Learning isn’t a parochial concern any more, but many organisations are struggling with the intricacies of global L&D. Fortunately, help is at hand
Sarah used to know many of her learners personally. There was Steve in sales, who had been struggling to get to grips with social media. Olivia and Priya in marketing, who’ve been highlighted as high potentials, were on a fast-track leadership development programme. Her counterparts in Asia and the US were more of a mystery.
That all changed when the success of her programmes led to calls from the management of her global FMCG business for the UK-headquartered L&D team to take on central responsibility for previously ad hoc learning programmes across the globe. Now, Sarah’s learners are in six different time zones and speak a multitude of languages. Like many other L&D professionals, she’s facing the unprecedented challenge of taking on responsibility for hundreds, possibly thousands, of new learners, with a variety of needs and cultural backgrounds, and making key decisions about where and how learning takes place.
While the idea of replicating a successful L&D programme from one country in a whole host of others is simple, translating that into reality is infinitely complex. Content designers must carefully consider which skills translate across national borders, the most appropriate delivery methods for learners who work within different cultures and, perhaps most importantly, consider just how much of an organisation’s training provision is determined centrally, and how much flexibility and responsibility should remain with individual countries.
Ruth Stuart, CIPD research adviser for L&D, believes multinational organisations are starting to develop a more sophisticated understanding of where the responsibility for L&D rests. “For example, an effective leader in the UK might be the same as an effective leader in Brazil,” she says. “But there might also be some specific cultural differences that need to be taken into account. The worst thing you can do is create something centrally that meets the needs of the country you’re based in, but has no relevance to any other countries’ needs.”
Fundamentally, says Stuart, organisations which are considering a global approach to L&D need to be doing it for the right reasons. “Rather than thinking ‘we have a successful programme in the UK, why not roll it out globally?’, they need to consider if the business needs are the same in each country and if the programme is transferable. Testing out your basic assumptions would reveal if an international approach is right for your organisation.”
Simon Watt, director, organisational development at Mattel Toys International, says poor talent pipelining built the case for developing its multinational programmes. “When I first joined, most of our top executives were hired externally. It had become difficult to move people around internally because the quality of the learning was different. You couldn’t move a UK brand manager to Argentina because things were done differently.”
A global L&D programme is the only option for development charity VSO, as it trains volunteers across the world for placements in more than 30 countries. “Because our volunteers could be based anywhere, and are usually working right up until starting their placements, it’s just not feasible to get them all in one location for face-to-face training,” says head of learning and development, Jacky King.
Even if the case for global L&D is less obvious in your organisation, there are still probably a number of areas of common ground. Watt says Mattel – which has around 30,000 full-time employees worldwide – found that a number of L&D streams could be successfully delivered globally, including leadership development, marketing and finance.
The guiding principles of such subjects translate well across national boundaries, but the context in which techniques are applied fundamentally shape their outcomes and effectiveness. The ability to understand these vital nuances rests on the ability to forge close relationships with learners on the ground, says Armi Stephanie Treñas, founder of consultancy Learning & Performance Partners Inc, who works primarily in Asia. “They provide context for your training programmes, and will help you determine the key elements that should stay consistent versus those that need to be customised to the local audiences.”
Understanding working cultures is especially important, says Treñas. “There is a risk of losing participant engagement if the training package is developed to suit a generic audience – or worse, with the corporate headquarters as the primary audience.” She cites the example of a US programme which was brought to Asia that made significant use of personal reflection and dialogue at the outset. “It failed to encourage participation because it takes Asian learners some time before they are comfortable with personal disclosure.”
There are also wider differences between working styles to consider. Employees used to working in hierarchical cultures may struggle to assert their views when collaborating with others who are used to working in a more egalitarian way. Equally, employees who are accustomed to an egalitarian environment could be seen as behaving impolitely towards peers and managers in a hierarchical setting.
Different age groups also affect how learners respond to training delivery methods. South-east Asians over 40 view learning as a social event, says Treñas, and therefore respond best to face-to-face learning. Younger employees like using mobile devices during classroom training. “It can be intimidating, and make you think they aren’t paying attention. They are just learning in a different way.”
“You do have to think about and account for the different needs of learners and their expectations,” says Stuart. “But don’t be afraid to challenge them and shake things up a bit. Be open about the style of course up front, so learners know they will have to adapt.”
E-learning such as pre-recorded videos, interactive courses and peer-to-peer video calling, has become the default option for many organisations seeking to internationalise their training. Although it makes economic sense to post a course online rather than fly delegates to a single location, it’s not without its difficulties.
“Language is key,” says Matt Fletcher, director of strategy at Atticmedia, a digital learning agency. “Will you be translating videos into multiple languages? Or will you subtitle it? Do you do some terrible dubbing that makes it feel like a 1970s kung-fu movie? What about languages that are read from right to left?”
It’s not just the mechanics of what you say; it’s vital to choose the right words, says Fletcher. He recommends ditching the jargon, and replacing words with visuals. Even then, with no language involved, there are cultural considerations to note. “For some clients, we’ve had to make sure that videos didn’t show anyone drinking alcohol, or show people’s ankles,” he says.
And once you’ve created the right range of learning programmes, it’s likely that the common problem of motivating employees to find time to learn and make the effort to connect with peers is magnified by geographical distance.
“We find online courses works better if we structure them as facilitated self-study,” says King, who has overseen the development of VSO’s award-winning suite of online learning tools, including ‘Global Jams’ discussion forums. “We invite learners to join a particular cohort that is taking this training programme, starting on this day. The programmes start with a webinar, followed by self-study.”
This structure, says King, not only helps volunteers to build a support network, it aids their focus. “We find totally self-directed study doesn’t work. A lot of people would like to, but often in the real world they find they can’t actually do it.”
If creating your own globally applicable L&D tools from scratch is too difficult, you could work with a supplier who’s done all the cross-cultural legwork for you. TeliaSonera, a telecoms firm based in Stockholm, Sweden, uses the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Team Performance Diagnostic (TPD) to assess managers’ performance in countries ranging from Norway to Nepal.
“It’s a really useful input into what managers need to work on for their personal development, says Noëlle Moe, leadership and learning project manager, group HR. “Managers’ direct reports index their performance on things such as leadership, trust and morale. This gives managers a clear idea of what they are strong at and what they need to work on, and is a foundation for further training and discussion with their own managers.”
Local coaching that supports global experiential learning is really important, to help learners apply their new knowledge to day-today situations, and to create a higher degree of cultural awareness and sensitivity.
Just as coaching can help ‘close the loop’ for learners, so L&D professionals must ensure they receive plenty of feedback. Watt has a small team of regional managers in Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific who he describes as “my eyes and ears on the ground… they travel extensively, building relationships with businesses and feed back on where the organisations are going.” This, he says, enables the team to identify high-level L&D trends that need to be fulfilled globally, whether they are sales or digital skills.
“You need to be effective at building relationships remotely, whether that’s with a local HR or L&D team, or directly with the business,” agrees Stuart. “With the technology that’s available now, it’s definitely doable. But it does take effort, and in some countries there may be more weight attached to face-to-face contact.”
If your organisation is operating in multiple countries, it’s inevitable that one day soon you’ll be tasked with adding a global spin to your programmes. But why wait until then to make the change? “If you try and figure out the perfect solution, you’ll be waiting a year and by the time you deliver it, it’ll be obsolete anyway,” says Watt. “At Mattel, our attitude is: fail fast and small and adapt now, rather than fail later in a big way.”
Learn more about Mattel’s programme in the forthcoming CIPD report L&D: Evolving roles, enhancing skills, which will be available later in April at cipd.co.uk/research
Get ready for the CIPD L&D Show
The 2015 Learning and Development Show in London on 13-14 May explores key issues facing the profession, from curating collaborative knowledge sharing to the application of gamification techniques to L&D. For more information, visit cipd.co.uk/events/learning-development-show