

Learning Uncut
Michelle Ockers
Learning Uncut is about real conversations around real learning solutions and real experiences with real advice from real people.
We’re all about keeping it “real.”
Here’s an overview of our approach:
Strategy and tactics. We want to unpack the strategy and how-to’s of creating great learning solutions, frameworks and teams.
CONVERSATIONS, NOT SCRIPTED DISCUSSION
Our podcasts are professional but not so edited and polished that they lose their authenticity. We want our audience to hear real people having real conversations and sharing real examples and advice.
PROGRESSIVE
We want to showcase the “unsung L&D heroes” out there doing great work, being brave and trying new things.
PRACTICAL
We invite our guests to share tips and strategies to help listeners take their solutions to the next level. We aim to provide actionable takeaways for our listeners through show notes, links and downloads wherever possible.
We’re all about keeping it “real.”
Here’s an overview of our approach:
Strategy and tactics. We want to unpack the strategy and how-to’s of creating great learning solutions, frameworks and teams.
CONVERSATIONS, NOT SCRIPTED DISCUSSION
Our podcasts are professional but not so edited and polished that they lose their authenticity. We want our audience to hear real people having real conversations and sharing real examples and advice.
PROGRESSIVE
We want to showcase the “unsung L&D heroes” out there doing great work, being brave and trying new things.
PRACTICAL
We invite our guests to share tips and strategies to help listeners take their solutions to the next level. We aim to provide actionable takeaways for our listeners through show notes, links and downloads wherever possible.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 17, 2020 • 29min
Disruption Series: Getting Started with Live Online Learning – Shannon Tipton and Jo Cook
This episode is part of the Learning Uncut Disruption series. This pop-up daily series aims to equip learning professionals with practical guidance and tips to get started or scale up with practices needed as part of their organisational response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Shannon Tipton and Jo Cook provide guidance on designing and facilitating live online sessions in lieu of face to face instruction led training. Discussion covers: How are live online sessions similar to and different from face to face? Common traps for people new to designing and facilitating live online sessions – and what to do instead Planning and communicating sessions Technology – how to pick your platform Techniques to make your live online sessions engaging What to do after your session Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/disruption-series-b/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Mar 17, 2020 • 19min
Disruption Series: Learning Profession Demands & Opportunities – Laura Overton and Donald H Taylor
This is the first in a special Learning Uncut Disruption series. This pop-up daily series aims to equip learning professionals with practical guidance and tips to get started or scale up with practices needed as part of their organisational response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Donald H Taylor and Laura Overton are leading learning practitioners. Each has over thirty years experience in the learning profession. In this series introduction they provide context about the current state of organisational learning and important considerations for learning professionals to help them adapt and respond effectively in the current crisis. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/disruption-series-a/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Mar 17, 2020 • 4min
Disruption Series: Preview – Michelle Ockers
At the time this episode is published learning professionals around the globe are helping their organisations to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the widespread shift to remote working there is a rapid scaling up of the use of digital engagement and learning methods. Many learning professionals need to do things they have limited experience in or have not done before. In a break with normal programming Learning Uncut is bringing you a pop-up Disruption series using the podcast as a platform to share practical guidance and tips from experts on getting started or scaling up with relevant practices. We will also explore effective work practices under current pressures and consider the impact of the current emotional climate on learning. The plan is to publish one to two episodes are day for 7-10 days. Normal Learning Uncut episodes will continue to be released every second Tuesday. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/disruption-series-preview/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Mar 11, 2020 • 1h 1min
48: Launching Learning Engineering at Mars – Rachel Horwitz and Trish Uhl
Mars is the third largest distributor of food in the world – both for people and pets. They employ over 100,000 associates and have in excess of 140 production sites. In 2018 they started work on a cross-discipline global initiative to streamline systems process and roles for traceability of products and materials across the supply chain at Mars – from farm to fork. Rachel Horwtiz led the work across 11 separate colleges at Mars University to collaborate on the learning solution. Not only did she need to unite the learning teams across a federated model, she also needed to guide them and their stakeholders to work in new ways in an agile project environment. Trish Uhl was engaged to bring her expertise across a range of disciplines including IT business readiness, performance and learning to create an integrated strategy for learning, change management and communications. She introduced learning engineering to this program. We explore what learning engineering is, why it was so well-suited to this initiative, and dig into how human-centred design and data analytics were used in parallel on this project. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/48/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Mar 2, 2020 • 46min
47: All Aboard for Engaging eLearning – Julian Davis and Naomi Waldron
Julian Davis of Queensland Rail and Naomi Waldron from Easy A discuss Queensland Rail’s onboarding and compliance refresher program - fittingly called All Aboard. This program was winner of best onboarding and induction program in the Australian Institute of Training and Development 2019 Excellence Awards. This program moved onboarding from a cumbersome paper-based three-month long process to a highly engaging digital learning experience that new staff complete on their first day. With the inclusion of compliance refresher modules, it touches all 7,000 staff and has significant impact in a short period of time. It’s also a really fit for purpose learning solution. Not only did it meet the technical and design requirements of the project, but significant effort went into making it a strong cultural fit. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/47/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Feb 17, 2020 • 45min
46: Leading a Distributed Learning Team– Bee Hepburn
Bee Hepburn, the Education and Content Manager at cloud-based accounting platform provider, Xero, leads a team of 90 people spread across six regions. If you work in a distributed or decentralised learning team you will understand some of the difficulties that this presents in thinking and working as one team, particularly if you have different reporting lines. Bee discusses the challenges she found when she stepped into her global role two years ago, and how she has led her team to create a new sense of purpose and work cohesively and effectively. Creating a shared learning strategy was a critical early step. Bee describes the process used to create and implement their learning strategy. Listen out for lots of practical approaches and tools for improving how your team collaborates. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/46/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Feb 3, 2020 • 52min
45: Building a Future Ready Workforce - Craig MacDonald
Craig MacDonald is the Executive Manager of learning product at Suncorp, a financial institution. Craig talks about the Future Ready programme, which aims to prepare people with the capabilities they need and that Suncorp needs for the future. The programme is part of a strategic workforce planning and talent management initiative, as well as being driven by a sense of social responsibility to ensure that their people have skills relevant for the future. Craig discusses building the business case, partnering with others, how they piloted the program and what they learned and making the program scalable. This rich story also covers, amongst other things, moving to a learning strategy with more self-directed continuous learning in the flow of work, curating learning pathways, and changes to the learning team role, structure, mindset and skillset. Craig touches on challenges and aspirations that many other learning professionals are grappling with. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/45/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Jan 20, 2020 • 23min
Episode 44: What Happened Next Pt 2 – Arun Pradhan
In this second edition in the What Happened Next Series Arun Pradhan discusses what’s happened with the Learn2Learn app and his work on organisational learning agility since he spoke with us in Episode 18 (published January 2019). Arun’s experience in 2019 is that a campaign approach is critical to building learning ability, regardless of the technology used. This approach has to be based on connecting with what people care about and focus on – which is doing their job better. Arun is an in-demand speaker at Australian learning conferences. Several of our Learning Uncut guests have nominated him as one of favourite ‘learning resources’ – you’re bound to gain insights whenever you listen to Arun, as this conversation illustrates. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/44/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Jan 6, 2020 • 54min
43: What Happened Next - Denise Meyerson, Nicole White and Emma Weber
In this special edition of Learning Uncut we catch up with some of our earlier podcast guests and ask them ‘What Happened Next ...’ We get an update on how the solution discussed in their original episode has continued to develop and what impact it’s had over the longer term. We also explore what our guests learned through this work and how it’s influenced their subsequent work. We have three great guests in this episode: Denise Meyerson from Episode 4 about re-thinking learning for customer service (1min 35secs) Nicole White from Episode 2 about using podcasts for learning (18min 50secs) Emma Weber from Episode 7 about a learning transfer bot (34mins) Key themes include the sustainability of learning solutions and things that can undermine long-term viability, the value of experimentation and how solutions can evolve over time if you are open to questioning your assumptions, and the power of story-telling for learning. In addition to the resources listed below refer to shownotes of previous episodes for additional resources. Host: Michelle Ockers Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/43/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series

Dec 23, 2019 • 37min
42: How we know the learning profession is thriving - Learning Uncut Team
“I am so much more optimistic than I have been in several years about the state of the profession and where we're headed. I think you find what you're looking for, right? If you want evidence that the learning profession is dying, you can go out and find it and find the conversations and the people who are thinking that. If you want evidence that learning and development is thriving, come and listen to Learning Uncut because we share stories every fortnight about learning professionals out there, taking the risks, doing good work, being really progressive. I think there's this re-imagining of learning in organisations, and it's definitely underway. I think it's amazing and very inspiring.” The Learning Uncut team of Michelle Ockers, Karen Moloney and Amanda Ashby get together to review the stories they have published in 2019; their key insights and takeaways, emerging trends, podcast learnings and some big news about Learning Uncut 2020… Hosts: Karen Moloney Michelle Ockers & Amanda Ashby Transcript and related resources: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/42/ Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/ Emergent: Podcast information and more episodes: https://learninguncut.global/podcast/?podcast_series=emergent-series