HRTech Interview with JD Dillon, Chief Learning Officer at Axonify

JD Dillon, Chief Learning Officer at Axonify highlights the need for organizations to have better learning and development programs for frontline managers and what affects current global L&D processes in this chat with HRTech Series:

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Hi JD, tell us about yourself and the key learnings from your journey so far.

I started my career in frontline operations managing movie theaters and theme parks. I transitioned into learning and development during my ten years with The Walt Disney Company, developing training programs for frontline teams in attractions, hotels, food service, retail, contact centers and more. Today, I work with my team at Axonify to build technology, content and services that help 4 million frontline workers around the world do their best every day.

The most important thing I’ve learned over the past 25 years is that everyone wants to do a good job. They may work with your company for a variety of reasons. Some people want to build a career. Some just need to earn a paycheck to support themselves and their families. Regardless, they all want to do good work – but they need help to build the right skills, solve problems and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

What would you say are some of the biggest problems with the current learning and development ecosystem, across sectors?

The biggest problem we face in organizational learning and performance – regardless of industry, region or audience – is mindset.

People have a legacy perspective on the concept of learning, how it works and where it fits within the workplace. Most of our stakeholders went to school. They believe education is a place-and-time activity where people complete a course and take a test at the end to make sure they learned. This mindset has been reinforced by traditional workplace learning, which is highly disruptive to the operation and yields minimal business outcomes. As a result, organizations have deprioritized workplace learning for decades.

We do what’s necessary to check the box and get people going, but we fail to commit the time, resources and investment needed to foster meaningful, ongoing skill development. Now, organizations are struggling to overcome skill gaps, keep pace with change and mitigate the negative impact of large-scale retirements. If we want to foster agile workforces that are ready to face the next disruption – however big or small it may be – we must overcome this legacy mindset and prioritize learning in the same way we prioritize any other job-critical function.

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How can reporting managers be more strategic in how they lift and upskill their teams?

Frontline managers are the most important people in workplace learning. They’re more important than HR, executives and employees themselves. Managers influence every part of the workplace experience. They hire, fire, promote, assign, prioritize and coach. A great manager can make an OK job an exceptional experience, but a bad manager can turn a decent job into a nightmare for their team members. In fact, there are two factors that influence employee retention more than anything else, including pay. People are more likely to stay when they like the people they work with and trust their managers.

That said, managers can’t uplift their teams on their own. They must be properly prioritized and enabled to develop their teams. Today, more than 40% of managers are burned out on a daily basis. They’re struggling to just keep the operation running with little-to-no time to focus on their people. Organizations cannot expect managers to close skill gaps on their own. Instead, they must recognize that proper investment in managers is the cornerstone of a strong learning ecosystem. This means re-assessing the entire manager experience, including selection, training, support and compensation. Most of all, organizations must provide managers with the time and motivation needed to focus on supporting their people. If managers are measured solely based on operational metrics, they’ll always struggle to put people at the top of their priority lists. Instead, organizations must emphasize employee experience metrics, such as turnover, engagement, promotions, etc., in their manager assessment methods.

With AI and GenAI making waves in these processes, can you talk about how organizations can implement these technologies to drive impact across learning cultures?

Organizations must focus on people, performance and problems – not technology. When you over-focus on the technology, especially as it rapidly develops and matures, it’s easy to buy into the hype, become short-sighted and make mistakes that negatively impact people and business outcomes. Instead, organizations must continuously assess the best way to support people, boost performance and solve problems. This includes making time to experiment, try new things and explore alternative approaches. AI is fundamentally changing how work gets done. Executive teams – informed by a spirited blend of opportunity and FOMO – are making significant investments and shifting their businesses to maximize this next wave of technology. HR and L&D teams must plug into these conversations to understand how technology is impacting organizational strategy. We must then determine how the work will change and, as a result, what people will be expected to do in this new version of the workplace. Only then can we adapt our enablement strategies and leverage new tools to help people build the knowledge and skills needed to be successful.

Can you share five of the biggest myths you’d like to bust when it comes to learning and development and reskilling, across sectors?

• Learning styles are a thing. People are not naturally tuned to particular learning methods. Regardless of perceived preferences, there’s no science to back up the idea of a “visual learner.” Rather, learning is highly contextual and personal. Organizations should avoid incorporating learning styles – or any methods that put complex people into overly simplistic boxes – into their strategies and focus on providing personalized, right-fit support that aligns with how people do their everyday jobs.
• Consumption equals learning. Too many people assume that, because someone completed a course, they learned the information. That’s simply not how people work, especially when confronted with large amounts of information. Learning takes time. People cannot remember a firehose of information presented during a five-day onboarding program. Instead, organizations must leverage a blend of tactics to foster continuous learning and support. This includes ongoing practice, coaching and support after training programs to ensure a capable and confident workforce.
• L&D’s job is to build and deliver courses. Structured training is one small part of a modern learning ecosystem. L&D only has so much time and so many resources to build and deliver courses. Meanwhile, employees only have so much time and opportunity to fit training into their workflows. L&D must expand our mindset and leverage a variety of right-fit tools, tactics and technologies to help people solve problems and improve their performance.
• Frontline workers aren’t worth the investment. Too many organizations deprioritize learning and development for their frontline teams. In some cases, people assume this investment is unnecessary due to high frontline turnover. In other cases, people assume frontline work is simple and can therefore be learned on the job. Historically, frontline teams have been difficult to reach using traditional training methods, such as classroom sessions and online courses. This barrier has allowed the myths about the business value of frontline investment to persist. Today, L&D teams can leverage an expanded toolkit to foster right-fit learning and support opportunities for frontline workers, regardless of the size, scale or distribution of their workforce. Organizations rely on frontline execution to deliver business results. Investing in frontline workers isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do now that effective frontline learning and support practices are readily available.
• Learning is owned by HR and L&D. Learning is an everyday experience. We learn most of what we know about our jobs outside of the classroom. While structured training is an important part of development, people have limited extra time to spend away from the operation. Therefore, L&D must evolve our methods to enable and support everyday learning. This includes everything from AI-powered digital assistants to help people find information and solve problems to coaching insights to help managers have the right conversations with the right people at the right times. Learning is a personal experience. L&D cannot control what people learn. While there are still plenty of boxes we must check in a highly regulated workplace, L&D must evolve our role to provide the right support when and where each person needs it.

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