Practical tips, observations, and trends.

Never Miss a Tip! ​Get SkillBurst Tips delivered right to your inbox. 

New State-Specific Training Requirements to Address in 2020 and 2021 Do More With Less: A Challenge and a Trend​ Expand Well-Being Resources for Lawyers and Staff​ To Increase Engagement (and Retention) Add Interactivity The L&D Team is Changing ... Fast Leverage Elearning to Support and Promote Your Firm's Well-Being Initiative Play, Skip, and Pause On-Demand Learning: Move from "Just in Case" to "Just in Time" Learning​ Incorporating Interactivity to Increase Engagement ​ The most essential skillset you should be cultivating Use Scenarios to Engage Learners and Encourage Retention​ Making the Case for Elearning

Encourage Self-Reflection to Boost Learning Provide Just-in-Time Training to Prepare for Feedback Discussions Use Visuals to Supercharge the Impact of Your Learning Resources Elearning and Cross-Selling. ​Really? Promoting Elearning Use Across ​Your Firm (part 1) Promoting Elearning Use Across ​Your Firm (part 2) Flip the Orientation Hit Them with a Bus Change Happens​ Elearning works without an LMS. Engage with Interactivity.​ Address Bite-Size and CLE with the Same Elearning Resource Look for Opportunities to Leverage

New State-Specific Training Requirements to Address in 2020 and 2021

The requirements for providing harassment awareness training continue to evolve, with several new state-specific requirements  effective in 2020 or 2021. We’ve compiled a list of some of the recent state-specific developments affecting many of our clients.

A few tips and best practices to keep in mind:

1. Take notice of the training requirements for new hires, in particular – and for temporary hires in California. While, in most cases, you have several months or more to comply with training requirements for current employees, new hires may need to be trained sooner than that to be in full compliance. 
2. Online training meets the requirements of all of these states, as long as the training is interactive. Online training can be particularly helpful as a quick, cost-effective way of meeting the requirements for new employees. 
3. It is a best practice to deliver training in the context of the environment in which the employees work. For law firms, in particular, the training is considered to be more relevant, meaningful, and well-received when it has been designed specifically for law firms – that is, with verbiage and scenarios appropriate to a law firm setting.

New state-specific requirements:

1. Illinois.  An Illinois law effective January 1, 2020, requires every employer with employees in Illinois to provide annual sexual harassment awareness training that meets Illinois-specific requirements. New employees must be trained within 90 days of their start date.                                                                                                           
2. Connecticut.  A new Connecticut law, effective October 1, 2019, requires employers to provide two hours of sexual harassment awareness training to all employees (both Supervisors and Non-Supervisors) by February 9, 2021, that meets Connecticut-specific requirements. Any employees based in the state of Connecticut are subject to the requirements. All new hires must receive the training within six months of the date of hire.                                                                                            
3. California.  California has long required that supervisors receive two hours of training every two years. With the enactment of SB1343, employers must now also provide one hour of training to all non-supervisory employees every two years. The original deadline for completing the non-supervisory training was January 1, 2020, but the deadline for compliance was later extended to January 1, 2021. New supervisors must be trained within six months of assuming a supervisory position, and new non-supervisory employees must be trained within six months of hire. California has an additional requirement to keep in mind for your summer associates and other temporary workers: Temporary or seasonal employees (such as summer associates) must be trained within 30 calendar days after the hire date or within 100 hours worked, whichever occurs first.

Our Respectful Workplace series addresses all of these state-specific requirements - as well as New York's - and can be customized further to include any firm-specific guidance or policies. 

Do More With Less: A Challenge and a Trend​

It's that time of year again.  As you work to plan your training budget for the coming year, we've pulled together a few excerpts from a great article in Training Industry magazine that might be helpful.

The bottom line up-front is this:  "Doing more with less is both a challenge and a trend for learning professionals in today’s business climate."  Think strategically and you can make your learning offerings more efficient and, more importantly, more effective."

Rethink Learning.
Old habits can be hard to break, but breaking outmoded ones can help achieve success with fewer resources. Whether it’s the learning group saying “we’ve always done it that way,” or the internal client indicating “we expect it that way,” failing to challenge the status quo, when appropriate, can have consequences: becoming predictable, losing the innovation edge, falling behind technologically and missing opportunities. It can also result in lost efficiencies, with projects taking more time and resources than they should and that the organization can afford.

Rightsize Learning.
Investing time wisely has two connotations for the learning organization: Is it investing its own time wisely, and is it developing products that maximize learning efficiency? In the past, a “bigger is better” mindset prevailed. Today, it is “less is more.” Common user complaints of training that isn’t optimized include:

• Attending training where only a fraction of content is relevant
• Retraining on mastered subject matter
• Taking courses that are too long
• Unrealistic/unmanageable learning paths

Fortunately, there are a number of approaches to improving non-optimized learning, including:

• Microlearning: Integrating five- to 10-minute chunks of discrete learning on focused topics allows learners to get exactly what they need, when they need it, without having to take a long course.
• Slimmed Courses: Reassessing legacy e-learning content with fresh perspectives can often reduce course size by as much as 33 to 50 percent. Focusing on need-to-know content, keeping it performance-based and pulling out content that can be used in a support role (i.e., job aids) are all ways to “rightsize” courses while maintaining instructional effectiveness. Of course, any new development should apply the same stringent standards for determining which content is included and how to most effectively treat it.
• Adaptive Learning: Incorporating a means to assess a learner’s prior knowledge and skills, whether by creating custom training paths or providing opportunities to test out of training, can often result in an improved learner experience and significant learning efficiencies.

Doing more with less is both a challenge and a trend for learning professionals in today’s business climate. With openness to change and a plan to address areas where critical productivity gains can be made, the challenge can be met successfully.
 
Content above from Meskanick, Paul. "Boost Efficiency and Do More with Less". Training Industry Magazine Special Edition (2017): pp 18 - 20.

Leverage Elearning to Support and Promote Your Firm's Well-Being Initiative

When you think of elearning, your mind might go to compliance training, practice area topics, or online orientations to quickly ramp up your newest associates. But elearning can make a meaningful difference beyond the topics you might typically think of for this type of media:  
 
Elearning can also be valuable means of providing educational resources in support of your firm-wide well-being initiatives. 
 
In fact, many of our law firm clients recognized this and approached us about creating a well-being series that they can brand to their firm and leverage as part of their broader and ongoing firm-wide well-being initiatives. 

An often-requested topic: Recognizing potential signs of substance abuse.  

Why elearning for such an important topic? Because you never know when and where someone might need an in-the-moment refresher so they can put the knowledge to immediate (and really important) use. Even if someone paid close attention during a longer live program on the topic (i.e., at a just in case training event), an on-demand resource is particularly helpful in the moment that someone really needs to apply what they've learned (i.e., just in time).

View a sample of our recently-released interactive substance abuse elearning course: https://www.skillburst.com/fostering-lawyer-well-being.html

An excerpt:
We know from a variety of studies that people in the legal profession tend to experience higher rates of mental health distress and substance abuse than those in the general population. As such, you’ll probably encounter someone in the course of your career who is suffering and potentially in need of help. When you do, will you recognize the signs? 
 
These days, there are countless stories in the news of high-profile figures – athletes, executives, lawyers, and many others – stepping into the spotlight to share their stories – of alcoholism, drug abuse, depression, anxiety, and so on. They come forward to potentially create greater awareness, reduce the stigma, and encourage those who are suffering to seek help.  
 
But for every person who steps forward to share their story, there are many others who don’t – who are suffering in silence, or who are even unable to recognize that they have a problem. Others may be aware that they have an issue, but are trying to hide it. 
 
That’s why it is important for all of us to be aware of potential warning signs – and to be on the lookout for them so we can take action and get others the support that they need. We owe it to them, to the firm, and to our clients. 

The takeaway? Elearning resources such as this one can be a great just-in-time addition to your existing educational programming. 

Incorporating Interactivity to Increase Engagement 

The word “interactive” has been showing up a lot lately in ​a variety of compliance and credit-eligible ​training requirements. For example, New York State, New York City, and California, and even smaller states like Delaware, have all passed laws in the past year that specifically require sexual harassment training for employees – and specifically require that it be interactive. 

Why is that? 
And what do they mean by interactive? 
 
The reality is that interaction increases engagement. And engagement increases retention, and thus, the likelihood of compliance. That is, the more that you engage in – and with – a learning experience, the more likely you are to actually learn from it. 
 
Each state and locality defines and describes “interactive” in a slightly different way, but all descriptions point to active, participative learning as opposed to passive. Think about interacting with an engaging, responsive online learning program vs. the passive watching of a video. The laws give a nod to the continued evolution toward online learning, and acknowledge that harassment awareness training need not be done in a live setting to be effective – as long as it engages the learner by requiring meaningful participation.  
 
NYC, for example, defines interactive as “participatory teaching whereby the trainee is engaged in a trainer-trainee interaction, use of audio-visuals, computer or online training program or other participatory forms of training…” It notes that “such interactive training is not required to be live or facilitated by an in-person instructor in order to satisfy” this requirement.

California requires “effective interactive training,” which it defines to specifically include “E-learning training.” The training must include questions that “assess learning, skill-building activities that assess the supervisor’s application and understanding of content learned, and numerous hypothetical scenarios, each with one or more discussion questions so that supervisors remain engaged in the training.” It must also enable the participant to submit questions, which must be answered in a timely manner.
 
It should come to no surprise to our clients that we welcome this focus on the value of interactivity, as it is something that we’ve embraced for years with our signature SkillBurst® approach to learning.
 
Is your firm ready to embrace online interactive training? State and local legislatures are recognizing the value and effectiveness of online interactive learning. What about you?

Use Scenarios to Engage Learners and Encourage Retention

Do you know someone like Joe? 

Joe is currently supporting several projects across multiple practice groups. Like many associates, Joe has several different people supervising his work. On the one hand, he is excited about the opportunities; working with so many people, with various areas of expertise and leadership styles, provides him with a variety of learning opportunities ... and offers wide exposure to a range of people who can recognize his value and potentially open new doors for him. On the other hand, Joe doesn’t want to let any of them down ... and he’s finding that each has a different way of working and a different set of expectations of him. 

For example:

• One is very prescriptive and detailed when making assignments. Others are somewhat vague.
• One checks in frequently to ensure Joe is on task and on track. Others check in rarely, if at all.
• One prefers communications by email while another rarely responds or even acknowledges his emails.
• One is a stickler for thoroughness and comprehensiveness in his research, while another appears to be more focused on staying within budget.
• One encourages Joe to talk with clients and resolve issues directly, while others prefer that he brief them on issues so they can talk with the clients.
• One seems interested in mentoring him and giving him specific feedback while others don’t seem to have the time.  

That’s a lot to juggle. What is Joe to do? How can he manage so many preferences, styles, and deadlines, and still stand out to each of his supervisors?

Let’s stop here and shift gears.

Can you picture Joe? Are you drawn in by his story? Are you curious where this is going? And what Joe will do to address these challenges?

If so, that’s exactly the point. Storytelling can be a powerful tool to engage adult learners, both in the classroom and in your on-demand learning programs. Scenarios such as these provide valuable context, introduce a character that learners can relate to, and create a sense of curiosity around where the story is going and how it will end. Because they are drawn in and pay attention, it also increases their retention of the story and the lessons woven within it. 

This scenario is part of an e-learning program we created on Making the Most of Working with Multiple Supervisors, one of the many professional skills programs – of 15 minutes or less – available as part of the Professional Essentials series we’ve created just for law firms. 

Encourage Self-Reflection to Boost Learning

In your next elearning course, consider how you can encourage learners to reflect on what they’ve learned – in the context of their own experiences.  A recent Harvard Business Review article put it this way...
 
"Reflection gives the brain an opportunity to pause amidst the chaos, untangle and sort through observations and experiences, consider multiple possible interpretations, and create meaning. This meaning becomes learning, which can then inform future mindsets and actions."

Sounds great, right?  But how can you encourage this type of self-reflection in an on-demand course?

Well, look at our course on Executive Presence from our Professional Skills Library as an example.  In the course, the learner is prompted to ..

1. Identify a leader who, in their view, exhibits executive presence.
2. Carefully assess, through a variety of questions, what led them to that conclusion.
3. Reflect on their own behaviors, using an interactive rating scale.
4. Compare and contrast (presented side-by-side) their own self-identified behaviors and those of the leader they identified, so they can consciously make a note of opportunities for self-improvement.

This kind of interactivity and self-reflection has been consistently proven to boost learning, growth, and performance.  So take a moment to reflect on the learning you're providing to your workforce.  
 
And let us know if you'd like to review this Executive Presence course (or any other course from our library). 

Use Visuals to Supercharge the Impact of Your Learning Resources

Lawyers are busy. Training topics can often be complicated and dry. Regardless, training is vital and needs to be effective.

You may have heard some of these statistics before but they speak to the power of visuals in our training programs:

• People recall 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, and 80% of what they see.
• 70% of a person’s sensory receptors are in their eyes.
• The human brain can begin to interpret images in 13 milliseconds.

If the bulk of your training and learning opportunities are "sage on the stage," “talking head,” or “voice over PowerPoint text,” then you're missing a huge opportunity to create learning experiences that actually make an impact.

Dr Robert E. Horn of Stanford University puts it this way: “When words and visual elements are closely entwined, we create something new and we augment our communal intelligence … visual language has the potential for increasing ‘human bandwidth’—the capacity to take in, comprehend, and more efficiently synthesize large amounts of new information.”

So don't ignore the visual element. It's not just an enhancement; it's the one thing that could make the difference between an ineffective learning experience and an effective one.

Promoting Elearning Use Across
​Your Firm (part 1)

"If you build it they will come." You may recall this line from the 1989 Kevin Costner film, "Field of Dreams." Well, as much as that phrase may apply to a bunch of ball playing ghosts in an old corn field, it does not necessarily apply to much else – including elearning implementations.

Over the next few weeks, we'll look at things you can do to drive adoption and promote elearning use across your firm. We've learned each of these by working with our clients and seeing what's worked well for them (and what hasn't).

Today's Tip:  Make your courses easy to find and access!
News flash: People aren't patient. Studies show that if a standard webpage takes more than 3 seconds to load, 40% of users will abandon the site and 80% will never return. That's an important factor to consider when launching your elearning. If your users can't find, access, and launch your courses quickly and easily, then adoption will be low. It's that simple.

We've seen firms put a lot of good thought into their elearning content but then give little attention to where these courses will live – or how people will find and access them. Ideally, your courses will always be right at your users' fingertips and only a click away from reviewing. If the IT systems your firm has in place now to host elearning (Learning Management System, CLE Tracking Application, etc.) are built in such a way that they're keeping you from realizing this goal, then it's time to take matters into your own hands and go another direction. 

We're working with firms that are doing just that – creating dedicated pages (or even apps) that focus on a clear presentation of elearning courses with one-click access to launch. No logins, no menus to navigate through, no firewalls, passwords or other user restrictions. Just a clean page with courses and descriptions ready to be accessed with a single click. And if you need to track user completion, you still can – even if you're not housing your modules on an LMS (we can tell you how.) 

If you need help creating such a resource, let us know. We do this all the time.

Flip the Orientation

Orienting new hires – whether they are new associates, staff, or laterals – might seem like an administrative exercise, but the fact is that an individual’s first experiences with your firm can leave a lasting impression. To those new to the firm, the strength and quality of the orientation program sends a strong message about the firm’s culture and its dedication to helping its workforce be successful.

Forward-thinking firms are leveraging online orientations to expand the breadth and the experiences offered through their onboarding programs, and to further brand and solidify their firm as the “right choice” for the new hire. Many firms use online orientations as a “pre-boarding” activity – engaging new hires well before their first day on the job – thus enabling the use of face time on the first day in a more engaging, productive, and inviting way to leave a more positive, lasting first impression of the firm.

An approach that enables early on-demand access to key information can also facilitate absorption and retention of the content and avoidance of the information overload that is often experienced in a typical in-person first-day orientation session. A pre-start component has been described as a critical foundational element for building a world-class onboarding program. It can also shorten a new hire’s time to productivity.

Hit Them with a Bus

True story:  At last week’s PDC conference, we provided a brief overview of our relatively new on-demand harassment awareness and prevention series (see below for more information). We previewed one small segment of the e-learning program that went something like this – in a strong voice:

“If someone says something that you find unwelcome or offensive, we encourage you to speak up – Hit them with a BUS!  The BUS approach, that is…”
The program goes on to explain:

      B – Briefly describe the behavior.
      U – Tell them it is unwelcome or making you uncomfortable.
      S – Tell them to stop.
 
This is an example of a mnemonic – an effective tool for encouraging learners to engage with and to later remember and use the information you shared with them. In this case, an animated eye-catching visual of a bus in the e-learning program makes the mnemonic even more memorable.

Immediately after the session, one of the attendees approached us and said that the BUS approach was not only memorable but was already making a difference. How could that be? He said his phone rang during the session and he had to step out; it was a friend calling who was quite upset about an uncomfortable situation she had just encountered. He recalled and immediately shared the BUS approach with her – and recommended that she apply it right away. At this time, we don’t know quite how the story ended, but it is nice to think that the way that we’ve organized and delivered this important content has the potential to make a difference.

So… two takeaways from this Tip:

1. Use mnemonics and eye-catching visuals in your e-learning to draw attention and make important concepts memorable and sticky; and
2. When necessary, hit them with a BUS.

Elearning works without an LMS

We're often asked if it's possible to launch elearning across a firm or organization without a learning management system (LMS) in place. 

The short answer is:  Yes.  It's definitely possible.  And sometimes even firms that DO have an LMS may choose not to host elearning there from time-to-time depending on specific course requirements.

An LMS is an excellent resource for a wide variety of learning management activities both online and offline.  And when it comes to elearning, a good LMS will not only host on-demand learning resources, it will provide robust reporting on learner activity, allow for the creation and management of elearning-infused development plans and learning paths, and more.

However, if you do not have access to an LMS - or if the audience for your elearning does not have access to the LMS (think clients, summer associates, etc.) - you still have options.  Just about any elearning course can be published for hosting on a standard server (like your firm's web server, intranet server or SharePoint server).  The on-demand course will function exactly as designed and the user will have the same learning experience as they would if the course was hosted on an LMS. 

The major difference you'll experience when hosting on a standard server vs an LMS is the lack of reporting and tracking options.  If a course is hosted on your firm's intranet server, for example, you won't have the option to easily run completion reports, review quiz scores (if applicable) or access other helpful usage metrics.  That may be a showstopper for some courses, but may be an acceptable trade-off for others.

(Actually there are workarounds for reporting on elearning hosted outside of an LMS. Feel free to contact us if you'd like to discuss).

So, even if you currently can't house elearning on an LMS for any reason, don't let that stop you.  Just tell your elearning vendor partner that you plan to host on a standard server and you'll be on your way to launching your on-demand learning library.

Address Bite-Size and CLE with the Same Elearning Resource

It’s no secret that one of the fastest-growing trends in on-demand learning is the move to “bite-size” learning resources (also called “micro-learning”).  There are many differing opinions regarding what the duration of a learning resource must be in order for it to be considered bite-size, but most agree that anything 20 minutes or less could fall in this category.

By now we’re all familiar with the benefits this kind of learning approach can bring, but what does this mean for our old pal CLE? 

“How can we move to a bite-sized elearning approach but still offer CLE credit?”  We hear this question a lot now.  The easiest solution is one we call the “Umbrella Approach.”​

Say you are creating a course addressing a specific legal topic.  Perhaps you’re leveraging the content from a recent live CLE training program to do so.  You’d love to divide the material into a few different stand-alone bite-size resources for just-in-time access, but really want to offer CLE credit for the training.

Rather than create a single 60-minute on-demand version of the program to meet the CLE requirement, go ahead and divide the material into a handful of targeted, bite-size subtopics.  Maybe three 20-minute modules.   Then create a single “Umbrella” module that is 60-minutes in total duration if reviewed in its entirety but could also be reviewed as a menu of separate but related bite-size modules.

That is, instead of a linear 60-minute course on the topic, you now have an umbrella module comprised of 3 chapters.  As the user finishes a specific chapter successfully, it’s recorded as complete and is marked accordingly on the menu.  If all 3 chapters are completed successfully and in their entirety, the course will then indicate that CLE credit has been earned and can even communicate that fact directly to your CLE tracking system or learning management platform if applicable.

So don’t let CLE stand in the way of your micro-learning vision; Create a resource that addresses both!  And let us know how we can help.

Expand Well-Being Resources for Lawyers and Staff​

As of January 2021, more than 200 law firms, law schools, and in-house corporate legal department have signed the American Bar Association’s Well-Being Pledge. . In doing so, they’ve expressed their commitment to the seven tenets of the pledge, including providing robust education to attorneys and staff on topics such as well-being, mental health, and substance use disorders. Many other firms are launching firm-wide well-being initiatives, even if they haven’t signed the official ABA pledge.

As you design and roll-out your well-being education programs, consider the role that on-demand e-learning resources can play.
​Consider sharing with your incoming associates a short online program that emphasizes The Firm’s Commitment to Well-being – and what that means to them.

• Or providing a program for new associates that gets them thinking, right at the start of their career, about how they can set themselves up to Thrive in the Legal Profession, Maximize Well-Being, and Optimize Performance. 
• What about providing a program to all of your managers and supervisors that explores The Important Role that Managers Play in Fostering a Psychologically Healthy Workplace. 

​As a partner to the legal community – and at the request of many of our law firm clients – we’ve created a 7-part on-demand well-being educational series designed just for law firms. The series includes the topics above and many others, all selected based on the input of our clients. Modules designed specifically for law firm staff are available as well.
 
Many firms have already had this series branded to the firm and customized to incorporate links to their other well-being resources. And they're rolling them out in a variety of ways: Posting them to their LMS (or intranet) for 24/7 access across the firm, so they are accessible when needed; incorporating a “Well-being Topic of the Month” into their communication initiatives with a link to the featured program; and even hosting small lunch-and-learn sessions to review a program together and facilitate deeper conversations on these important topics.
 
To learn more about the Thriving Lawyer series and see the full list of available topics and sample programs, visit https://www.skillburst.com/fostering-lawyer-well-being.html

To Increase Engagement (and Retention) Add Interactivity

The word “interactive” has been showing up a lot lately in a variety of compliance and credit-eligible training requirements. For example, New York State, New York City, California, Illinois, and Connecticut, have all passed laws in the past few years that specifically require sexual harassment prevention and awareness training for all employees. And many of these jurisdictions specifically require that the training be interactive. 

Why is that? 
And what do they mean by interactive? 
 
The reality is this: Interaction increases engagement. And engagement increases retention, and thus, the likelihood of compliance.

That is, the more that you engage in – and engage with – a learning experience, the more likely you are to actually learn from it. 
 
Each state and locality defines and describes “interactive” in a slightly different way, but all descriptions point to active, participative learning as opposed to passive. Think about interacting with an engaging, responsive online learning program vs. the passive watching of a video. The laws give a nod to the continued evolution toward online learning, and acknowledge that harassment awareness training need not be done in a live setting to be effective – as long as it engages the learner by requiring meaningful participation.  
 
NYC, for example, defines interactive as “participatory teaching whereby the trainee is engaged in a trainer-trainee interaction, use of audio-visuals, computer or online training program or other participatory forms of training…” It notes that “such interactive training is not required to be live or facilitated by an in-person instructor in order to satisfy” this requirement.

California requires “effective interactive training,” which it defines to specifically include “E-learning training.” The training must include questions that “assess learning, skill-building activities that assess the supervisor’s application and understanding of content learned, and numerous hypothetical scenarios, each with one or more discussion questions so that supervisors remain engaged in the training.” It must also enable the participant to submit questions, which must be answered in a timely manner.
 
It should come to no surprise to our clients that we welcome this focus on the value of interactivity, as it is something that we’ve embraced for years with our signature SkillBurst® approach to on-demand learning.

The L&D Team is Changing ... Fast

Across industries, the composition of the Learning & Development team is undergoing a significant and rapid shift. According to Udemy's 2020 Workplace Learning Trends Report, L&D teams are rethinking how they’re organized to "better align themselves with the business and new emerging skill capabilities."

A report from Deloitte builds on this theme, highlighting the need for L&D teams to evolve to keep up. "Consider how quickly corporate learning has evolved. In only one generation we have gone from traditional [classroom learning] to e-learning, blended learning, talent-driven learning, and then continuous learning. Tools like Google, YouTube, Workplace by Facebook, Slack, and others have totally changed the learning landscape, so our job now is to 'deliver learning to where people are.'"

While facilitators/instructors and LMS administrators still make up the majority of L&D teams today, learning technology managers and content curators are starting to become mainstream.  The Udemy report went on to state that "L&D processes will be revamped to become more agile — focusing less on content creation and relying more on content curation. We also expect learning leaders to revamp their teams’ skills in 2020 and beyond."

We'll dive deeper into Content Curation (what it is, how it's done, why it's important) — and how you can best work to align your L&D team with the current landscape — in our next Tip 

Play, Skip, and Pause

Did you know that YouTube serves up more than 1 billion hours of video every day?  Demand for video content of all kinds is huge and continues to grow exponentially.  In fact, according to Cisco, within 2 years more than 80% of all Internet traffic will be video. And there's a good reason for this... video works.  Just ask any good marketer and they'll tell you that strategic use of video leads to higher conversion rates, increased sales and improved brand recognition.  

These benefits apply to training and development as well. According to Dr. Sandhya Johnson, "The phenomenal growth in the use of videos is compelling companies across the world to go for video-based learning in a big way to train their workforce." 

The power of video is undeniable, but there is a downside. It is, as author Jeff Hayes put it, "a linear journey – where the only options are play, skip, and pause." Traditional video does not allow for critical interactivity - which has been shown to greatly increase engagement and retention (Did you miss our Tip of the Week titled "Engage w/Interactivity?" Let us know and we'll send it to you). 

Still, when used appropriately - and when aligned with other approaches - video can be an extremely powerful option.

We're seeing video used in many ways across law firms of all sizes - and place video resources into two primary categories:

1) As an embedded component within an interactive elearning course 
Strategic use of video within an interactive self-paced elearning course is an extremely powerful solution that offers the best of both mediums. 

2) As a stand-alone "explainer" resource
More and more we're seeing lawyers and other subject matter experts interested in quickly creating videos and other on-demand resources to meet their specific needs. These may be for training clients on a new regulation, for informal training of the associates they work with or even for placement on a site like YouTube or other social media.

(Yes, we also see a third category - the 'hour-plus talking head recording' - but that's not a format we recommend.  However, this kind of video can be leveraged to create new resources.)

The good news? Capturing quality video no longer requires studio time or an outside videographer. In our next Tip of the Week, we'll introduce tips for capturing great video right from a mobile device. Maybe we'll even make a video about it. ;)

On-Demand Learning: Move from "Just in Case" to "Just in Time" Learning

In a recent article published in Legal Business World, our CEO Steve Gluckman shares a tale of two law firms and explores the shift in recent years from "just in case" learning to "just in time" learning. "On-demand learning is no longer a budget afterthought," he shares, "It is a key component of all L&D budgets across industries and around the world."

He notes that creating engaging on-demand learning of this nature is easier than you think – and offers a few tips to firms who are just getting started. Here's one: 

Take advantage of the online medium.
The online medium offers a wealth of opportunity so be sure to leverage it effectively. Simply posting text or posting a video for viewing online doesn’t take advantage of the real benefits of the online medium. To increase the engagement of the learner, you can create programs that are not linear; in other words, you can put the user in charge and allow them to decide how to navigate and which segments of the program to access and when. You can include scenarios; you might have the learner watch a short video or animated scenario, for example, then answer a few questions as to how they would handle the situation. They could even traverse different paths depending on their answer. Any chance for them to interact with the program through exercises or choices in navigation allows the learner to more actively engage with the content and take full advantage of the online medium. 
To read the article in its entirety, visit: 
https://www.legalbusinessworld.com/single-post/2018/12/19/From-Just-In-Case-to-Just-In-Time-Digital-Learning-in-the-Law-Firm

The most essential skillset you should be cultivating

Not long ago 24,000 practicing lawyers across 50 states responded to an Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS) survey asking what makes a new lawyer successful.  The result?  “The lawyers we surveyed … were clear that characteristics, as well as professional competencies, were far more important in brand new lawyers than legal skills…"

This isn't surprising. Professional skills (some call these "soft skills") development, according to a 2018 LinkedIn report, is currently the number one L&D priority across industries. And a 2018 PwC Global CEO Survey identified professional skills training as one of the top 3 essentials for any organizational talent strategy.   

Why all the love for professional skills training?  And why now?

In the age of automation, maintaining technical fluency is, of course, important.  However, in this environment the demand for professional skills is perhaps even greater and will continue to accelerate. The LinkedIn report goes on to state, "Industry experts and organizational partners agree that this should be the top focus for talent development."

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) concurs ..."Soft skills—which are needed to effectively communicate, problem solve, collaborate and organize—are becoming more important for success as the workplace evolves socially and technologically."

For current legal PD and talent professionals, the question is this:  What are you doing right now to address professional skills development in a way that is efficient, effective and impactful?  There's much you can be doing. 

Making the Case for Elearning

When making the case to include elearning in your budget, take time to outline the following:

• What issue are you trying to solve?
• What is the proposed plan and associated objective(s)?
• What benefits will the firm as a whole realize from this?

Let’s look at an example.  Say, you’ve decided that one area of focus in the year ahead is improving your orientation and onboarding process by creating an online orientation for new hires and laterals. Consider outlining the proposed initiative as follows:

The issue we are trying to solve:

• New associates and laterals suffer from information overload
• Orientation is extremely time-consuming for both presenter and attendee
• Delivery of key messages is inconsistent from one office to another (or one presenter to another)

The Objective:

• To make the most effective and efficient use of existing firm resources while simultaneously maximizing the quality of the experience and the depth of knowledge gained by new entrants

The Plan:

• Create an interactive elearning orientation program to serve as a complement to existing live sessions 
• Provide access to the online program prior to start date
• Provide ongoing access to the online program as a just-in-time reference for anyone at the firm

The Benefits to the Firm: (look for ways to quantify the benefits of your proposed approach where possible)

• Greater consistency in messaging across offices
• Greater depth of discussion in live sessions – which can now be used for interactive Q&A vs. heavy one-way presentations
• Freeing up senior-level personnel who typically deliver regular “repeat performances” so they can spend more time on other work
• Capturing critical information so that it is available for future reference - not only by new entrants but by anyone in the firm who could use a refresher
• Shortening the in-person orientation by approximately 70%

Outlining the issue, objectives and benefits of any planned initiative may not always be easy, but thinking about your initiative in this way can help you to illustrate how new initiatives are not just good for your department, they are good for the firm.  

If there's anything we can do to help you as you make your case for elearning, let us know.

Provide Just-in-Time Training
to Prepare for Feedback Discussions 

​Do your associates cringe at the thought of writing self-evaluations? 
Do they crave feedback but don't know how to effectively request it? 
Do your senior lawyers shy away from providing constructive feedback because they aren't comfortable delivering it? 

Whether your firm conducts annual performance reviews and/or encourages more frequent real-time feedback, ensure that everyone across the firm is ready – with the right mindset and with practical, actionable guidance and practices to set them up for success. This applies equally to those on the “delivering” side and those on the “receiving” side.  
 
This is a prime opportunity for you to implement “just-in-time” training to ensure that everyone is well-prepared to handle these important discussions.

The Professional Essentials library offers five programs related to feedback and performance evaluations – any or all of which can be branded to your firm and customized (if desired) to address your specific processes. These programs provide the inspiration – and a variety of practical, actionable tips – to motivate everyone to get the most out of this important process (and not treat it as just another check-the-box administrative exercise).
 
A few tips inspired by that series:

• The way that you deliver feedback matters. Deliver feedback well and you can inspire others and drive strong performance that benefits both the individual and the firm. Don’t deliver it well –or don’t deliver it all –and it can have the opposite effect.
• Writing your self-evaluation is an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to reflect on your performance, assess progress toward your goals and the firm’s, and plan your goals for the coming year. It’s also an opportunity for you to prepare thoughtfully for your performance review meeting, to tell your story in your own words, and to provide evaluators with insight into your past performance, future goals, and your perspective. 
• Have a plan for running the meetings. It’s imperative that you lead these meetings in a way that sets the right tone to motivate and encourage strong performance, growth and continued development of your lawyers and staff in the year ahead.
• Encourage everyone to invite and embrace continuous feedback. While the tendency might be to wait for others to direct the charge and provide the feedback you need, the reality is that you are the most important person in your own learning. Get comfortable with asking for feedback; then be prepared to receive, embrace, and act on it.

Elearning and Cross-Selling. ​Really?

Talk with any Business Development expert and they'll tell you that one of the best sources of new revenue in any firm comes from cross-selling of services. It's no secret. More than 1/3 of law firm leaders list improving cross-selling within the firm as one of their top 3 priorities. However, while some firms have this down, many do not.  In a recent poll of 120 Chief Marketing Officers and Directors of Business Development at leading law firms, only 4% rated their firms as highly effective in cross-selling, and 77% rated their firm as ineffective. But why is that? A national poll from a few years back summed it up well:

• Reason #1: Lack of knowledge regarding how to cross-sell with others
• Reason #2: Lack of knowledge of other partners’ practices

If you want to help make a significant impact on your firm's bottom line, think about implementing some on-demand learning resources to directly address these two issues.  

First, consider sharing practical steps any lawyer can take to improve in this area. Perhaps with a resource like the 12-minute on-demand course from our Professional Essentials library titled "Growing Your Practice Through Effective Cross-Selling"  

Second, consider how you can use on-demand resources to help partners get the word out about their practice and areas of focus. We've seen firms do some creative things with brief interview-style online promos that are created and then posted as a "Partner Intro of the Month" on an intranet home page or similar.    

The takeaway: YOU are in a great position to make a real impact on the firm's bottom line. Get creative and think about new ways to support these efforts!  Let us know how we can help.

Promoting Elearning Use Across
​Your Firm (part 2)

Last week, our tip to help drive adoption and promote elearning use across your firm was “Make your courses easy to find and access.” Today we discuss a related tip: “Incorporate your courses into ‘the journey.’” 

What do we mean by 'the journey?' We’re really talking about individual career progression as well as day-to-day activities. The more you can embed your on-demand learning resources into the existing workflow and career path, the more helpful and utilized they will be.

Aligning individual elearning modules to Competencies and Learning Paths is one way to accomplish this. We’ve seen many firms create new learning plans, for example, consisting of dozens of bite-size elearning modules that new associates are expected to review within their first few months with the firm.

Sending out links to applicable resources as your lawyers hit new milestones in their careers is another great way to leverage your on-demand learning. For example, "You're going to be a mentor! Please review this brief on-demand module titled, 'Getting Started as a Mentor.'" Or, perhaps send out a link to a quick module titled "Congratulations! You're a Partner. Now What?" for those hitting this milestone in their journey.

We’ve seen firms create dedicated pages on internal sites that focus on specific tasks and activities. One firm, for example, created a page titled “Deposition Central” that contained links to guides, templates, best-practice summaries, a message from the Practice Lead and a variety of bite-size elearning modules on a wide variety of deposition-related topics – all readily available for any lawyer to access directly as needed to support their work.

However you go about it, remember that elearning resources (actually any learning resources) should be available and applicable throughout the journey – rather than as a detour along the way.

Change Happens

Change is a part of business. Nothing stays the same for long. Nor should it. But change can also impact the content within your on-demand learning resources and reduce their relevancy. 

So are there ways to "future-proof" your elearning? You bet!

When designed correctly from the beginning, making an update to your elearning resource to reflect a change in policy, law, personnel or process will be straightforward and much more efficient than updating any paper-based resources. Here are two tips to keep in mind to future-proof your elearning (we'll share more in a future Tip of the Week):
​

1. Link to documents, don't embed them.
   When adding documents or other supporting resources to a new on-demand resource, many developers will simply embed the document directly into the elearning module itself. This is fine, however, if an update to the document is required or if a new version is created to take its place, the developer will need to make that change within the elearning module itself and then republish the course and load it again to your LMS or server.  
   
   To future-proof the module, consider inserting a link to the document wherever it may "live" on your systems rather than embedding the document directly. Thus, if the document on your SharePoint server, intranet server, file system, etc. is updated, the new version will be automatically reflected in the course without any specific updates needed to the on-demand resource itself.
2. Go with narration.
   You just recorded video of a partner presenting on a specific topic and now you're using that recording in your brand new elearning resource. When...oh man... the Partner moves on to another firm. Now what? Or maybe the policy she was discussing has changed. Now you need to re-record the video. But how? Does she still have the same suit? Do you take up more of her schedule by getting her in front of a camera again to address the policy change?
   
   If you had used a professional narrator, the fix would be simple. "Hey LawFirmElearning...We need to drop in a sentence about the change to this policy. Here's the language. Can you address?" No problem. We simply have our narrator record the addition and then add it to the module. BAM! Done.

So change doesn't have to knock your elearning out of date. Keep these few tips in mind when creating your on-demand resources and plan for change, because "change happens."

Engage with Interactivity

On your next e-learning project, consider how you might use interactivity and creative exercises to ramp up the engagement factor. Why? The more that your professionals engage with the content – and have the opportunity to practice their skills – the more likely they are to retain the information and to apply it in practice. And isn’t that the ultimate goal? 

Keep in mind, too, that interactivity can be more (a lot more) than simple multiple-choice exercises.  

Let’s say you’re creating an e-learning program on how to write meaningful time entry narratives that convey a value-add. Don’t design the program as just a one-way presentation of your policy. Instead, include a variety of illustrative scenarios that describe a series of activities, and direct your learner to draft a time-entry narrative that complies with the firm’s policy and conveys the value of the services provided. Better yet, once they draft their narrative and click “submit,” provide instant feedback that shows them how they fared, compared to a model time entry. 

What if you're creating an e-learning program on active listening? Include an interactive self-assessment before the program starts – to encourage a bit of self-reflection and open the learner up to why they might actually need some of the tips that will be provided in the program.

Creating a program on effective interviewing practices? Invite learners to practice their skills by choosing their interview questions – or perhaps their responses to questions raised by the applicants. You could even design the program so it will traverse different paths depending on the inputs of the learner. 

The options for interactivity are almost endless. Consider the skill-sets, behaviors, and practices you want to encourage, and design your interactivities and practice exercises with those in mind.

Look for Opportunities to Leverage

When building your firm’s elearning library, don’t assume you need to start from scratch on every e-learning course. Look instead for opportunities to leverage resources that already exist. 

If one of your subject matter experts has been preparing for a live presentation, plan to record it and repurpose it. Don’t just repurpose it in its original state though; look for opportunities to repackage it so that it takes advantage of the elearning media; pair the recorded audio with demonstrative visuals or animations, add some interactivity, a quiz, and an opportunity to practice the skills learned, for example. 

Consider repackaging it into bite-sized pieces as well. An hour-long presentation need not stay an hour long. Look for opportunities to break that content into 10-minute or even 6-minute bursts that capture key points and practical, actionable takeaways into short segments that are easy to digest. 

Releasing a new policy? One that everyone in the firm needs to be aware of? Don’t just ask your colleagues to read it and sign-off that they’ve received and understood it. Leverage it into a brief e-learning module that illustrates the key points through scenarios that depict real-life dilemmas and real implications. Allow participants to practice applying the policy – and verify their successful completion electronically. 

Finally, look for opportunities to leverage existing on-demand programs that complement or supplement your existing training opportunities. For example, to educate your associates on timekeeping best practices, or how to effectively manage assignments, or how to work effectively with multiple supervisors, consider leveraging off-the-shelf-and-customizable resources, like LawFirmElearning’s Professional Essentials or Respectful Workplace series.

Opportunities abound to repurpose great content into something more.  Where do you see opportunities to apply leverage?