In learning and development, the ultimate goal is to drive real behaviour change and boost performance. However, can you really guarantee that a learned skill or behaviour will be repeated in the workplace?
This all depends on the efficacy of learning transfer.
We caught up with one of the great organisations we work with, TXM Group, to see how they’re planning on using Thinqi’s smarter learning system to maximise learning transfer and drive performance to support their future growth plans as a global business.
Putting learning into practice
“I definitely have this theory that there’s no point to what we do in L&D if we can’t actually make sure that the learning is transferred practically into people’s jobs,” says Tracy Sinclair, Head of People Development at TXM Group. “As a business we have growth plans for the next five years, so we’re looking to double in size. This means we’re absolutely going to need to make sure that people take the learning, at whatever level of job they do, and put that into place to allow this growth to happen.”
Whether those people are accountants, recruiters or management consultants, it’s important for the L&D team to ensure these people are growing at pace. She says: “Whether someone is a leader or is new to the business, we’ve got to make sure that people are what I call ‘practicalising’ that learning and to provide evidence that this is happening.”
Previously, any evidence of learning transfer was done manually – there was a clear need for a more efficient process involving automation and in-depth tracking.
Cue Thinqi.
Proving learning transfer through ‘practical gates’
“At the moment we’re doing some simple things like adding what we call ‘practical gates’ into our learning,” says Tracy. “For example, we have a recruitment fundamentals programme that we run for people who are new to the business. It’s a 12-week programme and they get about 45-50 hours’ worth of learning and development on how to become a recruiter. To ensure that they’ve taken this learning away and put it into practice, these practical gates are effectively tests of how somebody’s doing.”
How do these practical gates work?
“Let’s say for example we’re teaching somebody how to register a candidate,” explains Tracy. “We’ve got to make sure that they do that properly as evidenced by their manager and is then signed off by their manager too. The evidence is then returned to us to make sure that we’re happy, which we have to do within a certain period. This has multiple benefits – it makes sure that they’re practicalising that learning and ensures that their manager is part of the picture to get that engagement going.”
To help them achieve success, TXM Group are now looking at how features such as Assignments and Badges in Thinqi, along with competency frameworks and success profiles, can support these actions and prove to the organisation that the learning has worked.
For example, Thinqi’s Badges feature will allow line managers to manually award badges for activities that occur outside of the learning system and on the job. These can form part of compound badges, which incorporate rewards for learning activities completed and real-world application.
A more flexible way to learn, for everyone
“Thinqi gives us a much easier way to allow people to learn,” says Tracy. “Historically, all the learning was done in groups in a classroom environment – it was really one-dimensional. Now it’s multi-dimensional with a truly blended approach, and it’s allowed us to reach more people globally. We’re just about to launch Thinqi out to services such as support services, finance and marketing. We’ve never done that before.”
As a global business, TXM Group have just started to service the Australian market. Thinqi now allows them to achieve consistency in shared learning material – so whether their employees are in Sydney, New York or anywhere else, they’ve got the right content at their fingertips.
Thinqi has also enabled greater flexibility with the hiring process for TXM Group. They ideally want to hire people in cohorts, but have previously faced barriers due to the impractical nature of doing this manually. Thinqi now gives them the power to feed people the right information so they can catch up on a cohort in cases where they might have started late.
It’s truly a shared and on-brand learning experience.
“The attitude is phenomenal, customer service is great and everybody is so knowledgeable”
How have TXM Group found their Thinqi experience so far?
“Super – really amazing,” says Tracy. “The attitude is phenomenal, the customer service is great, everybody’s really knowledgeable, and the whole team are really passionate about the learning system. Also, it’s not just about the partnership with the people, because it’s very human, but also the partnership with the learning system as well. It’s been really effective – it’s given us more than we thought we were going to get.”
With plans to make their L&D offering accredited and improve learning transfer across the whole organisation, we can’t wait to see them achieve success.
