Bite-sized training
Dear clients,
At this time of year, we can only reflect on the year
that was - and plan for the year ahead, based on
some of the predictions that we make.
At LeMaSa we highly recommend the predictions made
by Josh Bersin, one of the most reputable talent
management researchers in the world. He is going to
present a webinar on his predictions for 2013 on
10 January. He begins to describe next year as follows:
“54% of companies are highly concerned about their
global leadership pipelines. Driven by social technologies,
organizations have become highly flattened and it
is now estimated that as many as 40% of all employees
work part time or on a contract basis. Business speed
requires agility, and in order to create organizational
agility the people strategies must be right. We believe
these changes are creating what we call the
“New HR Organization” – one which is an integrated part
of the business. This “New HR Organization” is globally
integrated, operates locally, and is powered by highly
skilled HR professionals and business partners. It functions
on data and drives managers to make data-driven decisions.
It uses integrated self-service technology and spends
its time focused on leadership development, talent
assessment, culture, and has a firm grasp on the business’s
current talent and future needs.”
In this edition of the LeMaSa Chronicle we briefly
discuss the concept of bite-sized training, as well as informal
learning.
We trust that you will have a relaxing Summer break and
wish you all the best for 2013!
Warm regards
Sandra Schlebusch

These are excerpts from an article in the UK Guardian. The full article can be accessed at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2003/oct/11/workandcareers.jobsandmoney1
The fast pace of work and the tremendous pressure put on employees to deliver makes training of even just one day too long for most employees. To address this, the company called Mind Gym introduced the concept of "bite-size training", which aims to offer participants the chance to learn more effectively over a much shorter period, removing the need for travel, reducing costly down-time away from work and bringing a tightly-focused approach to skills development.
Succinct and punchy, this type of training in easily - digestible chunks is now rapidly taking off, with a number of companies offering a diverse range of topics typically condensed down to 60-90 minute sessions.
"The academic case for bite-size is that the learning is distributed," says Mr Bailey (Product Director of The Mind Gym). "Little and often, rather than a big session occasionally... just like it's better to go to the gym twice a week for a short session than it is to go to a health-farm for a week once a year."
Professor Guy Claxton of Bristol University's Graduate School of Education is an expert on the psychology of how people learn, and acts as a consultant to training companies in developing their teaching methods.
He explains that "our society has a very deep cultural assumption that understanding is crucial to performance, that comprehension precedes competence - however there's quite a lot of empirical evidence to show that this isn't the case.”
"A lot of companies act as if rational learning is what makes a difference. Actually, most people know that it's often not - and dramatic moments or intuitive insights may make more of a difference to how we act."
At Learnflow, a company that specifically offers bespoke training to address individual business needs, director Monica Hernanz points out that because people's attention spans are limited, longer courses can lose their effectiveness as training fatigue sets in.
"Say you had a whole day's training of eight hours covering several topics. By the time you've reached the end, you're tired, you've got an information overload. I don't think that our brains are used to work in the way that a long course demands - our brain is used to a variety of activities. If, instead, you chose to dedicate a separate, short session to each of those different topics, each time you meet the participants, their level of attention will be extremely high."
LeMaSa has been offering bite-sized training for the past four years in the form of our mini-modules (refer to our catalogue) and individual tutoring. The clients who used this service expressed satisfaction with the transfer of the skills to the work situation.