Why SME and ID need each other
Lately, we’ve been seeing some concerning hiring practices in the instructional design field. If you’ve been paying attention to hiring trends, you’ve probably noticed this as well. Recruiters for learning and development (L&D) teams are increasingly prioritizing industry knowledge over instructional design skills, or at least equating the two.
Perhaps most worryingly, this trend is emerging from within L&D itself, a field that understands the value of learning expertise. Industry experience doesn’t matter, but I worry that I’m asking too much of an instructional designer (ID). If you’re reading this as a hiring manager who emphasizes industry knowledge as a plus or as a requirement for ID job postings, don’t feel bad. This trend is growing everywhere.
With that said, let’s discuss why hiring a good instructional designer is more important than industry experience, and what you should do instead. Let’s dive in!
Small businesses cannot create training – usually
First, let’s define what a Subject Matter Expert (SME) is and why it’s important in the world of training. Small businesses are employees with experience and knowledge in a particular area of the business. You can run a small business that knows the inner workings of your business and how your employees deliver value. However, we can also have experts in finance SMEs, legal SMEs, HR SMEs, marketing SMEs, and any other business subject matter you can think of. Becoming a small business requires having extensive knowledge, usually through experience in a specific job or industry.
When L&D teams receive training requests, they don’t necessarily come from small businesses. It often comes from executives, team leaders, or from identifying gaps in skills or knowledge. However, because instructional designers rely on the expertise of small businesses in building training, small businesses should always be part of the project team when developing training. More on this later.
Now you may be thinking: What if we cut out the middleman and outsource training development to small businesses? That’s a smart argument. Today’s companies seek to maximize the amount of work per employee and minimize costs. The team runs lean, with most roles performing multiple, if not multiple, jobs.
However, consider costs based on effectiveness and efficiency, not budget. According to the American Psychological Association, even a temporary mental block caused by switching between tasks can reduce a person’s productivity by as much as 40%. Small businesses are your experts and the best at what they do. They provide the most value to the organization by doing their job, not someone else’s.
More importantly, most people who have a deep understanding of their subject matter and years of experience are at a disadvantage when it comes to writing training. They’ve been in the weeds of work for so long that they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a beginner. They don’t think in terms of breaking down complex information into understandable parts. They don’t take into account that their audience doesn’t have the same level of knowledge as them. They create training as they currently understand it, not how their audience needs to receive it. Essentially, knowing a topic and designing effective training for it are completely different skill sets.
Of course, this does not apply in all cases. Small businesses can also be good teachers. But from 12 years of corporate ID work, I can confidently say that receiving content from small and medium-sized businesses is usually a chaotic information dump of experience. As instructional designers, we spend the majority of the beginning of a project poring over piles of notes, papers, SOPs, and other existing documents and presentations. In the case of training that is actually completed and developed by small businesses, it is almost always stuck in the weeds and completely lacking the kind of engagement and retention techniques that ID uses. In other words, small businesses don’t know how to keep learners interested, enhance learning, or make learning more accessible. They simply don’t understand the art of instructional design. And, frankly, it shouldn’t. That’s not their role.
So what’s wrong with hiring an ID with industry experience? Sounds like that would solve the problem, right? Well, the purpose shouldn’t be to exclude small and medium-sized businesses. We should stop forcing people to do two professional jobs at the same time. The same goes for IDs.
Instructional designers are learning experts first and foremost.
We all want to believe that we can do anything we set our mind to. Indeed, most of us have been taught that since childhood. And that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. But one thing is true: no one can do everything. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We all have our areas of expertise. Also, expertise takes time and experience, so we only have expertise in a limited number of areas.
Most IDs work in multiple industries and build all kinds of training. It’s not a weakness, it’s one of our greatest strengths. This teaches you valuable skills that you wouldn’t learn if you only worked in one industry or received one type of training. In my own experience, moving from my first industry, pharmaceuticals, to specialty food services forced me to be very intentional about what I designed. Different audiences have different constraints to consider. Different technologies mean different ways of deploying training. Industry needs and company goals were different. That meant intentionally ensuring each project met our needs and goals.
Essentially, expanding into new industries and working with different audiences forces us to think differently. Every time we think differently, we learn something new about our space. This is the very core of how we as IDs gain expertise and become SMEs with unique skill sets. Requiring IDs with industry experience significantly narrows the available talent pool. You’re looking for a do-it-all unicorn who is both a learning expert and an industry expert. I’m looking for someone who rarely exists.
IDs are small businesses in adult learning, not industry or functional experts. We understand how to find gaps in skills and knowledge and what’s best to fill those gaps. We understand how to determine if training will help you achieve your company goals. We are skilled at using tools to design training. We are writers, storytellers, graphic designers, project managers, and change managers. A good ID can leverage the same skills in any industry or type of training.
Instructional design is a specialized field of study. Think of it like this: Do you hire a lawyer to handle your taxes? They may be able to handle it, but will it be as good as if you hired a tax professional? Probably not. So if you’re not an industry expert, who should you hire for the ID role instead?
How small businesses and ID should work together for ideal results
The best thing you can do for your team is to hire the best learning professionals you can, regardless of their industry experience. We need people who can demonstrate that they know how to teach adults, learn about the new business they’re in, understand company goals and learner constraints, and produce effective training. However, this is not to say that ID is better than small businesses.
The idea is that ID and SME should not try to replace each other. Our work complements each other. In fact, one cannot exist without the other. At ID, we rely on the expertise of small businesses. We then distill that expertise into usable training that’s actually useful for your industry and your audience, based on feedback and input from small businesses. ID brings learning expertise, SME brings business and role expertise, and ID brings the two together to deliver training. Indeed, instructional design research has long emphasized the importance of collaboration between SMEs and IDs, noting that each role brings different but important expertise to the learning development process.
result
After all, if you’re serious about providing your organization with the highest quality training, you shouldn’t try to hire someone to fill both roles in one role. Instructional designers have specialized skill sets. Let them be learning experts first and foremost, and let them do what they do best. That means partnering with small businesses in your industry to create training that actually works for your audience.
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