Month: March 2021

My husband is an academic librarian, and in the last few years, I’ve learned a lot about that vocation and the services libraries provide. Interestingly, there are many similarities between librarianship and training/instructional design, especially for librarians who work closely with teachers and instructors.

Before social distancing began we visited a local, public library where several people in my husband’s professional network are employed to attend a Human Library event. The Human Library is an initiative that started in Denmark over twenty years ago with the intent to create safe spaces for open dialogue between the listener and the “open book” humans in order to create more understanding, reduce stigmas and stereotypes, and build community. You can learn more about the Human Library program or find an event near you by following this link.

When you participate in a Human Library, you are allocated a brief amount of time with an “open book” human to converse regarding his/her/their unique experiences or knowledge. Immediately following our participation I realized this would be a great learning activity for a corporate or teambuilding event. In the next several posts I will detail how you could prepare a Human Library in your organization. First, we’ll talk about building your collection, but in subsequent posts I will offer ideas on how you may schedule the event, manage logistics, and follow-up after the event. These planning activities are interdependent and may run simultaneously, but for the sake of writing a blog post (or drafting a training proposal!) this seems like a logical order in which to describe a Human Library.

First, draft your “open books”:
Librarians would refer to this as building a collection.

If your event will focus on building organizational knowledge, you will want to consider who can best articulate both tactical and strategic functions. This is an excellent opportunity to engage mid-level employees with expertise in day-to-day tasks and who also have understanding on how processes and procedures contribute to helping your organization meet big picture goals.

“I have worked with the sales and marketing department for over two decades and focus on growing relationships with and retaining our established customers.”

“I am Associate Counsel and understand the contracts, insurance and liability concerns, safety, personnel, and other legal concerns of the organization.”

“I am a supervisor in our Management Information Systems group, and my team works to ensure our internal technologies and customers’ technology integrates smoothly.”

If your event is more team-building in nature, you may simply want to spark conversations that allow employees to get to know each other better. Who are the people in your organization with unique backgrounds? How have they applied this experience to achieve professional success?

“I played professional baseball for seven years before injury forced me to retire.”

“I served for two decades in the U. S. Navy, spending significant time underwater, months at a time as a staff member on a nuclear submarine.”

“I took a hiatus from our industry to pursue my childhood dream – working as a television meteorologist.”

Now that you have a grasp on the type of books you would like to be available in your Human Library, you will want to think start thinking about event logistics. Tune in for the next post, where I’ll discuss schedules, event set-up, and more!

There were constant reminders throughout 2020, especially in the last quarter of the year. As of this past December, Adobe ceased supporting Flash, which means any content you may have developed using this software may need to be published to another format. But how do you go about revisiting previous content?

Here are a few questions that may help when you need to revisit previous projects:

1. Is there any compliance requirement?
   This content may be required by a state agency or insurance carrier, or it may impact employee licensures and certifications. With a previous employer, a great deal of our training focused on topics related to Department of Transportation and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation. This type of lesson needs to be up to date to ensure your staff remain qualified to do their jobs, or these lessons may may be mandated by local, state, or federal legislation.
   
   Regardless of the reason, you are accountable for making sure the organization remains accountable to this training demand.
   
2. What may have the biggest operational impact?
   Maybe it is a commonly used software or a standard operating procedure, but whatever influences this topic also influences productivity and organizational success. It may be a wise idea to keep these courses, tutorials, and training products high on your list for revision or update during system updates like Flash’s retirement.
   
   If staff members are not abreast of the latest processes, this lack of understanding can negatively impact the organization in many ways.
   
3. How many, what percentage of employees will be impacted?
   Is there a location or region specific need?
   Don’t forget to consider the number of persons or locations impacted when setting your redevelopment priorities. I’ve worked in organizations with nationwide locations, but training topics that were required based on locality or region. These topics often related to a specific customer requirements, regional issues, or local mandates. (Anyone who has managed the anti-harassment content required in California, New York, Illinois, or other states understands this demand.)
   
   As mentioned above, you want to ensure training initiatives meet regulatory requirements, but it can be difficult to get buy in for a training requirement that only impacts a small fraction of the workforce. That doesn’t make these topics any less important in your redevelop, republish, or update plans.
   
4. Do we still need training on this topic?
   How do we store content that has been retired?
   Keeping your comprehensive catalog updated is just as important as updating the individual pieces of content. When processes or workplace expectations change and the established training is no longer relevant, be sure the content is removed from your Learning Management System, calendar, intranet site, or other places where employees may have access.
   
   Similarly, be sure you have a plan in place to store material that is no longer in use. You never know when you may need to reference previous training for employee development and performance plans or when preparing new training content. I prefer to store retired content in a well organized network drive, but you can brainstorm a plan based on what is most efficient for your staff, training department, and organization.
   
5. Lastly, formulate a process for revisiting and revising previously published content.
   As with any project, it seems like half the battle is having a plan of action. Revisiting, updating, and retiring training content may be influenced by the size of your organization, the demands on your training function, and many other factors.
   
   With my current employers, most requests to revisit or revise training come from the Marketing Department, since they will quarterback product releases and updates.
   
   At my previous employer, the training function was smaller. Once each year, I would contact project managers and subject matter experts, name the lesson(s) we had produced during the previous year, and ask if there had been any in the material. If I learned of changes within a function or department at other times, I would also reach out. (“I heard your department developed a new protocol for “Department Process”. I’ve scheduled a meeting for DATE so we can discuss how this will impact “Training Course Title”.)

Even with carefully designed and curated content, you will still need to revisit past projects on occasion. Whether this is influenced by organizational changes, technology changes, your annual catalog maintenance and housekeeping processes, or some other factor, you are one of the staff members whose voice and expertise can influence training content and their updates. Good luck with applying a plan that works best for your revisit, update, and republish strategies!