This meeting is being recorded. Hello and welcome to today's webinar. Our speaker today is Franz Below from Typhoon. Before I turn it over to him, I'd like to let those of you who are live with us know that you may submit questions during the webinar via the Q&A tab at the bottom of the screen. This webinar will also be recorded so that you may watch or re-watch on demand at your convenience. With that, I'll turn it over to Franz. Thank you, Liz. I appreciate that, and thank you to AED for allowing me to share some thoughts this morning about a little bit of what's going on in the marketplace today. I think that all of us are experiencing a little shortage of skill sets, shortage of staff, as well as shortage of materials. So there are different ways to handle this, right? And one of which is to have what – I mean, it's to consider the resources that we have and help them become more productive, the human resources that we have. So what I'm going to focus my remarks today will be what do we do about the – what do we do to shrink the skills gap that our employees, the one that we've – whether they're new employees or whether they're employees that has been there for so long, and then you have new technologies and you want – or processes, and you want to shrink that? And also, how do we take the institutional knowledge that so many of you and so many of your employees have? So we're going to talk a little bit about microlearning technologies and how this can help you in shrinking the skills gap and also making sure that you're transferring the institutional knowledge to the new people that you're hiring or to preserve some of the great practices that some of your employees that are leaving the workforce had. We just want to make sure that we pass that on to the next generation. So let's begin. Like Liz said, my name is France Belot, and I'm the president and founder of Typhoon. And what Typhoon is is a training and communication platform. So let's now jump into the – what's going on right now. So that was in 2018. I've not been able to find a more recent, but you can tell that the numbers have increased. But in 2018, the gap between the skills, employees, and the skills that are needed in the workplace was costing the U.S. around $60 billion. In other words, the employees that we have, not all of them, but some of them, where we want them to be in terms of skill sets, it's – there's definitely a gap there. And to get them to that point, or when they don't even get to that point, it's costing us a lot of money. And I'm sure that some of you may already know that or are experiencing it. So here are the realities that we're facing right now. And it's become more acute in the last few months, in the last two years, is that we have an older workforce that are retiring. And I was reading an article the other day, and I think they call it the Great Resignation, where you have 4.5 million of people that are walking away from their jobs. I've wondered where exactly they're going. I don't know, but that's something that's concerning to see what will happen with all of the services that we provide with the shortage of skilled workers. And also, another thing to consider is that the training that's taking place in the workforce right now, we're using an antiquated way of training people. Or I should say we're not using the latest and greatest technology to make sure that people retain information and overcome what we call or what the psychologists will call the forgetting curve. And also, some people are experiencing the fact that they want training, but they can't get training at the right time. And they don't have time to go into the office, get into a cubicle and watch a video. When they want some information, they'd like to have it at their fingertips so that they can review and get the work done. If you look at the graph, you can tell what's happening here with the labor force participation. And then you can see the decrease that's happening. You see, for instance, in 2021, a little bit past 2021, there's been a great decline from men that are 55 through 59. And then you have in 2021 for women, you have also there's been a decline, meaning that some of those great people that have contributed so much are moving on to other areas of interest. And it's not the workforce as we know it. So it's a reality that we have to face. Let's move forward. A lot of people, what they've done is that they've tried to come up with incentives, right, to make sure that the older workforce sticks around because their knowledge base is so rich, and they've acquired a lot of experience by their sheer talent or grit, and at the same time, the great effort that they've made in the workplace. So some strategies are good. Some of them, as I said, you provide incentives, competitive salaries, promotions, and others also try to record. Some companies will try to record the institutional knowledge. The way they do this is that they establish mentoring programs, or they try to capture some key information. They either record the person or they write down those best practices, and they try to pass that on to the rest of the employees who may not be as experienced. So we now move to why it's so important to do that, right? It's really hard to lose somebody that knows a lot, and I'm sure that you would approve of that and that you've experienced this. Let me just give you, to you, the statistics, and I'm going to read those because I want to use the exact language. It says 42% of the skills required to perform a task will be known only by the person assigned to do that particular task, 42%, folks. So you can imagine what's happening with the 58% of the skill sets. Another thing to keep in mind, it says on an average, new hire will spend almost 200 hours working inefficiently, and what we mean by this is asking, doing trial and error because they don't want to ask, reinventing the wheel, and in what your experience is that the projects are stalled or not well done. Now we're looking at 22 hours. So if we have a normal work week, I say normal, but some of you will laugh at that, but let's say that a normal work week is 40 hours. We're talking about five weeks before we can see a little bit of effectiveness or efficiency if we don't find a way to make sure that the knowledge has been transferred. Then lastly, 63% of employees would like to work in an organization where knowledge is preserved. This is a great way to increase employment engagement. You can imagine, folks, of what happens when you go to a company, maybe you've experienced this. I certainly have experienced it in my career. When I went to a job, I remember I was working for a company called Imagine Learning. It was an education technology company, and as soon as I got there, my manager, Darren Hill, I'll never forget that, basically put me through a series of onboarding processes so that I would know exactly what my job is, and I would know what my predecessors have done prior to me coming into the workplace. So that helped me or propelled me in the organization fairly fast because the institutional knowledge was there. That can happen in any workplace if you have something in place. So let's now jump in the shortage of skilled workers. And no worries, I want you to know that we will have time to talk about solutions there. But let's review the realities that we're all facing. Now the reason for that, we've already said it, the older generation is basically moving forward onto other opportunities. We're retiring baby boomers. Employees entering the workforce, they're not as interested in the manual work. Right now, I'm in Utah, and we have a place called Silicon Valley, about 35 miles north of where I'm located at this time, and we have multiple universities around. It's a university town where I reside. And one of the things that we've observed is that many of the youth, I call them youth because I'm an old guy, but many of the younger generation, they want to be able to go to a computer-type related work where they can sit at a desk and then use technology. That's what they're used to, and that's what they want. So some of them are not interested in the manual work that's needed, that's extremely needed to keep the roads, to maintain the roads, to build solid residential buildings and homes and plumbing and so forth. Some of those youth are not interested in that. So that's creating a problem for fields that require a lot of manual work. So the growing tech and healthcare industry, as I mentioned, if you look at the graph on the right on this presentation, you'll see that healthcare has about 20 million, and that was again 2018. I'm sure that this has changed a little. The tech services, over 9 million, construction, 6 million, mining and quarrying, about 600 and 5,000 individuals working there. You could see that where people are gravitating, they're gravitating towards the tech and healthcare industries. So let's move on to the next one. So now let's talk a little bit about the solutions of this, right? How do we overcome the skill gap, meaning getting our people to a place where they can be extremely efficient in the workplace and really impact the bottom line? The other is how do we really make sure that we maintain and save the institutional knowledge? And once we have that, how do we do this in a way that's really going to make an impact in the workplace and also in the lives of our employees? So there are multiple things, right? We can be involved in creative recruiting. What I mean by this is that we can go basically to schools, colleges, that could be one of the creative recruiting. We can help people understand the richness of work that may be manual, but there's a lot of promotion that can come through that, a lot of understanding in the marketplace. So we can help the next or rising generation understand the impact and the need for professions or industries that are highly manual, because we all enjoy good roads. So somebody has to work and make sure they maintain those roads or build those roads. So that understanding may help some of the rising generation in selecting the professions that require manual labors. The next one is partnership with schools, and I've talked a little bit about this. And one thing to consider, back in the day, I remember going to work and it was, we valued the fact that you'd get there at maybe 8 o'clock or 7 o'clock in the morning, and you'd take maybe a 30-minute lunch, and then after this, you stay there for about till 6, 6, 7 p.m. This was valued, at least back in the day for me, where if you wanted to get ahead of the game or to move up in the organization, you needed to do some type of sacrifice of your time. Well, I don't know if it's COVID that did this, but definitely this mentality has changed. People are looking for work-life balance. And I know some people are saying the pendulum has completely swung to an extreme. That's a discussion for another time. But nonetheless, the reality is that the new workers, even the older ones now, are demanding a work-life balance, which means that coming extremely early or leaving late in the workplace is not as attractive as it used to be. In fact, what's attractive is the strict 40 hours, and instead of 30-minute lunch, the one-hour lunch, and instead of having to work in on-site every single day, also one of the things that the new workforce is asking is to be able to work from home. So we now have to adjust to that. And whatever the organization that you're in, I'm hoping that you're having those types of conversations because the reality is, and I know I'm using that word a lot, but it is, the reality is that if you don't provide the work-life balance, the shortest that we're already experiencing, you'll only feel it, but some of the employees that you have will start looking for a place that they can experience that work-life balance. Something also that keeps great, great employees engaged, and that is a company that has an incredible culture, and you define this as you will, but an incredible culture and professional growth. The employees now want to know that they are going to go to the workplace and they are going to grow professionally. And that doesn't always mean that they want to be the manager, they want to be the VP, they want to be the senior VP, or eventually the president, chief executive officer, and so on. What that means is that some of them want greater knowledge, the ability to do their work more efficiently. So professional growth has different meaning. The key there is to make sure that you find out what the meaning is for the employees. And as usual, money is very important. The attractive benefits, and it may be more than that. Some people give paternity leaves and maternity leaves and so forth. Those are the top or 401k matches and so on. People really are attracted to what we call bennies or benefits. Let's move forward here. So let's talk more about the professional growth. Again, I'm not talking about strictly the growth that takes place in terms of moving from one position to another one and achieving the top position in the company. A lot of professional growth or personal growth deals with feeling competent that you can do the job and that you can do it well in a shorter time. So the responsibilities of managers is to help each of their employees, and I maintain this. I mean, I feel so strongly about this, that it's to make sure that they help their employees grow, understand what that means to them, and help them create a path so that they can move forward. In terms of retention, I can tell you that it's one of the highest and maybe one or number two of why employees will stay engaged in the workplace is if they feel that they're growing. So notice here that teams that are engaged will experience, will help companies experience a 21% greater profitability. And when an employee is engaged, when they're really engaged or when they're all in and focused on the work that they're doing, it says here that the teams who score in the top 20% in engagement realize 41% reduction in absenteeism and 59% less turnover. Why? Because they're engaged and they feel that they're growing, right? So I'm now gonna change gear and we're gonna now dig in into the learning aspect of this all. We're gonna talk a little bit about what accelerate learning and what slows down learning. And to give you kind of a context for that is that some companies believe that learning just happens naturally. And I'm here to say that learning happens intentionally, meaning that you have got to put some effort to make sure that you have a great learning or if you will, training program within your organization. If you want to keep your employees, if you want them to grow and if you want your bottom line to increase. Because a lot of us, we want our bottom line to increase but we don't wanna put the investment on the human resources, the human capital so that they can help in the work and accomplishing and helping the company grow. So what slows learning down? Let's go to it. There are multiple things but I'm gonna focus on the lack of engagement and poor training. Lack of engagement and poor training are one of the top two things that literally will slow down learning. What I mean by this is that you may have a great, absolutely great training program and you've put a lot of resources but if the employees do not feel a connection to the material or to the people that are presenting, they will not acquire the knowledge base that you want them to have. And that's what I mean by the lack of engagement. Now, when I talk about poor training and we'll talk a little bit more about this, we know that not all training is created equal. Some trainers do an excellent job as conveying a message. Other trainers, you walk out of there and you think to yourself, well, that was a waste of time. I'm hoping by the way that by the time that we're done here you won't say that this hour spent with me was a waste of time. If it is, you need to get in touch with me so I can do much better. But the training is so important folks of making sure that you're providing the right training, using the right technologies and making sure that you are pushing the information where it is most likely to be used. So I will repeat that again, push the information or the training information where it is most likely to be used. So lack of engagement, does that sound familiar? I mean, I've experienced this. I'm sure you've experienced this, whether it's in the field, whether it's in an office. I mean, this is pretty dramatic, but at least you'll have one or two or three people in a meeting that sometimes you'll completely lose because they're not engaged. Now you can imagine what's happening here, right? Here's the trainer or the person making the presentation and he's prepared and then this is what he gets. Nobody's really retaining or even connecting to the information. So one of the problems for that, and let me say it, one of the problems for poor training is the length of the training. Let me repeat that again. One of the major problems of poor training is the length of the training. The longer your training is, and I'm gonna show you some research, the less effective the training will be. The reason being is that our attention span has decreased and continues to decrease, but more than this, just like all professionals, we have multiple information that we're juggling in our minds. And while we can stay focused for a short period of time, then eventually what happens is that some other thoughts creep in into our minds and then we start thinking about it. Case in point, during this presentation, some of you may already be experiencing this, right? You basically are listening, but you have so many other things that's going on in your mind as well that you come in and out of the presentation. Again, I know that this is not a training, this is simply a webinar, some sharing of information, but the concept is very clear for the training. What happens today in the companies of the world is that they have what we call an LMS, and you all know that it's a learning management system where they use to deliver training, or they have in-person, or they give a lecture. So let's talk a little bit about the learning management system, or LMS. The learning management system, or LMS, has been around for decades, and it was originally one of the main reasons that the learning management system was created was to be applied in a school setting, in an education setting. Well, if you go in an education setting, most people are at a desk and they're sitting down and their purpose of going to the educational institution, their purpose to go to the educational institution is to basically learn, and that's what they do day in and day out. In the workplace, so we've transferred that tool that was extremely effective in higher ed institution, and also K through eight institution to have a great learning management system, and then we've pushed that into the workplace. Well, you can see a few problems there. First of all, when you go at work, you're not going into an educational institution, you're going into the workplace to provide a service using your skill sets. So the time to sit down in front of a learning management system is not seen as effective. Don't get me wrong, there's value to it, but I'm sharing with you the major problem with that approach of using learning management system. It's too long. It takes too long when there's so many things that the employees are trying to get done and that you are compensating them to get done. So the question is then, what do you use to push information that can be to push standardized information that everybody gets the right content, and so that they can also make sure that they remember the content or that information, the knowledge is transferred into their minds and it will be applied in the workplace. So how do we tackle this problem? Well, so to do that, we have to understand what happens in the minds, and those are research-based. So I'm gonna give you an example of videos or when you're on a computer learning for when you're doing a specific training. I want you to look at the graphs real quick. The black line represents content that's between 45 to 60 minutes, okay? You can see that the longer the content on the left-hand side, the less the engagement happens, right? You can see when the information is shortened, one to two minutes or four to five, the more people stay engaged. Let me give you an example. Back in some time ago, a few years ago, I was driving a Volvo and for whatever reason, I was getting a lot of mechanical issues with it. It was an old car. So I remember I would go, I would try to go fix it myself because when I would go to the shop, it was too expensive and I couldn't afford it. So I would go to YouTube and look at how to change a few things in the car or how to replace some parts. Obviously, I was given multiple choices when I just would put change lights. Well, what do you think I chose? What do you think I chose in terms of length of the videos? I'm sure the answer is that you chose the shortest one and the answer is right. You are totally correct. I chose the shortest one because I wanted to take less time and be able to get back and fix the problem that my Volvo was getting fixed. I dare say that many of you, when you go look for information on YouTube, you try to find the shortest video, especially when it is to get something done or replace something or repair something. Let's go to another one. So a name to remember, so kind of an interesting name is Herman Ebengas. And he talked about the forgetting curve and that's something that we all need to know about. The forgetting curve is very simple. Over time, you will forget the information that has been with you, 90% or 80% of the information, particularly if the presentation was very lengthy, if the training was very lengthy, you will retain maybe 10%, maybe 5%. That is something that happens to everyone, except those that may have some incredible memories. But for us normal folks, it happens to kids, happens to adults. If you go for a training that's really long, over time, give it about 30 days and you'll remember maybe 5%, 10%, especially if you didn't use the information. So why? Again, there's in the beginning, over in the beginning, your recall is maybe 100%, meaning that after the training, you may recall probably 100% of the information. As time goes on, 31 days, 21%, 10%, even 5%. So now what do we do to accelerate? What do we do to fix that problem of lengthy training? Because the question that you may be asking is, okay, Franz, then what do I do? How do I provide the training? All training are lengthy. And I'm like, yes, they are lengthy, but it's how you deliver it that's the difference. So let's talk a little bit about this. To understand this is that we have to go back to the adult learning principles. I'm sure you've learned that at school or somebody has shared that with you. Let me just go quickly over this. Most adults, this doesn't reflect 100% of adult, I'd be lying if I said this, but a lot of us, this is a pattern that we follow. Most adults are problem-oriented people. We like to solve problems in the workplace. We like to have experiences. We have to have experiences under our belt. We are also internally motivated. We want to do things. Most of us, when we go to our workplace, we want to perform, we're being paid for it. And we wanna make sure that we bring value to the company, to our managers and so on, and definitely to our families as well. Then the next thing to consider is that adults are ready to learn and they are self-directed, which is a straight correlation with being internally motivated. So this is the adult learning principle. So why do I bring this up? If you understand this, then you can create training that will address some, if not all of those adult learning principles. Training should invite people to be self-directed. There should be some type of a problem in the training that you will ask your employees to solve. This will give them experience over time. If you reward them, they are also going to be excited and that can also internally motivate them. I know that external motivations help, but also the fact that as human beings, we want to produce, we want to perform, and obviously we are ready to learn. So how does the learning take place and how does the transfer of practical knowledge takes place? This is what we call the packed learning cycle. I did not invent this. So this is something that you can search and research even more if you want to. In some instances, people use different words, but it's exactly the same. Let's go about through the packed learning cycle. Now, this is how people retain information. When I was doing my doctoral degree in education, I spent a lot of time researching how can you teach people better? How do they retain information? And how do you ensure that they can apply what they're learning? Well, the packed learning cycle explains that phenomenon. And we're gonna start with the first one that says, procure knowledge or ability. Nobody can work in a vacuum. If you're asking me to build a residential building or to repair roads, I'm going to have to procure the knowledge on how to do that and also be trained on how to do that. Then once I get the information, I'm going to go out there and apply the information, which is extremely important. I'm gonna apply the information and then I'm going to see what the application looks like. Let's just say that I am a teacher. I have learned on how to teach middle school students. I go into the class and once I've learned how to do this, I apply what I've learned and I observe my students and notice that none of them seem engaged or none of them seem to be understanding what I'm saying. So this is what we mean by considering. Evaluate and assess. Assess, I should say. Assess what's going on and then make the transformation or adjustment or modification so that you can get additional information. Apply it again, evaluate, modify and move forward. This is what we're talking about about the learning cycle. That's when information will actually stay. When you give knowledge, you apply knowledge, you evaluate the knowledge, I mean the application and then you make modification and round we go. And then your mind goes so quickly, sometimes you will do this in five minutes and you won't even realize it. Sometimes it'll take you a little bit more time because the problem may be a little bit more complex. But this is the way that we retain information and gain experience over time. So what we want to do and what would I encourage you to do is to flip the forgetting curve. Meaning that instead of bombarding people with information all at once, why don't you provide them with small bits of information, small bites of information, but do it on a consistent cadence or consistently over time. So to explain that again, you literally what you're doing is that I'm going to go back to the forgetting curve. This is the forgetting curve right here as you can see. What's happened is that people have bombarded the information, the information that they've asked and then you could see over time that this is literally, literally that information is being forgotten. Here, we're saying do the opposite. Give them small bites of information, but do it consistently, multiple attempts. And over time, the retention and the transfer of knowledge will increase significantly. What does that look like? Well, it looks like micro-learning and that's why I was sharing in the beginning. It's to use micro-learning technologies or technologies that will enable you to consistently send bursts of information on demand and push bursts of information so that people can learn and apply that information. So let's talk a little bit about microlearning. Some of you are very well versed in this but let's just talk about a little bit what it is that that I'm that I'm talking about when I say microlearning. All it is they're just small learning of their small learning units that's all it is or burst of information if you will. So in 1963 that term or that conversation was already talked about and then in the 1990s because of e-learning because of what was going on on the internet people started thinking how can I use microlearning to make sure or small learning units to make sure that I can get that to my folks. Then something happened okay then something happened that was wonderful and that is the iPhone or the smartphone but it was really the iPhone. So on June 29th 2007 the iPhone was released. All of a sudden the thought of getting information into somebody's hands as opposed to having to sit down at a desk became possible. All of a sudden people started realizing that you can literally provide a full-on training on a smartphone but we needed to realize also that the smartphone functionalities and the learning apps really is what advanced the learning on the go concept. So for instance when I say functionalities I'll give you one example. One of the functionality of a smartphone is that you get to get to receive notifications right. It just comes and it says on Twitter so-and-so said this or on Facebook so-and-so posted this. So those notification grabs our attention and some people may become addicted to it but they grab our attention and then if we want to know more all we do is to tap on that notification it opens a page and all of a sudden we have access to the information that we're looking for. That simple functionality was critical to improve the effectiveness of the training that takes place on smartphones. Let me continue. So why is microlearning so good and I'm going to read those because it's so important to understand why it is so good to start thinking and delivering training through microlearning. Immediate results. Effective microlearning enables someone to quickly close a small knowledge or skill gap. Remember that in the beginning I was talking about the shortage of staff and also the skill gaps that we have with the people that we're able to employ. Imagine if you had a way for them as soon as they get into the workplace to send them targeted content or customized content that they need to know in the first 30 days of their employment. Imagine sending them that type of information on a regular cadence. Imagine sending them not hours of training but two minutes every day. See what happens. What happens, what will happen is that the information will stick because of the cadence, the fact that they're receiving that information on a regular basis. Which means that microlearning or small learning units are not as effective if you do it only once. It needs to be delivered on a consistent basis. So let's go to the next one. Diverse formats, micro content. For both unstructured and structured learning, microlearning has the potential for using a very blended approach to instruction. What that means is that you can use this type of training in so many different ways. A blended approach usually refers to using technology and then using let's say in-person training. Let me give you a way on how this would work. We do at times, we must at times, right? We must make sure that our folks are trained. Granted sometimes the training will take four hours, sometimes it may take a day, sometimes it may take a week or two weeks in person. When that happens, because it has to happen at times, I get it. When that happens, what this is saying is that use microlearning. So marry the two, the training and then the microlearning. Marry them together so that once we're done with the two-week training, you can drip information so that the employees remember what they learn during that intense week of onboarding. Because most of us will forget, as I shared with you in the beginning, because of the forgetting curve, we will forget what we've learned. However, if you marry that with small bits of information, they will learn. Because, the third bullet point, people typically process around four bits of information at a time. It's easier for a learner to achieve success from a short learning intervention and retention. And lastly, something that's very important is the fast-paced culture. Microlearning enables you to create content very quickly. You don't have to have a full production. You can literally take a phone and then say, Jim or Natalie, could you show how you fill out this form? And then you take a phone and then you quickly record that. Because of the credibility of Natalie, because of the credibility of someone else, you can literally capture that information and then distribute it or push it to the workforce that you need to actually understand those things. So, how do you engage a dynamic workforce? Well, you personalize learning with relevant content. Right now, I am one of the things that I do in the organization is that I create relationships with associations. I also provide webinars. I also attend other meetings with our sales team. And so, those are the functions that I do here in this position. Well, you can... And also, I try to see what's coming up in terms of training. And I do a lot of research out there to just make sure that we are providing the best of the best in the marketplace. So, then what type of information that's relevant to me? Oh, I want to learn about leadership. And I also want to understand how to better manage teams. I want to understand how to create stronger relationships. I want to understand how to persuade people. I want to understand how to figure out what is best for our customers and whether it's our product or something else and to be honest about it and then suggest that they find a different solution. So, all of that information is very, very important to me. So, what do I do? Then in my... The software, the app that we use, basically, the Typhoon app sends me that information on a regular basis. It sends me a notification and says, Franz, today you're going to learn about how to manage effective teams. I tap on the... Excuse me. I tap in the information and then I watch a video and then I'm asked three questions so that I can really understand what it is that I've watched. That engages me. And I dare say that if you were to do something similar, something that's relevant to your work, it would engage you. So, the second bullet point, you send out core knowledge via bite-size of information. Then the second one, and you give access to an on-demand content. If you look at the images on the right-hand side of this slide, there are a lot of things that you can provide to your workforce. You can send them and you should push them some bite-size information, whether it's documents, whether they're documents, whether they're videos, whether they're PowerPoint presentations, as long as it's short. When I say short, folks, I'm talking about one to two minutes. And you're saying, you may still say to your mind, that's not possible. And I'm saying, yes, it is possible. Yes, it is happening. Yes, you have thousands of people using it. And yes, those people are experiencing a higher level of retention and application in the workplace. Now, let me go back to the right-hand side here. Not only you put information, that's, you push information, but you also have to provide people a library that they can carry with them. A library that they can carry with them, a library of best practices. Well, where can they get that? They can get that in their smartphone. They can get that on an app that basically captures all of the best practices, whether it's videos, whether it's forms, whether it's emergency contacts, whatever it is, they can carry this on the smartphone. So at any given time, if I am having a conversation or I'm about to have a conversation with one of the people that I manage here at Typhoon, I can literally go right here on my phone and then go to my library and say how to solve problem when somebody wants a raise. And it's a two-minute video that I'm going to review, answer the questions, and will remind me of some of the things that I need to do. If I want to read more, then I go back to my library. So all I'm saying, folks, is that provide your employees with the tools that they can get on-demand content at the place that they need it most. And of course, you verify comprehension. And the way you verify comprehension is to make sure that you have the right questions, not academic questions, but more practical questions. This is what we call learning at the point of need, what I've been describing. Again, in that image, somebody who needed to know something very quickly moved themselves into a very safe place and are looking at the video or the content so that they can apply it as soon as possible. Retention increase the most when you learn at the point of needs. When you want to get something done, that is when you're ready to learn, and that is when you most likely will retain that information. Well, that being the case, provide people with the technology so that they can get the information at the point of need on a smartphone. So the question that we now ask ourselves is, why do we persist in doing things that do not work? And if you remember our good friend, Albert Einstein, that says insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So my invitation to all of you today is to make sure that you don't fall into the category of insane people, which they do the same thing over and over and they expect different training results. They will continue to have people come to a room for an hour or two and train him and give him no micro information in the coming weeks or months and expect our folks to remember things. They also will say, no, I don't believe that you need information at the point of need. I don't believe that you need a library of best practices. Well, the best practices, if you remember, come from the institutional knowledge. All of you have some wonderful information that you can create small bites of a video, I would say, and then create a library of the best practices. And it doesn't have to be a major production. You can literally use a smartphone. If you need help to talk a little bit more about this, you can contact me and I can walk you through this or a member of my team can walk you through that. But what I can tell you is this. Moving forward, if any of the things that I said made sense, may I suggest the following so that you don't fall into the category of insane people. If you want to continue to provide the long trainings because you feel it's necessary in the workplace, I would say, great, continue to do that. But please marry it with micro learning, meaning that create bits of information from the long and lengthy trainings that you're doing, and then push that on a regular basis and then create a library for your folks so that their skill gaps can shrink and so that they can also retain the information. I want to thank every single one of you for listening. I know that we're coming to an end of this presentation. Again, I want to thank Liz and her team and AD for allowing me to share that information with you. You have my email address here. If you have any questions, you can also call me, leave me a message. I'm a lot like you. If somebody calls me and I don't recognize the phone, that's actually my cell number. I give it to my friends, but I'll give it to you. If I don't recognize the phone number, I will not answer. If you can leave me a message, I'll call you right back. But the best way to get in touch with me is really via email. Again, folks, thank you for your attention. I hope that you can consider, go back and consider with your teams on how you can implement some of the information that I shared with you. I don't claim that this is perfect, but I do claim that it works. Years of experience, years of studying, years of seeing companies apply the technologies, the technology that we provide and similar technologies has shown me that this literally will shrink the skill gap in your workplace and will also help people retain information and definitely will help you capture the great institutional knowledge that you currently have. To me, it's a travesty that we are not capturing the great men and women that's in the workplace that have learned so much and we let them walk away and not capture their minds with the technology that we have today. Anyway, folks, thank you so very much and have a wonderful day. Hopefully, I'll hear from some of you and hopefully we can be of service to you. Have a great one. Liz, I think you can take over now. Great. Thank you so much. Again, if anybody has any questions, please reach out to Franz. Thank you so much again, Franz. We really appreciate it. You're welcome.

webinar

skills gap

shortage of skilled workers

effective training

retaining institutional knowledge

microlearning technologies

engagement

retention of knowledge

personalized learning