Learning Personas

Learning Persona one

Technology

Technology considerations

Goals and aspirations

Personal Details

Main goals and drivers

Angelica is pretty ‘tech savy’ and picks things up quickly. She has a laptop and smart work phone which she can access around the clock. Angelica uses Office 365 regularly and has Chrome as her default browser

Angelica loves to learn, she is ambitious and enjoys taking on new challenges. She is an aspiring Team Leader wanting to work on her development. She can be unorganised and gets easily distracted so she wants to work on her time and project management skills.

Computer skills Internet/IT Mobile/apps Office 365 Social networks

Name: Angelica

Power Social Achievement Incentive Fear Growth

Team: Community Investment (CI) Role: CI Officer Time at Bah: 8 years Age: 32

Bio

Perception of digital learning

Angelica works loves her job at Bolton at Home. She often gets involved in projects and enjoys new experiences. She is well liked and has a positive outlook on life. Angelica lives in Bolton not far from the office, although she works from home from time to time, she prefers to come into the office to be around people. Angelica has a busy life, she studies part time, likes to keep fit and has an active social life. She wants to be able to learn on the go when she find pockets of time.

Angelica is not a major fan of traditional e-learning were you click through screens, she appreciates interactive online resources that she can do in her own time but loves to collaborate and bounce ideas off other people.

Barriers to learning

• Dislikes mandatory training where she is made to attend a session at a set time.
• You’ll loose her if the content is boring and long, keep it snappy and engaging.
• She likes to dip in and out of learning when she finds pockets of time so craves flexibility when learning.
• Asynchronous learning is not suited to Angelica, she much prefers to have ‘real people’ who she can ask questions and bounce off.

Digital Learning Preferences

• Social learning
• Virtual sessions with break out activities
• Forums where she can collaborate with others
• Videos, podcasts, micro learning

Learning Persona two

Technology

Technology considerations

Goals and aspirations

Personal Details

Prior to this role Tony was a ‘technophobe’, but is slowly getting to grips with his device. He has access to a computer in the office but only a work smart phone at home. He's getting to grips with Office365 and using internal systems but often asks his colleagues for support.

Main goals and drivers

Tony is comfortable in his role, his goal was always to become a supervisor so now wants to prove himself. He often feels inferior in management meetings so takes any opportunity to develop. His goal is to become more confident and improve his IT and organisational skills.

Computer skills Mobile/apps Office 365 Social networks

Name: Tony

Team: Major voids Role: Supervisor Time at Bah: 28 years Age: 44

Power Social Achievement Incentive Fear Growth

Perception of digital learning

Bio

Tony started as an apprentice straight from school and spent many years ‘on the tools’. He was promoted last year and is still finding his feet being in a now predominantly office based role. He likes his job but lacks confidence. He has three kids and often works extra hours in his new role. He books in an hour each Friday to keep up to speed with his e-learning and development otherwise he wouldn’t find the time. He is a likable guy and has many life long friends that are also colleagues.

Tony feels comfortable with traditional e-learning and is daunted by anything more complex. He prefers learning online as he lacks confidence around others. He finds videos useful as he can watch them and then have a go at his own pace.

Barriers to learning

• Tony is daunted by technology. When shown, he is capable but anything too complicated looses him.
• Tony appreciates training at set times so that he can plan his work around it but he needs plenty notice.
• Tony doesn’t feel that comfortable in a room full of other learners and finds himself clamming up on Teams calls where there are too many people. It’s still all very new to him.

Digital Learning Preferences

• E-learning
• Recorded sessions where he doesn’t have to interact lots with others
• Instructional videos that he can watch and put into practice.

Commentary on learning personas

Within the Bolton at Home workforce we have a variety of staff in a range of different roles across different teams and areas of the business. The People Development Team offer a range of development sessions for people wanting to learn new skills. The Project Management session is designed to be aimed at those staff wanting to develop. When I reviewed the types of staff often attending these types of development opportunities, it became apparent there were two main types of people that are likely to attend; those that have the desire to learn new skills and develop themselves and those who are ‘persuaded’ to go onto programs due to the nature of the roles they are in, i.e. new Team Leaders and those that have gone from practical roles to office based roles. There is also a split between the digital capabilities of the people attending; those that are confident using their devices and using the systems/applications required to do their jobs vs. those that are still getting to grips with working on a laptop/desktop device and therefore struggle using the applications and systems required to do their jobs. Although we work hard to bridge the gaps, some of the less confident staff have barriers to online learning and accessing resources electronically.

The personas will be key in informing the design of the learning process as the personas represent the needs, wants, skills and styles of the types of staff members that will be attending the session. Rather than focusing on one dominant learning style, digital capability and preference, having the two personas will ensure that the two opposite ends of the spectrum are considered and catered for. Click on the image to view an overview of what each persona represents...