New England Learning Association

For those of you who could not make it to last night’s panel discussion, Creating a Learning Culture in a Biotech Setting, or for those of us who continue to talk about it, here are some brief notes on the event.

We started the panel with a brief introduction from each of our panelists, and then proceeded to go through some of the initial questions.

Mike Laffin from Serono led off the discussion talking about the wide range of audiences and learning styles that they have to deal with.  Specifically the difference between the needs of sales reps and managers and hit internal folks such as scientists, researchers, finance, IT, marketing, customer services, etc.  He brought up an interesting conflict that many times the sales people’s learning styles often are best supported by classroom training with many application exercises, but they are remote, so classroom training is difficult.  This contrasts with many of the more analytical internal folks who are slower to interact and try new things. The home office people are easier to get in a classroom, but many prefer some sort of self-paced online training.

Kevin Kovalcik provided some interesting discussion around how compliance driven their work is.  “Never documented, never done” was the quote he used to start off the discussion.  Everything that they due needs to be transparent, for audits, traceability, change controls, etc.  They use a validated system that is hybrid, a combination of paper and electronic.  For example, many of their training events are delivered via their portal, but completed on “paper.”

At this point, discussion picked up with the audience and some additional questions were raised, such as “What evaluation levels do you go to when evaluating your learning events?” and “How does Learning & Organizational Development work with Marketing?”.  Each question led to further discussion and debate, and I will work to get more details here shortly.

The session closed with each panelist sharing their key learnings that they have gained through their experience in the field.

Kevin Kovalcik focused on three key areas:

1. Having the right people on the right teams
2. Having an “Organizational Cultural Awareness”
3. Having a plan for change management as part of the process

Mike Laffin provided two key learnings:

1. Include stake holders from the earliest possible moment, including: SMEs, Legal & Regulatory, IT, Vendors, and Learners/End users
2. Realize that your own personal learning preferences are not the same as everybody else.  Keep an open mind and focus on the learner.

As the moderator of the panel, I wasn’t able to take detailed notes, but I heard that someone was.  I will make sure that those notes get posted here as well.  If you have additional thoughts, ideas, key learnings, comments, or just want to correct something I’ve said above, please click on the comment link below, and share them with the group!