Learning Designs Inc:

Jeff Walter (00:04)

Hi, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m Jeff Walter, your host. Today I have two guests, Mary Carter and Julie Height from Learning Designs. Welcome to the podcast. Mary is the founder and president of LDI. Her career is proof that you can and should always keep your options open. The plan was to teach school, but there were no jobs available when she completed her master’s in education.

 

Julie Hiatt (00:16)

Thank you.

 

Mary (00:17)

Thank you.

 

Jeff Walter (00:32)

so that led to employment with the boys and girls clubs of Michigan, GM’s department of education and training, and finally her own company learning designs. And then she went back to school for adult learning and instructional technology. And although some people know her for her red pen, she is primarily a big picture thinker that loves to tackle systems problems and outside of work, she enjoys reading and spending time with family and friends and Mary’s favorite saying, never try to teach a pig to sing.

 

It wastes your time and annoys the pig. Very interesting saying, especially given the learning and learning nature of your career. So, so pigs are not trainable and from a singing perspective. So Julie is a business manager. I was a manager of business development over at Learning Designs. She’s been with LDI for almost 30 years, a long time.

 

Julie Hiatt (01:06)

Thank you.

 

Mary (01:14)

Right.

 

Jeff Walter (01:31)

Over the years, she’s developed so many different skills, including managing large scale training programs for clients in the automotive industry, IT, energy, and workforce development. She uses her training and development experience to provide clients with solutions that produce results from upfront consulting to problem solving project implementation. Her favorite quote is from Henry Ford, whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right. I love that one.

 

Uh, Julie loves the outdoors is a long distance runner. Um, I’m about to do my first half iron man this weekend. So I’m with you on that. Uh, she also enjoys biking, kayaking, paddle boarding and snow shoeing. She has a master’s degree in business administration from Wayne state university. Welcome Mary and Julie. It’s great to have you here. So

 

Julie Hiatt (02:03)

Woo, all right.

 

Thank you, Jeff.

 

Jeff Walter (02:18)

So I usually like to get a little bit more background folks and how you ended up. So Mary, we’ll start with you. So what prompted you to start learning designs? It seems like you had a nice thing going there ⁓ with GM. And how did you end up with What made you give all that up and start a company from scratch? as I’m aware, that’s a…

 

Mary (02:31)

I did.

 

Jeff Walter (02:41)

That takes a lot of nerve. So how’d you end up doing that? A lot of guts.

 

Mary (02:45)

⁓

 

Well, I took a look at what was going on around me and I was working in what was then the education and training department. And it seemed to me that kind of the outside people had more influence than the inside people in terms of making change. That ⁓ somehow people are often more impressed with a

 

quote, outside point of view than they are internal. And I thought I probably could make a bigger impact on the outside. The other thing I think that intrigued me was by starting my own business, there were more opportunities to do a greater variety of things. And I didn’t want to be kind of pigeonholed.

 

into a particular department. one of the comply, I remember one of the managers who was trying very hard to recruit me. And he said, every time we get somebody really talented, somebody steals them away into a different department. And I know he meant that as a compliment, but to me, it was kind of.

 

a message that if we hire you, really want you to stay here with us. And I was thinking in a corporation the size of GM, I probably would have wanted to move into different areas than to stay in education and training for an entire career. So that was kind of the madness behind my thinking.

 

Jeff Walter (04:06)

Right.

 

Hey,

 

Mary, I think you might’ve ended up in education and training for your entire career. Usually starting a learning company is not a good way of diversifying outside of that. So what was the idea behind learning designs which can make a bigger impact? What’s been some of the lessons learned or the most exciting things that’s happened? Because you guys have been around for a long time.

 

Julie Hiatt (04:31)

Yeah.

 

Mary (04:34)

Right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (04:53)

had tremendous impact on many, many, clients. And so I guess what’s the biggest surprise to you looking back on the tenure? If you think about when you started, there was a certain impact you wanted to have and a certain type of service you were going to offer. But what surprised you the most over these years?

 

Mary (05:02)

Hmm.

 

Well,

 

I think what surprises me is it’s how much things change, but on the other hand, it’s how much things don’t change. You know, I’ve kind of been around long enough that you kind of see things come and go. You see, you know, a new theory or a new technique. And then about 10 years later, you recognize you’re seeing the same thing again.

 

with a different name or a different label or a slightly different twist. But although so much changes in terms of the way we create training materials, the way we may deliver training, some of the content or some of the messaging really does not change that much over time. And I think some of the needs are still the same. I mean, if you said

 

What’s probably what’s the biggest training need in most companies that probably has something to do with communication. It’s an age old problem. Everybody has trouble with it and nobody has come up with the end all solution.

 

Jeff Walter (06:22)

What have you found is some of the best ways to address the communication skills? Because I assume you’re talking about, you know, communication skills amongst the staff and vendors. And so what’s worked well to try and combat that challenge?

 

Mary (06:30)

Right.

 

I

 

think what works well today maybe is some kind of a blended solution. I think it’s fine to, I’m a big proponent of e-learning for some things and I believe it does not work for other things. I think it’s fine to teach theory online, but.

 

If you want to practice some of these skills, you probably have to be face to face and practice. Some of that is changing a little bit with artificial intelligence. We’re beginning to get the ability now to interact with avatars. But in the past, to just read about communication skills or sit and listen to information about communication skills is probably not going to

 

Jeff Walter (07:07)

Right.

 

Mary (07:24)

impact my actual communication skills. So I think it goes back to the old premise about good instructional design. You have to figure out what it is you’re trying to teach and then what’s the appropriate methodology for teaching it.

 

Jeff Walter (07:41)

Julie, you’ve been with Learning Designs for a while now. I think he’s coming up on almost 30 years. So what brought you over to Learning Designs those many years ago and how did you arrive at where you’re at today?

 

Julie Hiatt (07:47)

Yeah.

 

Well, it’s kind of funny because I was a paralegal before joining Learning Design, so it really had nothing to do with learning and development. And I thought, kind of like what Mary said, I would just give it a try. Kind of started at the front desk doing administrative type work and really didn’t think I would stay very long to be honest. I thought, you know, this is something totally different. I don’t know if I’ll like it, but

 

What I have liked and still continue to like is the variety of people and projects that I’ve been able to work on and just wearing so many hats. And in a lot of corporations, again, you don’t need, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to go from proposal writing to marketing to project management to consulting around a solution for a client. So.

 

Working in all these different industries and with like the top down to plant floor workers is fun and it brings variety and excitement and it’s never the same. So I think that is really what’s kept me here so long and just being able to continuously learn myself.

 

Jeff Walter (09:07)

Yeah, I was recently talking to somebody and it was interesting because we were talking about smaller firms versus larger firms. And they said the exact same thing you just said, which is one of the underappreciated benefits of being in a smaller firm. Because a smaller firm has to do all the things that a larger firm has to do. Sales, marketing, operations, HR, legal, finance, all the functions still exist.

 

There’s just a lot fewer people. And so there’s a huge opportunity to wear those multiple hats and gain that experience and figure out what it is you love. Whereas in a larger firm, you have departments for every one of those. and you’ve got, know, you know, sometimes thousands of people in each department and your ability to, to sit there go, Hey, I want to dip my toe in client management, or I want to dip my toe in instructional design. it’s like, just, you just don’t have those opportunities. So it’s.

 

Mary (09:46)

Right.

 

Julie Hiatt (10:02)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (10:02)

So then how did you end up on manager of business development? You start off the front, was that where the passion ended up taking you or how did you end up there?

 

Julie Hiatt (10:10)

Hehehehe.

 

That’s a good question. ended up continuing my education and got my master’s degree while working for learning designs. And one of my kind of concentrations was marketing. So that’s really what led me to business development and really that kind of consultative approach with clients has always been interesting to me and reading proposals and trying to come up with the best solution and that strategy.

 

to me is fun instead of like you said, this is all that I do. And to get a decision made, I don’t have to go to 20 people and wait for 20 people to get an answer. It’s kind of like, here’s an idea, what do you think? And being able to run with it pretty quickly has been very appealing to

 

Jeff Walter (10:52)

Right.

 

Yeah, it was fine. was just on Monday night, just a couple nights ago, after hours just sitting in my office with one of my colleagues and we realized that, you know, he was there at the beginning and it’s been over 20 years together. And it was kind of like, man, that went fast. And just, you know, we’re kind of reflecting on everything that happened over the last 20 some odd years.

 

Mary (11:21)

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (11:27)

It was really cool to have that. I think that’s something a lot of folks don’t have today. know, the kind of the old idea of you go to work for this company, work there for, you your career doesn’t happen. And I think that’s a good thing to get the talent where it can be, you know, best applied. But then, you know, if you’re, if you’re lucky enough to end up in a situation where, you know, the environment is such that you can achieve your

 

Mary (11:39)

Bye!

 

Jeff Walter (11:57)

your career goals and you can stay there for a couple of decades. It’s really cool. And you can accomplish really great things. So let’s talk about learning designs a little. What are you guys into now? When clients look for you and want to do business with you and you’re responding to some of those RFPs, what is it they’re trying to achieve? What are they hoping you can help them do? What kind of impact?

 

Mayor, talked about having greater impact. What kind of impact are they looking for from you all?

 

Mary (12:31)

Well, I would say it all depends. Depends on the project. it’s a particular skill or knowledge base, mean, it may be, let’s say, let’s use a very simple example. We’re going to have a expense reporting system or

 

A new piece of equipment everybody has to learn to use. may want training developed to teach people how to use it. I mean, it may be something as simple as that, some kind of a, you know, performance. It may be a bigger goal. for example, this apprenticeship would be an example of that. A public workforce board that wanted to create a DOL

 

Jeff Walter (13:11)

you

 

Mary (13:17)

department of labor certified apprenticeship for their professional staff and wanted to build a curriculum to support that based on the competencies that people would need. And they wanted it housed in a learning management system, which is where you come into the picture. So sometimes it is a much bigger

 

Jeff Walter (13:37)

We’ve got one of those.

 

Mary (13:42)

⁓ Well, and that’s been the advantage of the relationship is that it allows us to, you know, go to a customer with a total solution. Like Julie’s talking about, here’s your solution. You don’t have a learning management system. You have no way to track, well, here we can, you know, what about this? So I think it’s, you know, building those partnerships that allow you to provide

 

better solutions, total solutions to the customer rather than forcing them to go out and look for all the pieces.

 

Jeff Walter (14:16)

If we circle back to the apprenticeship programs, that’s interesting. So that’s at the state level is kind of sponsoring these different types of states. And when I hear apprenticeship, my brain immediately goes to skilled trades. know, millwright, plumber, electrician is, are we talking about apprenticeships in that vein or?

 

Mary (14:37)

We

 

are, but what people don’t realize is there are many other apprenisable trades. For example, hairdressers, cosmetologists, funeral directors. There are a lot of apprenisable trades rather than just the traditional skilled trades we think about, especially in the Detroit area, the electricians and pipe fitters and millwrights.

 

⁓ And there has been a big push in the last, I would say, 10 years to use an apprentice approach to professional careers that have not typically, you know, been obtained through an apprenticeship. So this is a good example. Public workforce organizations in the state of Michigan, it’s called Michigan Works.

 

and there would be these career centers in various locations throughout the state, the people who staff those centers have varied levels of education. They may be college graduates, they may not, but they pretty much require a certain set of skills based on the tasks that they have to do. For example, they need communication skills. They need to know something about

 

career development, they need to know about interviewing. So there would be a list of these skills and the idea would be to develop a program around those skills or those competencies and frame it like an apprenticeship so that they go to work and they’re earning an income but they’re also taking classes online.

 

Jeff Walter (16:09)

Right.

 

Mary (16:13)

and they’re getting the on the job experience. So it’s a combination just like an electrician. They’re taking classes in school, but they also have to work. It’s like 2000 hours a year. And we have a task list of things they have to be able to do. Specific tasks related to every one of those competencies. So if it’s communication, maybe they have to be able to write memos correctly, or they have to be able to make a presentation.

 

Jeff Walter (16:18)

Right.

 

Mary (16:42)

or they have to be able, whatever it is, those specific skills, and it’s all tied together, and they go through it over a period of two years. ⁓ They get, in this case, they get a bonus. Their income increases every six months, just like the apprentices in the auto industry. And ⁓ so it’s very similar, but it’s tied to a

 

Jeff Walter (16:53)

Okay.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mary (17:11)

quote, professional career rather than a hands-on skill like an electrician or a plumber.

 

Jeff Walter (17:18)

So that’s interesting. you know, typically, you know, I mean, on some of the license things, say, you know, cosmetology or that, you you have to put in a certain number of hours to get your license. And I remember my late wife, she was a psychologist and, you know, similar type of thing, but it wasn’t a formal apprenticeship program where you could…

 

Mary (17:22)

.

 

Right.

 

Jeff Walter (17:46)

You had basically just do an unpaid internship for however many hours. So who’s employing the people that are the apprentices? You see it in the automotive sector with the OEMs, but is it the state employing them? Are they subsidizing? ⁓

 

Mary (17:51)

Sure, right, right.

 

Julie Hiatt (17:51)

Thank

 

Mary (18:06)

No,

 

it’s the employment agency or personnel company, whoever is staffing those workforce centers. ⁓ And that varies, you know, you know, there are contractors who do that. are sometimes it’s county employees. Structure differs from board to board and state to state, but.

 

Jeff Walter (18:15)

Okay.

 

Okay.

 

Mary (18:29)

you know, the certifying agency is the Department of Labor. So they have…

 

Jeff Walter (18:33)

Thank

 

Go ahead, I’m sorry.

 

Mary (18:36)

They have to apply to DOL and get their apprenticeship program approved. And then when people finish, they get a journeyman’s card, just like an electrician.

 

Jeff Walter (18:51)

So now is that, so is it primarily the public sector that’s employing them or the private sector? ⁓ But it’s open to both? No, okay.

 

Mary (18:57)

It’s primarily public.

 

It could be sure, could be

 

transferable, certainly.

 

Jeff Walter (19:05)

Yeah,

 

that’s interesting because last year I gave a couple of presentations on the global skill gap and you were talking about skills earlier with AI and it’s always, having been in learning development for over 20 years now, that we’re really good as an industry in knowledge acquisition, right? How to convey knowledge from me to a student or from,

 

Julie Hiatt (19:14)

you

 

Jeff Walter (19:29)

how to get knowledge into a learner’s head, right? All the techniques that you talked about. And that’s changed over the years as technology has changed, but we do a pretty good job at that. But the challenge I’ve always found was going to the next step of actually skill development, because that’s really traditionally been very human intensive. the way I always think of it is knowledge acquisition is you can now pass your road test for your driver’s license.

 

Skill development is being able to actually pass the road test, right? Being able to actually parallel park and then pull onto a highway. Um, which, you know, usually requires a lot of intense coaching, practicing coaching. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it’s, it’s interesting. And these skilled trades have kind of, you know, addressed that many, moons ago with their apprenticeship programs and the journeymen. But the, the not the outside of that traditional skilled trades.

 

Mary (20:01)

Right.

 

It’s two different things.

 

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (20:25)

Yeah, not really. You know, you get a little bit on the internship side. You get a little bit on the, on the licensing side. one, one thing that always bugged me about that was, especially on the licensure side, you know, if you’ve got to put in like 2000 free hours to get like a 4th of July weekend, I was up North with, ⁓ with some friends and their, their kids, both, ⁓ kids are, you know, in their thirties, right. But showing my age.

 

Mary (20:40)

you

 

Jeff Walter (20:53)

but, but, you know, they both teach them Chicago public schools and they both had to put in 2000 hours of, you know, internship or externship to become a teacher. And it was, that’s a year of free labor. And, know, you gotta be, you know, there’s a lot of people that couldn’t can’t afford that. Right. There’s a lot of people that have to actually pay the bills and can’t do that. So it’s, it’s neat to see the kind of, it’s neat to see these.

 

Mary (20:56)

Hmm

 

and teaching. ⁓

 

Julie Hiatt (21:02)

Thank

 

Jeff Walter (21:21)

initiatives to a address the global skill gap in that we have all these, we have all these need for skilled labor, but at the same time doing it in a way that a person can actually pay rent while they’re developing the skill and then getting that intense. That’s, that’s pretty cool. So you’re seeing that pop up in a number of different States or

 

Mary (21:29)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, and I think it could, and it’s starting to happen in different career industries. In IT, you’re starting to see some of these apprenticeships for coders or network people, or it’s a different way of allowing people to learn. It’s the old learn while you earn model. And I think it’s appealing to

 

more and more people because of the cost of a college education today. I mean, it’s beyond.

 

Jeff Walter (22:12)

Right.

 

Mary (22:14)

Yeah, it’s more than my first house cost, you know, it’s like… ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (22:15)

It’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of money, even

 

Julie Hiatt (22:17)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (22:25)

in a state school, you know, like, like, my, girls are in their late twenties and, uh, you know, even in the last 10 years, just the cost just, it just seems to keep going up and up and up. And I’m not quite sure you’re getting the value, you know.

 

Julie Hiatt (22:27)

Yeah.

 

Mary (22:40)

I know.

 

Well, and that’s the whole argument that it sometimes takes. know we did a study, I years ago I worked on a project trying to, it was General Motors and they were trying to encourage young people to consider careers in the skilled trades. number one, a lot of kids don’t know about them. And number two, and neither do teachers or counselors.

 

Jeff Walter (23:15)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mary (23:16)

and they don’t understand them, they don’t know the right courses to take. And so we did this whole program and you know, we found out that if you looked at the amount of money they earned, let’s say for the first 10 years of their careers, the skilled trades people were out earning the engineers.

 

Jeff Walter (23:32)

Uh-huh.

 

Mary (23:36)

the college-educated engineers for let’s say the first 10 years on the job. Then the engineers, you know, started to become managers and earn more money. But, you know, it’s…

 

It’s becoming, I think, a more more appealing alternative to a lot of people. And as there are more options, if you don’t have to be an engineer or an electrician or pipe fetter, if you can train for some job in IT or train for a job in the public sector, ⁓ I think it’s going to become more more appealing to more people.

 

Jeff Walter (24:11)

Yeah, it’s interesting you mentioned that because I remember when I was in college, one of my good friends from high school, he became an electrician. And you know, we talked that day. And I remember when I got my first offer, which was a good offer. I was a computer science guy. was going to be a programmer, know, they paid pretty well. You know, they still pretty well. But he was already making like 20 % more than mine than I was making. And he did very well for himself. He did very well for himself.

 

Mary (24:19)

⁓

 

Jeff Walter (24:38)

But the thing, you know, but back to the cost of college, that’s one thing that just blows me away. Having been on the corporate side for, of learning and development for over 20 years. Like I’ve just seen how the cost of training somebody or educating somebody has plummeted as you get into blended learning and all these different techniques. And yet the cost of

 

a college education has gone through the roof. I just, you know, even, even when I thought things were going to turn, know, when you saw her like Phoenix university and since there’s all the for-profit colleges that emerge, but no, you know, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just weird. So, but I think the next 10 years will be, I think we’ve hit a tipping point. So it’d be interesting to see the next 10 years. What?

 

Mary (25:20)

and

 

Jeff Walter (25:27)

What happens? What happens? So Julie, what are your thoughts on the apprenticeships?

 

Julie Hiatt (25:35)

Well, I

 

personally think they’re great because I have a son who’s 19 that is a sheet metal worker and he has gone through the apprenticeship program and was promoted early to journeyman just because he was needed to go up in Houghton, Michigan and work in the winter and they needed people. So they told them we will kind of promote you to journeyman and

 

if you’ll go up there for a while. So he’s been able to do that. We always knew he wouldn’t go to college. So it was like, well, what do you want to do? And a skilled trade program just seemed to make sense that earned right away, learn on the job, you know, go to school, it was a perfect match for him. So I’m definitely a proponent of it. And, and think that what we’re doing with this Texas Workforce Board

 

is is pretty cool because it’s all contained in the LMS. It’s online, even the assessments are online. So you can test out of things. And it’s just a nice packaged approach. And it’s based on supervisor observation of skills like Mary was saying, so it’s not just to check the box, it’s demonstrate and observe over a period of months that you’re actually building those skills that you’re talking about.

 

Jeff Walter (26:56)

So help me walk through. So a typical client right now, let’s just stick on the apprenticeship programs because I think they’re really interesting and I think there’s a huge gap in skilled labor. And that’s one of the things I’ve been thinking about. So if a workforce comes and says, hey, we want to put these apprenticeship programs in for these types of.

 

Mary (27:24)

You

 

Jeff Walter (27:25)

vocations,

 

know, the non-traditional, right? Not the electrician, not the plumber, not the millwright, but, you know, a marketing analyst or a communication specialist or somebody working within the government in some capacity. How does the development of that program with the supervisors and the skills and how does that whole thing take shape? What does that look like?

 

What are some of big challenges of kind piecing a program like that together?

 

Mary (27:57)

Well, the first thing would be looking at the occupation or the job. I mean, what is it? So let’s say it’s a career counselor. And then you would really kind of do a job analysis, which is, what does that person do? What are the tasks involved in that job? And then what are the skills that it takes to do those tasks?

 

Jeff Walter (28:06)

Okay.

 

Mary (28:23)

it’s all a matter of, you we call it competency, you know, mapping that you typically you come up with a list of competencies that are required to do that job. And once you have the competencies, you would then create a curriculum, whether it’s over two years. I mean, this one was over two years and they took 20 competencies.

 

and divided it into four six month periods. So they work on six competencies or five, I’m sorry, yeah, five every six months. And so it was, they pulled in the managers, the leadership and decided which, number one, they had a voice in, is this correct? is this what we need? Then they prioritize that.

 

Jeff Walter (28:53)

Okay.

 

Alright.

 

Mary (29:12)

Okay, if people are going to work on these, what do they need to work on the first six months, the next six months? You know, then you’ve got to have a scope and a sequence. What are the prereqs? And then once you, you know, map that, you create a curriculum, which in this case, they wanted to be almost all online so that people could, you know, get at it 24 seven.

 

We created the assessments. had to deal with, for example, what do you do with an experienced person who’s been here 20 years? Are you going to make them take this course? Well, no, we created assessments online so they could test out. If they got 90%, they tested out. They didn’t have to take the training. If they didn’t, you take the training and then they have to complete the on the job part of it. These task lists.

 

Jeff Walter (29:57)

Okay.

 

Mary (30:08)

these specific skills that are tied to that competency, you know, they have to demonstrate under the observation of a supervisor or manager, like Julie said. So it’s all the pieces put together and then the LMS tracks all of it. So they have a record. They can see how their employees are doing. Are they meeting their goals? Are they on track? Who’s behind?

 

In boards that have multiple locations, they can compare how is this location doing versus this location versus this one. You know, who do we need to encourage? Who’s falling behind? So it’s a, you know, it’s a very well designed system, but you start by really knowing the job, figuring out what it takes to do the job, providing the training,

 

demonstrating it and then record, you know, you know, recording progress. So.

 

Jeff Walter (31:09)

So I understand the training aspect of it. ⁓ You mentioned that they’re also working and earning a living while they’re going through this. let’s take that career counselor ⁓ example. So if I’m the apprentice, I’ve got this two-year curriculum. It’s broken into five skills per six months. ⁓

 

Mary (31:12)

What do you

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (31:34)

the blended learning, you know, some of it’s classrooms, some of it’s online. Um, I have, uh, but what’s my, what am I doing day to day to acquire? You know, we talked earlier about skills requiring, you know, practice and coaching, practice and coaching. what does my life look like, you know, when I show up to work that, you know, each day as an apprentice, like, you know, for that career counseling, what does that look like?

 

Mary (31:49)

Give

 

Well, you go through, you would obviously go through an orientation program with your employer. I mean, they would be teaching you the specific requirements of the job, but you would also be seeing these task lists. You would know what behaviors are going to be required of you or what the expectation is. So it’s not a big surprise that if I expect you to be able to write a memo,

 

Jeff Walter (32:07)

Right.

 

Mary (32:30)

with no errors in spelling or punctuation, let’s say, if that’s the expectation and you know it, then those are the things they can practice. Sometimes the employers give them a certain amount of hours per week on the job that they can participate in training.

 

Jeff Walter (32:35)

Right.

 

Mary (32:54)

I mean, they might say, hours a week or you know to do it after work, which friendships are. I mean, you’ you’re working in a plant week, you’re going to sco is more flexible being th

 

Jeff Walter (33:07)

Right.

 

Right, right.

 

Mary (33:17)

But they do have to perform the on the job part of it. I mean, they have to complete the they have to work with customers and try to find them jobs.

 

Jeff Walter (33:29)

So are they like assigned to, like a career counselor as like a mentor, are they shadowing people?

 

Mary (33:36)

Yeah,

 

they would be assigned to a supervisor or manager, somebody who’s almost like a mentor, somebody who’s experienced, who knows, and they would kind of play the role of the journeyman. If you go back to the electrician example, the apprentice is going to work with a journeyman. And so that experienced person kind of becomes the journeyman.

 

Jeff Walter (33:44)

Okay.

 

Oh, okay. Very cool. Now, so you’ve been doing this for a while now. What results have you seen from these programs as they’ve gotten up and rolling and people have been going through the program? they achieved their goals or what’s the results been?

 

Mary (34:17)

Well, yeah,

 

I can tell you in this one particular area, and of course, they’ve had COVID and all kinds of crazy things to deal with. Their turnover is very, very low. And that’s unusual because in that occupation, they’re usually extremely high turnover. Anytime you get into customer service,

 

Jeff Walter (34:33)

wow.

 

Mary (34:43)

Turnover is a problem and that is not a problem. They also have, they happen to have the highest performance rates of any of the public boards in the state that they’re in. ⁓ there, people know what they’re doing. Now, you know, can I prove that it’s a result of this? Not exactly, but I think it’s the commitment. You know, the people know that

 

Jeff Walter (34:55)

Wow.

 

Mary (35:08)

that the employer is interested in them, that they’re willing to, you know, allocate time, spend money on getting them the training they need. And I think it makes a big difference in motivation, all of that. So.

 

Julie Hiatt (35:25)

Yeah, think to add on,

 

Jeff Walter (35:25)

Yeah, well,

 

Julie Hiatt (35:27)

just if I can add on, think part of it there is they have amazing leadership, which always helps motivate employees when they know that the leaders care and are offering training. I think they’ve liked it so well. We’re working on a master and an executive level apprenticeship too. So giving people even more opportunities to advance and continue on if they desire to do that.

 

Jeff Walter (35:27)

yeah.

 

Mary (35:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (35:51)

Yeah. Causality is always a hard thing to prove. so we, know, we tend to look at correlation, but, uh, but that’s really interesting that, you if you can have lower turnover, kind like we were talking about at the beginning of the episode, right? Like, know, Julie, you’ve been there for a long time. I was sitting down with it. If, if, you know, I think a lot of executives underestimate the, the benefits of low turnover and how

 

Mary (35:54)

huh.

 

Jeff Walter (36:20)

It keeps everything running really smoothly in your organization because you have that deep institutional knowledge and therefore you can take everything’s not an issue. You know, you’ve got people that know what they’re doing at all levels. And so I think, I think if you got that and you know, the turnover and then like you’re saying, the other benefits, that that’s pretty impressive. That’s, you know, like, you know,

 

Mary (36:35)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (36:45)

different industry, but I was at a franchising conference and there was a study that recently been done that one of the top reasons employees leave a franchise, franchisee, within 30 days is they’re not trained. And one of the top reasons they leave within the first year is they realize nobody else is trained either.

 

Mary (37:00)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (37:07)

And, ⁓ so, you know, listening to, you know, different context, right? Yeah.

 

Mary (37:11)

So where you go? We gotta move apprenticeships

 

into the franchise world. Move the concept. You move the concept.

 

Jeff Walter (37:15)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was interesting. Yeah. Well,

 

yeah. You know, it was interesting. Um, I was talking to my sister. Uh, she sells LMSs are in the family. She sells LMSs to, uh, K-12, uh, schools. She’s a, she’s a, used to be a first grade teacher way back in the day. But anyway, her, her son is 15 and he started working at Chick-fil-A and she, you know, so

 

Julie Hiatt (37:32)

Mm.

 

Jeff Walter (37:43)

We just started talking about, she started talking about the training program there and it’s, it is very much like, I’m listening to what you’re saying about the components of it. And obviously it’s a different type of skill set to work there, but, but they broke it down to nine skills. There you are. Uh, you’re a trainee, you know, an apprentice you’re, you’re wearing, uh, I forget which color, but you’re wearing a certain color.

 

Mary (37:57)

Claire.

 

Hmm?

 

Jeff Walter (38:13)

uniform. And then once you’re fully trained, you get to wear a different type of color uniform. And, and it’s, it’s kind of, it’s a, it’s it’s a scaled down version of what you said. Yeah. It’s like, there’s, there’s, you know, there’s formal training to learn how do I, you know, how do I make shakes? How do I make fries? How do I make chicken? You know, the nine skills. But then you get paired with somebody that’s already

 

Mary (38:13)

Sure, yeah.

 

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (38:40)

Uh, you know, a journeyman in that skill, somebody has already been trained and then they certify that you that you’re trained in that skill. And then once you get, once you’ve taken all the courseware and, uh, of a particular skill and somebody that’s certified in that skill certifies you as proficient in that skill and you fill up your card of all skills, you know, then you get a, you you get a bonus, you get to wear a different shirt and all types of things.

 

Mary (39:07)

Right.

 

Jeff Walter (39:09)

It’s interesting because it’s, it’s, I’m li I was listening to you describe the program and I’m listening to this conversation with my sister about, and then I had a similar conversation with the gentleman, uh, took my ribs, uh, where he’s doing something very similar. I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s like a mini apprenticeship program. Yeah. There he’s working on my, my nephew’s working. Yeah. He’s making a couple of bucks. He gets a bump when he gets, when he becomes a journeyman.

 

And, and then the funny thing with that was, he doesn’t have his license yet. So, ⁓ so my, my sister made him get a job closer to home because it was like about 45 minutes away. And so now he’s working at Dunkin Donuts and there’s nothing like that. And he’s like, and he, and it’s interesting because to see his reaction of how he was like, well, like

 

Mary (39:49)

Mmm.

 

Julie Hiatt (39:49)

Wow.

 

Jeff Walter (40:01)

He just felt better at Chick-fil-A because of that program. You’ve got this wave coming in. Everybody was competent within the organization and he’s like, and he’s noticed differences in his own motivation because of that. It’s really interesting. So yeah, mostly we’re just saying it’s like, that’s like a mini version of it, but it’s like writ large. That’s fascinating. And then you’re starting to see the results, like you said, and you know, like I said, yeah.

 

Mary (40:09)

Mm-hmm.

 

Julie Hiatt (40:15)

Makes sense.

 

Jeff Walter (40:26)

Causality, know, Bayes analysis, really difficult to prove things, you know, ⁓ multi-variant correlation, that’s what you’re seeing, right? Like, well, this happens and then all these other positive things happens. Now, and the reality is it’s a little bit of everything. It’s a little bit of training. It’s a little bit of people feeling like they’re, they’re being gotten down a path. It’s a little bit of more enlightened leadership. It’s a little bit, you know, but it all adds up to have these major impacts, which is really fascinating. So, and now we got a few minutes left.

 

Julie Hiatt (40:54)

Yeah, you.

 

Jeff Walter (40:56)

I want to circle back to earlier in the conversation, you were talking about AI and skill development. What do you think the benefit there, or let’s just talk a little bit more about that, how you’ve seen that starting to emerge or what your thoughts are on that? Because I think there’s an opportunity there to start to use these avatars to do the practice and some coaching. What do you see there in the future? How might that help with skill development?

 

Julie Hiatt (41:26)

Well, we’ve definitely been hearing both colleagues and customers talk about AI and everyone talks about it in terms of content development. But I think the big opportunity is in this dialogue and practicing difficult conversations because everybody at all levels are, are you going to face some sort of a conversation or a communication that you have to practice and using avatars in a real world?

 

Mary (41:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (41:33)

Yeah.

 

Julie Hiatt (41:55)

environment, I think is super helpful to provide that feedback before you go in to have that conversation. So we’ve been hearing that and looking at different tools and thinking about ways we would use that with with like scenario based and role plays.

 

Jeff Walter (42:12)

Yeah, it feels like the traditional content, the kind of the first wave of AI is more of that productivity increase on the content creation. know, like help me put traditional courses together, you know, better, faster, cheaper. ⁓ And it seems like that next wave is okay, but we can do more than just that with this technology. We can work on skill development, which I’m very excited about both on the soft skill and the

 

Mary (42:20)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Right. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (42:39)

Hard skill, soft skill with the avatars, hard skill with the simulations. But I think it’s going to take a little bit, I think that takes a little bit more effort to figure that

 

Julie Hiatt (42:50)

Yeah, I think the bigger opportunity is really around this whole culture shift in terms of all this transformation and help like LND’s role in shaping that change because people are afraid, you know, they’re not confident in these tools and how to use them. And it need this learning needs to be embedded in all workflows, you know, and making people comfortable. I think that’s a huge future opportunity.

 

Jeff Walter (42:51)

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Julie Hiatt (43:17)

in developing that and strong leaders and not only that, but soft skill hasn’t gone away. The need for that, even though the technology is there, learning can play a big part in making people aware of these tools and how to use them and really feeling comfortable with change.

 

Jeff Walter (43:37)

Yeah, when you said culture shift, what kind of shift are you seeing? What does that mean to you?

 

Julie Hiatt (43:42)

To me, it’s just, this is a huge technology transformation now. All companies are talking about technology and really to make it work, you need to shift the mindset. That’s what I’m talking about is changing that just with change in general and how can learning impact that.

 

Jeff Walter (43:56)

Okay.

 

And do you see a role for learning development in terms of helping with that mind shift of adopting the technology? Like how would that manifest itself? I know, I haven’t heard anybody mention that, so I’m curious about that.

 

Julie Hiatt (44:10)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, I don’t know. mean, I just think learning our role is to help people navigate through change. Because over the years, it’s been like, we’ve helped companies with a team culture, or any sort of new technology, that’s all change. So thinking about learning’s role to me, LND’s role in helping people be comfortable with that and practice it and

 

Jeff Walter (44:24)

Okay.

 

Okay.

 

Julie Hiatt (44:44)

we’ve learning into everyday work in terms of AI and how does that make our lives different.

 

Mary (44:51)

And I think part of what you do is apply.

 

you know, what we know about adult learning, for example, we know what adults like and, you know, what they want to learn. They want to learn things that are going to help them at work or at home. They don’t necessarily want to learn things just to learn things. And so making them aware, I mean, when we create training,

 

One of the things I always remember is, you know, you have to, the first thing you have to do is get the learner’s attention. If you don’t get the learner’s attention, you can have all the training in the world, but it isn’t gonna make any difference. And one of the best ways to do that is to explain what I call the WIFMs, the W-I-F-M, which is what’s in it for me.

 

at the beginning, you know, when you’re talking about, you know, here are the objectives or here’s where we’re going to go. They need to understand why, you know, why do I care? What’s in it for me? What’s it going to do for me? And now you have my attention. And that’s the role I think L &D can really play in this transformation is to help people, you know, I mean, generally people don’t like change. We’re all like that.

 

We get comfortable, don’t want, you know, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. So, you know, we have to get their attention. And I think that’s the role LND can play in this whole ⁓ transformation.

 

Jeff Walter (46:12)

Right.

 

Julie Hiatt (46:25)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. How does it apply to my job and make it fun, make it interesting and engage me in the process? I think that’s what Mary’s saying with adult learning. That hasn’t changed. The technology has, but how we learn and interact really hasn’t changed.

 

Jeff Walter (46:42)

Yeah, it’s interesting. talked to folks and I said, well, you know, it’s like the third technological wave I’ve experienced in my career. it has been a lot, a lot before that, right? You know, I mean, there was steam engine and electricity and, you know, just, and it, I believe it, it, ⁓ it changes everything, but we don’t really know what, but the thing that gives me solace is there’s no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.

 

And so you need the, you need people to think and do things. And, and it can be a great set of tools, but it’d be interesting to see. never thought of the, mean, I guess it makes complete sense, but I never thought of learning and development more from the perspective of change management. Like I always know as part of that, but like just sitting there going, okay, well, all learning is change because

 

Mary (47:16)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (47:36)

I didn’t know something and now I know something. I didn’t know how to do something, now I have to do something. And it’s like doubling down on that element of learning and development to help navigate through a major technological change. That’s really interesting.

 

Mary (47:46)

Mm-hmm.

 

Well, I mean, obviously you can help people learn how to use the tools. I mean, that’s part of it too. But I think you start with helping them understand the why. why should I care? You gotta get their attention.

 

Jeff Walter (48:07)

Yeah.

 

Well, yeah. Well, and attention is an important thing because look, there’s an infinite number of things we can be focusing our attention on. But we got to, but, and so why this thing, doesn’t, you know, it’s not being rude. It’s like it, there’s competition, right? Like, like I can, I can be focusing on sports scores. I can be focusing on my family. can be focused. I can be focusing on a million and one things. Why this? And I have to understand that. So.

 

Mary (48:16)

That’s right.

 

All

 

Julie Hiatt (48:25)

Right.

 

Jeff Walter (48:36)

Very cool. So I think we did a pretty good, I think we got a really good understanding of say doing the apprenticeship program, bring AI in in the future. Is there anything else related to learning designs and where you’re going into the future that you want to share with everybody?

 

Julie Hiatt (48:55)

can’t think of anything else specific, right?

 

Mary (48:58)

I

 

mean, we’re looking at a lot of these tools and new tools, and what do we have to do to upskill? I mean…

 

Jeff Walter (49:05)

All

 

right, good. Just cut that out. Don’t worry about it.

 

So shifting gears from ⁓ learning designs, we’re all learning professionals. We love to learn new things. Outside of work, what do you guys like to learn about and explore?

 

Mary (49:21)

Julie likes to explore how to destroy her body.

 

Jeff Walter (49:26)

hahahahah

 

Mary (49:29)

So

 

I keep telling her she isn’t going to be able to walk in 20 years, it hasn’t had, I have not convinced her yet. So. ⁓

 

Julie Hiatt (49:38)

Well, my

 

answer to that is I can be in a rocking chair in 20 years because I’m older. I can be in it because I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do in life and I’m staying also.

 

Mary (49:48)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (49:49)

Well, you have to expand upon the destroying your body part.

 

Mary (49:50)

Yeah. Well, I mean, she,

 

you she does these grueling races, you know, marathons and which is amazing. I mean, and I know how hard she trains for it, but. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (50:03)

So

 

Julie, what’s been your favorite marathon that you’ve run?

 

Julie Hiatt (50:07)

Well, I just got back two weeks ago from Leadville, Colorado. I did a mountain run up to 13,000 feet. So that’s probably my biggest challenge so far. But I’m looking at more. I’m always Googling new things.

 

Jeff Walter (50:12)

Uh-huh.

 

my!

 

Holy

 

smokes. 13th. And yeah, that’s, yeah. Well, know, oxygen is a good thing. Did you spend time activating at altitude or did you?

 

Mary (50:28)

Say what I mean.

 

Julie Hiatt (50:32)

Yeah, I survived.

 

Yeah, I mean, you can’t train in Michigan, of course, for that. So we went five days ahead of time.

 

Jeff Walter (50:45)

Hey, hey, we’ve got we’ve

 

got peaks that are a good thousand feet above sea level.

 

Julie Hiatt (50:49)

I don’t even know if we have that Jeff. Honestly, yeah, so we just went a few days out and did our best, you know, had a few headaches because that’s common and it’s really dry. We noticed a lot of sinus problems, but after three or four days and lots of fluids that it worked for us.

 

Jeff Walter (50:57)

Uh-huh.

 

Uh-huh.

 

And

 

how long was the run? mean, you were at altitude, but how, how, how, how, my, my. So more than a half marathon. Wow. Wow. You do like to, push your body to the limit. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. ⁓

 

Julie Hiatt (51:12)

15 and a half miles.

 

Yeah.

 

That’s what I call fun. I know

 

it’s weird.

 

Jeff Walter (51:29)

Well, like I said, I’m doing my first half Ironman this weekend with my daughter. So I have not historically been an endurance person sports-wise. So yes, it’s going to be my first half marathon. ⁓

 

Julie Hiatt (51:39)

Awesome.

 

Is it in Sandusky,

 

Jeff? Is it in Sandusky, Ohio by chance?

 

Jeff Walter (51:50)

No, we’re going out to Oregon. It’s in Salem, Oregon. And, ⁓ you know, my girls are marathoners. They’ve, they were distance runners in high school and they both run multiple marathons. And, so this year they were like, Hey, they didn’t get into any of the marathons they wanted to run. ⁓ so they were like, Hey, let’s do a triathlon. And then I was like, Hey, let’s do a half iron man. And then it was like, Hey dad, we’re doing this step iron man. Yeah. So this is my, this is my first. So

 

Julie Hiatt (51:52)

⁓ okay. Cool. Wow.

 

Awesome.

 

Mm.

 

That’s hard.

 

Jeff Walter (52:19)

Hopefully, I’ll be back next week. ⁓ So is ⁓ there else you want to cover? Thank you so much for your time and energy and sharing all that. It was very educational. I always learn. It was a lot of fun. And congratulations on running the mountains of Colorado,

 

Mary (52:21)

Bye.

 

Julie Hiatt (52:22)

You

 

will, you will.

 

Mary (52:25)

We’ll check in to see.

 

Julie Hiatt (52:27)

Yeah.

 

Mary (52:38)

It’s fun.

 

Julie Hiatt (52:45)

Thank you. Thank you, Jeff.

 

Mary (52:45)

Yeah.

 

And good luck to you.

 

Jeff Walter (52:48)

the, yeah,

 

well, the half Ironman is not at altitude and the swim portion is in a river going down river. So I got that going for me.

 

Julie Hiatt (52:49)

Yes, good luck.

 

I love it. I can’t

 

wait to see pictures.

 

Mary (53:02)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (53:03)

All right. I’ll get you someone. Hopefully there’s no ambulances involved. ⁓ It’s a pleasure and thank you for all your support over the years. You guys have been awesome. really enjoyed you as clients and just thank you. I just really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing with everybody out there listening, what y’all do and how you’re making a difference and how they can…

 

Julie Hiatt (53:07)

No, you’ll be fine. Thank you so much, Franklin.

 

Jeff Walter (53:29)

take some of those lessons and be more effective at what they do. you know, because we’re all big believers in knowledge and education and skill development and that changes the world. And so I really appreciate you sharing all that with everybody. So thank you.

 

Julie Hiatt (53:43)

Thank you.

 

Mary (53:44)

Thank you.

 

Jeff Walter (53:45)

And to everybody else out there, thank you for listening and we’ll see you next time. Take care.

 

Julie Hiatt (53:49)

Sounds good.