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With the increase in remote work and the ubiquitousness of digital devices, it is likely that your learners are experiencing digital fatigue or burnout. This phenomenon negatively impacts work productivity and learning. 
 
 
On one hand, the last thing we want is for our eLearning solutions to compound digital fatigue. On the other, eLearning is too powerful of a tool to cut out of our learning and development arsenal. What can we do to address this issue? How can we leverage the benefits of eLearning, while minimizing the negative effects of fatigue? 
 
 
In this paper, we share some effective strategies to help minimize the impact of digital fatigue in eLearning. By focusing on the learner experience in our design, we can create engaging learning solutions that fit within learners’ digital environments. Engaging in thoughtful analysis, minimizing distractions, implementing universal design principles, experimenting with multimodal approaches, and promoting learning in the flow of work in our learning solutions can all help improve the learner experience. 
 
 
Want to find out more? Check out our whitepaper for five helpful strategies that you can use to combat digital fatigue in eLearning.

FiveWaysToCombatDigitalFatigue

Combatting Digital Fatigue in eLearning

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There are many challenges that come with elective continuous development. Most employees will say they don’t have time for learning, while others aren’t aware of what’s available, how to find it, or how to make the most of it. For some, it’s a question of whether or not this content is relevant for their role.
Finally, some managers can find conversations about growth and career challenging to navigate.
 
 
To overcome these challenges, Metrix developed a framework to help determine what power skills are important to develop for your business and your employees. We believe that power skills are crucial to providing an engaging and effective learning experience. Top examples of power skills include communication and teamwork, leadership and management, productivity and collaboration, and
personal development and wellness.
 
 
From analysis, prioritization, self-assessment, experience and resources, and coaching and feedback, our framework can help power up your power skills! In fact, upskilling and reskilling can help to add value beyond automated systems, adapt to new ways of working and technologies, operate in a digital environment, lead change and spearhead strategy, and motivate teams and foster belonging. Leverage
our framework to help identify those power skills and power up!

Power Skills

Power Skills Training Framework

commercial-training

When it comes to commercial training in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, stakes are high, timelines are short, and demands are becoming more complex. Despite this, stakeholder expectations of creativity and quality of learning experiences hasn’t changed. Some potential issues in such an environment include: 
 
 
Rushed design and development phases: A great learning experience can take time to create. However, timelines are often short, leaving little room for errors or setbacks. This can impact the ability to apply the strategic and creative thinking that is vital to the commercial training role. That’s where more agile approaches to learning design and development, and an agency you can rely on makes all the difference!
 
 
Trouble navigating the complexity of online training delivery: It is challenging to choose from the countless authoring and collaboration tools, delivery platforms and tech savvy shortcuts. To start narrowing down your options, it is recommended to define your training goals, determine any IT or budget restrictions, and investigate the feasibility and reliability of each tool/platform of interest. Then you can more easily compare the quality, price, and compatibility with your training needs.
 
 
Quality of medical writing: Poor quality of medical writing can lead to extra medical, legal and regulatory review cycles, and reduce trust from important internal medical stakeholders. If you decide to outsource your medical writing, it often “pays to pay more”. While nothing beats experience to help build trust a medical writing partner, we share some questions in this paper that you can ask to assess the quality of a potential partner.
 
 
Compromised innovation and creativity, leading to lower learner engagement: Tight timelines may lead to a lack of innovation and creativity, which can have an impact on engagement. A lack of engagement can have an impact on retention and behavior change in the field. Remember that creativity can come in many forms— instructional or visual design, in the delivery, in technology or how the data is used to inform the learning design and implementation process!
 
 
All of these can impact stakeholder satisfaction and learner perceived value. Metrix can help companies in the pharmaceutical and medical devices space to navigate these challenges and deliver results regardless of tight timelines and complex demands!

Commercial Training in Pharma

Evolving Needs of Commercial Training in Pharma

power-of-learning-analytics

How can I make a greater impact? How can I see if learners are engaged, meeting their learning objectives, and enjoying a learning experience? Learning analytics can help you gain insights, drive results and improve learning experiences. Assessing efficiency, user experience and effectiveness of a project with key performance indicators can help you capture the right data. This information can help you build and refine your projects and give you insight on what learners like and what teaching approaches they respond best to. You can also learn about what sections of the project are not performing well and need to be improved or removed. 
 
 
Metrix has the tools to create powerful analytic models that matter for your organization. Contact us to find out more and lead the way in learning analytics!

Power of Learning Analytics

Learning Analytics 

managing-training-intake

L&D teams are receiving higher budgets and increased executive support for corporate learning programs, which has urged the need to quickly deliver effective solutions that have a meaningful impact on organizational goals. Developing a strategic approach to managing and prioritizing training intake can have a significant role in delivering those solutions. Prioritization of requests is necessary to ensure you are maximizing the value you provide your organization, without overworking your team.
 
 
In this paper Metrix shares some tips and tools for taking a strategic approach to prioritizing requests. Some keys to success include integrating your L&D strategy into your training request prioritization, and being agile and adaptive to market disruptors and new opportunities. An assessment scorecard and evaluation continuum are tools that can ensure each request can be quickly assessed and prioritized. Additionally, a standardized approach to training request intake (i.e. standardized training request form and training intake software) enables easy prioritization and instant, clear visibility into the potential impact of a requested training solution.
 
 
With the tools outlined in this paper, you’ll soon be creating a training intake system that allows you to quickly dive into creating training with strategic value!

Managing_Training_Intake

Intake Ebook

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Are you noticing skill gaps within your salesforce? With so much disruption lately, it’s important to look for solutions that keep up with the changing times. It’s no secret that hiring from outside can cost a lot more than building from within. That’s why Metrix has developed a tried-and-true framework that helps you clarify your upskilling and reskilling needs, customized to your business objectives. 
 
 
First, start by looking outside. What does your future customer look like? For example, the hybrid model is here to stay, and we can expect 30% less in-person meetings post-Covid. Tools such as surveys, focus groups, or third-party research can shed some light on this. 
 
 
Second, look inside. What critical outcomes do you need to achieve to thrive in the future environment? Examples may include effective virtual meeting facilitation, establishing access to customers, or a seamless multichannel customer experience. Leveraging strategic planning or a value proposition canvas can provide deeper insights. 
 
 
Third, spot capability gaps. What capabilities do you need to execute your critical outcomes? This may include remote and hybrid selling, storytelling, virtual presence, multichannel marketing, collaboration, empathy, situational leadership, and coaching. Implementing competency mapping or a learning needs analysis would help identify these gaps.
 
 
And finally, fill the capability gaps. What is the best approach to fill your identified gaps? Perhaps it requires upskilling, reskilling, hiring from outside, or a combination. Planning a learning strategy and executing these learning interventions can address these gaps. 
 
 
Use this framework to get you ahead of the game by optimizing employee experience, maximizing company goals, and increasing customer satisfaction.

Upskilling & Reskilling 1 Pager

Upskilling & Reskilling

Virtual-instructor

There’s an art to creating virtual training that is effective and engaging!
 
 
The first step is knowing your audience. Conducting a pre-session survey to evaluate participant’s knowledge and comfort with virtual training environments can help you tailor the training session to the specific group and evaluate its impact. It is important to set learning objectives and a performance outcome to inform the learners of what they will gain from the training. As a facilitator, you must keep your audience at the forefront. Make sure you are taking appropriate breaks, asking for feedback on sound clarity, volume and pace, and speaking in clear, everyday terminology, to bring authentic energy and spark engagement.
 
 
Next is creating an inviting interactive environment. Engage your audience from the get-go and have participants introduce themselves. Encourage learners to participate through all avenues including the chat, hands up feature, polling, and cursor-tracking. Online training requires participants to look at a screen for a long period of time, which can be dull and daunting. At regular intervals include interactive activities to engage your audience and keep them on their toes, such a case studies, thought-provoking questions, problem solving activities, brainstorming, knowledge check polls and more!
 
 
Elevate the learning experience by including activities that utilize the virtual classroom tools at your disposal. These may include the chat, screensharing, polling, break-out rooms and online learning games, among others. Before the session, make sure to practice using the tools so that you can help participants troubleshoot if needed. Having a second person (a producer) handle technical issues and enable/disable virtual classroom functions at specific times can also be helpful.
 
 
Lastly, providing support beyond the session is a critical component. A post-session survey can help determine what learners enjoyed and took away from the training, and also identify gaps and areas of improvement. Participant guides and job aids can support learning during the session and provide a takeaway for learners to engage in the content beyond the session. Pull through activities are a great idea to keep the content at the top of mind and improve long-term learning retention. Record the presentation and make it accessible to participants so they can revisit and reinforce their learning.
Read more and apply these design and facilitation tips from Metrix to excel at your next virtual session!

Virtual Instructor-Led Training Tipsheet

Virtual Training Tipsheet

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Even amidst the increasing shift to virtual and remote spaces, instructor-led training remains a staple format of workplace training, allowing for a facilitated learning experience and real-time interaction with other learners. Online workshops have many advantages, such as allowing for learners to be geographically far from each other and being run at a lower cost. However, building and maintaining learner engagement during a virtual training session can sometimes be challenging. 
 
 
In this whitepaper, we share our top tips and some useful reminders for building highly engaging and effective virtual workshops for successful workplace learning. Community and accountability are key drivers of engagement, and both can fade without the physical presence of facilitators and fellow learners. This means that in a virtual or remote setting where distractors abound, lecture-style delivery should last no longer than 10 minutes, and content should be predominantly reinforced through active and participative forms of learning. Activities such as quizzes, discussions, and polls give learners an opportunity to apply their new knowledge while also boosting engagement by making use of the online tools available. It’s also important to keep the learners’ motivations in mind throughout the workshop design to ensure that the format and delivery are best suited to the training needs. That includes ensuring that the training content is useful and directly applicable, that the learning targets for success are clear, and that learners have opportunities to direct their own learning. 
 
 
Want to know more? Dive into our whitepaper for more of our experience-tested tips and the nine rules we follow to build virtual workshops that keep learners engaged.

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Engaging Online Workshops

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We know that many workplaces have been experiencing lots of change. Switching from in-person, to remote-only, and now facing the challenge of blending remote and in-person channels. Despite the flexibility that remote learning provides; nothing can truly replace the power of belonging and in-person
connection.
 
 
Meeting people and socializing can increase our sense of belonging. In fact, high belonging was linked to a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% drop in turnover risk, and a 75% reduction in sick days. For a 10,000-person company, this can result in annual savings of more than $52 million.
 
 
That’s why we created the In-Person Design Canvas. This tool can help you plan and run an engaging and impactful in-person learning event. Our Design Canvas breaks down all the important aspects to consider before and during a live learning event. This includes your desired outcomes for learners, how you can maximize inclusion and belonging, what power moments will tap into learners’ motivation and affect, how to make best use of physical space, what creative activities will be included, and key logistics to keep in mind. Use this to brainstorm ideas at the beginning, then keep updating and refining as you
go!

Live Events One Pager

Engaging and Impactful In-Person Learning Events

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In recent years, organizations have been forced to adapt to unprecedented changes to the way they work. This transformation has highlighted the importance of learning and development teams as critical partners for organizations looking to upskill and reskill their staff for the new world of work. In this paper, we consider how we can incorporate agile methods into our learning design to keep pace with this demand and respond to increasing uncertainty. We suggest an approach for using design sprints to blur the boundaries between the phases of ADDIE and significantly compress timelines by incorporating collaborative working sessions with designers, learning strategists, SMEs, stakeholders, and learners. We highlight how this approach can ensure better business and learner outcomes in situations where the:
 
 

- The challenge is complicated and requires a cross-functional team to solve it. 
- There is a high degree of uncertainty.
 
- There is a need for innovation.

 
 

We also provide some advice for key considerations to set you up for success when you planning and executing learning design sprints.

Design Sprints in Learning PDF

Design Sprints in Learning

design-for-results

Looking to design your next project so that it drives engagement, increases learning retention, and makes an impact? These modern approaches to learning design get learners engaged. When content is bite-size, highly visual and user-generated, content sticks and is easier to remember. This leads to an increased rate to lead, learn and perform as it is easy to digest and apply what was learned right away! Remember these tips when designing your next project!


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Creative Design

increasing-roi

Software investment is increasing but adoption rates are not. A common reason for software implementation failures is a lack of investment in change management and training. Metrix Group and Prompta Consulting Group share how change management and training can work together to increase software return on investment. Prompta provides business and cultural transformation and organizational change management support to ensure a thoughtful and data-driven approach to change. Metrix Group provides unparalleled, targeted training to continue to inspire change and ensure your people have the skills required to execute. Together they highlight common implementation failures and their solutions, and share their top tips to ensure a successful implementation. When change management and training work seamlessly together, the end users experience improved readiness and preparedness. They can see integrated processes which reinforces key themes and messages across change management, training and communications.

Increasing the Return on Investment of Enterprise Software

Whitepaper | Maximizing Enterprise Software ROI 

Enterprise Software Whitepaper

the-future-of-learning

Metrix partnered with The Mission Business, a strategic foresight consultancy, to better understand the future of learning. Metrix interviewed a small network of innovators working in Learning and Development(L&D) positions across industries and markets. To imagine four futures for the learning function, popular questions and insights from the interviews were highlighted and articulated into extremes. The first big question was about strategy and tactics. The second was about the purpose of the learning function in the business environment of the future.These two critically uncertain questions, were pitted against each other, creating a 2 x 2 matrix — four quadrants of possible futures. This helps to map and understand changing industry landscapes, and shifting customer needs and wants in the near future. As the future unfolds, we have an opportunity to shape and lead it. Do you have a perspective? Do you have questions? Want to continue the conversation? Contact us!

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