Episode 212: What Should We Learn

What makes workplace training meaningful? It may have less to do with the presentation itself and more to do with what happens before the first slide appears.In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French continues the discussion on learning design by exploring the Analysis phase of the ADDIE instructional design model. Drawing from interviews conducted as part of his doctoral dissertation, Mark examines how experienced safety trainers—often without formally calling it ADDIE—use analysis to understand their learners, identify knowledge and performance gaps, and make required training more relevant.The episode explores a simple but powerful question: Why are we conducting this training, and what needs to be different when it is over?Examples from safety trainers demonstrate the importance of understanding employees’ previous experience, existing knowledge, job responsibilities, and actual working conditions. Whether conducting forklift training, fall protection training, or another regulatory requirement, meaningful learning begins with knowing what employees already understand and where genuine gaps exist.Mark also connects Analysis to the concept of Gemba—going to where the work actually happens. By observing employees and talking with them in the field, trainers can compare “work as imagined” with “work as performed” and determine whether training is even the appropriate solution.The takeaway is straightforward: Before designing the training, understand the work. Before teaching the learner, understand the learner.Great training doesn’t begin with PowerPoint. It begins with curiosity.