Remote work is one of the key drivers governing the working and learning behaviors of employees. Between juggling work and life, formal learning could seem like the last thing on employees’ minds. Additionally, the emotional stress caused by the pandemic can badly hamper any motivation to learn something in classic terms.
However, this lack of high motivation or engagement can be a sweet spot for learning and development to provide just the right amount of focused resources to support the performance of employees on the job, without overwhelming them in the name of L&D: job aids, checklists, documentation, online help and so forth, for example.
Remote workers need performance support much more, as they are less likely to be able to reach out to colleagues as easily and quickly as they might if they were in the office. Moreover, reaching out to remote colleagues usually requires waiting for a response, causing a delay in work.
Why should you pay attention to performance support as it relates to workplace learning?
Imagine you’re developing software and encounter a problem midway through. What do you do? Do you go back to your trainer or course module for help? Probably not. You’re more likely to refer to the help tab in the software, check with a coworker or look for the solution on YouTube. Any of these options are, in fact, a form of performance support. The focus of L&D is today turbo-powered to shift from:
- Formal learning toward informal and workplace learning.
- Top-down approach toward a bottom-up approach.
- Learning approach toward performance support.
- Knowledge focus toward a skill focus.
Consider the 5 Moments of Need framework. While the “new” and “more” moments are in the purview of formal to semi-formal learning solutions, the more informal aspects of learning involving “change, application and solving” moments belong to the domain of performance support. The connection of performance support with skill focus, together with its absolute impact on the business outcome, is quite evident, relevant and direct.
Additionally, the connection between learning content and workplace support can be very powerful in helping overcome the forgetting curve. Imagine taking a course that provides a checklist of the things you need to do before starting a certain task. Back in the workplace, you’ll probably remember the checklist, but not its exact content. You’re unlikely to go back to that course to go through it. If the checklist was easily accessible, you could use it to quickly refresh your memory and perform your task.
Training alone cannot drive consistent performance at the point of work where end-users are hands-on with customers, systems and application workflows. Neither can training be overlooked such that employees often work without a net, exposing the business to errors, delays, liability, material waste, reduced customer satisfaction or attrition. For this very reason, the world highly favors the adoption of new, in-the-flow-of-work performance support approaches rather than away-from-work training methods. It precisely reflects the authentic performance requirements back on the job. Performance support is, in fact, a short run home to your company’s business objectives.
Let’s look at the way it helps in achieving them:
- Designed to minimize opportunity costs.
- Minimize the time of response to critical tasks.
- Significantly reduce time to market.
- Meets specific learning and guidance requirements while being in workflow.
- Measured on-the-job performance and, therefore, directly related to appraisals and ROI.
- Fewer mistakes and faster skill acquisition or changes in the process.
- Work does not get hampered or interrupted.
- Significantly reduce the time experienced employees devote to helping their less experienced colleagues.
- Available as part of learning material and as support information.
All the different types of performance support tools are created for a specific user persona and are:
- Easy to access on demand.
- Easy to share.
- Searchable.
- Made up of clear, step-by-step instructions and lists.
- Current.
- Connectable to longer-form learning for additional information.
- Highly granular in detail and bite-sized.
With a digitized economy, there is a case to move offline job aids to mobile aids, thanks to the omnipresent smartphones.
How can you quickly enable a performance support strategy in L&D?
L&D can incorporate a performance support strategy into its arsenal in order to bridge the gap between knowledge and performance. How quickly can you chalk it up and enable it is less a question of the big investment required, and more about smart planning and execution. Let’s unravel 10 key steps to get you started quickly.
Identify pain points. Depending on the role, analyze which tasks take the most time to complete, where most employees get repeatedly stuck or confused, make too many errors or struggle to work smoothly. It can be a point of critical decision-making, where accurate information is vital. It could also be a point of work that requires too many facts or details to work effectively, or changes might have occurred in compliance regulations, procedures or workflows.
Key training content. Highlight the segments from your formal training program that you want your employees to remember, check, refer or apply, and use at their point of work. Then modify, tweak and map the existing information to address only one or two objectives.
The right size is bite-size. Create short, focused resources or modules to avoid cluttering your learners’ memories with irrelevant information.
Nature of performance support. Depending on the use case and point of work, support aids may require the representation of either data or information (How-to) or a combination. Choose the format and category of support accordingly.
Make it accessible. These microlearning modules and other performance tools should be highly visible, accessible and available at the point of work. In the digital work environment, a popup or a chatbot can serve as a prompt.
Assessment metric. Identify methods to evaluate the effectiveness of performance support tools through a short quiz or rating scale.
Scope to know more. Combine the power of reinforcement with new assets for learning more in detail wherever feasible.
Easy to update. Modules should be created in a manner in which they can be quickly updated for all.
Security and control. All the aids are not required by all employees for that line of work. Access rights must be clearly established.
What use cases can you pilot?
There are several use cases that would benefit enormously with performance support tools or job aids. Different combinations of these tools can be used.
Front office executives, help desks and customer support. They need to be aware of many procedures, processes and the latest changes in policies and workflow to be able to assist the customers. Help tabs, FAQs and checklists will be effective.
Onboarding new employees. After the initial orientation, new employees need to familiarize themselves with workflows, policies and procedures at work. Microlearning modules, contextual walkthroughs and chatbots can help them settle in.
Onboarding new customers. A virtual walkthrough or product demonstration can seamlessly familiarize a new customer.
Software implementation. Appropriate short microlearning modules, virtual walkthroughs and “how to” videos can help in new software implementation.
Task support. For job-related information, ground-level work instructions and procedures, you can provide a few aids like flashcards, infographics, checklists or videos, embedded within the software, tagged to job roles or can pop up onscreen for the user when that task is assigned to them.
Work area. Offline performance support tools can be printed and placed on shop floors.
What role do employees play?
The performance support system can be quickly created and put in place by employees themselves through knowledge sharing. Experienced subject matter experts can leverage their knowledge by creating a user creator platform by embracing an employee-generated learning model. Needs analysis can be done to a granular level as they have hands-on experience and understand the process minutely.
An employee-generated learning strategy is faster, of higher quality, cost-effective, agile and scalable as it quickly responds to changes in performance support requirements specific to the business scenario. But the most important takeaway is that it is the only way to ensure the information will be up to date.
Changes in the business happen so fast it would be impossible for a central learning department to be aware of them, let alone implement them in existing support information. When a subject-matter expert in the business is responsible for creating and maintaining this information, they’re aware of the changes and can quickly change the support information if needed. After all, knowledge sharing through employee-generated learning boasts a bottom-up approach as it considers real-life knowledge and expertise relevant to your micro business environment.
Employee-generated learning has a zero-learning curve as it draws from real-life knowledge, existing expertise, work practices, culture, and keeps pace with changing business opportunities and challenges. It goes all the way in creating accountability and giving ownership to employees. It trains people on what they really need to know to do well in their roles.
Jumpstart with anything from easy-to-use, for-employees-by-employees content creation tools to co-creating work instructions and other performance support tools quickly. You can work in close collaboration with L&D, reviewers, colleagues and other workgroups for more critical tasks.
Looking forward
In an era of continuous technological advancement and remote work, L&D needs to quickly include performance support in the armory where it can play from a place of strength for a multi-generational workforce. Performance support is the fastest way to provide and optimize speed to competency in the workforce.
It’s the point of work where real business value is either generated or lost.
