Lean In to Learn Ep.18: Evaluating Impact of Training - Ensuring Return on Your Training Dollar with guest Dr. Lewena Bayer

Join Jessica Soodeen as she discusses Evaluating Impact of Training - Ensuring Return on Your Training Dollar on Lean In To Learn with guest Dr. Lewena Bayer.

In partnership with Workplace Education Manitoba and thank you to our funder, the Government of Canada Skills for Success Program. 

Joignez-vous à Jessica Soodeen qui discute Évaluer l'impact de la formation - Garantir le retour sur investissement de votre investissement en formation avec son invitée Dr Lewena Bayer.

On tiens à reconnaître Éducation en milieu de travail Manitoba et à remercier notre bailleur de fonds, le programme Compétences pour réussir du gouvernement du Canada.

Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Lean In to Learn, your Skills for Success podcast. I'm Jessica Soudin, spokesperson for Workplace Connections, Master Certified Relational Skills Practitioner, and advocate of Skills for Success at work. Lean in to Learn is a series focused on insightful approaches and forward-thinking topics related to relational skills, which many of us refer to as soft skills. I'd like to acknowledge Workplace Education Manitoba and thank our funder, the Government of Canada's Skills for Success program. I, and carefully curated subject matter experts, will introduce you to an array of tools, resources, and personal journeys that will educate and empower to solve people-related issues at work as well as build individual skills for success. So settle in and open up your hearts and minds as we lean in to learn. Welcome to Lean In to Learn, your skills for success podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Soudin, certified master level relational skills practitioner and certified skills for success practitioner. And today we will be discussing evaluating impact of training, ensuring return on your training dollar with Dr. Lou Bayer. Lou is the world's foremost expert on civility. As CEO of Civility Experts Inc., Lou leads a global network across 46 countries, helping organizations build cultures of respect and profitability. A 23-time author and one of only 14 master civility trainers worldwide, she's leading a voice in champions of humanity. She is also the project coordinator for Workplace Connections, Workplace Education Manitoba, WEM, and a Canadian Civility Ambassador dedicated to teaching that civility is its own reward across all industries. Welcome, Lou, to Lean In to Learn.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Thank you. Hello, Jessica. Hello, that was a mouthful. Holy Dinah, hey. Yes, thank you for that.

Why Measure Training Impact

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, excellent. So I'm really excited to have you on the show here. This is on the podcast. This is going to be excellent. And our topic about ensuring returning on your training dollar is so relevant right now because a lot of leaders think that I don't have time to spend money, to spend time on relational skills training and how impactful this is. But before we switch gears, ha ha, me being a motorsports engineer, switch gears, mm-hmm. I would love to share with our audience a little bit of a personal touch of Lou. So if I went on the internet and read some of your books and this and that, what might be something that I wouldn't find there? What might be like a hobby or quirky, something or other of you?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Well, I am born and raised in Saskatchewan. So a bit of uh the country in me, I do play the banjo occasionally. Most people don't know them. That's new. Wow. Not well, but I do play it occasionally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

That's excellent. I love it. I think, you know, when when our brains work both left and right side, music is one of those big things that helps us swap. So that's super cool. Okay. So let's um, yeah, let's let's dive in. So you're the pro at helping organizations see civility and relational skills not just as a nice to have, but as a measurable competencies. And these drive culture and bottom line results. So when leaders talk about return on training investments, ROI, what should they be measuring or what can they be measuring?

Linking Relational Skills To Profit

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Well, this is an interesting conversation. I'm so pleased to be here today. Thank you again for having me. You know, what we find is that the vast majority, I think statistic I saw recently was that 70% of workplace training is ineffective. You know, basically a waste of money. And so there's a great amount of pressure on workplaces and HR and facilitators to provide training where you can actually measure the impact of that training. And so you know, we have to be able to show that there was a skill build, that that skill was transferred to the workplace, and then we have to be able to help the workplace understand how that increased competency is going to impact their bottom line metrics. So, with regard to relational skills, I think one of the reasons we're having such success with workplace connections is because many, many people really underestimate relational skills. They perceive it as soft skills, they don't realize that they're measurable competencies.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Nice. You know, we think of a manufacturing environment and we can talk about productivity. What would be a kind of beyond traditional metrics that you've seen that leaders really grasp on to as far as how are we measuring? What sort of bottom line metrics do you find are the the biggest leverage points?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Well, I think at the end of the day, everybody needs to make money, you know. So profitability, you know, bottom line impact. I think that's a a common metric across organizations. I mean, even if you're healthcare or childcare, at the end of the day, you still have to generate some revenue in order to stay in business. So profitability, I mean, I think everybody's interested in that. But to answer your question a little bit more obscure, things like mental wellness, people don't always realize that the sub-skills tied to relational skills and you know, civility specifically impact wellness. It impacts retention, it impacts uh productivity, it impacts error rates, safety. You mentioned manufacturing. It impacts everything from collaboration to problem solving to creativity. You know, at the end of the day, it's very difficult to find a bottom line metric that we cannot link to positive skill gain and relational skills.

Measuring Behavior Not Feelings

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, no doubt. And it's really nice as well when the leaders are able to quantify this and articulate it to their stakeholders. So do you find that a lot of, or how would you say that you've seen leaders present these metrics to the stakeholders in board meetings or in other dashboards, what have you?

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Well, oftentimes, you know, we have to help them with the language of uh measurement, the language of impact to the workplace, because they don't understand how to measure, they don't understand what to look for. So we call it transfer of learning, but there are behavioral indicators. And this is, I think, the the turning point, this the sticky part with relational and soft skills is that people don't realize you can't measure feelings, you can't measure attitude. We talk about that uh, you know, quite a bit uh historically when we teach soft skills, things like emotions and so forth, they have a place, but if we can get employers, frontline managers who are involved in the training, et cetera, to understand the language of competency, you know, to show them that you can in fact tie behavior as an indicator to particular skill and it drives output. And once people understand that every behavior has a dollar sign attached to it, you know, sometimes we have to come back to the profitability piece. It's the only thing that makes sense for a lot of workplaces.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

I think that's that's very relevant. And that also highlights what the relational skills practitioners plus the skills for success practitioners have in their toolbox as far as co-creating dashboards and ways of communicating to leaders.

Skills Gaps Versus Job Titles

SPEAKER_00 7:58

That's right. And just because you mentioned skills for success, I think it's important to point out, you know, I'm 30 years in training and, you know, I've expert in civility, but you know, pretty good at training too. But I follow quite a few other training experts in HR research and so forth. And what I'm seeing more and more is that workplaces think that they're driving skill building by engaging in sort of the flavor of the month training, or they think everybody should take project management and maybe they should, or everybody needs budgeting or how to work Excel sheets or problem solving. And just because I have an advanced title, maybe I'm a supervisor or a leader or an executive, they tend to funnel uh people into training at a level that is inclined to fit their title, but not necessarily their skill. So to make better sense of it, increasingly we find workplaces need to reassess and start at the beginning. So there's a lot of brilliant leaders, for example, who are good thinkers, but they don't understand strategic thinking. So they can't solve problems. But if we can teach the fundamentals of problem solving, if we can teach the fundamentals of decision making, then all of that big thinking, maybe they're great at systems, or maybe they've got 20 years of field experience, they understand the context, but they don't have the tools or the bottom line strategy. And it's the same with collaboration. You know, a lot of people are good socially, they engage well, they're charismatic, people, you know, people are interested in being around them, but they don't understand the nuances of word choice and tone of voice, or they don't read social cues well. And a lot of times that basic training is overlooked after you've been an adult at work for a little while because it's presumed that you have that skill. So relational skills are foundational and they allow us to scaffold higher level skills that a lot of people have, they just can't use because they're missing the foundational skill, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

That totally makes sense. And you've touched on almost every, almost every single one of the modules that relational skills include. You know, and isn't it great that especially when you talk about systems thinking and people who have those positions where that systems thinking piece is so important to make that one cog to make all the rest of the cogs move?

Systems Thinking As A Core Gap

SPEAKER_00 10:23

For sure. Systems thinking is something that wasn't in the original Government of Canada skills for success framework. I mean, critical thinking and thinking skills generally, but under the relational skills cluster for the Workplace Connections program, which for the benefit of the listeners was a pan-Canadian multi-year, multi-million dollar training project. Systems thinking is something that in our work, uh, Workplace Education Manitoba, we came to understand that there was a gap in all levels across sectors for people to understand the systems that they live and work in and how they impact those systems and how they're impacted by those systems. And it's incredible when people start to realize okay, that decision that the boss just made that I don't like. If I actually pause for a moment, I realize maybe I'm not a victim here, maybe I'm not being targeted, or it's you know, it's not just a random thing. There's 23 systems and 64 people and maybe thousands of other suppliers and employees impacted in ways that I, you know, I didn't imagine. And once you're a systems thinker, it helps you see the benefit of change, it helps you become more effective as a continuous learner. Again, problem solving, decision making, all the skills intertwine.

From Pep Rallies To Real Change

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, yeah, that's great. One of the things that you said earlier was the training of the month, flavor of the month kind of training. So I love this because in my 25 plus years of whether it was motorsports or engineering leadership, you know, we had a lot of these team buildings. It was hugs and high fives. And then three months later, you know, the old behaviors, the knives come out, the gossip, the this, the that. So with all the training options out there, how do you distinguish between the trainings that create short-lived enthusiasm versus the trainings that actually shift behavior and improve team norms? And how do you think leaders can get those sustainable results? Because I think that is the missing piece from when I took a lot of these types of courses to now being a practitioner.

Microlearning And Targeted Tools

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Right. So, first I want to mention that hubs and high fives, I wrote that down. I think that's a a great title. It really kind of captures, you know, what in my experience has kind of been the norm in terms terms of workplace training and it's not going well. But to answer your question, I think there are two things that leaders need to understand and embrace in order to move the needle, as you mentioned. The first is courage. I mean, I think you have to be prepared to take a good hard look at the reality of the situation, acknowledge that there might have been hiring mistakes, you know, maybe people were promoted too soon, maybe our rewards and incentive, you know, you know, you have to take a really good hard look at the real situation. And then the second piece is assessment and situational analysis, which ties to the courage piece, uh comes into play there too. But uh having having a real understanding of what it is we want to achieve, what skills do people actually need to do that, and then looking at the current competencies, you know, where we are now and where we need to be, and really understanding it at a deeper level. So you can't just continue to say, oh, we need communication. People need to work better together. You have to do an assessment such that you can pinpoint that they're not working well together because their social radar is low. They just don't read cues. And maybe it's the workplace environment where we create fear and people won't make eye contact and look at each other, so they miss the nonverbal cues. You know, I think that's part of the courage. When you do your situational analysis, sometimes we discover that the workplace policies or the culture or the leadership are in fact inhibiting learning and skill gain and performance, which I mean, that's not news, but I think people really hesitate from a leadership point of view to put that on paper, you know, to actually, you know, gather the data and take a good hard look. And when we do that with our projects, just to skip ahead a little bit, we find that it takes a bit of time and courage, as I mentioned. Uh, it's not actually a terribly expensive process, but once you do that, you can pinpoint the specific sub-skills and do targeted, customized, curated learning. And then in terms of moving the needle, as you mentioned, you can spend a half day on a strategic skill building. You know, teach people a wishbone, take two hours, wishbone strategy instead of doing a generalized half day on decision making or problem solving, right? Do something really specific. And I'm prattling on a little bit, but this ties to the trends we see in education and workplace training. You know, there's more push towards nugget learning and micro learning. I don't like the word coaching, but uh, you know, on the job, show and tell training, you know, smaller, quick snapshot, but strategic and skills that people understand they actually need to perform a task to a competency level, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I could see also this strategy that you're speaking of almost be backwards to what most people think in the way of coming in, doing some top-down training or doing it the other way around. Let's pinpoint some pain points, do some night micro learning towards them. So for the audience listening, wishbone would be a way of doing some root cause analysis where you're looking at human, machine, process, all these different things. And you have a nice little wishbone diagram. Everyone, Google it, check it out. Ask Chat GPT or or Cloud AI to explain it to you, but it's a fabulous tool. But wouldn't that be great to start off the culture shift with these microlearnings? With let's use some of these relational skills tools to attack a couple of things so that people see the value in it. And now we're bought into further trainings or further process creating collaboratively with an RS skills trainer.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

That's right. And I think you have to consider from a you know workplace perspective, people are busy, they're tired, they're stressed, even still, we're experiencing some post-COVID, you know, influences and outcomes and you know, low motivation, poor engagement, you know, mental health issues, and so on. And so microlearning in this strategic in this strategic way, we have an app, for example, a relational skills app with microlearning, and it incorporates an assessment. But when you do that, people when they're self-directed, there's a really great clip by Daniel Pink. He says it's called The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. And this idea that it's, you know, shared purpose and autonomy and mastery, right? Microlearning enables that, and people start from success. They realize, oh, you know, look, I know these nine things already. I'm just missing this one tiny little piece. And so I feel like it's respectful to it, builds trust. I'm not gonna make 27 employees all sit through three hours of team building because two of them can't get along. You know, it's just nonsense. It's a waste of time and money. You know, I'm gonna take the two that don't get along and I'm gonna look at what is the actual issue here, or what is the missing skill? Is it a listening skill or somebody doesn't understand word choice or tone of voice? You know, what can I do to expedite the transfer of the learning to the workplace to the benefit of all 27 people, for example, in that case?

The iBloom Relational Skills App

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah, and that's a great example. That's a great example of where dollars can go really right. I'm glad that you brought up the app, the iBloom Relational Skills app. So, because I think this is something that's such a practical tool that is so easy to apply. And I mean, I've done the assessment on this relational skills app, and even doing the assessment is so much different than other assessments. So, do you want to say something about the app a little bit on its advantages?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

So the app was devised for the Workplace Connections project. So it takes about 15 minutes, depending on how fast somebody reads or how interested they are. There's a landing page, they just click on the app, download it to the to their phone, and in about 15 minutes, they see a pretty little report that tells them, you know, out of these eight relational skills, which are their top three skills gaps. And then the app curates targeted microlearning to address those gaps. And then within 30 days, a person can reassess and see, you know, have they improved their skills and knowledge? They can forward those assessments and evaluation reports to HR. They can, you know, do relational skills assessment. And if it's they score high on all those relational skills and the job they're applying for asked for social intelligence and civility, you know, it's a nice thing to be able to forward to a potential employer or you know, current employer. We see HR and lots of workplaces using the app as an assessment tool and then you know letting people self direct their learning. You know, four minutes of Microlearning while they're waiting for the bus, or when the boss is you know late for stand-up meeting or something, you know. So it more and more people are doing this kind of micro learning, but the assessment is a critical piece. You know, I there's no harm in learning for the sake of learning, but we're talking about workplace. So time and money are of concern, and the microlearning seems to be the best approach, cost effective and time effective.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

And I think the way that the reports come out as well really get people motivated to wanting to engage with it even more.

Making The Business Case

SPEAKER_00 20:34

That's right. And and they can kind of filter through. There's a learning library, so a person can choose. If they're visual learners, they can click through on the videos. If they prefer, you know, to read, they can download a PDF. You know, it's it's meant to address adult learning principles and you know, offer different aspects of learning style. But, you know, I think in this day of technology and on our phones and and and you know, all the time, we're really bombarded with a lot of nonsense. And so to have the opportunity in, you know, with four minutes of focus to take in some research and fact-based concrete knowledge that's going to help you do your job better, take care of your family, you know, build your retirement, you know, all of those things, right? It's it's just time well spent.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yeah, and something that you can share with your colleagues as soon as you finish the language, because as we know, the more we teach, the better understanding that we get for the material as well. And most of these little modules come up are so interesting, and they come up with those little bits that you just want to share anyway.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

That's right. Yeah, so you can forward the, yeah, you can forward tips and stuff out of the app. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah, it's super cool. So for a leader who wants to build relational capacity within their organization, but maybe they have to justify the investment to their board, to their executive team, maybe, maybe it's HR justifying it to the C-suite, or vice versa, or what have you. What sort of language and evidence do you recommend they use to make that case?

Where To Learn More And Close

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Well, I mean, there's quite a bit of grounded meaty research on the benefit of what we traditionally call soft skills. I believe it was Harvard research said that you know, 80% of your long-term success in life and work is based on your soft skills. We see more and more with AI and technology, again, lots of research. A person need only Google it, but almost every reputable academic institution has research showing that you know microlearning is more effective and that targeted customized training is more effective. And so if I'm making a business case to a leadership team or HR, I'm gonna talk about the cost savings and the time savings. I'm gonna talk about, you know, the return on investment is can be really significant, and the cost is low. You know, part of the workplace connections project was we're mandated to certify. Now there'll be 135 practitioners. It's about a 200-hour program. The government funded it, but people gave up their time and did practicums and exams and assignments. And so we have across Canada, across sectors, you know, 135 certified practitioners who, you know, people are not charging eight, ten, fifteen thousand dollars a day like normal training. They can offer assessments and the app as a supplement to some strategic mentorship or supports. There's a toolkit under the Workplace Connections project that currently is no fee to employers. There's about a thousand tools in there. So I think it's just a matter of doing a bit of research, but you know, there's no question that competency in soft skills helps leverage hard skills. So we see people are more likely able to transfer to a different occupation. We see upward mobility improves if your soft skills improve, mental health, you know, uh, as we talked about at the beginning, I mean, there's a solid business case.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Yeah, yeah, indeed. And like you said, it's just a little bit of research to find those, to find those stats, but they are abundant. They are abundant because I would say almost every university has behavioral science department and even within psychology of organizational development. So I have a last question for you, Dr. Liu. Where can we find you on socials? If people want to find out a little bit more about um civility, about your company, Civility Experts Inc., where where are they able to find you?

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Okay, thank you for that. So if they're interested in Relational Skills app or relational skills, maybe having a practitioner come to their workplace, and there are some funded opportunities too, uh depending on the situation. It's workplace connections.ca. I'm Luenna, L-E-W-E-N-A Bayer on LinkedIn, and I'm civilityexperts.com. So, I mean, you can Google me, there's some books and and other things, but just find us. And uh, if it's relational skills, I really think it's worth pursuing, you know, and there are some opportunities for practitioners and trainers as well, some ongoing uh mentorships and supports too. So if if you're a practitioner or facilitator, there's a certification route. And you know, we see, as I mentioned, that over the next decade soft skills are going to be critical. You know, especially, yeah, they're gonna be critical.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah, that's fabulous. So, and then just for the audience, since this is an audio mainly, then video podcast, they are spelt B-A-Y-E-R. Correct. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. This has been a riot and really deep, actionable information. This is awesome. Good. Thank you, Jessica. You're very welcome. And thanks everyone for joining us today. And for all those listening, I am Jessica Soudin, and thank you for taking the time to lean in to learn.