Acceptance Insurance

Susan Keehley

Companies thrive when they recognize the crucial role of having highly capable employees in their ranks. By having talented L&D professionals seated and engaged at the decision table, companies can tap into their expertise to empower employees for enhanced personal and work satisfaction, and performance. These professionals contribute significantly to all aspects of enabling individuals to reach their full potential, helping to create a thriving and dynamic work environment. A full partnership with L&D can unlock the full potential of an organization’s workforce to achieve remarkable success. One L&D role that may be sitting in your wallet is the Instructional Designer who can help you build culture, advocate brand, and strengthen organizational capabilities. So open your capabilities wallet and take a look at an undiscovered or under-utilized role in your organization.

An Instructional Designer (ID) might be found in different slots of a wallet but three ways to fully enable the ID role include:

1. Hiring well and letting them do what they do best

2. Providing standards with an ID’s input, and structure to move through their processes

3. Getting to know your instructional designers and understand their needs

How do you attract and select high performing Instructional Designers?

Keep in mind that most instructional designers have a portfolio of work samples or courses available to review.  These courses demonstrate a designer’s ability to produce from simple courses using a template, to more sophisticated techniques for retention and outcomes, or advanced immersive learning experiences.

" These courses demonstrate a designer’s ability to produce from simple courses using a template, to more sophisticated techniques for retention and outcomes, or advanced immersive learning experiences "

Here are a few suggestions which have resulted in strong ID hires.

• Iterative job descriptions and planned development for future skills- L&D nomenclature changes and using outdated terms in job descriptions when recruiting becomes unattractive to more experienced ID candidates. This role is becoming more technical with specialized skills such as learning architecture, prompt engineer, etc. The L&D leader is most useful in this area when they understand what IDs really can do to impact the learning process and obtain outcomes that enhance performance.  IDs don’t just add content to a library or create an inert knowledge bank; they create positive learning experiences that change behavior and result in new and improved skills. 

• Interviews, demos, and portfolios- many resumes reflect that the candidate has an understanding of adult learning principles, but can they apply them?  Ask for examples of how they applied the principles to their work.

• If you have a trained eye look for things like branding, background, or content that relates to the stated audience.

• If you’re not skilled at assessing a portfolio, perhaps ask the candidate to explain how they have created relevancy in their training.

• If you complete their sample course and it helps you solve the problem presented in their training you may want to consider that ability as advanced; worth more compensation if they do it well and quickly.

• Project management skills help balance creativity, technical, and tasks necessary to meet deadlines.

• If an L&D leader is unable to assess a portfolio include other designers. Maybe make this a common practice during the interview process.

How do you create space for creativity, and structure for timeliness?

Do you have a culture of collaboration and learning that embraces change?  High performing ID’s flourish when they have autonomy to create and work through their processes. Well-made courses require collaboration from SMEs, content owners, and yes, stakeholders.  So, surround the designer with resources, tools, and people who are assessable and invested in the training outcomes. Then allow the designer to ask the questions they need answered to help them design. A good designer will engage others at specific times during their process to gather the details they need. More success has come from designers owning their process rather than folks dictating modalities and layouts. Having a Governance document has allowed for faster onboarding and clarity around responsibilities, branding guidelines, tool settings, and expectations.  Include input from an ID who demonstrates a curiosity and hunger to find new ways to accomplish better training. Tools can change in about a year so an ID provides perfect insights for best practices to include in the governance document.     

If your company prioritizes learning and development, culture and collaboration wouldn’t it make sense to drop by and meet your instructional designers?  Afterall, they are the talent that helps builds the capabilities you’re wanting to develop. The Instructional Designer isn’t a single fix for all organizational performance or capabilities, but if you consider that learning is driven by problems that need solving (Jonassen) then you may want to look more closely at this role and how it impacts organizational capabilities.  So maybe stop by, or drop in, and ask an ID to show you a few triggers and variables. Discover what’s in your wallet.