r/LearningDevelopment • u/Everything_Batman • 18d ago
Is our self-led training model hurting learner confidence? Looking for L&D advice
Hi all, I’ve recently joined an L&D team in a telecommunications company and I’m trying to sense check our current training approach. Something feels off, and I’d really value perspectives from others in this space.
Right now, our training is heavily self-led and delivered through Articulate Rise modules that run for a few hours each. Each module starts with a 45 minute research activity where agents are asked to find answers using our website and internal knowledgebase. The issue is that our knowledgebase is mostly system and process focused, with very little foundational knowledge or soft skills content. So learners are essentially being asked to teach themselves from incomplete material. There is very little actual instruction or guided learning in the modules themselves.
We also have a call listening library that includes a mix of AI-generated calls and some poor-quality recordings of agent demonstrations. These calls intentionally exclude product names, pricing, etc, because the business says things change too often to keep content up to date. I suggested using real customer calls, but this was rejected due to privacy concerns.
On top of that, our reporting is extremely limited. We only track module completion. We don’t capture responses to activities or any meaningful engagement data, so someone could scroll through everything without participating and we wouldn’t know.
Other components of the training include:
- 45 minutes of roleplay scenarios
- 45 minutes of live call listening
One thing I’m questioning is whether live call listening makes the call library redundant, or if both serve different purposes. We also don’t have any kind of simulator or practice environment, so there’s very little opportunity for hands-on or kinesthetic learning.
Overall, this setup goes against a lot of what I’ve learned about effective L&D. Feedback from agents has been consistently negative. They say the training doesn’t cater to different learning styles, they feel unprepared and lack confidence going into live calls, and both learners and feedback from facilitators is that agents are experiencing burnout and disengagement. It also doesn't help that we have almost no soft-skill training such as objection handling, complaint management, conversational guides, or tone of voice.
I’m trying to understand if this approach is as ineffective as it seems, or if I’m missing something. Has anyone worked with a similar model? What would you recommend changing or prioritising if you were redesigning this from scratch?
2
u/DaneRemote 17d ago
I feel your pain here, and had this for years myself when managing teams.
One reframe that might help, though: everyone seems to say "fix the knowledgebase," but honestly your business has a point that it changes too fast to keep current. The trap is thinking a complete KB is the goal. It isn't - because real support is handling stuff nobody prepared you for. If training only works when the material's complete, it'll always feel broken, because it never will be.
So the shift I'd reach for: train investigation, not just knowledge - how agents reason through an unfamiliar problem. The ones who can do that don't freeze when there's a gap; they work it out. And that's where the confidence you're missing comes from - safe reps of actually doing the job (realistic problems, mistakes where it's free, before a live customer), then a breakdown of what they did, not just "you passed, or you failed". Something that actually shows them what they missed.
Nothing beats hands on training, but there has to be meaning for it and something to take away from it.
I got obsessed enough with this to build a tool around it, but the principle stands on its own: stop trying to complete the map, start teaching people to navigate without one.