Employers generally acknowledge the benefit of continual improvement, training and education for their workers, but Miranda Rocca-Cirelli believes if it’s not done effectively, they may not be getting the full benefit of the training.
“I have seen organizations that recognize it’s not just about developing a bunch of power points and train employees that way,” said Rocca-Cirelli, who has a Master’s degree in distance education from Athabasca University.
“It’s about engaging a practitioner in education who understands the methodologies, who can make the training more engaging, more effective, more efficient, so that people are learning the content better, and they’re able to go out there and perform their job at higher levels.”
Rocca-Cirelli is one such practitioner and the owner of Creative eLearning Design based in Sudbury. She believes when training and education are delivered properly, employers will see longer lasting results, although improvements may take time to develop, she said. Changes in workplace behaviour, zero-harm levels, and bottom-line results will all improve over the long run.
The need for effective training spans sectors and industries, from education to health care to mining. But because of budget restrictions, the task of training often falls to an employee who may be skilled at her role, but may not know the best way to teach it. In the trades, for example, a skilled carpenter may know his trade inside and out, but may need help developing the content.
“What you have is a lot of subject matter experts who know the content, but they don’t know how to really teach it,” Rocca-Cirelli said. “When you have curriculum and instructional designers, they work with those experts to structure the content so it helps students learn.”
She compares the scenario to a doctor versus a nurse: the nurse is familiar with surgical practices, but you wouldn’t ask her to perform open-heart surgery.
Rocca-Cirelli can develop content, provide educational consulting, and advise on curriculum and instructional design. She will also help with strategic planning and develop instructional DVDs.
She’s seeing a need emerge in mining where companies are realizing that, in order to maintain their zero-harm levels and meet bottom-line results, they need to re-examine their training.
In response to that need, Rocca-Cirelli published a guideline in 2013, Instructional Design for Mining Industries, which is a comprehensive guide to making training more effective and efficient for the mining and advanced manufacturing industries.
An emerging area generating interest amongst employers is the transition to online content. Rocca-Cirelli said it’s surprising that more businesses and organizations haven’t already made that change.
“I find there’s still a culture shift that has to exist for both the postsecondary system and industry to adopt online training 100 per cent in Ontario — more, I find, than in other provinces,” she said. “We’re getting there, but when you look at provinces such as Alberta, they’re way ahead of the curve when it comes to online training and education.”
Online education and training are particularly beneficial in Northern Ontario where distance can prevent people from attending training sessions in person, she added. Online content has a greater reach, while people can remain in their home location.
Next, Rocca-Cirelli has applied for a grant to develop online content related to personal growth and development. She envisions developing downloadable programming as an MP3 with complementary workbooks.
She sees it as a natural extension of the training and education development she does now.
“When people love going to work and doing what they do, it changes their perspective on everything for the betterment of the organization at large,” she said.
