1

August 2017Monthly Spotlight

#LOVECPDDeveloping digital learning content How do you develop digital content? We look over the trends of in house development.

Study leaveNot all organisations offer study leave, so how do you create your work/life/study balance.

Collaborative working between departments5 top tips for improving collaboration.

Employee engagement surveysAnnual Vs Always on...

2 3

A key skill for all HR, L&D and Management professionals is that of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). CPD is a term used to describe the learning activities that professionals participate in to enable them to develop their capabilities in the workplace. CPD comes in many forms, from work-based activities to conferences, webinars, workshops and reading articles, it all contributes to effective professional development.

The Results Are In

“Engaging in Continuing Professional Development ensures that both academic and practical qualifications do not become out-dated or obsolete; allowing individuals to continually ‘up skill’ or ‘re-skill’ themselves, regardless of occupation, age or educational level.” (CPDUK.co.uk)

This month’s CPD spotlight focuses on 4 topics:

•Study leave•Collaborative working between departments•Developing digital learning content•Employee engagement surveys

The DPG CommunityWith over 6000 professionals live on the community sharing expertise through blogs, articles and discussions. The monthly opinion polls on the community have provided the ideal platform for gathering data for our research.

IntroductionThis month’s spotlight is broken down into the four main topics. Through combining our own research with external content from experts in the field and a range of articles, blogs and podcasts we have explored each topic comprehensively and provided some excellent resources for you to refer to.

4 5

Does your organisation offer study leave?“Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, employees who have been with an organisation for more than 26 weeks’ continuous service are entitled to request time off for study or training. This only applies to organisations with 250 employees or more…”

Just because an employee requests study leave, the employer is at no obligation to accept the request. There are many grounds that an employer can reject a study leave request, including the fact that the training would not benefit the business, the training may run up extra costs, work cannot be re-organised among other members of staff or it conflicts with business needs. According to Sam Cook of First Practice Management typically have 28 days to respond to a study leave request.

Examplesofletters.com produced some tips to writing a study leave request letter:

The Office for National Statistics asked how many ONS staff have had granted paid study leave in the last 5 years, the results show that 132 had paid study leave in the last 5 years, and 14 members of staff had unpaid study leave in the last 5 years. (2016)

There are many benefits to offering study leave, most requests come from employees who are studying professional qualifications they have been asked to go on by their employer. Allowing study leave allows the individual taking part in the qualification time to absorb all the information available to them creating a better understanding of the qualification and as a result allowing the individual to progress in their career.

With our results showing that over 50% of organisations do not offer study leave, it’s worth exploring how to create individual study time while maintaining a work, life and study balance.

3 tips for structuring your balance:

Manage subject load:This is very dependent on the individual. It is key to explore how demanding the unit is and have a contingency plan in place for when a unit is more difficult. An ideal situation would be to ensure you are not overwhelmed with too many deadlines at work or deadlines in your studies, ensuring you have time to balance both. It’s a strategic decision, balance out the deadlines and not overwhelm yourself.

Time management:Allotting specific time slots for each task and activity will allow time to be managed effectively. Mapping a weekly, or monthly plan will create a mindset that allows an individual to switch off one task and onto the next, therefore accomplishing the task in hand effectively.

Me time:It’s incredibly important to maintain “me time” to have hobbies and entertainment and being able to shut off from both work and study. It is key to add these into a schedule and not become overwhelmed with work or study.

6 7

How do leaders in your organisation encourage collaboration between departments?What is collaboration and what happens if we don’t have it?

Collaboration can be defined as a “Cooperative arrangement in which two or more parties (which may or may not have any previous relationship) work jointly towards a common goal.” (Business dictionary). No matter how big or small an organisation is, collaboration between teams is key to success.

Ron Ashkenas a former consultant and author of “Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done”; looks into why teams don’t collaborate “…true collaboration might have led to a more robust and effective outcome… What’s interesting is that neither team consciously decided not to collaborate. Instead they did what came naturally, which is

to work either completely or partially on their own….” This suggests that collaboration isn’t something that is avoided by certain people, it may just be that people don’t automatically choose to collaborate between teams.

When looking at why people don’t usually collaborate it comes down to two things, culture and leadership, if the culture of an organisation is not to collaborate then it would not be an automatic action to take. One of the best ways to change this culture is through leaders in the organsation encouraging collaboration.

Working with no collaboration “…chews up physical and emotional energy that distracts people from their jobs, wastes resources, disconnects people and stops the flow of information, severely weakening your organization’s ability to compete.”

Benefits of collaborative working

Collaboration is more than just working together, it’s an attitude towards work that can have a positive effect on the entire organisation. It brings everyone from different departments of the organisation together and helps to encourage everyone to the business goals and objectives. Collaboration inspires fresh thinking and allows people to innovate in a supportive environment.

Research compiled by DPG in a previous whitepaper found a quote taken from ‘The Collaborative Economy’, a paper carried out my Deloitte on behalf of Google which says; ‘A collaborative organisation unlocks the potential, capacity and knowledge of every employee, thereby generating value, innovation and improving productivity in its workplace’.

8 9

5 ways to improve collaboration

Taken from “A guide to creating collaborative working cultures”, a whitepaper from DPG PLC

Foster TrustLong term collaboration is built upon trust, there are many aspects of trust from honouring requests and keeping promises to building relationships between teams and individuals.

Encourage FeedbackLeaders need to build an environment where members of the team, no matter what level, feel comfortable speaking up and sharing their opinions. Encouraging this feedback culture will improve processes within the business and help collaboration.

Celebrate Wins Acknowledgement of other people’s roles and achievements helps to encourage trust and respect amongst different departments. Don’t limit celebrations to the big projects, celebrate the small wins this will in turn encourage motivation and reinforce positive attitudes towards future work.

Facilitate Consistent CommunicationsLeading a project can pose difficulties when asking different teams to collaborate – to ensure all teams are working together effectively it is key to facilitate communications whether face to face or via internal collaboration tools such as slack, this reduces the amount of emails which can be hard to track.

WorkplaceDr Louise Suckley explored the design of different workspaces. She suggests there are 4 requirements for a workspace, one of which is to encourage collaboration through meeting rooms and break out spaces which allows people to work together on a planned or unplanned basis.

Creating a collaborative culture will not happen over night, it’s a process that will take time starting with a few key changes. We have highlighted 5 areas to focus on that could help improve collaboration within organisations.

10 11

How do you develop digital learning content in your organisation?

What is digital learning?

Digital learning is a type of learning that is facilitated by some form of technology, with this in mind there is no one commonly accepted definition of digital learning as the term digital encompasses so many usages of technology. Digital learning has progressed quickly over the recent years with more organisations recognising the advantages of online and digital learning.

Digital trends are ever-changing with new technological developments enabling gamification, virtual reality and artificial intelligence into the digital classroom. The Scottish Government developed a Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy in 2016 and found that “The growth and development of different types of digital learning is rapid and constantly changing.”

Some of the benefits associated with digital learning are its flexibility, it’s cost effectiveness and its ability to reach a large number of employees in varying locations. Because of this, there is a growing request for digital technologies, according to research compiled by Fosway Group the top 4 areas with increasing demand are Video (77%), Mobile (76%), Blended Learning (73%) and User Generated Content (68%).

The 2016/17 Towards Maturity benchmark report “Unlocking Potential: Releasing the potential of the business and its people through learning” shows that over 90% of organisations believe Digital content development and Virtual classrooms/webinars are priority skills to have while only 25-40% of organisations have these skills in place.

Towards Maturity 2016-17 Learning Benchmark Report - Unlocking Potential

12 13

In-house skills

“…More and more in-house teams are assigning some of this budget on developing internal skills and capability as well as the tools required to develop and produce materials.” Mike Collins – Head of Product & Design at DPG.

With the number of digital learning specialists and related roles increasing, organisations now have the ability to design and develop digital content in-house. To do this, digital professionals need to continually improve their skills and develop their knowledge in order to keep up to date with the current trends in the market.

As mentioned earlier, digital is always changing, and although there is a clear increase in investment from organisations for digital content, it does not necessarily mean monetary investment.

With this in mind, digital learning professionals have to keep themselves updated with the current trends in technology and develop their skills in order to match these trends. From e-lesson development, to video tips there are hundreds of free resources available online to help with this including the free Digital Skills group on the DPG community, elearning heroes and Lynda.com.

Investing in digitalThere is a huge variety of tools and technologies that are becoming more accessible to organisations. This means that more and more organisations are seeking to develop digital skills in-house rather than pay external suppliers to develop content.

Fosway Group discovered that only 6% of organisations are expecting to decrease their investment into digital learning platforms in the coming year showing that there is a massive push behind increasing investment in digital learning .

Statistics estimate that the global e-learning market was worth 125.36 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 and is projected to surpass 243 billion

U.S. dollars at a 5.08 percent CAGR in 2022 according to Statista.com. What their research also shows is that the lowest level of investment is in outsourcing which suggests that the majority of professionals asked will be developing the skills of in-house team staff to meet the demands of digital learning content.

“Organisations with under 5000 employees typically have someone who specialises in digital learning. At that lower than 5000 employee banding, only a quarter have no digital learning specialist but the vast majority (58%) have between one to five specialists in digital learning.” According to Fosways research.

14 15

How often do you run employee engagement surveys?In the diverse world of employee engagement surveys it can be confusing knowing where to start. For some organisations a full engagement survey happens once a year, for others it’s a small selection of questions every few weeks that are continually reviewed. From staff satisfaction, to mood surveys to overall engagement the range of questions and methods of asking are huge.

“For organisations with a longer survey feedback cycle, conducting their survey every other year may work best.” However, for the majority of organisations conducting an annual survey fits well. It allows organisations to benchmark for the next year and evaluate what has changed since the last survey. Shorter pulse surveys take a sample of employees which track progress in key areas.

Each of these surveys serve a purpose and in their own right are very effective. Employee engagement surveys are an excellent way

of gathering intel into how employees are feeling towards their day to day role, their work-life balance and their level of happiness or unhappiness while at work. Surveys can identify real issues within the organisation that leaders and managers may be blind to. “…experts suggest that it’s critical to use an employee engagement survey to assess employees’ opinions of their own engagement to know whether you are achieving the critical goal of an engaged workforce.”

Hive HR predict that there will be an increase in those who are continually surveying over the next year as research by HRZone shows a decrease in annual surveys throughout 2015.

“The days of the annual survey are coming to an end to be replaced by a much more holistic, integrated and real time approach to measuring and driving high levels of employee commitment and passion” Josh Bersin (taken from Hive HR Webinar).

Annual survey VS Always-on Survey

Annual surveys do not necessarily capture a real time view of how things are going in a company, they tend to be slanted towards the more recent months. Always on surveys gather information throughout the year, collecting responses quickly creating a real view of the day to day, week to week and month to month changes in engagement. “Once a year surveys had a tendency to try to get everything included for a 12-month period, but they failed miserably. They reflected a short period before the survey, instead of the ebb and flow of the organization over the course of an entire year.” According to research by David Godden for Thymometrics.

On the other hand, an annual survey can act like a health check up with a doctor. Everything will have the once over and any issues will be dealt with in more detail separately. A well designed, well written annual survey will focus on no more than 4 key areas and will be measurable against the previous year’s survey. “Always-On approach to engagement is all about looking for ways in which you can support ongoing, continuous dialogue throughout your organisation.” – John Ryder, Hive HR.

16 17

What changes can/will realistically be made in response to the survey results? Is this within budget/timescales?

If you’re new to engagement surveys don’t over promise and under deliver. Employees are trusting the process to listen and make any changes necessary. This can take time so you’re honesty and transparency with what can be done and the change your hoping to see is vital.

Determine who will review and approve content

This will link to objectives, What are the questions that are being asked, who will write them, who will review and approve the questions? This shouldn’t necessarily just be a HR initiative so think about collaboration, who else could influence the content in a positive way, and get their input.

How should the survey be communicated to the employees?

A comprehensive communications plan should be created to keep people aware of the why, the what and the how. You need to engage with people throughout and where possible involve employees so it’s something they feel part of not something that is being done to them. Share the results, the good, the bad and the ugly and take action!

How will you measure the survey results?

Don’t leave this right until the end. Engagement surveys can be really resource hungry when it comes to analysing the results, quickly becoming a full-time job. Know what the software can do but what resource will be required to analyse and interpret the data and what measures will be used.

What are the objectives of the engagement survey?

Distil the measures of success in to clear objectives that are easy to understand and link to the overarching business objectives.

What should the role of senior leadership be in the survey and engagement process?

Sponsorship and buy-in from senior leadership is vital to ensure the process lands correctly. Senior leadership need to ensure people believe in the change and drive the improvements that follow it.

What does success look like?

It’s crucial to have a really clear idea of what success looks like and how it hopes to improve things in the organisation.

Setting up a survey

An employee engagement survey takes a lot of planning, that planning should start with a selection of things to consider:

18 19

Argyll Bute Council. (2017). DRAFT - Digital Learning Strategy and Action Plan. Available: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ab/SAL/files/2017/01/ABC-Digital-Learning-Strategy-DRAFT.pdf. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Ashkenas, R. (2012). Why Teams Don’t Collaborate. Available: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronashkenas/2012/03/21/why-teams-dont-collaborate/#7e7b50c87d1e. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Buist, W. (2015). The unexpected business benefits of collaboration. Available: https://www.trainingjournal.com/articles/opinion/unexpected-business-benefits-collaboration-0. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

CIPD Staff. (2016). Digital learning factsheet. Available: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/fundamentals/people/development/digital-learning-factsheet. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Cook, S. (2016). Managing Requests For Study Leave: 7 Things PMs Need To Know. Available: http://www.firstpracticemanagement.co.uk/blog/posts/managing-requests-for-study-leave-7-things-pms-need-to-know/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

CPD UK. (unknown). Home page. Available: https://cpduk.co.uk/explained. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

External. (2015). Opinion: How often should you run employee engagement surveys?. Available: http://www.hrdmag.com.sg/opinion/opinion-how-often-should-you-run-employee-engagement-surveys-206314.aspx. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Fosway Group. (2017). Digital Learning Realities 2017. Available: http://www.fosway.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Digital-Learning-Realities-2017_Part-1.pdf. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Frost, S. (2014). How often should you conduct an employee survey?. Available: https://www.hrzone.com/engage/employees/how-often-should-you-conduct-an-employee-survey. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Godden, D. (2015). 5 Reasons to Progress from an Annual to an Always-On Employee Survey. Available: https://thymometrics.com/blog/2015/12/11/5-reasons-to-progress-from-an-annual-to-an-always-on-employee-survey/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Harris, D. (2016). How Often Should You Conduct Employee Engagement Surveys?. Available:

http://www.quantumworkplace.com/future-of-work/how-often-should-you-conduct-an-employee-survey-annually-provides-better-results. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Howes, A. (2017). Are you developing your digital skills?. Available: http://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/are-you-developing-your-digital-skills. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Karev, M. (2013). How to Write a Study Leave Letter. Available: http://www.examplesofletters.com/how-to-write-a-study-leave-letter-526/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Marrs, S; Menzel, J. (2015). How to Design an Employee Engagement Survey. Available: https://www.qualtrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Qualtrics_EBook__How_to_Design_an_Employee_Engagement_Survey.pdf. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Nicholson, L ; Ryder, J. (2016). Everything You Need To Know About ‘Always-On’ Employee Engagement. Available: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4787507105465477378. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Ng, D. (Unknown). 4 Ways to Drive Collaboration Among Departments. Available: https://www.laserfiche.com/ecmblog/4-ways-to-drive-collaboration-among-departments/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Pedley, R. (2015). Digital Learning - Buy or Develop?. Available: http://community.dpgplc.co.uk/learning-professionals/digital-learning-buy-or-develop. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Power, G. (2017). A guide to creating collaborative working cultures. Available: https://www.dpgplc.co.uk/resource/guide-creating-collaborative-working-cultures/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Pritchard, K. (Unknown). Employee engagement surveys. Available: http://www.xperthr.co.uk/good-practice-manual/employee-engagement-surveys/112854/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Suckley, L. (2017). workspace setup encourages collaboration. Available: https://www.myhrtoolkit.com/2017/07/workspace-setup-collaboration/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (Unknown). Collaboration. Available: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/collaboration.html. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (Unknown). How to create an employee engagement survey. Available: https://www.insights.com/resources/how-to-create-an-employee-engagement-survey/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (Unknown). Training and study at work: your rights. Available: https://www.gov.uk/training-study-work-your-rights/who-can-and-cant-ask-for-time-off-to-train. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (Unknown). 17 Strategies For Improving Collaboration. Available: http://www.freibergs.com/resources/articles/accountability/17-strategies-for-improving-collaboration/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (Unknown). 7 WAYS MBA STUDENTS EFFECTIVELY BALANCE WORK, LIFE & STUDY.. Available: http://www.kbs.edu.au/news-and-events/blog/7-ways-mba-students-effectively-balance-work-life-study/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (2014). What is digital learning design?. Available: https://spongeuk.com/insights/2014/09/what-is-digital-learning-design. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (2016). Pulse, pull, mood or engagement – what employee survey type do you need?. Available: https://www.etsplc.com/

pulse-pull-mood-or-engagement-what-employee-survey-type-do-you-need/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (2016). Complement annual employee surveys with strategic pulse surveys. Available: http://www.insyncsurveys.com.au/resources/articles/newsletter/2016/12/complement-annual-employee-surveys-with-strategic-pulse-surveys/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (2016). Freedom of Information (FOI) Study leave. Available: https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/studyleave. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Unknown. (2017). Size of e-learning market in 2014 and 2022 (in million U.S. dollars). Available: https://www.statista.com/statistics/501104/worldwide-elearning-market-size/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Wong, L. (2016). 9 Ways to Improve Collaboration Between Departments. Available: https://www.workzone.com/blog/9-ways-to-improve-collaboration-between-departments/. Last accessed 23rd Aug 2017.

Conclusion DPG is built on people. From its employees to each and every learner, and all the members of the DPG community. We are serious about what we do and we aspire to help you at every stage of your career in this industry. By completing research like this we are able to inform you of up to date trends and thoughts of the HR, L&D and Leadership.

What can you do now?By joining in the discussions on the DPG community and voting in the polls we hold each month, you are helping us to help you. We pride ourselves on providing thought inspiring articles and blogs and encourage you to do the same.

Bibliography

20

Authored by Lucy Bolton The Ellsmere93 Walkden RoadManchesterM28 7BQ #LOVECPD