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Deloitte

Workshop Conversion

The Background

Since 2001 Deloitte has pioneered an innovative employability skills training course for college students with their  community investment programme.  Through the Deloitte Foundation, the firm committed £2m over five years to develop and qualify 800 FE teachers to teach employability skills to up to 80,000 young people across the UK.

The 4-day residential train the trainer course was designed with expert input from training consultants and experienced teacher trainers. It is experiential in nature and focuses on the delegates' own personal development and personal effectiveness, as well as equipping teachers with the resources and information needed to deliver employability skills effectively.  The course offers the opportunity to achieve a Level 4 qualification and qualifies for annual CPD entitlements.

In order to start to reduce the costs associated with delivering such a substantial course, Deloitte commissioned Academy Internet to convert two parts of the traditional workshop – an introduction to the programme session on Assertiveness - to digital learning. 

The Solution:

The two sessions to be converted to e-learning represented very different kinds of learning experiences.

The Introduction to the Employability Skills Initiative was a straightforward piece of presentation, with key facts and figures about the initiative illustrated through quotations from those involved. In the digital version, animations, questions and interactions were used to bring the content to life for the learner.

This ‘information transfer’ piece was initially what Deloitte believed would be the most appropriate material to convert from the traditional face-to-face approach to the digital one. The content was straightforward and intended to increase awareness rather than to change behaviour, and fitted the conventional model of what ‘e-learning’ was appropriate for.

However after an initial discussion, Deloitte agreed that e-learning would also be used to convert the much more experiential session on Assertiveness.

An Academy Internet Learning Designer attended the workshop and observed the Assertiveness session, recording the learning journey taken by the delegates as well as the activities they participated in.

The traditional session followed a conventional learning structure, with an introduction to the key theories and practice, followed by group activities designed to challenge the delegates’ assumptions and finishing up with one-to-one role plays to enable delegates to try out their assertiveness skills in practice.

The key to the converting the traditional to digital successfully was to follow the same structure and learning journey but to redesign the interactions to suit the personal, individual nature of digital learning rather than a group experience.

The other important consideration was to evaluate the workshop content (the actual spoken and written words used) for its e-learning readiness. All too often the assumption is made that the existing words can simply be captured and re-presented online as they stand.

In practice, this is very rarely the case. In traditional workshops the trainer often improvises the content within a set framework, repeating and embellishing learning points until the audience has a good grasp of the material. This ‘say it again, Sam’ approach is perfectly appropriate in a face-to-face context but actually undermines the effectiveness of the digital version, in which ‘say less, say it better’ is the guiding principle (not least because, unlike in a live workshop, a learner can ‘rewind’ the content at will to review what they didn’t quite get the first time). During the editing process the Assertiveness content became considerably shorter and leaner to provide a very focused learning journey: in fact the main body of the content was condensed to just twelve clear, purposeful screens.

The learning design took its cue from structure of the original workshop. The learner was introduced to the key concepts and theory behind Assertiveness, but through e-learning interactions designed to challenge the learner’s assumptions and thinking. Try it type questions also stimulated the learner to think about their own behaviour and alternatives.

Finally, at the end of the ‘theory’ section the learner was presented with a simulation role play to try out their Assertiveness skills. The role play dropped the learner into the middle of a difficult situation with an aggressive manager. The task for the learner was to reach the end of the conversation with a ‘win-win’ outcome where both they and the manager felt that their objectives would be achieved. On completion of the role play, the learner was provided with feedback on their performance, and the opportunity to try the role play again to improve it. 

As an additional feature, as well as the in-course content, printable ‘Trainer Notes’ were also provided throughout the content to give the learners practical tips on how they could deliver the content successfully to their FE students in a traditional face-to-face workshop. 

The final course was delivered via the Deloitte intranet and website and was branded according to Deloitte brand guidelines.

As part of the same programme, we also developed modules in Presentation Skills, Learning and Thinking Styles and Giving and Receiving Feedback.

What the client said:

"We are very happy with the content and design of the e-learning that Academy Internet developed and believe it gives delegates a good, solid understanding of the issues and theory. The role-plays are excellent at getting teachers to think about the issues in a practical situation, and we may also go on to use these exercises for students on the face-to-face course also as they will enjoy playing the game. Using e-learning has significant potential impact on costs of delivering the course - a factor which is vital to its wider roll-out and sustainability.

We have thoroughly enjoyed working with Academy Internet who demonstrated great flexibility in converting a difficult subject to digital learning, took time to understand our needs (for example by attending the face-to-face sessions) and were very creative with their ideas on how to bring the subject alive."

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