Moving Beyond "Learning by Observing." What is the Optimal Solution for OJT in Remote Environments?

On September 27, 2021, Dentsu Inc. Business Transformation Division and FunTre hosted the webinar"Redeveloping OJT in the Telework Era: How to Move Beyond 'Learning by Watching the Senior's Back'".

As remote work is adopted across all industries, more companies are struggling with scenarios where traditional OJT fails to provide adequate training and with the reduced opportunities to "learn by watching senior colleagues."

What should OJT look like in a remote work environment? To explore this question, the webinar featured training professionals as guests. Discussions unfolded, incorporating Dentsu Inc.'s initiatives focused on talent development during the pandemic.

The speakers included: Ms. Tomoko Handa, Career Design Producer at Dentsu Inc.'s Human Resources Bureau; Ms. Maki Sato, Strategic Planning Director at Dentsu Inc. who continues to experiment with new OJT methods under remote work; and Ms. Mai Suzuki, who joined Dentsu Inc. remotely in April 2021.

From their respective perspectives, they discussed OJT approaches that go beyond "learning by watching."

The disconnect in remote environments: Veterans/mid-level staff "want to talk" vs. young employees "want to listen"

Part 1 focused on "Practical On-the-Job Training." Mr. Sato, who is pioneering new on-the-job training in remote environments, and Ms. Suzuki, a new employee who received this training, discussed their activities and post-training impressions. Mr. Inuzuka served as moderator.

Inuzuka: First, could you explain what's happening with on-the-job training in remote environments, Mr. Sato?

Sato: Currently, three situations are emerging in on-the-job training. These are: "Things that have become easier with remote work," "Things we recognize as having become harder with remote work," and "Things we don't recognize as having become harder with remote work."

For example, in a remote environment, online meetings can be held regardless of location, and sharing knowledge through videos, like this webinar, has become easier.

Conversely, many feel that remote environments make it harder to provide careful, face-to-face guidance and have reduced opportunities for building camaraderie.

While addressing these situations is important, I believe it's crucial to recognize and address the third point: "things that have become harder to do remotely without realizing it."

For instance, while holding daily online meetings, I suddenly noticed, "Has everyone started talking more during remote work?" This might be because senior or mid-level employees "aren't realizing they aren't speaking enough." I observed cases where, even though junior employees clearly aren't speaking enough, seniors tend to over-explain in an effort to be thorough.

Inuzuka: That's true. I feel like the flow of conversation, or the quality of the back-and-forth, changes slightly when it's through a screen. On that note, Suzuki-san, I believe you received your OJT entirely in a remote environment from the start. What are your honest thoughts on that?

Suzuki: Honestly, since I have far fewer opportunities to talk with seniors, I genuinely wish I could be exposed to their various perspectives and values more. Also, since we only know how to work online, I feel frustrated that we don't even understand what seniors feel they can and cannot convey online.

Inuzuka: So there's a mismatch between the hidden desire of veteran/mid-level employees to "talk more" and the universal desire of junior employees to "learn more."

Creating a stage where both veterans/mid-career employees and juniors can be the "main characters"

Sato: To address this mismatch, we've been trialing an initiative called "Turning Heroic Tales into Knowledge" since last year. This involves junior employees interviewing multiple veteran/mid-career staff to uncover their expertise, insights, and personal dedication—their "heroic tales"—then compiling this knowledge for internal sharing.

Inuzuka: Just the title "Turning Heroic Tales into Knowledge" gets me excited. Actually, I joined this activity this year too. Could you share your impressions from each of your perspectives?

Suzuki: First, asking busy seniors for their time is quite challenging, so I was really happy to get the chance to listen to them thoroughly. Also, I realized that by taking the shared knowledge and digesting it myself to create materials, I could absorb it more deeply.

And above all, I got my first real sense of the company's tacit knowledge—that "company vibe," if you will. Working remotely, I sometimes wondered, "Did I really join this company?" But through this activity, I finally feel like I've become a true member of the team.

Sato: As the interviewee, I found that talking helped me organize my own past experiences. Things like, "Oh, right, there was that story too," kept coming up, and I had so many things I wanted to share with the younger members. When you're just focused on work day after day in a remote setting, you surprisingly rarely get a chance to organize your thoughts. So, this was a really valuable opportunity.

Inuzuka: Thank you. Could you share what insights you gained from this initiative?

Sato: What I truly realized anew is that there's a "disconnect" in organizational culture between the offline-centric generation and the online-centric generation. With a clear awareness of this reality, veteran/mid-career employees should become the "storytellers" of organizational culture, while younger employees become its "heirs." In other words, I believe strategically creating a stage where each can become the "protagonist" fosters a new cycle and leads to the expression of initiative.

This is an era demanding the "verbalization" of tacit knowledge, not just "learning by watching their backs."

Part 2 featured a talk session between Mr. Inuzuka and Mr. Handa on the theme of "HR Practice."

Inuzuka: The reason I asked HR's Mr. Handa about OJT this time is that, working with him over the past few years, I found his perspective on the relationship between HR (Off-JT) and the field (OJT), and his views on HR's talent development goals, particularly interesting. Could you explain that again?

Handa: I believe the goal of talent development is to cultivate individuals who can impact management. Considering this, organizational structures where Off-JT and OJT training are compartmentalized feel misaligned with the core objective and fail to serve as effective training for new hires.

Inuzuka: That's right. What really impressed me about your Off-JT approach is how you design training programs starting from actual on-the-job challenges and needs. What challenges do you face in a remote environment?

Handa: The biggest challenge is time management. Discussions that could be handled with a quick chat offline now require formal meetings remotely. If you're not careful, your entire day could end up filled with meetings. To prevent that, you must cultivate strong time management skills.

Once you can manage your time effectively for a single day, you can extend that skill to a week, a month, six months, and a year. It's a crucial ability that also relates to career design. I think the key is figuring out how to effectively convey this knowledge.

Inuzuka: Personally, as a prep school instructor delivering e-learning, I've experienced the difficulty of knowledge transfer. I feel this resonates with the challenges faced in OJT settings.

Handa: Traditional "transmission-based OJT" relied on the idea of "learning by watching the back," but that approach doesn't work in a remote OJT environment. That's precisely why the instructor's ability to articulate their knowledge becomes essential. They must reflect on and verbalize their tacit knowledge – why they can perform this job, why they can tackle this particular challenge. This process of verbalization is indispensable.

Inuzuka: I see. So the skills required of instructors are changing under remote conditions.

Learning that feels forced has no meaning.

Inuzuka: Another challenge I felt as a prep school instructor was fostering proactive learning. Especially in a remote environment, supporting self-motivation feels particularly difficult.

Handa: Fundamentally, learning that feels forced leaves nothing with the learner. To make learning meaningful, self-motivation is essential. Ideally, we provide the optimal training opportunity precisely when the learner faces a real-world challenge. When they come with a genuine desire to improve, their level of commitment directly correlates with how much they absorb. That's my practical experience.

Inuzuka: That's true. When we developed training programs together, we broke down themes into very granular topics for the videos, specifically designed for on-the-job application. Even though it was an Off-JT program, it felt quite OJT-oriented.

Handa: That's right. I believe the ideal future for talent development is where Off-JT and OJT complement each other, cross boundaries, and merge.

Inuzuka: With remote work becoming established, I expect e-learning opportunities will increase significantly across companies. Could you reiterate the essential content needed for this?

Handa: One is "verbalization/explanation skills." In remote environments, text-based communication is central, and even in web conferences, the atmosphere can be hard to convey. Therefore, the skill to explain concisely and convince others is essential. This is, of course, also necessary for instructors. As I mentioned earlier, verbalizing tacit knowledge is important, and as Mr. Sato said in Part 1, it also connects to taking stock of one's own skills and visualizing one's career.

The other is time management skills. We've been focusing on this at our company for the past three years, and recently, the demand from the field has become particularly strong. I think it's crucial to thoroughly instill textbook techniques in new employees, such as task decomposition and methods for deciding what not to do.

Inuzuka: Finally, could you share your ideal vision for talent development, Mr. Handa?

Handa: The ideal state is one where "every employee is both a teacher and a student." If someone says, "I don't understand this part. Could you teach me?", people who naturally gather around and say, "That's my specialty. I'll teach you," and everyone learns together. I think it would be great if we could achieve something like a share house.

Inuzuka: Thank you. I learned a lot myself!

"Turning Heroic Tales into Knowledge" Monitor Program Now Recruiting!

Dentsu Inc. and Shi Education are currently developing a new service focused on knowledge sharing from veteran employees.

We're formalizing the "Turning Heroic Tales into Knowledge" process introduced here. We'll support you from selecting personnel, conducting interview training for new and junior staff, to actually conducting the interviews. Afterwards, we'll transcribe the interviews and compile them into compelling "teaching materials," storing them in a format and location that's easy to share.

Veteran employees need to dedicate only about one hour. The final product features a cover that makes you want to click, and the content isn't just a list of text—it's designed to be exciting, like a compelling proposal.

We are currently accepting applications for monitors for the "Heroic Tales Knowledge System." If you are interested, please feel free to contact us at the address below.

https://hidenc.funtre.co.jp/