For the past 13 years, Knowledge Anywhere has witnessed or supported hundreds of organizations deploy learning programs. We have witnessed the whole spectrum of success. We have seen learning initiatives flop as the “build it and they will come” model was followed and we have seen fast starts with usage dropping off after a couple months, but we have also experienced perfect implementation that has resulted in the learning programs exceeding the business objectives. From all these experiences, we established the elements of the best demonstrated practices to ensure the success of your training and education programs.

To successfully obtain the short term traction and long term results you desire from an online learning program, these are the elements that will prove paramount to your success:

Effective Communication

• Realize that if the target audience does not know about the training, they will not participate, and the desired results will not be realized. (simple, but the basic concept is sometimes lost).
• Over communicate the online learning with references on related web sites, newsletters, email campaigns, etc.
• Everyone who interacts with the target audience should be aware of the program (i.e. Field Sales, Inside Sales, and Call Center teams).
• Use physical media to highlight the availability of training (i.e. getting started cards, posters, mouse pads, table tents in conference rooms etc.)

Setting Goals

• Have obtainable and measurable goals for the online learning center (i.e. 1,000 new users by March 25; 5,000 users by April 20, and 3,000 completed courses by July 20).
• Measure and communicate progress on a monthly basis.

Access and Ease of Use

• Create easy access to the training (minimize barriers).
• Enable easy visibility for learners to see to the courses they need to take as well as completed courses.

Substantial Content

• The learning site needs to have relevant and engaging content.
• A new course or updated content should be available on a regular basis. Take this opportunity to communicate the additional material to all learners.

Secondary Support

• Connect the online training with in-person training, national meetings, and webinars.
• Obtain senior leadership support and communicate results.

Incentivize and Promote Engagement

• Highlight participation success.
• Think about a fun contest to jump start the program.
• Highlight performance success based upon learning participation.
• Respond immediately to feedback or suggestions.

Last but certainly not least, an extremely important part of this whole process is having great help and guidance along the way. Companies like Knowledge Anywhere have the skills and experience to make your learning program the best it can be, but only you can make sure that it really takes hold and makes a difference in your company. It is critical you partner with a firm that is not only concerned about selling you an LMS or building courses, but also shares your interest in ensuring the learning system has the business impact you require.

OJT is usually quite cost-effective, because it focuses on the tasks at hand, and requires no equipment beyond what the company already provides.  It’s also much less disruptive than other forms of training, because employees aren’t removed from their duties, but are instead trained for their work while doing it.

The actual training is usually done by a manager or supervisor who is coaching employees while they work.  Supervisor feedback tends to be immediate, and trainees often improve their job performance quickly.  Employees also feel more confident about their job performance when they are being coached by supervisors, and on-the-job training is a good way for new employees to build relationships with their comrades.

Problems to Avoid

There are, however, potential issues with on-the-job training.  Supervisors and experienced employees may not have the needed skills for training other employees.  Often, supervisors or managers were promoted because they were good at performing or managing their own work, but this doesn’t guarantee that they also possess the skills or ability to coach new employees.  Not everyone is a born teacher.

Time also can be a huge issue! Supervisors and mentors may not have the time to spare to  help new employees. And since on-the-job training usually follows no formal procedure or specified content (other than the task at hand), supervisors and mentors will need still more time, to pass on the extra knowledge, skills, and  business context that employees will need to solve future job problems and respond to business changes. So upper management must give employees who are doing this training the time they need.

During on-the-job training, trainees also need time to practice the skills they must learn.  In turn, supervisors and trainers must prepare adequate drill materials for trainees, and provide feedback early and often in the drilling process, to prevent trainees from acquiring unwanted job behaviors. So again, upper management must make sure that everyone gets the time they need.

An often-overlooked issue that can plague on-the-job training is company lingo. Trainees must receive a clear, consistent understanding of the concepts and terms used in their organizations. And even when an employee says they understand a word or concept, they may not.  They will often say they understand to avoid looking incompetent. So supervisors and mentors must keep this in mind, and constantly repeat and reinforce the terms and concepts that new employees must learn.

And on top of all the above, supervisors and mentors are only human. They can easily pass on their own counter-productive habits to other employees…and must work hard to avoid doing so.

OJT Development Techniques

Usually, OJT employs one or more of the following four techniques:

·         Coaching—This one-on-one interaction is usually done by a supervisor or someone outside the company, and is often prescriptive and corrective in nature.  It helps the trainee understand their strengths, weakness, and areas of improvement, and tends to be applied for a fixed amount of time until the employee is deemed proficient.

·         Mentoring—This too is an ongoing one-on-one technique that’s usually done by a more experienced company executive or supervisor.  The mentor works with the trainee to find their strengths, weaknesses, and areas of improvement.  The mentor provides feedback and guidance, and points out areas that may have been overlooked.

·         Job Rotation—This approach allows trainees to practice and become proficient in various aspects of the work at hand, or different roles within the company.  It helps employees because they are exposed to different work areas and learn about various company functions.  (It’s also a great opportunity for employees to try out different functions, to see what they like or don’t.)  The company also benefits, because job rotation diversifies worker skill sets in critical areas, and helps the company respond to unforeseen events like vacations, flu epidemics, and catastrophes.  Job rotation also fosters organization-wide goal- and objective-sharing, because employees better understand each other’s job responsibilities.

·         Job Instruction Techniques—There are many great online resources to help you plan, prepare, and implement on-the-job training. But most models ask trainers to plan, present, trial, and follow up.  The plan consists of a written breakdown of the work and of your training objectives.  In the trial stage, the plan is presented to the trainee(s), who are asked to try it out…with regular follow up during the process. There are variants to this method and it can be either streamlined or made more complex, depending upon the business case and the tasks to be learned.

How Can LMS and e-Learning Tools Help?

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and e-Learning authoring tools can help with all parts of on-the-job training.  Depending on your organization’s needs, you can use an LMS to track and manage one or more parts of the OJT process, including:

.

·         Registering trainees

·         Scheduling training

·         Storing and delivering reference materials (such as company procedures, concepts,  and terms)

·         Delivering regular practice drills

·         Testing and evaluating job competencies being learned

·         Collecting and storing training results

·         Delivering and collecting follow-up employee surveys

·         And, more!

About the Author:

Mary Polley-Berte is Director of Customer Support & Training at SyberWorks, Inc., in Waltham, Massachusetts. Mary is a graduate of Boston University and resides with her family in New Hampshire.

About SyberWorks

SyberWorks, Inc. (http://www.syberworks.com) is a leader in providing Learning Management Systems and custom e-Learning Solutions for Fortune 1000 corporations, higher education, and other organizations. Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, the company serves the multi-billion-dollar e-Learning market.  Since 1995, SyberWorks has developed and delivered unique and economical solutions for creating, managing, measuring, and improving e-Learning programs at companies and organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries.

http://syberworks.com/articles/ojt-article.htm

1. Read a book.
2. Watch a video.
3. Attend a speech or workshop.
4. Enroll in an online course

Now suppose that in addition to being more knowledgeable you wanted to become skillful at something. It could be anything like golf, karate, selling refrigerators, negotiating, making presentations, etc. The point is you want to become truly proficient. Your objective is not just to know something; you want to be able to do something, and do it well. If skill is your objective, then your only option is to practice with an expert coach under realistic working conditions until you achieved fluency.

When you do something repeatedly – trying to perform up to an explicit standard – your mind and body get the “feel” of doing it proficiently. And the “feel” of doing it is the skill. If you don’t acquire the feel, you haven’t acquired the skill. Further, the feel is acquired only by using the skills to produce a real result: A good golf stroke, a sale, a successful negotiation.

Coaching the actual performance shortens the time it takes for an individual to become proficient enough to achieve the desired result repeatedly. Eventually, the new behavior becomes a preferred and self-chosen way of behaving.

Yet, when it comes to interpersonal-skills training in the business world – the teaching of so-called “soft skills” such as listening, leadership and teamwork, practicing with an expert coach under realistic working conditions is the least chosen development method. And that is the real reason behind the endless hand wringing in the corporate training field about how hard it is to get “learned” skills to transfer from the classroom to the job. It is also the reason that in difficult economic times, the training budget is often the first one cut, and it’s our fault

Training vs. Education
There is a great deal of difference between training and education, though the vast majority of trainers are not aware of it. Educating is not the same as training. For most people, there is no causal relationship between education and performance. There is, indeed, a causal relationship between training and performance. Knowledge isn’t power. Competence is power. Power is the ability to create a desired effect and that is performance.

To educate is to increase intellectual awareness of a subject. To train is to assist someone become proficient at the execution of a given task. Many wonderful things can be said about education, but education doesn’t cause competence.

Try making a youngster competent at riding a bicycle by sitting her down at the kitchen table and explaining how to ride a bicycle. Try taking a one-hour golf lesson from someone who uses typical online “training” methods. He’ll meet on your computer screen far from the golf course, talk to you about a golf swing for 30 minutes, show you his swing for 10 minutes, let you take make-believe swings at an imaginary golf ball for 5 minutes, then ask you to write an “action plan” describing how you will apply what you’ve “learned.”

Skeptics will protest that some people who receive education in soft-skills areas actually do turn out higher performance as a result: They do, in fact, get better at selling or influencing or working in a team. And this is true-for maybe 10 percent to 15 percent of the trainees. In fact, that 15 percent were already skillful before they attended the latest online educational offering. If you take anyone who is already competent and add more education, you often will get better performance to some degree.

What about the other 85 percent or 90per cent? It make no sense to pretend that the training department’s job is simply to deliver some information about skills (The Five Key Practices of Famous Leaders, The Ten Fabulous Values of Team Players), and then abdicate responsibility for proficiency to the person’s manager/supervisor. If you accept the title of “trainer,” your task is to make people competent, not just more aware. Blaming managers because the “skills” you supposedly imparted in your educational event failed to transfer to the job site is irresponsible.

Real Training For Real People
Begin by abandoning notions of what people ought to know or what sort of attitudes they ought to have or even how people acquire knowledge. Instead, ask, “How does one acquire skillfulness?” The most efficient and effective way to acquire skillfulness is straight forward: 1) Spend a little time educating about the results to be achieved and the skills to be executed in order to obtain those results. 2) Spend a lot of time practicing, with a coach who can reduce trial and error time, until fluency is achieved.

In the hands of a good trainer or coach, Step 1 takes up 5 percent to 10 percent of the allotted time. Step 2 takes up the other 90 percent to 95 percent. Step 1 is purely education. Step 2 is training.

If the student isn’t doing it, it isn’t training. A day spent talking about skills will not make anyone skillful. Nobody gets the “feel” for real execution, done to a specific standard of competence, and if they don’t acquire the “feel,” they don’t acquire the skill.

Even if you agree with these points you may say: “Fine, but all of that would have to be done in the field. It can’t be done in a classroom. And even if it weren’t too expensive and difficult to put that many expert coaches in the field, we don’t want our trainees practicing on real customers. So how we do make them proficient before we send them into the real job environment?”

There is a way.

How to Do It

To do real training in soft skills, start by taking a tip from advocates of “action learning”: Invite people to a meeting room for a genuine working session—into which some coaching will be added. You can provide some online pre-meeting assignments and education to maximize your work session time.

The purpose of this working session is to evaluate and make decisions about ideas for improving the business: Real ideas for real improvement that will make a real difference to the company. Ask participants to bring their own ideas to the meeting. Stipulate that these ideas must meet two criteria. First, the people in the meeting must be capable of implementing them; that is, someone in the room must have the authority to give a real yes or no to the idea. Second, if adopted, the improvement must be both measurable and capable of producing financial consequences for the business within 90 days.

In other words, you don’t want ideas such as, “Let’s change the cafeteria’s vending machines.” That might be an improvement, all right, but it’s unlikely to produce a measurable ROI within three months. Your online pre-work gave them a quick educational overview of the skills that would most likely help them gain the commitment and support they’ll need to implement their ideas.

Next you must also clearly define what “skillful” means – not just what the skills are. For instance, you are skillful at “showing respect” if you can acknowledge another person’s point of view so well that the person begins to feel they are being taken seriously within 15 seconds.

Make this introduction as succinct as possible. Then put everyone to work on the task of trying to gain commitment and support from one another. Coach them while they do so. Make them do it over and over again, until at least 85 percent of them have become proficient at the skills and have achieved concrete desirable results.

An obvious “desirable result” is that a participant gains the needed support and approval for a good idea. A less obvious but no-less acceptable result is that the participant becomes persuaded that his idea is flawed, but accepts this with no hard feelings; that is, the participant and his “adversary” agree that the idea is a nonstarter, and emerge with their relationship undamaged or even strengthened.

You can stop worrying about “reinforcement.” Why? Because we all naturally keep doing what works. We only need the goading or encouragement or reminding of managers when we can’t produce the results we want.

Online “training” is acceptable and even preferred when the desired outcome is to educate.

Doing the real training is required and perfectly feasible, even with large groups of people when the desired outcome is acquiring skill and proficiency. This approach – Educate briefly, then train at length – is the method of martial arts trainers. It’s the method of sports teams. It’s the method of coaches in the performing arts. It works.

This formula almost always achieves measurable success, regardless of the skills you’re trying to develop: Selling, leadership, teamwork customer service, problem-solving and so on. Instead of seeing slight improvements in the performance of those 15 percent of trainees who were already capable, you’ll send 85 percent out the door with genuine skillfulness instead of mere awareness.

The group is producing real initiatives that will make or save money, your company can expect a very healthy return on investment within three months. These outcomes are critical in these difficult economic times. And nobody will have to ask you again if your training actually makes a difference.

G. Thomas Herrington and Patrick T. Malone are co-authors of the new book Cracking the Code to Leadership and Senior Partners at The PAR Group, an international training firm headquartered in Atlanta. They may be contacted at info@thepargroup.com.

That’s one of those statements that’s pretty much accepted at face value, and I certainly agree with it. But I would like to take a look at what interactivity really is, or should be, because I think that somewhere along the line we’ve taken an easy path where any mouse click is countered as interactive and if we put enough tabs, or rollovers, or instructions to click on this to see that, we can check the box and say that we’ve developed interactive training.

You’ve seen what I’m talking about: bulleted lists were you roll your mouse over an item to see related text, tab templates, graphics with associated pop-up text. Sometimes when an instructional designer to write an “interactive” course, you get a lot of that. In the worst case the online page becomes a sort of treasure hunt, where you’re clicking this and rolling over that to find all the information.  

But I don’t think that content’s really interactive, because you’re not engaging learners in a meaningful way. Further, the content actually becomes harder to understand.

·         If important information is hidden, content becomes difficult to skim, and we all know that online readers skim.

·         It becomes difficult to compare information contained in different pop-ups. I recently saw a table that showed only column headings; you would roll your mouse over a heading to see the entire column, and only one column showed at a time. That defeats one of the main reasons to put information in a table – tables allow you to compare information.

·         You run the risk of annoying learners by forcing them to click and hunt for information.

This may be a simplification, but I like to think of interactivity as being synonymous with engagement, and try to do things that I think will engage the learner. Things like narrated animations, role plays, and quizzes where learners really have to apply knowledge and solve problems are great techniques for engagement. Audio can also be good (so long as it doesn’t simply read the text!). If you have the money and the bandwidth, video can be great. Content should also be engaging. Emphasize what’s in it for the learner, why they should care. Remind them of the consequences of not knowing the information. Tell a story. Respect their time and keep the training concise.

Then I try to think of the all the rollovers, etc., as techniques for layering information, and apply those techniques  to secondary information, stuff that’s nice to know but not essential, detailed technical information, definitions, things like that. Rollovers and tabs are also useful when you need to include a lot of information on the page and want to avoid scrolling. (But when you think about, indiscriminately hiding information isn’t very different from scrolling, because in both cases you’re forcing people to click to see information they need to see. They’re just clicking on some kind of pop-up rather than a scroll bar.)

So think about what types of interactivity will really be useful, and realize that mouse clicks don’t necessarily equate to interactions.

Check to ensure the college is accredited by a legitimate accrediting agency.  Accreditation means the college and its programs meet certain set educational quality and standards. This also means courses and credits acquired can be easily transferred to another accredited institution, whether online or brick and mortar college. You will stand a better chance of securing employment or promotion at work if you have an accredited degree.

Be on the look-out for unaccredited online distance education colleges otherwise known as “degree mills”. There are many fake institutions granting “accreditation” to any organization willing to pay some money for it. Before you pick your college, make sure you research that it is accredited by a legit body.  If you are not sure the college you wish to attend has a legitimate accreditation, consult with the United States Department of Education or CHEA to confirm.

Before you choose an online college, it’s also important to think about what your long-terms plans and goals are as far as your education is concerned. Incase you intend to pursue further education, think about if you’ll need to transfer credits from one college to another. With this knowledge you’ll be able to choose a college that allows and accepts credit transfers.

Class size plays a big role in an online distance education college as it does in a traditional classroom. The smaller the better, thus you should investigate the class size of the institution you wish to join.

It good to know more about the instructors of the programs you are interested in. Are they qualified to teach that class? Do they have experience in their field or specialization?  Have they taught online classes before?  How long have they been teaching? Get the answers to these questions. It is more reassuring if more instructors hold degrees from the college that you’re planning to enroll.

Support is very important to your success of online distance education program. Make sure you find if any and what level of support you will get from instructors, faculty and technical staff should you have problems with your classes or experience technical difficulties. Select a college that meets your standards of expectations.

One of the great things about online distance education programs is that you can begin almost anytime. Thus you shouldn’t let anyone rush you into starting your program until you feel ready to put the time and effort it will require for you to succeed.

Check out if your program will be offered entirely online or if it will require residency at some point in the course. Some online courses have site projects and require residency so let this not come as a surprise to you.

Most online colleges offer financial aid and tuition assistance. You’ll be pleased to discover how much financial help you have available inform of loans, scholarships, financial aid and other federal loans. Some institutions even have tuition payment plans and employer-reimbursement programs. Find out if your college of interest offers such programs.

Take your time to research your best degree option and college out there. Don’t settle for less than you deserve. Unlike there before when online programs were limited, now there are enormous options and colleges to choose from as most traditional colleges are already offering some programs online.

With that said, there are still many new career training options available for women in this age group who are looking to make a career or lifestyle change. Technology plays a large part in this phenomenon, as does a changing society that no longer views women of this age as unemployable or unwilling to train.

The world is a different place now and if you are an older woman seeking new career training, you are in a position to take advantage of all the career training options available.

Teleclass seminars: There are many education opportunities available as teleclass seminars. These are courses that typically involve students and an instructor linking up via the Web or satellite and are interactive in nature. The instructor and students can then interact in class discussions, lectures and presentations. I use teleclass seminars for my “Unleashing Your Leadership Power” seminar. It works great for everyone involved because it is convenient and a lower-cost option than many other traditional classroom educations. You can find teleclasses on the Internet or at local colleges and universities.

Workshops and short courses: For more personal training, many women tend to opt for more traditional classes. These can be found at community colleges, community centers, universities, and other workforce training facilities. You can also look for education opportunities with other organizations, including the Small Business Administration, Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, or local women’s groups.

Online classes: Once thought of as only suitable for younger students, Online classes have rapidly become the training method of choice for all ages. These classes are generally easy to access, easy to follow and cost effective. And, the best part is that they are very flexible. Often students can work at their own pace from anywhere in the world.

Internships and job shadowing: You may think internships are for young college students, but that’s not always the case. Many employers will offer these types of opportunities to men and women in more mature age groups as an alternative way to update career training. This is a great opportunity for many people, because it is a hands-on experience and offers the chance to learn as you do the work. It is also a way to network and create professional relationships.

Career coaching: Career enrichment coaching and new career coaching can provide you with the personalized attention you may need for to sort through your options. A career coach is someone who is trained to work with you and provide assessment tools to validate the best skill and job interest match for your profile. Two great resources on the internet are The Leadership Resource and Career Change Resource.

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Packed full of perceptive and practical information for managers, business owners, and MBA students; visit us today at www.TheLeadershipResource.com for instant free access to amazing business resources, articles and checklists. Learn about your leadership style, potential and ability; then share it with your colleagues and employees. Or contact QuadWest Associates at 800-809-2721. Susan West has held many executive leadership positions during her 26 years of business experience. She shares her knowledge and lessons learned through a variety of programs offered by QuadWest Associates, LLC including coaching, leadership workshops, tele-seminars and consulting.

The pundits debate what direction that higher education may take, but one thing is certain: technology has revolutionized how educational programs are being delivered. In particular, the personal computer, harnessing the power of the Internet, has helped to ’shrink’ our planet. What this ’shrinking’ means is that distance is much less of a factor in our life activities. And the importance of distance has shrunk as well in education – ushering in the era of ‘Distance Learning.’

Simply put, distance learning involves participation in classes and academic coursework when one lives and works in a location that is far removed from the school which is offering the course in which you are enrolled. Computer technology makes all of this possible – and the Internet serves as the ‘channel’ of communication and information exchange.

For those of us observing the landscape in the U.S., of course, this has a particular relevance, because of the aging of our population. And an older population means older students – students who have already taken on significant life responsibilities (job and family). Distance learning is the best – and probably only – option for them.

Our prediction: as more and more schools get on the distance learning bandwagon (and they will), more and more US adults will have better educational options. And when these students bring their new skill sets to the workplace, then businesses will benefit as a result. Overall, we can predict that the American workforce will become more effective and efficient. So positioned, we will continue to have access to the best-paying jobs and careers available in the world today.

When you enroll in a distance learning program, your entire academic course of study will be handled via the Internet, using your PC at home. No doubt you will have to purchase handbooks and textbooks for offline study, but usually your class lectures and course assignments will be handled online – either in a chat room environment or through sending e-mails. Completing an assignment with other students is commonplace – and this prepares the student for the kinds of real-world collaboration that is common in many companies today.

Course testing in distance learning programs is also unique. Instead of the traditional approach, where you would ’spit out’ on paper everything that you have memorized, you will be asked instead to complete projects and collaborate with others. This is because there is no way to administer a test online in such a way to guarantee that the student doesn’t look at their book/notes to cheat!

What all this means is that distance learning programs place an emphasis on ‘doing something useful’ with the knowledge that you have gained. You will be required to show mastery of a subject area, not by regurgitating facts but by using what you know. And isn’t that exactly what you and I must do every day, in the real workaday world? In fact, by some measures, graduates of distance learning programs are perhaps better prepared to ‘hit the ground running’ and be productive in their career from day one.

Article Source: http://www.articles.ask-me-about.com

About the author: John Chaplin Writes about Online Education and University of Phoenix. Read about obtaining online college degrees at www.university-phoenix.com