We’ve had wall-to-wall meetings this week with clients, discussing improving their training and I realized there were some common themes. I thought I’d jot them down before the weekend when… well… you know what happens when you have a brilliant thought on Friday and wait until Monday to write it down!

10 Strategies to Improve Your Training

#1: Respect people’s time. If you’re going to ask people to spend the time and (possible) money to attend a training session, it should go beyond valuable to indispensable. Use the in-person format wisely.

#2: Utilize online learning. This relates to #1. Using online learning wisely allows you to make the most of your in-person training. Remember, there are four different types of learning: information delivery, knowledge application, skill development and performance mastery. The appropriate delivery method is based on this plus the topic plus the learner’s style and aptitude.

#3: Invest in an LMS. There’s really no excuse not to have an LMS. There are too many good, inexpensive options out there right now not to have one. Seriously, this should be #1, #1a, #1b and #1d. It can be that important.

#4: Don’t overwhelm. You know why M&M’s are great? Okay, yes there’s the chocolate but it’s also because you can eat 5 or 50. They’re so small that you can decide how much you can handle. Same with training. Break it into itty-bitty bits. If people want more, than can always combine bits.

#5: Spread it out. Related to #4. Eating a whole bag of M&M’s in one sitting might make you sick (who’s up for some hands-on research?!). A person’s skills build, so should your training.

#6: Be holistic. I don’t mean eating tree bark to cure a cold. I mean develop a strategy for your training based on your employees’ needs and create a curriculum plan utilizing multiple delivery methods. Don’t slap together several workshops from outside experts and call it a day.

#7: Speaking of outside experts, how about inside experts? You will be amazed, shocked and stupefied by how much your people know, if you just ask them. Trust me on this.

#8: Social media. Yes, you’ve been told that social media can cure every ill that ails your company but in the case of training, it is a powerful tool. That doesn’t mean it needs to be complicated. Do you know what social media is? Knowledge Sharing. Do you know what knowledge sharing is? Bob has a problem. Julie has a solution. Julie tells Bob the solution. Done. I’ve seen it in action and it’s amazing.

#9: Pick your projects according to the cost vs benefit. Said another way, what’s going to give you the most bang for your buck. You don’t have an unlimited budget, right? So the training you offer has to be carefully chosen. There are a whole bunch of factors to determine this including: the number of learners, the impact of the training, the volume of information, the delivery method, etc.

#10: Training should not be fun. I always get grief when I say this, but being successful in business is hard work and so should training be. I think what people mean when they say this is… Training should not be boring, agree. Training should be useful and relevant, agree. Training should be engaging and experiential, agree. If this happens to be fun, fine, and there’s nothing wrong with some levity. But I don’t see a lot of medical students or law students giggling in class.

There’s of course more to it than this but small bits, right? No go buy some M&M’s (and no I’m not a paid endorser of the M&M/Mars company).

It’s an all-too-familiar scene, tell me if it rings true for you. My company is called-in to help an organization create training or improve the training they currently offer their employees. Everyone is excited, they tell us. From the CEO on down, we’re told there is a new enthusiasm for training and everyone – finally – is coming around to seeing the value of training. Great, I think to myself, as I wait for the other shoe to drop.

The first project, we’re told, will be to create seven hours of XYZ training (the topic doesn’t matter) and that it’s critical that it be done right and absolutely has to “speak” to the learners, or else they won’t buy into it… still waiting.

“Terrific,” I say. “The best way to ensure relevancy and accuracy of the training content is to work closely with your SMEs.” … shoe dangling.

“Oh,” the response normally is. “Our SME’s are really busy. I can maybe get you an hour with them next week. Is that enough time?”

CLUNK!!

Of course, you all know the answer to the question but in case you don’t, you, of course, know a SME is a Subject Matter Expert. Let’s break that title down. “Subject Matter” – the content around which you are to build the training. “Expert” – a master of said content. Kind of an important person to the success of the project, wouldn’t you say?

And then they add, “And it needs to be done by the end of the month.” Since I have no more shoes to drop and will continue by saying this is, unfortunately, not atypical.

Training has many enemies: lack of funding, lack of clear objectives, lack of respect, but – in my opinion and 15 years of experience – the biggest enemy to quality training is time.

By “time” I mean the amount of time that you have access to SMEs, and the deadline you are given. In the above example, one hour of SME time is surely not enough to develop seven hours of training, even if the SME is superhuman, understands training exactly, and is supremely prepared (and we all know how often that happens!). Could you throw something together? Sure, and that’s what most often occurs and is why most employees complain that the training they attend was ineffectual and not relevant to them.

So what are you to do? For the SME’s time dilemma, it’s important to educate on the importance of the SME and the difference between the role of a SME and that of a training expert. Over the years, my company has developed training on sales, for new managers, on lift-truck safety, for steel manufacturing assembly-lines, on customer service, for flight attendants, on systems, for store managers, and the list can go on and on. Does that mean we are experts in all or even any of these things? Nope. Yet we’ve created some high-results training because we are experts in adult learning, and have worked with people who were experts in the content (i.e. the SMEs).

It’s also important to, very early on, set expectations for the SME. Many SMEs think they will actually be creating the training. This scares them, so they push back by limiting their time. It’s up to you to manage the SME in terms of what you expect from them and when you might need it. SME-involvement is normally very heavy upfront and then wanes. In the beginning, you need them to do a brain-dump. However you can capture their knowledge, do it, from emails to recording conversations, to phone calls, to bulleted lists, to PowerPoint decks – in whatever form the SME is comfortable working. I have interviewed SMEs in taxi cabs, videotaped lectures, poured through twenty pages of streams of consciousness, even sat with a SME in an airport while she waited for her plane.

Some people wish there was a formula. You know, X hours of SME time to develop Y hours of training. I too wish there was but it depends on the SME, the complexity of the content, the delivery, the learners, and more. If someone put a gun to my head and said give me a number, I’d say based on experience that you will need at least 3 hours of SME time for each one hour of ILT. For e-learning, double that.

As for the deadline, it’s again a question of educating those involved. I’d estimate 75% of deadlines we have ever been given have been set arbitrarily, rather than by taking into account how long it will take to develop the training.

I instruct my people to always question deadlines. Find out why they are set. Even if it’s because the date for the class has already been set, ask them why that date was chosen. Would you set the date for a house-warming party before you have purchased a home? You might, if you don’t care about what kind of house would best meet your needs. Gently push back by educating on typical timelines for training. Remind them that the SME’s input is critical (remember the SMEs?) and that if they are truly as busy as they say they are, they are not going to be able to meet tight deadlines.

It also helps to find out if there are ulterior motives at play. Maybe your contact has committed to completing the project for his or her performance review or that he or she is being pressured by their manager who is being pressured by their own manager, and so on. If this is the case, perhaps you can devise a solution that occurs in stages – thus satisfying the deadlines your contact has committed to without compromising the quality of the final product.

The theme here for both “time” challenges is open and honest communication. Question where you can and educate where it’s necessary. To be fair, we have worked with some wonderful clients who have given us ample resources and time, and the result is always exponentially better.

About the author: Robert Bilotti is Managing Director of Novita Training, an employee development firm specializing in new employee, corporate and franchise training. Visit us at www.novitaunique.com.

Of all the functions of HR/Training, none is more like sales than onboarding (take that salespeople who say we don’t understand what you do!). If you think about it, your new employee onboarding program is the culmination of your recruiting efforts in which you sold the candidate on the idea of joining your organization.

Your onboarding efforts, then, are your way of avoiding buyer’s remorse. How to do this? Well, there’s an old advertising adage that says, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” Without getting too much into advertising psychology, this basically means that people buy the benefits of a product, not the features. For example, you don’t buy a car because it has 200 horsepower, you buy it because it can help you accelerate onto the highway safely.

Similarly, new employees join your company because of how it benefits them, not because of how great is your company. Yet, we see too many companies over-zealously patting themselves on the back. Certainly, new employees need to know and want to be proud of the many accomplishments of its new organization, but there should be a balance between “features” and “benefits”.

For example, if your organization is growing in revenue, talk about how that can translate into the potential for increased compensation for the new employee (you’re not guaranteeing anything but this is probably one reason why they chose you). If your company has won awards, talk about how they can contribute to the next award and how that will look on their resume (you’re not trying to help them get another job, but people want to list their accomplishments). If your company is growing in staff or has acquired another, talk about the increase opportunities for supervisory roles or cross-functional work (again, you’re not promising anything). If your company has brand recognition, cutting-edge technology or your managers are highly trained, talk about how all this makes the new employee’s job easier, better, and more productive. I can’t tell you how many of our clients forget to even include a list of employee discounts in their onboarding.

It’s not always easy because it requires you to think slightly differently. We address how to do this in our onboarding solutions, including our public Onboarding Bootcamp as well as our Navigator Onboarding Coaching service.

One great trick… Think of the reasons why an employee leaves a company (poorly trained managers, no development opportunities, lack of recognition, lack of challenging work, etc) and make sure you include in your onboarding how your company is the opposite (if it’s not, well that’s another story!).

We see the biggest culprit of the “look how great we are” attitude with companies who are growing considerably from very small to getting to be mid-sized. They – and you – need to remember that no matter how great you feel your company is (and it very well may be), that a new employee chooses to join you because of how that greatness will benefit them.

Want to make your onboarding sizzle? Contact us.

Quick quiz…

Who should own the process of new employee onboarding within an organization?

a) The Manager
b) Human Resources / Training
c) No one
d) Everyone

In our firm’s opinion, there really is only one right answer and that’s b) Human Resources / Training. The answers we get most often when working with clients is either a) The Manager; or d) Everyone; meaning a combination of people. In our opinion, both of these are wrong, though understandable.

Many Human Resources professionals we work with complain that managers don’t take enough ownership. We agree. Too many managers take a hands-off approach when it comes to employee development. And while it’s a very real problem, in the case of onboarding, you don’t want the manager to own the process. Notice I said “the process.” Absolutely managers play a critical role in onboarding a new employee, as do many people. But it should be HR/T&D who manages the process itself.

That doesn’t mean they are solely responsible for onboarding a new employee, nor does it mean they control all the content, but it does mean they should create with input from others and manage the process (there are many ways to create an effective onboarding program).

But if others are responsible and have input, why shouldn’t a combination of people own it? Because too many owners means no one is accountable. In our experience, the companies with the most successful onboarding programs have one person or department who is accountable. That means the owner of the onboarding process:

- Is accountable for the process and the results/ROI.
- Directs others.
- Centrally maintains/updates the documents

So while (many) others will be heavily involved, contribute greatly and be responsible for parts of new employee’s onboarding, there should only be one central owner of the process.

Many employers have lofty visions for their employees… they craft vision statements and values; they long for their employees to be “engaged” and “2.0″, and spend hours deliberating the company “culture” that each employee should display.

So then why are so many employees not engaged, 1.0, go against the culture, and fail to behave in accordance with the values?

Because too many employers play “catch up” with their employees – meaning they wait to communicate such guidelines (or simply never communicate them) until it’s too late and the employee has been there long enough that their bad behavior is set, and will take twice as long to change.

Imagine saying to an employee who has been at your company for three years, “You are not acting according to our values.” In many cases, the employee’s response? “What values?” or “I’ve been doing it this way all along.” It’s like trying to introduce wedding vows at a 3-yr anniversary. Chances are you’ll be unsuccessful (if the marriage even lasts that long!).

What’s an employer to do? It’s simple actually. Instead of trying to correct undesirable behavior after-the-fact, start the new employee out with the ideal behavior in the first place.

The reality is that all the buzzwords companies talk about today work better if they are instilled the first day the employee walks through the door, in what is known as the onboarding period. “Culture” begins at onboarding; “Engagement” begins at onboarding; “2.0″ only happens if your onboarding is 2.0.

Yet so many companies do a poor job of onboarding a new employee and – worse yet – set a precedence that projects the exact opposite image than what they are trying to. How can you expect an employee to behave “collaboratively” if you throw your new employee into his or her job with no collaboration.

We’ve worked with companies, improving the way they onboard new employees and invariably what we develop ends up benefiting existing employees as well, because no one took the time when they were new.

A study done in 2008* suggests that new employees of companies with highly-rated onboarding programs are:

- 52% more likely to understand the desired conduct of an employee.
- 95% more likely to feel part of a team.
- 48% more likely to feel a strong sense of commitment to the organization.
- 23% more likely to remain at the company after six months.

Next time you are considering an initiative whose goal is to change employees’ attitude or behavior, start fresh rather than playing catch-up! By first improving your onboarding, your employees will more consistently live your ideals because they’ve never known anything else. First impressions and precedence do mean that much.

For information on ways to improve your onboarding, shoot us a note at info@novitaunique.com.

* 2008 national study. Copyright Novita. All rights reserved.

I must have the worst elevator speech because when I tell people that I work at a training firm, they immediately assume that we know how a company’s employees can do their jobs better. There is an assumption – founded or not – that in order to learn, the knowledge must come from the outside.

We take the exact opposite approach. You hire good people, don’t you? Smart people who can do their jobs pretty well. And if Bob doesn’t do skill A very well, I’ll bet Sue down the hall does that skill pretty well and can teach Bob – or better yet, the organization (or us) can work with Sue to develop a training program around that knowledge in order to raise Bob’s and all other employee’s performance up to hers. I contend you can take this approach for 80% of your company’s development and performance issues.

Some people call it knowledge sharing. We take it one step further and call it D.I.Y. training. Organization, heal thyself – if you allow the reference.

It may seem like I am talking my company out of work, but many organizations don’t have the expertise, time or manpower to be able to find the knowledge that exists in people like Sue, extract it and build an effective training program to disseminate it to the proper audience using the best delivery method.

What do you think?

For the many service providers whose revenue is based on the success of the companies they serve, 2009 might not be a textbook example of ‘trickle down’ economics, and has compelled some to rethink their approach – even those who have not fared so poorly.

“We had a pretty decent year,” says Robert Bilotti – Managing Director of NovitaTM, an employee development firm that helps organizations more effectively onboard new hires and improve the performance of all employees through training “As for our clients, some remain strong. Others have suffered setbacks. All are spending more prudently.”

In an effort to save money, many companies are attempting to do more for themselves, rather than relying on outsiders. In a survey Novita conducted, 73% of employers responded they are taking this approach. Why? 81% said they were working with less budget dollars.

Bilotti explains, “Doing it yourself – or D.I.Y. – is big right now. Just ask stores like Home Depot. More people are buying paint and donning their overalls instead of hiring a professional painter. The same can be said for organizations.”

Even with smaller budgets, however, employees of those organizations still want and need to learn, develop and grow. Billotti says, “Regardless of the economy, those needs haven’t changed. So we did.”

This past summer, Novita introduced SpringboardTM, what Bilotti calls the first ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Onboarding Bootcamp. He says, “Not every homeowner knows how to properly paint, just like not every employer knows how to properly orient a new employee. Springboard teaches them how.”

Over the three-day workshop, attendees are guided through the process of building a comprehensive program that addresses their new employees’ needs, as well as those of the management and staff. Templates and worksheets are included so that employers can do it themselves – with a little help. “We let them cheat a bit,” explains Bilotti with a smile. “We’ve been doing this for years, so there’s no need for them to start from scratch.” Creating an effective program can be overwhelming, evidenced by the fact that a typical new employee completes as many as 300-500 tasks. Says Bilotti, “With the tools we give them, they can simply add-in their own content.”

The D.I.Y. approach can also be used for employees who are not new, yet still want to improve their performance. Instead of a workshop, Novita helps the organization train its employees itself, rather than bringing in an expensive outside trainer.

Says Bilotti, “There’s a great deal of knowledge that exists within any company in the form of best practices. We help them find it, extract it and develop training around it, thus raising the performance of all employees up to that of their star performers.” According to Bilotti, such an approach can be used for any topic, including management and leadership development.

The response to Novita’s D.I.Y. methods has been very positive. Dates for the Springboard Bootcamp are set for next year, and the firm is currently working with several companies on D.I.Y. training efforts, including those who are prospering. “It’s not just clients who may be struggling that are interested,” says Bilotti. “D.I.Y. means any size organization with any size budget can have world-class onboarding and training for their employees.”

For more information on Springboard or D.I.Y. Training, visit www.novitaunique.com

I was reading an article in the Chicago Tribune this morning about Ford and its hope that the new Taurus model will resonate with the American consumer. The goal was to do a better job of understanding what the American consumer wants and needs in a car? A better job? How – after 100+ plus years of making cars – does a company of this size and who spends hundreds of millions on R&D, NOT know their audience yet??

Forget tariffs, forget out-of-control union wages, Ford, GM & Chrysler all have the biggest home-court advantage of any industry and that is that people WANT to buy their products over the foreign competition. Made in America still means something and, often, people begrudgingly purchase products made abroad – simply because they are better. My father drove American for 30 years before he bought his first Nissan, and do you know what he said? Why didn’t I do this sooner? The car met his needs and wants.

My first reaction to the article was amazement. How could the carmakers be so out of touch? And then, as I often do, I tried to draw a comparison to my industry – training, and you know what? It’s the same thing. I can’t tell you how many times my firm gets hired to develop training for a company’s employees and the story the people in corporate HR tell me is vastly different than the story the actual employees tell me. How well do corporate training departments know their audience? Or what’s more, if they don’t know, how many of them are recognizing it and taking steps to correct the problem?

Believe it or not our clients are sometimes surprised when we say that – before we develop anything – we’ll want to speak to the people for whom the training will address. To me it seems an obvious part of any analysis – it’s something we do with every project. And more often than not, the scope of the project changes after we do.

I don’t feel qualified to fix Ford’s woes, but I do know that your training initiatives will be infinitely more successful if you spend the time figuring out what your employees need. Do it in surveys… do it in interviews… do it by allowing employees to contribute random ideas through some knowledge-sharing mechanism or social network, but do it. You have a home-court advantage with your employees. Don’t make them begrudgingly take part in your training.

I’ve talked before about how powerful knowledge sharing is and how cost-effective it can be to begin your efforts in this area. One simple way is something we all have used and benefited from… FAQs or Frequently Asked Questions. I’m sure you’ve seen them in product manuals, technical support sites, even sales literature and company web sites.

Why are they so powerful and why should you incorporate FAQs into your organization and learning? From the user standpoint, it’s a fast and easy way to get answers to commonly asked questions. It’s also “self service”, which means no wasted time waiting for someone to respond. From your standpoint, it’s an effective time-saver. Why answer the same question from 30 different people, when you can answer it once?

It’s also powerful in its reach – beyond the 30 people. If 30 people are asking the same question, there’s a good chance 300 people are thinking it, because we all know only a small fraction will take the time and effort to actually ask.

So how can you begin to harness the power of FAQs? First, you need the questions. That can be as simple as beginning to document questions as you receive them; giving priority to the number of times you get questions of a similar nature. Once you have your list, you need to post it (with the correct answers, of course!) somewhere for the masses to access. Bulletins that are sent out are fine. Intranets, web pages and learning ports (LMS) are even better. Finally, allow users to submit questions (and answers) of their own. Before you know it, you’ll have a robust user-driven knowledge exchange!

There are several ways to increase training effectiveness, retention and application, and it starts with the content of the training itself. It needs to be relevant. I know that sounds obvious but so many companies roll-out training (particularly training they bought “off-the-shelf”) that just doesn’t speak to the employees or their needs.

The easiest way to avoid this is to involve people inside your organization in the development of the training. These SME’s (subject matter experts) are a vital link between the users of the training and the developers of the training.

Secondly, “chunk” the training into “bit size” bits. Again, seems like a no-brainer, but too many companies try to fit as much training as they can into however long they’ve allocated because that’s “as much time as we can have people away from their jobs.”

There are alternatives. We recently developed a program for a client that was hour-long weekly sessions spread out over ten weeks. The retention and application shot up (as measured by assessments as well as business metrics) because it is much easier for people to apply one or two concepts per week rather than ten at once.

What this also does it makes the training more “reference-able.” Think about it… How many employees are going to leave a classroom with a binder bigger than their arm and ever open it again?! Not many. If it’s in smaller chunks, it can be posted somewhere and be more easily searched.

Thirdly, create reinforcements. For the same program above, we created an audio CD that each participant listened to in their truck (the audience for this particular training was a group of service technicians). The CD contained a track for each week, filled with “fellow” service technicians talking about how they successfully put the learning concepts into practice. Not only did this reinforce what was learned, but employees are always more apt to believe something is possible if they know their colleagues have done it – especially if they are hearing it right from them! The motivation factor of this is also unbelievable. People are competitive. They want to do as well or better than their peers.

The above is an example of knowledge sharing – our fourth technique. Employees helping other employees is one of the most powerful tools an organization can put into place – and not just for training. You have many, many bright and successful people working for your company, yet most times their “knowledge” stays with them – or worse, leaves the organization if they do. Become a knowledge-sharing company. You can start out small with internal email blasts and work your way up to a full-blown knowledge-sharing network or application. No matter what you do, the idea is the same: get employees communicating about their successes and failures!

Fifth… it’s been said before and it’s true (at least to some degree), managers are key to making training “stick”. They need to believe in it (or at least know about it! That happens more than you think, where managers don’t even realize their employees are being trained). Managers may not be – in my mind- the be-all-end-all that others make them out to be, but it’s important that they are trained first and then become champions of the ideas being presented.

Finally, no training is ever perfect, especially right out of the gate. You need to continuously revise and improve the training – based on feedback and assessments you gather. We normally try to build into a training program “touches” every three months that reinforce the concepts, measure the employees’ understanding and application, and gather feedback.

It goes without saying that all this is predicated on the training you put forth being of a high quality and professionalism. Easier said than done, I agree, but the effectiveness, retention and application depend on it.