When you hear the word "bias," you might (understandably) think of societal issues like religion, ethnicity, and gender. The ongoing discussion about bias in AI has certainly heightened these ideas in the public consciousness.

But bias can subtly influence many other aspects of life in ways we don't even realise.

For L&D professionals, there’s a specific type of bias that can affect your learners: personal learning biases and preferences. While this isn't as insidious as those listed above, it can cause harm if left unchecked.

In this blog, we’ll be exploring what that looks like and how it can be mitigated.

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Bias in workplace learning: What is it, exactly?

Let’s define our terms.

Like we said in our tagline, everyone learns differently.

But when we’re referring to bias in workplace learning, we’re talking about the misguided assumption that everyone learns in the same way (as one another, or as you) and letting that influence how you design your team’s learning.

Lots of factors can contribute to this. You may have always found it so much easier to learn from a video as opposed to an instructional PDF, so you assume everyone else is the same. Or the inverse: You may have heard people discuss their own preferences or generalise about what’s popular, and taken that as gospel for your own learners.

Whatever the case is, don’t let the needs of the few impact the needs of the many.

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What are the risks of bias?

So what’s the problem? How can this bias impact learning?

Although L&D as a whole has gradually shifted to place more of an emphasis on personalised learning, it’s still not altogether uncommon for training to be generalised and “one-size-fits-all.”

For example: Perhaps your organisation delivers a generic onboarding pathway to every new starter to get them up to speed in their first few days on the job. Then, perhaps you take that a step further and deliver generic training on a number of things to a number of people. Before you know it, everyone has received almost identical training with no personalisation or individualisation in sight.

This same principle applies to training formats, e.g. delivering training in exactly the same format to everyone in your organisation without a choice of alternatives and irrespective of their preferences.

When you make sweeping assumptions like this without digging down into why you’re doing it, it’s very likely that your learning isn’t going to land with a huge portion of your intended audience. Just think about the marketing meme of “our audience is everyone!” and how ineffective that is for targeting your product to its most valuable consumers.

This lack of personalisation has a knock-on effect on knowledge retention, which then impacts engagement, productivity, and revenue.

So what’s the solution? It won’t surprise you to hear this from us (a learning platform provider with a focus on personalisation) but the answer lies in making learning personal.

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Learning: Let’s make it personal

You will have heard about the concept of learning styles many times before – and if you’ve read our blog debunking common myths about learning, you’ll know that there’s not a lot of scientific merit behind this idea.

Though misguided, this theory’s heart is in the right place – and the basic concept is still very valuable to us: Adjusting learning according to individual needs, with the intention of making it as useful and engaging as possible.

Everybody interprets information differently depending on a variety of factors. Cognitive strengths and weaknesses, neurotype, prior knowledge, cultural or socioeconomic background, and metacognition - the ability to regulate one's own learning - are all part of a complex web that contributes to how someone learns.

That’s why it’s so important to create learning content that is personalised, multi-faceted and adapted to each individual learner. You may be wondering where to begin, so here are a few ideas:

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Take the temperature

Start by asking the people who know the most. Taking the temperature will allow you to move forward in the most effective way possible. You can use employee sentiment surveys and questionnaires to regularly gather data on what’s working, and most importantly, what isn’t.

Make sure these are thorough, and that they’re collecting plenty of information on people’s needs, preferences, and why certain things are or are not effective.

That leads us nicely onto our next point…

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Trial, error and experimentation

Don’t be afraid to try things out; experimentation is the key to finding out what works.

Just look at Thrive customer Ann Summers, who teamed up with the Thrive Impact service to roll out an experiment throughout their retail locations that would test exactly how effective different learning programmes were for their teams.

For the experiment, Ann Summers stores were split into four regions, with Region 2 (The Test Group) receiving a slightly higher target than the others. All other regions were under the umbrella of The Control Group.

While the Test Group received a blended learning approach comprising workshops, webinars and learning pathways, the Control Group only received the learning pathways. As Ann Summers was able to provide sales data for all regions thanks to Thrive’s analytics functionality, the Thrive Impact team could directly track the impact that the blended learning approach had had on the Test Group.

The success of the experiment was easy to see and quantify. All regions (both those with the blended learning approach, and those with just the learning pathways) saw a year-on-year increase for both product lines. Most importantly, the Test Group who were undergoing the blended learning approach outperformed all other groups in the experiment for the Buzz Fresh line, and came in second place for the Hosiery lines.

By doing this experiment, Ann Summers were able to measure a 10% increase in revenue with Region 2 making £3,617 (over 36%) of that revenue – proving undeniably that the blended learning approach was the most effective. Before this experiment, all they had was a hunch – but by putting their theory to the test, they were able to move forward with confidence knowing that their approach was informed and backed up by data.

We know that not everyone will be able to conduct an experiment as complex as the example we’ve given here – and your experimentation doesn’t have to look the same. It could be as simple as trialling different learning formats or programmes with small, volunteer pilot groups to test how they land. After trialling these formats, gather feedback from your Very Important Pilot Group and use it to inform how you move forward.

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Make full use of your LMS’ personalisation functionality

Hopefully, your LMS is outfitted with personalisation features to give you a leg up. (And if it isn’t, maybe you should book a demo with Thrive to upgrade to one that is? Just an idea.) After all, why do we implement technologies in the workplace if not to help us?

Here are just a few examples of LMS personalisation features that will help your learners feel like their learning is for them, not just anyone:

Learner profiles are a great way to help your teams feel a sense of autonomy and control over their own learning. This feature, an element of gamification, also allows your learners to keep track of their individual professional development, share ideas with colleagues, and discover Subject Matter Experts.

Skills and goals can inform your people’s learning journeys, both in terms of what they learn and in terms of how they learn it. With this functionality, your people can set clear goals for themselves, and track their way to success through assigned learning that helps them get where they need to go. This could take multiple formats, and will be designed with their goals in mind.

Learning pathways that can be customised, personalised and adapted according to the role, goal or department can serve as a tool to deliver learning on a more individualised basis and without your own bias. By mapping your content into these pathways you’re guiding your learners through a journey, not just training. You can even make sure they don't miss a beat with the ability to lock sections based on progression, or keep it open to explore at their own order and pace.

Data and analytics are crucial when it comes to individualised learning, and designing training that lands with each and every team member. By harnessing your LMS’ data insights, you can easily track learner behaviours to see what’s working – including which content is most popular, and even what time of the day your people are accessing the platform. You can then use this to make informed decisions about training.

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What do you think?

What do you think? Have you experimented with personalised learning, and did it work for your team? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so join the conversation over on our LinkedIn.

And if you’re looking for an all-in-one LMS with personalisation at its centre, look no further than Thrive. Book a demo with a member of the team today, and see how it can be adapted to your team’s individual needs, preferences and goals.

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