Founded in 1998, Knowledge Anywhere, Inc (www.knowledgeanywhere.com) is an award-winning company that specializes in building technology-based performance support systems and Elearning solutions that provide tangible results.

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

When I had written the article, “Recession Proof your Training Organization,” for the Chief Learning Officer back in May of 2008, the recession was just beginning.   Now, a year later, with better understanding and realization, I still strongly stand by the key points I stated in the article to help make your training organization thrive through this tough time:

1.       Right Size Now

2.       Demonstrate Clear ROI from your Training

3.       Deliver High-Quality Programs, On Time

4.       Outsource Noncore Activities

5.       Choose the Right Training Modality

For your training organization to survive the current recession and support long-term success, it’s crucial to understand what all of these points mean.  However,  I dropped the “right sizing point” since all organizations already reduce the size of their teams, and I doubt there is much “right sizing” left to complete.

I will dive into more detail, and also add another key point, which is to reuse the content you already have.

1. Demonstrate Clear ROI from your Training.  Simply saying that you are delivering a great training product won’t cut it these days. You have got to be able to prove your value to the company in hard, cold dollars, demonstrating an uncontestable return on investment for every penny in your budget.  If you cannot measure the ROI, you might want to question why you are doing the project before someone else asks the question. When in doubt, work on projects that drive incremental revenue or reduce costs within the next six months.

2. Deliver High-Quality Programs, On Time, that Align with Business Objectives.  During corporate belt-tightening, all things perceived as “fluff” should automatically go. Take a good hard look at the programs you offer— how well do they align with the two universal goals of increasing revenue and cutting costs? Clearly, any training that improves employees’ critical skill sets will be a must-have, such as compliance programs and other mandated training initiatives. This is what will allow you to stay in the game.

But for other programs, keeping them may be something you will want to reevaluate. Inspecting your organization for indications that training quality is slipping, and fixing those issues fast is critical. In many cases, Pulitzer-quality text or sophisticated graphics are less important than timely delivery, which lets the organization start realizing value immediately. A perception of being slow and unresponsive will doom your group, even if there are really good reasons for these delays or changes.

3. Outsource When it Makes Sense.  Like anything else, outsourced training has its pros and its cons. Bringing in contract training resources saves headcount and related fixed costs, and often allows you the flexibility of offering training programs that would not possible with just your in-house staff. However, on the other hand, outsiders often lack the industry or company-specific knowledge necessary for effective training in your particular market niche. A good solution is maintaining a small core of trainers to manage internal coordination and provide subject matter expertise.

 4. Choose the Right Training Modality.  Studies have shown that training effectiveness is heavily dependent on the way material is presented. Some topics, like diversity awareness or interpersonal communications, are best taught in a traditional instructor-led classroom setting. Others, like introducing new product features or regulatory compliance, can often be covered faster and more easily with an e-course. Webinars work well for other topics that require discussion in addition to content, such as an overview of an issue with a question-and-answer period following.

Selecting the best modality for your various training offerings demonstrates to senior management that you are a good steward of tight dollars. By explaining why one delivery method is superior to others, you substantiate your role as a leader, and prove your personal value to the company. You might point out, for example, that switching your new-hire training from an instructor-led to an online format trims orientation time by an entire day, at a savings of $1,000 per person (see the Training Calculator). Once again, this underscores the need for credible metrics and a value-driven approach to training.

5. Reuse the Investment in Content that Already Exists.  Most of the budget for developing new online training relates to the content creation.  As we work with large organizations, we usually find they have an abundant of content in the form of presentations, recorded webinars, white papers, etc.  However, often times, the content needs to be trimmed down, organized, the interactivity needs to be added, and the assessments needs to be built.   These organizations have spent historical dollars in developing the content, so this presents an opportunity to leverage their investment.   In addition, re-using and enhancing the existing content will support the turnaround time

I am in high hopes that my next follow-up article will relate to supporting your organization during the faced-paced time of the recovery.

Biographical Note:  Charlie Gillette is Managing Director of Knowledge Anywhere, an online training company in Bellevue, WA:  www.knowledgeanywhere.com.  email: charlie@knowledgeanywhere.com

With the advent of “Software as a service” (Saas), and SalesForce.com’s commitment to that technology, a rich API is available to allow integration between SalesForce.com and other client applications. And one of the client applications that can be integrated is the LMS system.

General Considerations

First, there are two primary (and competing) factors to consider for streamlining SalesForce.com transaction times:

    * Batching data

      Batching as much data as possible in an APEX API call can reduce the cross-network traffic.

    * Reducing the size of data requests

The more data that is sent to SalesForce.com, the more time it will take to process. It is best to send SalesForce.com only the data that is necessary at any time. Sending superfluous data only increases the size (and processing times) of APEX API calls.

Of course, these factors are at odds with each other. And users must often balance transaction speeds with other business requirements, to determine how optimal SalesForce.com transactions really can be.

A related factor to keep in mind is that SalesForce.com enforces a daily limit on the number of APEX API calls. This is done to balance server processing across multiple concurrent users.

From Users to Business Leads

There also may be good business reasons for turning LMS student data into business leads through the SalesForce.com application. This is especially true in situations where companies sell training to customers, vendors, or partners.

An automatic process can turn a newly registered learner in the LMS into a SalesForce.com business lead. Using the SalesForce.com APEX API WSDL (Web Service Definition Language), lead objects can be generated and directly added to the SalesForce.com leads database. And the individual who is used to authenticate into SalesForce.com becomes the owner of the newly generated lead.

And if your registration process collects data that is not inherent to the SalesForce.com application, custom data objects can be created to represent this application-specific data. A new APEX API WSDL needs to be generated when these objects are created, to make them available to your application interface.

From SalesForce.Com to LMS

The next question becomes, “How can I get to my LMS data from SalesFoce.com as seamlessly as possible?” Given the nature of Saas, SalesForce.com provides the ability to create your own application within the SalesForce.com structure. You can create custom tabs that are visible to your SalesForce.com users. These tabs can use custom S-controls of type HTM, URL, or Snippet. You can use whichever is suitable to your LMS integration and acceptable as a user-interface element for your users. This setup allows you to connect pretty easily to your LMS.

A related task is logging in to the LMS. If your LMS supports single sign-on, you may want to use the same User IDs in both SalesForce.com and the LMS. If this is done, the user can click a link in the SalesForce.com application, be automatically logged into the LMS, and presented with its starting page. Of course, you need to consider user password security here. And this again depends on the LMS. It may use a generic password for all users connecting through a single-sign-on procedure, or an MD5 hash (or similar encryption technique) of previously agreed data, which could be verified against each user’s specific LMS data for authentication.

From LMS to SalesForce.com

Communicating in the other direction-from the LMS to SalesForce.com-depends on the data that must be stored in SalesForce.com. Some examples of data that could be passed from the LMS to a SalesForce.com application are training purchases and course results. (Training purchases would assume that the LMS uses an e-Commerce module, where web- or classroom-based courses can be purchased.)

A major consideration again becomes whether this data should be transmitted on a real-time basis or by means of scheduled batch jobs.

    * The real-time option requires the LMS to support calls to the SalesForce.com interface whenever user results are updated or an LMS purchase is made. These calls would be made through a web service that transmits the data to SalesForce.com. Any data properties that SalesForce.com does not inherently support can be created as custom objects, so no data need be omitted.

The benefits of this are that the SalesForce.com application is up-to-date whenever a SalesForce.com administrator or reporter interrogates its data. The downside is the overhead for each call made to the SalesForce.com application. The number of calls made through the APEX API, though they can be estimated, cannot be predicted, since they occur as events occur.

   * Batching data does not use real-time call outs from the LMS code, but instead retrieves data directly from the LMS database at scheduled intervals.

      This naturally lends itself to the recommended batching of data to SalesForce.com’s servers, and the number of calls to do that is both predictable and low. However, there is a time lag between actual activities in the LMS and the transfer of their resulting data to the SalesForce.com application.

The decision between using a real-time interface or batch process depends on, but is definitely not limited to, the following:

    * The timeliness with which business needs to reach SalesForce.com.

    * The ability of the LMS to support real-time data collection and communications.

    * The estimated volume of data that will be transmitted to SalesForce.com (keeping in mind that SalesForce.com enforces a daily limit for API calls).

About the Author:

Stuart Campbell is Director of Software Development for SyberWorks, Inc., a privately held supplier of e-Learning software and training. A native of the United Kingdom, he had previously served as a Principle Software Engineer, Senior Consultant, Senior Software Engineer, and Development Specialist for companies such as Brooks Automation Inc. (Chelmsford, Mass.); Digital Equipment (South Queensferry, U.K.); and Honeywell Control Systems (Motherwell, U.K.). Among his many roles at SyberWorks, he leads the software-development process and helps to build new software releases and update kits.

About SyberWorks, Inc.

SyberWorks, Inc. (http://www.syberworks.com) is a leader in the custom e-Learning Solutions and Learning Management System/Learning Content Management System (LMS/LCMS) industries for Fortune 1000 corporations, law enforcement, healthcare, and other industries. 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 to create, manage, measure, and improve e-Learning programs at companies and organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and around the world.

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.

Learn and Save launches with more than 15,000 online tutorials for consumers. Along with the tutorials, consumers will have access to related information and coupons so they can save money if and when they need to purchase related products. Learn and Save corporate sponsors benefit because the Web site provides them with a new and enhanced way to engage directly with their customers.

“Our vision is to provide tutorials on a wide range of topics where each tutorial is matched to savings opportunities that also match the subject and content of the tutorial,” explained Charlie Gillette, chief executive officer of Learn and Save. “We have designed the site so it is simple, safe and convenient to use. We recognized that as economic conditions continue to tighten, people are looking for ways to save money. Tutorials married with coupons help meet that need by allowing consumers to get instructions in a safe online environment while taking advantage of savings and connecting with other experts to maximize the use of their products.”

According to Gillette, companies also benefit from reaching consumers who are already interested in their specific products and ideas. “Corporate sponsors are really excited about Learn and Save because they can engage with people who have a demonstrated interest in a particular topic or product. They’re presenting ads or savings directly to a consumer who has searched for ‘how-to information’ and this group of people simply has a much higher propensity to buy.”

Consumer and corporate reaction to the site has been overwhelmingly positive as Learn and Save sits at the intersection of the acute need for consumers to save money, businesses looking for improved methods to engage consumers, and the growing use of videos on the Internet.

“As an avid coupon clipper, I’m always on the lookout for ways to spend my dollars more efficiently and appreciate hearing helpful tips about products I’m considering purchasing,” said Kayla Sando, Learn and Save customer. “I love that Learn and Save provides me with a one-stop destination where I can learn about the topics I like while at the same time gain access to relevant coupons.”

Learn and Save tutorials provide consumers with free instructions on activities and topics that best suit their interests – whether its how to taste wine, prepare for a job interview or taking better digital pictures, ­there is likely a how-to tutorial on LearnAndSave.com addressing that topic.

Imagine you are a consumer looking for information on backcountry skiing and snowboarding. By watching the “Basics of Backcountry Travel,” tutorial submitted by REI, the national outdoor retail organization, you can learn helpful tips about the four main modes of backcountry travel and what items you should bring on your trip.

Companies selling to other businesses also will benefit from LearnAndSave.com. Kent Hellebust, general manager with AccessLine explains. “At AccessLine we are committed to helping businesses select the right phone system. We are participating in the Learn and Save community so we can provide business decision makers with information about what they should be looking for when they select a PBX. Our tutorial focuses on how they should approach making this important decision and what features and functionality to consider before committing to a system.”

Learn and Save enables organizations, including manufacturers and service providers, to connect directly with consumers or business decision makers in a value-added way. With sponsored tutorials, organizations can provide a quick and effective way for people to learn about their products and services. These tutorials help organizations reduce product returns as well as consumer calls to customer service contacts. By providing detailed information online, consumers are less likely to pick up the phone to ask a customer care representative for help. In both cases, businesses can improve their bottom line.

“The Learn and Save concept has interesting potential,” said John Montgomery, chief operating officer, North America, GroupM Interaction. “It is evident that consumers value this kind of short form instructional content and combined with the Learn and Save business model, could generate meaningful audience engagement.”

The debut of Learn and Save aligns well with consumers whose New Year’s resolutions are to learn something new and save money. Categories spanning across numerous topics include business and finance as well as health and fitness – both popular picks for achieving New Year resolutions.

The Learn and Save development team is lead by Bill Allocca, a former senior member and technology leader in the e-commerce software division at Amazon. With more than 10 years experience at Amazon, Bill brings a deep understanding of consumer and e-commerce related Web sites to the Learn and Save team. To learn more visit www.Learn and Save.com.

About Learn and Save

Learn and Save (www.Learn and Save.com) was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of Knowledge Anywhere. Knowledge Anywhere started in 1998 and is a leader in the corporate e-learning market. Learn and Save will be headquartered in the greater Seattle area and co-located with Knowledge Anywhere (www.KnowledgeAnywhere.com). Learn and Save will have offices in Bellevue, Wash. and Minneapolis with client business development managers throughout North America.

###

For more information, please contact:

Charlie Gillette, Learn and Save, (425) 454-4454 ext. 3801,

Charlie@LearnandSave.com

Jennifer Gehrt, Communiqué PR, (206) 282-4923 ext 112,

jennifer@communiquepr.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.

In many ways, good instructional design is just common sense, combined with decades of observation about what works and what doesn’t when teaching adult learners. Here are 10 basic tips to sharpen your own training programs:

            1. Know your audience. Understand what they bring to the table, and what they need from each course. Determine your audience’s education level, entry knowledge, and their goals in taking the course. This will help you identify their performance gap—between what they already know and can do, and what they need to know and be able to do.

            2. Use learning (or performance) objectives to nail down what your learners are supposed to know and be able to do, once they have completed the course. Your learning objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant (or Results-oriented), and Targeted to the audience. These learning objectives will help to guide your development of course content and provide a yardstick for measuring how well learners have mastered it.

            3. Using these learning objectives as a guide, keep your course content pertinent to the task at hand. Keep the information in your course focused and relevant, with a minimum of extraneous detail. And “chunk” course content into small, digestible bites of information.

            4. Use the variety of media available in e-Learning to serve different learning styles, such as auditory and visual learners. Use narration, graphics, and text, but not necessarily all at the same time.

            5. Spell out the “WIFM” (What’s in it for me?) for your learners. Adult learners want to know why they are learning something, and how it will help them on the job. This might easily be the most important tip!

            6. Adult learners generally prefer to have some—or even a lot—of control over the learning process. They want to take responsibility for their own learning. This favors using self-paced instruction, providing tools for assessing one’s own progress, and implementing the freedom to choose among different learning activities (where possible).

            7. Provide a “gate” that learners must pass before they advance to more difficult content. This may be a test, a demonstration, or a role-play activity.

            8. Related to the above, if your students possess different backgrounds and levels of experience, consider using a pre-test to “sort them out,” and even allowing the more advanced learners to “opt out” of content that is too elementary for them.

            9. Once you have constructed a course, have actual learners, not just other developers, test it. They can provide real-world insight and feedback that you can use to improve the course.

            10. Consider developing “job aids,” “cheat sheets,” “quick reference cards,” or other reminders based on your course content, which learners can easily access while they are on the job.

In short, understanding your learners’ needs, and applying common sense to meet them, will dramatically improve your training programs.

About the Author:

Steve Pena is a Senior Instructional Designer and Implementation Specialist at SyberWorks, Inc. (http://www.syberworks.com) in Waltham, Mass. SyberWorks is a custom e-Learning solutions company specializing in Learning Management Systems, e-Learning solutions, and custom online course development.

http://www.syberworks.com/articles/10-instructional-design-tips.htm

Managers may want to develop their own mathematical model to better understand the relationship between costs and delivery of their training programs. Many managers have found a common key element when they have analyzed the costs of their learning programs. Their key finding: e-learning is less expensive to deliver almost regardless of the participant population. For example: in populations where the participants number 100 or more, e-learning had clear cost advantages and as the population number increases, so does the cost advantage. Cost advantages were still measureable in groups of 100 or less and even with classes as short as one hour in length. In a corporate study conducted by Catepillar, they determined that e-learning was 40% less expensive than the tradiational classroom models.

When preparing to conduct a cost analysis study, managers should be prepared to understand all the different factors involved with the development and delivery of training programs and then develop a customized list of factors that are applicable to the organization’s training needs and environment. For example, the costs associated with a physical classroom can widely vary depending on the geographic and physical plant characteristics of the company. For some organizations, it may not be relevant to conduct any sort of market analysis if their niche market is highly specialized or small. On the other hand, factors such as timeliness, travel costs or development costs may be very relevant for the organization to consider say, for example, if they are outsourcing their training programs.

After the manager has created their unique “model” or list of factors or variables for analysis, they are ready to begin the comparison process. Gather data from comoparable organizations or training delivery programs, preferably from those using like and differening models. This will help in benchmarking the organization’s costs to that of comparable companies. If the organization or department has specific regulatory or quality assurance standards, such as Cancer Registry departments as part of a healthcare organization, the costs associated with training (or not providing training) for compliance may also need to included in the analysis process.

e-Learning may not be the best delivery method for all training. For example, programs that require role-playing, individual or group interaction or observation of the participants are not conducive to online learning. On the other hand, the total cost of delivering instructor-led classes to many students must be taken into consideration whenever the organization begins planning a large training program. Cost analysis may reveal that a combination of both e-learning and tradiational classroom can deliver the optimal training delivery needs of the organization. Once the manager has completed the cost comparison process results should be documented carefully and used for future comparative studies or even for training program justification and strategic planning purposes.

Copyright 2005, M. A. Webb. All Rights Reserved

Many financial realities are changing around us these days, but two things that won’t go away in the forseeable future are taxes and compliance training. You can ignore them, but they won’t go away.  Compliance training, however, doesn’t have to be as painful as the others.  In fact, depending on the topic, it can be one of the easiest things to take care of using new technology.

The problem is that few employees actually want to take training on things like ethics, diversity, harassment or Sarbanes-Oxley.  They put it off as long as possible.  Also, if you educated your entire labor force on all required topics with instructor-led classes, you’d never get any work done.  So it makes sense to use new delivery methods whenever possible, to make training faster and more cost-effective.

Save Time and Money

Online learning is a natural solution for most compliance topics.  It provides consistency, a reliable paper trail, and considerable cost savings.  Employees can take the training any time, anywhere, without travel.  This explains why most leading businesses across the nation have discontinued classroom compliance training, and rely completely on e-learning.

Unfortunately, many online training companies do a grave disservice to both learners and their subject matter.  The majority simply take classroom curriculum and paste it online.  The result is a purely text-based course that is too long and boring to be effective.  Although poor e-training is more economical than poor instructor-led classes, it fails to take advantage of the interactive opportunities available with technology.

Good e-learning, on the other hand, is short, interesting and challenging. Here’s why.

Brief is best.  Most compliance topics are fairly complex.  But not every mid-level employee needs to know every last detail on Sarbanes-Oxley.  If you cram too much information into training, nothing is retained.  Think back to the last sermon or political speech you heard.  You probably remember one or two points at most.  The last thing you want is a similar retention record for compliance training.

Good online curriculum designers understand the retention issue, and strive for longer lasting results.  So they typically limit curriculum to the must-learn material, and then offer additional documents that can be downloaded as resources.  Learners can hit the key points and get the big picture.  They can also drill down for more elaboration on concepts that they either don’t understand, or have a particular interest in. 

Boring is bad.  The human mind shuts off when it’s bored, leaving the learner feeling resentful and frustrated.  That’s why good educational material, whether presented online or in a classroom, is based on lively and interesting content.  Even dry topics can be explained with stories, illustrations, games or other interactive devices that engage the learner.

When reviewing an online training package, ask whether you’d be willing to sit through it yourself.  Is the reading level aimed at the correct audience – neither too high nor too low?  Do colors, images and perhaps flash animations draw your eye?  If you sense a feeling of fun when interviewing the development team, chances are that retention numbers will rise.

Choose a Challenge.   Scenarios are a wonderful way to teach ethics and other compliance-related topics.  All too frequently, though, they’re too black and white.  In real life, people don’t come up to you and say, “Want to take this bribe to tell me your corporation’s secrets?”  Instead, we all grapple with situations in shades of gray, where we’re uncertain what is right or wrong — which is why corporations need ethics training in the first place.

A quality online compliance class will present the learner with complex situations that could be viewed from several different perspectives.  Any trainee who studied the material carefully will be able to select the right answer.  But the answer should never be obvious.  By evaluating an issue that might be borderline, the learner has to think – always a good thing in education.

Real-World Results

Lawson Products Inc., an international distributor of fastening systems, chemicals, welding and automotive products, uses online education for all of its new sales agents.  “We save thousands of dollars each month by not bringing agents in to corporate headquarters for orientation,” said Ron Beckstrom, vice president of knowledge management.  
 
“By understanding our corporate ethics from day one, every employee knows how we expect them to behave with customers and colleagues,” he continued. “Before we went to online education, a sales agent could be working with customers for quite some time without knowing our policies, opening up possibilities for making mistakes.  Agents completing our initial online module are selling more and finding success faster than agents who never took it.  Furthermore, any sales organization faces a lot of turnover, and with online orientation we haven’t invested too heavily in an agent if he leaves us early in his career.”

Legal Coverage

Shanti Atkins, an attorney and CEO of ELT, a corporate compliance training firm, sees other benefits from e-training.  “The single largest predictor of employment lawsuit filings is the national employment rate.   Average damage awards to successful plaintiffs also rise in a weak economy.  During lawsuits, compliance is scrutinized.  So more so than ever, corporations must pay very close attention to compliance training – ensuring that it is consistent, accurate and complete,” she says.

“E-learning helps organizations on all three of these fronts.  With instructor-led courses, you lose consistency, and can’t guarantee in a legal proceeding that everyone heard exactly the same message.  Similarly, you have no way of knowing if one employee signed in for his buddy, or slipped out early during a classroom session.  Online learning, on the other hand, provides irrefutable proof of attendance and understanding of key principles and workplace policies through mandatory interactive exercises.  The records act as insurance in the event of litigation.”

If you’re considering e-learning for compliance, make a firm deadline for course development, and pick a contractor who can deliver on time.  If you do get sued, it will look very bad to have a stalled compliance program that was never rolled out – particularly if you’ve spent large sums on a national sales meeting or PR campaign.

Then demand employee compliance with your compliance training agenda.  Set an aggressive cut-off date to show that you mean business.  Start training with senior leadership, to model desired behavior.  Then discuss the program in your internal newsletter or magazine, so employees get the message that e-training can be fast, effective and fun.

Biographical Note:  Charlie Gillette is Managing Director of Knowledge Anywhere, an online training company in Bellevue, WA:  www.knowledgeanywhere.com.  email: charlie@knowledgeanywhere.com