Bologna Sandwich or New York Strip – What Would your Learners Prefer?

Forgive the food analogy. It’s nearing the lunch hour and I’ve spent most of my evenings this week watching the Food Network Star marathon.

Let’s face it, without learner engagement the goals of a training initiative will not be met. In the corporate training industry we’ve been faced with a colossal challenge: to successfully engage a new generation of learners. This new generation, often called the MTV generation, lean towards the ADD side of the learner spectrum. The MTV generation expects the fast-paced, high-quality visual elements in company training that they’ve become accustomed to on TV, online, and even in their K-12 education materials.

I’ve noticed a strong similarity between the way Food Star contestants must create beautiful plates that entice their audience (hungry food critics) and the way that training consultants must create beautiful training to engage learners. This can be a complex challenge when the ingredients in a dish are completely unappetizing, and alone will fall flat on the palate (see compliance training).

At Allen, I‘ve learned to appreciate the strategy and effort that our training consultants and instructional designers put into making training palatable. Allen, long recognized for our instructionally sound training methods, is also now being recognized for providing stunning, movie and video game industry-quality training and interactions, designed to keep learners engaged. This year alone, we’ve won multiple Telly awards. One of those training awards was for the introductory segment for RMA Ethics training.

Food Star hopefuls and instructional designers both must balance two critical components to create winning products. In addition to plating food superbly, it has to taste incredible. At Allen, we have over 30 years of experience creating corporate training that is instructionally sound. We continue to receive recognition for our custom content development created to meet the business needs of our clients. This year we’ve been named one of TrainingIndustry.com’s Top 20 Content Development Companies and as a Bersin & Associates Learning Leader.

In short, we work up a sweat daily in our kitchen creating training that boasts not just the sizzle, but the steak and that fancy gruyere sauce too…