Should Read and Understand – Part 3: The Wise and Foolish Builders

Originally Published on February 7, 2015

If I had to guess, I would say that 50% or more of most organizational learning is through some form of read and understand. Yet even though it’s probably one of the largest globally used forms of organizational learning, there seems to be little to no employee support or preparation for this major organizational process. This means that, ready or not, your employees are forced to become self-directed learners.

There may be many reasons for this, such as it is taken for granted that the adults know how to learn or training departments refuse to accept read and understand as a viable learning option, so they turn their backs on it. I’m more inclined to believe that organizations don’t really understand what read and understand is from a learning perspective and are not quite sure what to do with it. However, treating read and understand as a form of self-directed learning gives us a platform to better understand it and sheds light on potential paths to help strengthen employees’ learning and development efforts.

As learning professionals, we must strive to make learning and development as fluid and fruitful as possible within our respective organizations. This includes whatever we can possibly do on the front end of the learning and development process to help our employees. When building a read and understand strategy, an organization can take many different approaches. However, two key areas must not be overlooked:

Building and supporting the self-directed learning capabilities of employees by focusing development around key traits, such as:

While plenty of resources are available online and in print to help you create proper interventions, I’ve provided a few below to help you get started.

Create courses/programs that teach employees how to learn, study, and solve problems.

How many of your employees really know how to learn or even how to effectively read a document? When reflecting on my academic years, I don’t recall ever being on any syllabus (high school or college). It seemed like something I picked up along the way, which not every employee will have had a chance to experience.

As learning professionals, we must create programs that teach employees how their minds work when learning, organizing, and retrieving information, along with tips and strategies to help them learn. This is often called metacognition or metacognitive skills, which simply means learning about learning. Studies have indicated that metacognitively aware learners are more strategic and perform better than unaware learners. When learners know how to modify and adapt their learning skills, they better pay attention, use learning strategies more effectively, and are more aware of when they are not comprehending something.

Finally, embed the course(s) into your onboarding programs and on demand so they are available to anyone anytime. Make the course(s) available as easily and often as possible, like you were passing out candy! The goal is to establish a solid foundation of learning that eventually becomes a natural part of your organization’s culture.

Work with leaders to create learning plans or “learning agreements” they share and discuss with their direct reports.

Learning plans will help keep leadership involved in the learning process, emphasize the importance of the employee’s learning and development, show employees how to locate the learning resources they need, and, ultimately, aid in their self-directedness and motivation. At a minimum, these learning plans should include:

• Overall goal of the plan (e.g., to become a fully qualified manufacturing associate). Think of it as the ultimate terminal objective.
• Goals/objectives of the plan’s individual components (e.g., good documentation practices training). Think of these as supporting objectives.
• The structure and sequence of learning events are based on organizational needs.
• Details of resources available to the employee for learning and development, equipment needs, identification and availability of trainers, etc.
• What are the learning expectations for the employee?

Ensure work-related documents are conducive to learning.

Documentation such as standard operating procedures, training modules, and work instructions should be:

• Logically organized, clearly written, and unambiguous.
• Contains only relevant information necessary to follow a process or to complete a task. (Note: Relevancy is one of the most important components for learning motivation among adults.)
• Written at the appropriate education level of the target audience.
• Inclusive of information, such as the name of the department that owns the process and/or author, so they can be contacted if an employee has a question.
• Assigned only to those who need it. (If employees do not find the content applicable to their current or future job position, they may see little or no value in mastering it and may fail to engage in the appropriate behaviors required for learning.)

Personal note: The standard operating procedure (SOP) is probably the most used document type for training employees, especially in organizations regulated by the FDA. However, very few authors write them with employee learning in mind.

As learning professionals, training should be viewed as providing conditions for people to learn effectively. If you use read and understand as a delivery method and do nothing to support your employees, you are not providing the right conditions. Organizations should provide every opportunity for their employees to learn and perform at their very best both inside and outside the organization, beginning with ensuring they know how to learn and become self-directed learners.

When you think about it, helping employees become better, self-directed learners is like the parable of the wise and foolish builders. The wise builder built his house on a solid foundation of rock, while the foolish builder built his house on a weak foundation of sand. If your organization relies heavily on read and understand as a means of employee development, is your organization the wise builder or the foolish builder?

Thanks, everyone, and I hope you enjoyed this three-part series on read and understand.

Read Part 1 Here.

Read Part 2 Here.

Keep your saws sharp!

Cheers,

Dr. Dean