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Wake Up Call
June 07, 2007
Snore-fest PowerPoint slides, rambling classroom lectures, and e-learning drier than a burnt steak are no longer the norm. Companies today are finding new ways to teach old concepts—and inspiring employee idea generation and collaboration in the process. By Margery Weinstein
By Margery Weinstein
If your learners are struggling to stay awake—or trick you into thinking they're awake—it may be time to innovate your instruction. Getting workers to collaborate and expand interaction are just a couple of the benefits of putting a new twist on old training. Pulled off effectively, the result can be the kind of ideas and inspired workforce your bosses have been bugging you for since your first day at the lectern.
At records management company ArchivesOne in Middlebury, CT, innovative training means encouraging workers to learn together in forums outside the classroom. About two years ago, the company launched book clubs in which two to three business books are recommended to employees, who teleconference about the reading in groups of six to eight in half-hour sessions. The selections, says Training and Development Specialist Scott Halstead, are intended to reinforce company values and explore its mission to customers. "We're a very decentralized company," he says, "so this is one of the ways we've been able to connect people."
Instead of assigning a professional training facilitator to lead groups, the company has a train-the-trainer program that prepares employees, such as general managers and regional VPs, to take the lead. Halstead and his team provide these training novices with facilitator guides that include "pre-canned" questions about the reading to spark discussion. "Some of it is just responding to the concepts in the book," he notes, "and some of it is tying it back to [asking] 'how can we do that better at ArchivesOne?'"
The desire to bring workers together to learn outside the lecture hall resulted three years ago in ArchivesOne Institute. Held four times a year, 10 to 15 of the company's mid-level managers gather in-person under the guidance of a team of facilitators, including Halstead and Vice President of Team Development Pam Malec; a leader from the company's financial division, such as its controller or chief financial officer; and a regional vice president. Facilitators present tutorials on areas of expertise ranging from hiring, interviewing, and supervisory skills to making the most of the company's proprietary software system. "It's the only opportunity they get all year long to be together as a group," Halstead says of the program, which he says "has been powerful and well received."
Expert Advice
At Pensacola, FL-based Baptist Health Care, the cornerstone of innovative training is use of internal subject matter experts (SMEs), says Pam Bilbrey, president of the Baptist Health Care Leadership Institute. "We think it's an excellent way to demonstrate our commitment to leadership training and development, plus we find our staff loves listening to internal folks," Bilbrey says of the use of SMEs in addition to outsourced trainers or Leadership Institute-based facilitators. To discover the best employees to lead coursework, the learning team identified 10 "leadership core competencies," or characteristics the organization would like to encourage in its workforce. Each competency was given a list of telltale behaviors, which all leaders in the organization are expected to demonstrate.
When the competencies were first developed around five years ago, the organization's approximately 350 leaders at the time met to identify SMEs. Charts listing core competencies and associated strengths were posted for participants to list the employees they felt demonstrated those skills well enough to teach them. "Since we developed the [list of] behaviors and core competencies ourselves," says Bilbrey, "it wasn't a package kit we could get anywhere."
More than providing employees with best practices from real role models, widespread use of SMEs invigorates the workforce. "It adds credibility to that individual leader, and demonstrates to all staff how committed that leader is to the development of everyone in the organization," says Bilbrey. "It helps build relationships, and enhances the approachability of leaders."
On Your Feet
Sitting in one place listening to an instructor empty his or her brain for hours isn't Rick Martin's idea of inspiring training. So Martin, manager, training and technical publications for Troy, MI-based automotive and truck components manufacturer ArvinMeritor, developed training that gets learners on their feet. Martin challenged himself to revamp the training offered to internal (district managers) and external (truck technicians) customers. "Many training classes for truck components, such as a rear drive axle, might run two to four days," he says. "Out of that, 75 to 95 percent was seat time. Technicians are hands-on individuals who like to see, touch, and feel the components."
So Martin created interactive Level I e-learning pre-work that includes animations, as well as tactile exercises. Technicians complete the online work before coming to class. They learn about rear drive axle components, operation, and preventive maintenance before arriving for the Level II training, enabling them to devote all of their live, in-person class time to hands-on work, such as disassembling and reassembling drive axle components, and conducting all necessary adjustments.
The hands-on learning will be reinforced through Level III e-learning post-work, which reviews the concepts covered in the live workshop. The company will ask learners to go online every four to six months to practice using simulation technology that allows them to manipulate images of ArvinMeritor components with their computer mouse. "We'll have tactical exercises where they'll have to pull a test tool out of a tool box and put it up on the component and take the measurement, or make an adjustment" says Martin. "They'll be going through the motions they physically did in the Level II instructor-led training."
Less is More
Some innovative training tools actually pave the way for less training. This was the case at London-based news and financial information company Reuters, which used EPSS SupportPoint, a tool from performance support provider Panviva. The employees in Reuters Customer Order Management Centres, who deal with service orders for Reuters financial information systems and data, needed a way to get their questions answered on-demand rather than via training sessions, says Global Head of Learning Charles Jennings. Typical queries include how to register, or "commission," financial traders to access Reuters' information and systems, and how to coordinate the installation of Reuters' technology on the trading floor. "They're dealing with complex technology, complex processes, added to which getting the order management operatives competent to perform their jobs quickly is really important," says Jennings.
The lack of time available to these employees necessitated a learning solution that would not require they leave their jobs for training. Panviva's EPSS SupportPoint provides just that, he says. As workers perform tasks, such as user registration, context-sensitive help tabs on their computer screens immediately answer questions about the steps the employee needs to take to complete the process. Piloted in fall 2006, the system rolled out to all customer service employees in January. "Overall, the system fully met the expectation that we could reduce training by at least 20 percent," says Jennings.
Outside View
Another approach to training may be one that is more holistic, suggest John Ely, senior vice president of marketing for business and training solutions provider Signature Worldwide, and his colleague, Lisa Kalmar, an instructional designer with the firm. For example, a hotel doing customer service training should think of it in terms of the total customer experience. Instead of approaching it as individual training needs, such as guest registration and room service, train workers to understand how all guest-related functions work together to add up to the total impression made on guests. "The inertia to overcome is to stop looking at training as a function, or an individual event," says Ely, "and start looking at it through the eyes of your customer."
Liven up training by remembering the diversity of your customers, says Kalmar. Since each comes with unique needs, don't train according to formula. It doesn't help to teach a specific order of steps and methodology to making your buyers or customers happy if each has different needs that require fresh thinking. "No two customers are ever going to be the same," she explains, "so, the skills we are trying to give the people we train are those that allow them to think outside the box."
Sidebar: Quick Tips
Straying from the beaten path is easier than you think when it comes to training. Some approaches to consider:
• Forums that encourage employee collaboration such as book clubs, and "Days in the Life of" programming that places them in a co-worker's shoes.
• Widespread use of subject matter experts. What's more interesting? Hearing it from you, or from the horse's (expert's) mouth?
• Less talking, more doing. Use of e-learning for pre- and post-work, so class is freed for hands-on practice.
• Technology-based performance support instead of formal training. The ability to get help, on-demand, while still immersed in a task, can eliminate the drudgery of instruction.
• Instead of thinking of training as individual tasks to teach, approach it as stories told to your customers/ clients/buyers. Show employees how their competencies work together to create a total experience for those you serve.
• Think unique. Instead of teaching steps and formula, encourage workers to think as creatively as is necessary to satisfy customers.
Sidebar: Road Trip
Office and call center-bound workers at Middlebury, CT-based ArchivesOne are propelled out of their seats and onto the highway during the record management company's annual Road Day. The program allows these employees to experience life on the road with one of the company's field service reps. In existence for more than five years, the program also tries to give participants a view of a different ArchivesOne region, or market, than they usually work in, says Vice President of Team Development Pam Malec. "It's a great way to see what the drivers have to go through every day, and a great way to meet key customers," she says. It provides a stimulating change of scenery, Malec points out, in addition to giving its office and call center-based staff a chance to "see the day-to-day side of the business, and where we make our revenue."
To ensure that workers fully reflect on their Road Day experience, they are provided with questionnaires to answer after each customer visit, says Scott Halstead, training and development specialist, ArchivesOne. Employees are asked to consider how well customers received them, and their impression of them. They also are asked to look for business prospects, or companies they think ArchivesOne ought to send a sales rep to—learning what it's like in their co-workers' road warrior shoes, and driving revenue, too.
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