to tell you how to design a good virtual ILT or build an effective online course. There are plenty of other smart people who cover that stuff. This book—and the entire MLE Framework—is designed to help you reduce your reliance on structured training. At this point, you’ve hopefully realized the limitations of these layers and are looking for ways to spend less time and resources on them.

That said, just because we apply these tactics all the time doesn’t mean we’re hitting the mark. The MLE Framework doesn’t eliminate the need for great structured training. It simply reduces the need for it when addressing performance challenges. Even then, structured training should never function in isolation. Rather, it must be designed in alignment with the other layers of the framework. We’ll cover more about MLE application in the next two chapters. For now, let’s explore principles that can help L&D improve structured training when it’s the right-fit or required solution (Figure 8-1).

Push vs. Pull

Required completion. That’s the difference between push and pull training. These two layers apply the same tactics and content types. For example, both layers may include online courses, instructor-led sessions, and hands-on training programs. The only difference is that, in the push layer, people are required to complete the training while, in the pull layer, people have the option to do it. Push training is added to an employee’s path with a deadline while pull training sits on the shelf, waiting to be accessed.

The push vs. pull dynamic is present throughout the MLE Framework. Shared knowledge and performance support primarily focus on pull tactics that people can leverage in the moment of need. Reinforcement and coaching lean more toward push activities that are directed at employees to support specific outcomes. The push and pull layers are unique because they include structured training activities with clear objectives and set beginnings and ends. An employee can pull a job aid on demand and use it as needed to support their everyday work. To complete a course, they must progress through a series of predetermined steps over a set period. Even if a course is adaptive or self-paced, the employee still has limited control over how it can be used. An instructional designer has already made most of these decisions for them.

Push training is often associated with compliance, which we’ll talk about in a few pages. Pull training is commonly related to self-directed learning and career development. Employees need both and more to be successful over the short and long-term. They need access to the right learning and support opportunities at the right time. Sometimes, that moment is dictated to them, as is the case with new employee onboarding. Other times, they get to make the call, such as when they decide to pursue additional skill development to support a change in career direction.

So, how much should you use the push and pull layers? Should you target a specific percentage for each? Is one inherently better than the other? This is yet another case of “it depends.” Some L&D pros contend that workplace learning should be a primarily pull experience driven by personal curiosity, ongoing discovery, and implicit motivation. I don’t disagree with them—which is a cagey way of saying I don’t entirely agree either. There’s no set formula for how much of what kind of training an employee needs. Some people require structure and guidance to build specific skills while they leverage on-demand resources to develop others.

The MLE Framework includes a blend of push and pull tactics to help you balance your own ecosystem. Even when a learning experience must be structured in a particular way (for example, a highly regulated compliance course), it can usually be supported and sustained using less structured tactics (such as job aids, performance support, and coaching). Every learning ecosystem should contain push and pull learning opportunities, but how and when structured training is required is highly dependent on the problem you’re trying to solve and the context associated with it.

Let’s Talk About Microlearning

All structured training should be microlearning. You probably reacted to that statement in one of three ways:

1. You nodded your head vigorously because you’re a microlearning stan.

2. You verbally scoffed at my assertion because you don’t think microlearning is a real thing.

3. You took a photo of the sentence to share on social media because you think I need to be called out for being a shill for BIG MICROLEARNING.

Let’s get something out of the way: Under no circumstances should all workplace training be less than 10 minutes in duration. You can’t learn how to execute complex tasks in less than 10 minutes. Thankfully, microlearning isn’t about duration, despite what you may have been led to believe.

Yes, there are many, many courses out there that are way, way too long. The MLE Framework is designed to help you fit learning and support into the everyday workflow, but that doesn’t mean all content must be artificially brief. Rather, all learning content and experiences—including push and pull training—should be designed based on six microlearning principles: focus, familiarity, science, access, format, and data. (Figure 8-2).

1. Focus

All content must be designed to solve a specific problem. There must be a clear, defined, agreed-upon goal before a solution can be selected. The narrower the better. For example, rather than build a course called “Safety in the Workplace” that covers a wide range of concepts within a single module, instructional designers should break the concept down into specific topics. This may include topics like personal protective equipment, cleaning up spills, and ladder safety. You may be able to address each topic with the same type of content, or different topics may benefit from different solutions. Plus, when training is modularized in this way, you can stack topics together to create more substantial programs. All the boxes get checked while the learning experience is easier to fit into the limited time people have available on the job. This focus on a specific outcome is what naturally makes microlearning shorter than traditional courses.

2. Familiarity

Have you ever considered what it’s like to log into an LMS you rarely use, click through a transcript of strangely titled courses, open a SCORM module that launches three additional browser tabs, and complete a tutorial on how to navigate training content designed with a UI you’ve never seen before? This is what workplace learning looks like for too many employees: a totally foreign experience that’s nothing like the content experiences they have every day through apps like YouTube, Disney+, and TikTok. Training should be challenging to keep people engaged and help them learn, but it shouldn’t be difficult to use. L&D must leverage familiarity in our learning experience design—including both content and technology. When the experience feels simple, people can focus on what they’re meant to learn.

3. Science

We already covered learning science basics like spacing, repetition, and interleaving within the reinforcement layer. These principles must be the foundation of everything L&D does, including structured training. People simply cannot retain all the information delivered during a 45-minute online course, a two-hour instructor-led session, or an eight-hour job training shift. L&D must use proven learning science principles to create blended experiences that leverage every layer within the MLE Framework to ensure long-term knowledge retention and behavior change.

4. Access

It doesn’t matter how well designed a course is if people can’t access it. This is why personas (there it is again) are a critical part of applying the MLE Framework (if you hadn’t heard). L&D must understand the everyday workplace realities of the audiences we support. This includes how and where people spend their time, how their tasks are managed, which devices they use to access information, and how they’re motivated to perform. Our learning experiences must be designed to fit within these realities if we hope to drive engagement, knowledge growth, and skill application. There’s a reason I’ve said this so many times up to this point!

5. Format

How do you select the format for a particular piece of content? L&D should make this decision based on the specific needs of their audience as well as the nature of the skills being developed. For example, a video may be a great choice for a contact center audience trying to learn how to overcome a popular customer objection because they sit at a computer and can easily watch the video as intended. However, this format may be a bad option for a manufacturing worker who needs to review a new safety procedure, because they don’t regularly use devices that can play video and they work in a noisy, safety-critical environment. Stakeholders, technology, and circumstances may sometimes limit L&D’s options, but we should always do our best to match the format to the message and audience.

6. Data

There’s an entire chapter about data coming up, but it could easily be the subject of this entire book. Measurement is the biggest gap in L&D capability today because it’s such an important part of making informed decisions. Data should help L&D design solutions that focus on specific, proven employee needs. When a stakeholder requests a course that covers an unrealistic amount of information, data can help us focus the conversation on the knowledge and behaviors that will actually help the organization achieve the desired outcome.

That’s it. That’s what microlearning actually is. These six principles will help you shift away from structured training that’s hours, days, or weeks long to targeted solutions that better fit into the everyday work experience.

Do you need to use the word microlearning to apply these principles? Absolutely not! That’s why microlearning was never a real thing. It’s just a buzzy term that helps L&D pros shift our focus toward proven principles like these to provide right-fit solutions. But if using a made-up word helps us get rid of the fluff and provide employees with better support, let’s keep talking about microlearning. But please don’t try to make macrolearning a thing!

Getting Better at Compliance

There’s a reason so many of the questions I get after conference sessions are prefaced by “I work in a highly regulated industry . . . ”

Compliance is an unavoidable reality of our profession. Regulators exist. Companies have lawyers. Risk is part of work. Compliance training will never go away, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get at least a little better at how we handle it.

First, let’s clarify what compliance means. This term often gets attached to any and all forms of required training. L&D and HR may have a specific definition in mind when they talk about compliance, but I often hear operational managers use the term to refer to every training program the company requires employees to complete. This not only muddies the concept of compliance training, but it also tells you a lot about how structured training is perceived within an organization.

Let’s break compliance training into three distinct categories:

•  Training required by an external regulator (regulatory training)

•  Training required by an internal stakeholder (mandated training)

•  Training required before a person can execute the requirements of their role (job training)

L&D’s goal is to provide employees with the knowledge and skills required to do their jobs safely and effectively while mitigating potential risk for the company. Therefore, you must approach each category of compliance training based on its unique considerations:

•  Regulatory training is dictated by an external stakeholder. You probably don’t know them, and they probably don’t know you, your company, or your training practices. Therefore, your options are limited when it comes to improving the push training experience. If the law states that employees must complete a specific online course and record two hours of seat time per year, then L&D must execute this requirement in the most seamless way possible. This is further complicated when different regions or functions operate under different regulations. California may require one course while New York requires another. L&D must partner with internal stakeholders to understand these regulations and apply the best possible solution, even if you know employees will not retain most of the information delivered during the two-hour online course.

•  Mandated training is often added on top of regulatory requirements. The law says employees must complete one course, but your internal compliance team decided to add three extra modules to make absolutely sure the company is protected. This category provides more wiggle room for L&D to introduce improved solutions. You may not be able to remove the mandate altogether, but you could shift your internal stakeholder’s mindset when it comes to how the mandate is addressed.

•  Job training isn’t really about “compliance.” It still fits within the push training layer, but it’s about the knowledge and skill development activities an employee is required to complete before they are ready for an essential job function. For example, if an employee must operate a baler to bundle cardboard as part of their everyday work, they must complete the necessary training to be certified to use that piece of equipment. L&D must apply modern learning practices to make sure all stakeholders understand why this training is critical so it is not perceived as a nonproductive use of time.

L&D can apply the same process across the spectrum of required workplace training to improve the employee experience while still checking all the necessary boxes and reducing the strain on their own limited resources:

1. Clarify the requirement. What does the rule actually say? Did an external regulator decide how this requirement must be met, or was the rule interpreted by an internal stakeholder? You can’t improve the compliance experience until you understand why it exists in the first place. Talk to the people responsible for verifying that the training is completed, such as your legal or compliance team.

2. Connect to job performance. How does the requirement relate to an employee’s job performance? Does it connect to specific products or processes, or is it a general requirement that employees must always keep in mind at work? Clarifying this point will help you position your solution as close to the moment of performance as possible.

3. Expand solution options. How was the current training solution chosen? If it’s mandated by an external regulator, you may not have much room for improvement. However, if it was at least partially dictated internally, you can seize the opportunity to help your stakeholders think differently about how you address the requirement. For example, when the current two-hour annual course was designed, courses may have been the only option available for the required audience. Today, you likely have more solution options available to solve the same problem that are just as—if not more—effective. However, your stakeholder (who isn’t an L&D professional) probably doesn’t know that.

4. Reinforce critical knowledge and behavior. Even if you must deliver a specific solution, it usually doesn’t mean that’s all you’re allowed to do to address the performance challenges related to the topic. Augment your push training with the other layers of the MLE Framework so employees retain the right information and make good decisions on the job. For example, use the questions from an end-of-course assessment to build ongoing reinforcement activities. There’s a reason the required training is required. Make sure you give your employees the best opportunity to meet their job requirements, not just check training boxes.

5. Reporting meaningful results. You must provide reporting that shows all the boxes have been checked, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only data you should provide regarding the impact of your required training. For example, if you deliver ongoing reinforcement for critical compliance topics, use the resulting data to report on current knowledge levels within your workforce. Improved reporting can really help shift people’s mindsets. What’s more important, whether an employee completed a course six months ago or whether they know to perform their job in a way that’s compliant with any laws or regulations?

6. Automate the process whenever possible. Even simple compliance training programs can take up a lot of L&D capacity. Look for ways to automate administration whenever possible. Automated reporting eliminates the need to extract data from the LMS and send spreadsheets to managers to track down delinquent employees. Automated delivery can also make it easier to fit compliance training into the workflow. Once learning becomes an embedded part of everyday work through the MLE Framework, compliance topics can be introduced seamlessly, without the need for separate projects and communications.

7. Be open and honest. This may be number seven on the list, but it’s the most important tactic for improving people’s experience with compliance training. Be honest. If you’re required to make people attend a class that you know is boring and tedious, tell employees that you’re required to do it. Explain why the training is important for them and the company without trying to make it sound more exciting or interesting than it really is. Thank employees for their time and attention, and do your best to make sure these “compliance moments” are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to their experience with L&D.

There will always be required training. Regulations will never go away. Stakeholders will always have mandates. Compliance will just get more complex with each passing year. Checking boxes and mitigating risk is a big part of what L&D does. It just shouldn’t be all that we do within a modern learning ecosystem.

The 3B Content Strategy

Measurement is the biggest tactical challenge facing L&D. Compliance comes in second. Content is a close third. Some organizations employ an army of designers and developers and spend millions of dollars every year building and maintaining instructional content. Others rely heavily on pre-built, off-the-shelf (OTS) content due to the lack of development capacity within the organization. And then there are companies that have internal resources but choose to outsource some or all of their content development.

Regardless of approach, every organization is trying to answer the same question: How can I provide the right content to the right person at the right time? This is a hard problem to solve, even if you do have a pile of resources. Great content is hard to build. Knowledge and skill requirements are always changing. Stakeholders are difficult to please. This reality leads to a time-consuming, often expensive, seemingly never-ending content quandary. Many L&D teams get backed into a corner and find themselves building one-size-fits-all courses rather than personalized solutions. Is it better to provide something for everyone rather than focusing on just a few audiences if what you end up providing isn’t the right thing for anyone? That’s how convoluted L&D’s content struggle often gets.

So, what’s the best option for solving the content problem?

a) Should L&D invest in development resources and build custom solutions as fast as they can?

b) Should L&D outsource solution development to those with more resources or specialized subject matter expertise?

c) Should L&D do the “Netflix thing,” aggregate content from OTS catalogs and let employees pull what they need?

The answer is D—all of the above!

Content is a complex problem that requires a complex but strategic solution. L&D must leverage the full range of options within the workplace ecosystem. You must apply a consistent process to determine when a topic should be addressed with internal content and when it can be covered with external resources. L&D must apply the 3B Curation Method (Figure 8-3).

Let’s explore the 3B content curation method using everyone’s favorite workplace learning topic: Microsoft Excel.

Borrow

Is this topic general enough to leverage open resources and crowdsourced knowledge? Borrow it.

This is what many people think of when it comes to curation: aggregating solutions from openly available sources to solve more problems faster. It’s a great approach . . . sometimes. The “crowd” can usually provide information faster than L&D can build it. However, despite what people like to say, the crowd isn’t always the smartest person in the room. Sometimes, a problem requires established expertise. You must consider all available crowdsourcing options before narrowing your focus to more structured offerings.

For example, a team comes to L&D asking for training in Microsoft Excel. Sure, L&D could spend time, money, and resources building custom Excel training just for them, but this is a pretty general topic. Someone must already have the content on this. Sure enough, L&D finds an internal SME on Excel who is willing to provide tutorials on specific software skills. L&D borrows their expertise by scheduling a series of virtual sessions with the SME and pre-records a session that can then be accessed on-demand.

Buy

Has a trustworthy partner already solved this problem, making it more efficient to leverage their OTS expertise? Buy it.

There are dozens of providers selling thousands of OTS courses. Classroom, virtual, e-learning—they offer it all. However, their expertise comes at a price. Therefore, L&D must be strategic to maximize their limited budget when purchasing (or licensing) OTS content. This is usually a solid option when addressing common, durable skills—topics that are consistent across businesses or industries. For example, no one should ever have to build a ladder safety training again. That problem has already been solved and is available for purchase in every possible format. Buying is also a great way to address regulatory topics that require specific solutions or change frequently. Rather than dedicating valuable L&D capacity to keeping up with regional laws, you can outsource this process to a specialized provider.

Back to our Excel example. L&D finds that the SME’s session covers more nuanced Excel skills. However, some employees lack the fundamental knowledge needed to keep up with these more advanced tutorials. There’s plenty of open content on YouTube, but it’s inconsistent in terms of production quality. Plus, it could vanish at any time. So, L&D licenses a series of foundational Excel courses from an OTS provider. Rather than acquire an entire content library they’re unlikely to use, L&D pays based on content usage with the option to add or reduce seat counts by topic as needed.

Build

Is the topic or application of knowledge and skill unique to your organization? Build it.

This is the last resort. OTS and crowdsourced content cover lots of topics, but there might be something different about this topic within your business that requires a unique solution. It could be a product only your company sells, a process your company developed, or a standard only your employees must follow. This means it’s time to design and develop your own solution. You could do this with your own team or outsource custom development to a third party, depending on your available resources and the timeliness of the problem you’re trying to solve. Keep in mind that the build option requires not only the development of custom content but also investment in continued maintenance that is often not required with the buy option.

Let’s wrap up our Excel example. L&D borrowed internal expertise and bought OTS content. However, there’s still a gap in their learning content strategy. The internal SME isn’t familiar with a few nuanced processes employees are expected to complete using Excel. This also isn’t covered in the OTS content because the processes are specific to this company. L&D decides to build a supplementary set of videos and job aids covering the proprietary processes. They curate the various content objects together within a learning path in the LMS but allow employees to pick and choose which items they need based on their existing Excel knowledge. L&D also makes the path available to other audiences so they can request it as on-demand training if needed. L&D will just need to consider how to pay for the additional licenses to access the OTS content within the path should more teams request the training.

Borrow, buy, or build? Some content problems can be solved with one option. However, when L&D can strategically balance all three, you’re able to provide faster access to more targeted solutions without requiring extensive talent and budgetary resources. By applying a curation mindset, you can mix and match the 3Bs to get the right content to the right people at the right time.

Start Building Your Push and Pull Layers

We haven’t reinvented the wheel in this chapter, but with any luck I’ve given you enough to think about so you’re better prepared when you need to turn to the push and pull training layers in your learning ecosystem. Here’s how to get started:

1. Assess your required training. Take a hard look at your current training offerings. What process did you use to arrive at a structured training solution? Do you start with this option by default, or do you use a results-based approach to match a right-fit solution with the intended audience and desired outcome? This will help you decide whether structured content is truly required, or if other layers of the MLE Framework can be applied in the future to replace unnecessary push or pull training.

2. Implement microlearning principles. Look for ways to break lengthy courses and programs into focused, stackable modules. Yes, this will probably reduce the duration of your content. More importantly, it will help you align solutions with the realities of both learning science and your audience’s workflow.

3. Dig into your compliance requirements. Why is required training required? Ask questions to get the full background on legacy requirements. Apply modern learning principles where you can to improve the required training experience while checking all the necessary boxes and keeping internal and external stakeholders happy.

4. Apply a curation mindset. Maximize your resources by leveraging the absolutely insane amount of content available in the marketplace. Accelerate your speed-to-solution by crowdsourcing content and leveraging external marketplaces. Build when it’s the only way to solve the problem.

Last Point

I hope this was a helpful look at the nature of push and pull training within a modern learning ecosystem. Like I said, the entire point of this book is to avoid these layers as much as possible. Structured training will always be a critical part of workplace learning, but it shouldn’t be the biggest part of an employee’s learning experience.

Now that we’ve covered the required stuff, let’s get on to the most important part of our story: applying the entire MLE Framework to solve a range of workplace learning and performance challenges!