When the collar isn't white: Effective L&D for non-office-based staff

Earlier this week I asked a popular AI-powered image generator to craft an image of an L&D training session.

Alongside the borderline grotesque, eerily soulless “employees” it generated – note, this editor would always go to his very human design colleagues when in need of an image rather than an AI tool, but I had a point to prove – it was notable each of the options provided a visual of an office.

So, I tried other queries, like ‘Employees being trained,’ ‘Company providing a training session,’ and ‘Learning and development experts running a training session.’ I tried other AI image generators. I even tried a popular image search engine. But all that came back were employees, dressed in traditional office wear, under the familiarly dreary office tiles, surrounded by photocopiers and drab office equipment.

The uncomfortable truth is that it’s not just image generation software that can fall into this trap. We all can, and there’s no getting around the fact that plenty of training programs and technologies are built around office workers.

Are non-office workers overlooked in L&D?

Whether these people do their work in stores, restaurants, factories, warehouses, construction sites, or even environments like hospitals, trains, and the homes of customers, their day-to-day employee experience is very different from that of a 'white-collar' worker sitting (or standing) at a desk.

Like it or not, many of these employees are unhappy with that experience, particularly with the training they are given.