Never have good employee leadership and training been more important than now. How well is your company making the shift to sustainable long-term learning? Read now, with examples, how you can make your training crisis-proof using the S-A-L principle!
This is the S-A-L Principle
S-A-L stands for: Structure, Activity, and Learning culture. All three aspects are important for designing crisis-proof training in the long term. It all revolves around the employees of a company. Because they are the SALt in the soup!
How exactly the S-A-L principle works, you’ll learn now through concrete examples:
Provide Structure
Active Employees
Learning Culture
1. Pillar for crisis-proof training: Provide Structure
What sounds banal and simple is often not that easy: Especially in times of crisis, many employees need the feeling of a structure that gives them support. The following elements help your company or department:
Clear plans in training – Example SNIPES
Everyone wants to know what’s coming next. Therefore, always design training according to a logical principle and communicate that internally! The company SNIPES has, for example, a “Campus,” where every new employee automatically starts with a welcome course upon hiring. From there, the path is clearly outlined, but completely without pressure:
The E-learning concept of SNIPES begins with a mandatory introductory phase and is then continued on a voluntary basis.
In times of crisis, a glance to the left and right often helps: Not for envious copying but for a fresh perspective. Download our e-book on successful practical examples with blended learning now!
Guideline – Exercise with the blink.it rocket pack
Crisis-proof training through structure starts small: Incorporate exercises into your training that help employees find their own structure in their daily lives. A helpful example is the exercise “Create Your Guideline” from the blink.it rocket pack.
The depicted card shows how you can apply the exercise. Even outside of training, the exercise helps in difficult situations to have an anchor point to orient yourself.
2. Pillar for crisis-proof training: Active Employees
Clearly: Training can only succeed if employees participate. Or to put it more broadly: Only with active employees is a company crisis-proof. The following elements promote more activity among your employees:
User Generated Content – Study on Content Production by Employees
Kill two birds with one stone: You achieve this with more UGC, i.e., user-generated content. On one hand, you encourage employees in training to participate actively. Because the saying “You learn for life and not for school” can seamlessly be transferred to adults: Employees learn for their own success and not to satisfy their trainer. On the other hand, UGC also naturally helps save time in creating learning content!
More about this in this article: User Generated Content: Let Employees Create Learning Content Themselves!
Playfully Test Boundaries – Exercise with the blink.it rocket pack
Especially in times of crisis, employees often hesitate to actively try something new. Possible personal worries or the lack of support from their close environment can influence their daily work.
With the method “Playing to Practice” from the blink.it rocket pack, you give employees the chance to try out the unfamiliar without risk. This reduces the barriers, and employees are more willing to become active.
Are you looking for more inspiring impulses for your training? Then get our rocket pack with 40 great methods in a practical card game format:
3. Pillar for crisis-proof training: Positive Learning Culture
The third pillar for a crisis-proof future of the company is a positive learning culture: This encompasses the entire company and continuously influences the other two pillars. So everyone has the feeling “Here I can develop, here I am supported and appreciated!”
The following elements help create a positive learning culture within the company:
Regular Discussions with Supervisors – Example blink.it
Employees want to feel heard and understood. Regardless of the size of the company, regular meetings between supervisors and employees are therefore immensely important. At blink.it, for example, so-called “One-on-Ones” take place approximately every three months. These are one-hour meetings between exactly one supervisor and one employee – where, for the most part, the employee determines the agenda!
| Employee | Team Manager || --------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- || Determine preparation and agenda | Listen, ask follow-up questions, and answer questions if necessary || Conducting the conversation: Tell and ask | Ask follow-up questions to the employee if necessary |
Editorial Tip: How you can contribute to improving the learning culture in the company, you will also find out in our free e-book:
Agile Training Methods – Blended Learning and Microlearning
A dry seminar or a monotonous online course are poison for the learning culture in the company. Because if the employee doesn’t even feel like starting to learn, training has failed. Instead, apply agile learning methods that the employee enjoys! Combine face-to-face instruction with online phases for more variety, for example, as classic blended learning. And design short learning impulses that are easy to digest with microlearning.
More about Blended Learning and Microlearning can be found in our learning materials.
Conclusion: Become Active and Make Training Crisis-Proof
The S-A-L Principle in Brief
Provide employees with structures that give them support and orientation, especially in times of crisis.
Encourage them to actively participate in training.
And ensure a positive learning culture throughout the company!
One last tip: Start best with yourself. Where can you provide more structure, where can you become more active yourself, and how can you contribute to a positive learning culture? Integrate the S-A-L principle into your own workday: First, you learn more yourself. Second, you better empathize with your employees and colleagues. And third, you present yourself as a positive role model that others can look to.
More practical examples
Successful Blended Learning in Companies
Get inspired by positive learning cultures at other companies! Check out our e-book on real practical examples of blended learning now.
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