Evan Hackel recently welcomed Andrew Scivally, one of the founders of eLearning Brothers, to share his views on a Training Unleashed Podcast. Their conversation has the power to expand and transform the way your company trains its people today. Read on to learn more!

About eLearning Brothers

eLearning Brothers is a small company in Utah that has a unique story. Back in 2009, two brothers – Andrew and his brother Sean, started a company in their basement with a great idea.

They believed that they had the skills and knowledge to put together interactive, engaging, and inspiring content to help companies dramatically enhance their eLearning courses. And they were right! That is just what eLearning Brothers have been doing ever since . . .and are still doing today.

Andrew and Evan Discuss Training Today

Here are some edited excerpts from what Evan and Andrew, two expert trainers, had to say.

Evan: Andrew is CEO of E-learning Brothers, and he is one of the original two brothers there. He has immense knowledge of what’s going on in the world of training. And let me add that e-Learning Brothers is one of the leading companies in the world of training today.

Andrew, let me just start with the question that everyone likes to ask just now. What has changed because of the pandemic?

Andrew: A lot has changed, right? I think the biggest thing is that companies that had not adopted digital training before the pandemic are doing it now. They have fully embraced it, whether they wanted to or not. Before the pandemic, we would go to companies that were doing a lot of business and had lots of employees. Yet when I asked if they were doing any online training they would say, “No, we haven’t even thought of that . . . why would we want to do that?

And I mean, these were big companies! So I think that’s the biggest thing that’s changed. There has been a massive acceleration of adoption. Without the pandemic, I don’t know how else we would have gotten this done.

Evan:  I’ve seen the same thing. Now, people are less afraid to be on camera, more comfortable with video and technology where before the pandemic, they were afraid. I think acceptance of technology has been major. And I actually think leader-led training, which was dying somewhat before the pandemic, has come back a little bit. But now it’s being done virtually!

Andrew: I know! I used to get on Zoom calls with 19 or 20  people, whatever, and nobody had their cameras on! It was just one way to talk to each other. But now on every call I have with partners or clients, I get to see them. And that’s been awesome.

Evan: One of the premises of this show is that a lot of people don’t really understand how to do good training. What are the foundations of having effective training that actually moves the dial and has a positive impact on a company?

Andrew: If you are going to take your employees’ time, if you’re going to invest in developing training and all of that, you should create a really great, interactive, engaging experience for them.

Now, that doesn’t mean you need to spend a million dollars. But when you’re building training, you should think about a number of things. It should look really good. It should be on point, which means that you don’t include a lot of extra junk that people don’t need to know about.

Sometimes people are just pushing and pumping out training and they’re just kind of checking a box that says, “Hey, they did the training.” But those companies are not really thinking about the fact that there’s a person on the other side of this that actually has to go through this stuff.

Evan: And it is an investment. People think, “Well, we really can’t afford it.” But then they stop and think that maybe they have 1,000 employees who are each going to spend 10 minutes on the training. Well, that means the training will take up 10,000 minutes of employee time. And when you think how much you are paying those people for that many minutes of their time, you realize that the training itself is only maybe one percent of the actual cost of training. The lion’s share is the amount of time that employees are investing.

Andrew: It is peanuts. One thing I’ve always thought about is that marketing companies spend a ton of money just to make their work look really pretty. At the end of the day, everything they produce looks really, really good, professional, slick and all that.

But what about our training departments? What if they invested the time and effort to make what they produce look amazing? It is not that hard or expensive to make training look pretty darn good . . . using some really nice visuals, making sure that your branding aligns with what the company would expect or is trying to push.

When employees go through that kind of better training, they say, “Well, do you know what? This feels like our company. This looks amazing. The training department actually knows what they’re doing.”

And that gives you credibility as a training department because you put out good stuff! And so I think that’s been missing and it’s happening a lot more now.

Evan: I totally agree with you, and some big companies just don’t get it. I was recently with a client who was showing me all their rebranding, and it was excellent. And I said to them, “Well, now’s the time to look at all of your training and upgrade it and take it to the next level.”

And they said, “Why is that?” I said, “Well, if you’re rebranding the company, you’ve got to redo all your training to the new branding, right, dramatically different.” And their response was, “Ah, we never thought about that.”

Andrew: If your employees went through a branded training experience that was just top-notch, they’d be your biggest ambassadors in the world. They’re talking to your customers. Shouldn’t you use branded training that makes employees feel that they are part of this new company? It only makes sense, but unfortunately, sometimes people aren’t thinking about the training department in that kind of way.

Evan: If you had one tip to offer to our audience, what would it be?

Andrew: One piece of advice? Going back to what we touched on earlier, Evan, and that is to tie yourself and your training to the goals of your business. So figure out how your training department can actually move the needle on the goals that your company executives care about. So if you want to get in the game, if you want to get into the executive room and into the brains of those executives and into their hearts, help them achieve their business goals.

A Special Offer from Andrew to Members of the Training Unleashed Podcast Family

Andrew invites all members of the Training Unleashed family to explore and use all the rich training resources that are found on the eLearningBrothers.com website. Simply click on the Resources tab on the website and you will find eBooks, a knowledge base, as well as access to a number of powerful, information-packed webinars about creating superior training. It’s all there for you.

“Just dig around and enjoy it,” Andrew says.

 About Our Guest

Andrew Scivally is the co-founder and CEO of eLearning Brothers. He has 20 years of experience in the learning technology space, including all aspects of course design and development, as well as leading learning and development teams for financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and Zions Bank. He holds a master’s degree in computer education and cognitive systems. Led by Andrew, eLearning Brothers has established an industry-leading brand and been featured in the Inc. 5000 for six consecutive years.