Leadership Lessons: Online Training

Online Training: Generation 'Z'

Generation 'Z' of online training is happening now: New technologies, services, web tools and cultural changes driving interactivity and person-to-person learning. Web 2.0 makes it a very exciting time to discover the latest in instructional tools, learning infrastructures and development of online digital campus communities. With all of these developments, what do you focus on in this new age of capabilities and services? How do you tie this to meaningful issues for your organization?

There are four areas to understand: Emergence, Convergence, Onboarding and Further Engagement.

Emergence

Innovation has created a tremendous amount of thinking about what leadership means, now going on nine years into the new century. It brings in-depth opportunities for learning and solutions to a complex and culturally diverse workforce.

This is why training emerging leadership is so important. Current technologies facilitate interaction through Facebook, MySpace, Linked In and so many other networks creating a generation of users who are ready, willing and able to access online learning that is as individual as they are. Learners are expected to be connected to other learners and their trainers. I've seen this described as Connectivism, Networked Learning and Connective Knowledge. This allows learners to access what they need, apply it and share it with others. It supports greater problem-solving and informal leadership transferred from one person to another. It gives learners new connections, renewed relationships with peers and enables the discovery of new resources.

During training, organizations must harness the power of creativity and capacity with their learning management systems to connect supervisors with their team.

Convergence

Major organizations like Microsoft currently are working hard to simplify end user experiences in light of Web 2.0. According to Education Channel Partner, online platform structures supporting a processing environment bring together "content, commerce and community." In a nutshell, it is a boost in "anytime, anywhere" content models that support training content delivered to anyone, to any handheld or other device. According to Education Channel Partner, Microsoft's Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie proclaimed, the "power of the internet, and the magic of software" across a world of devices.

As trainers and training organization managers, you need to look at ways to use these resources to connect with empowered learners. Integrate learning across diverse channels, use learner-generated content and measure results.

Power of Onboarding

According to Workforce.com, in the fiscal year 2007, the federal government hired more than 195,000 new employees; however, high first-year attrition undermined its recruitment efforts. First-year attrition for firefighters at the U.S. Forest Service stood at 26.6 percent nationwide and 46.6 in Southern California where the country needs them the most.

First-year voluntary turnover between 2003 and 2007 increased from 10 to 18 percent; a dramatically high rate overall. For every two patent examiners hired at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency lost one-third within the first year. By 2012, federal agencies will lose nearly 530,000 employees including those in leadership and incritical-skills positions.

Think about your own organization and what you may be losing right now. A substantial study conducted by Partnership for Public Service and Booz Allen Hamilton in 2008 found that successful onboarding of employees during their first year increases engagement and raises retention by as much as 25 percent, improves performance and accelerates the time to full productivity. Onboarding is typically the process of acclimating employees to the organization beyond orientation. Organizations can impact retention using online training as an effective and efficient way to facilitate onboarding employees.

Further Engagement

Many organizations do not realize the key role of their managers and supervisors in the onboarding process. Quite simply, if employees do not feel engaged with their work and the organization, they may move on to the next organization who will invest in them. Workforce.com points to the Partnership for Public Service model which incorporates five phases: acceptance of job offer to start date, the orientation, the first week of employment, the first 90 days and the first year. "During each phase, the focus remains squarely on integrating the new employee into the workplace, communicating the goals of the organization and building engagement in the work."

Vital Learning's Leadership Series gives managers and supervisors the essential skills in onboarding to create further engagement in team members. The beauty of the Leadership Series is that it has both online and classroom-based formats to fit your training needs.

The Partnership report notes that few organizations are using online resources to onboard new employees early in the process. Using new technologies and online training is an essential part of ramping up your recruitment, retention and training strategies. Monitoring performance, providing feedback, reviewing performance objectives and setting individual development goals are all taught through the Vital Learning's leadership curriculum.

Emergence, convergence, onboarding and further engagement give us power you have when combined with web-based resources to stimulate training initiatives. Your training professional can show you how to get into the "next generation now" of training efficiencies impacting the bottom line of your organization.

For general supervisory leadership skills, we continue to offer you the award-winning series by Vital Learning. Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Company Culture

Organizational Challenge

Below are some commonly quoted customer service statistics. Maybe you have seen them before:

• A typical business hears from about 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers, while 96 percent just go away ... and 91 percent will never come back.
  
• It costs five to six times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep a current one.
  
• It takes 12 positive service interactions to make up for one negative interaction.

Whether or not these can be substantiated is another story, but it is safe to say that your organization's customer service culture is critically important to growth and profits. According to a study by The Wharton School, stakes are high as reducing customer attrition by 5 to 10 percent can increase annual profits as much as 75 percent. Author Jerry Fritz is quoted as saying, "You'll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can't be copied." More focus is being placed on the power of customer service lately. One of the huge drivers of renewed attention is the impact of technology and the demand from consumers for instant access to goods and services. This carries over directly to the delivery of customer service in meeting those demands, especially in responding to e-mail. Technology can't, and never will, replace the human touch. Does your customer service culture touch your customers in the right way?

Slowing Economy ... Growing Customer Service

A study released by the Jupiter Research Corporation in August of 2007 entitled, "Experience-Driven Service Expectations," indicates that customer service must consider the impact as online marketing matures. And, a 2008 Contact Center Satisfaction Index released by Claes Fornell International indicates that as consumer spending weakens and the economy slows, organizations should focus more on retention and less on the more expensive customer acquisition. Contact centers, being on the frontline of the customer relationship, carry the bulk of the load in keeping customers. Jupiter Research, in its US Customer Forecast, 2007 to 2012, shows that spending on customer service will continue to rise with companies dealing with consistent increases in the number of customer service contacts.

A national employment projection report from the Department of Labor backs this up: Employment of customer service representatives is expected to increase 25 percent from 2006 to 2016. This is much faster, the report stated, than the average for all occupations. This same report echoes the call for customer service people who can, "build sales, visibility, and loyalty as companies try to distinguish themselves from competitors." Retention will become more important, especially in industries that already employ large numbers of customer service representatives, including those in the industries of financial services, communications and utilities. OK, so let's examine these ramifications. Word of mouth is powerful and it is causing change. The speed of technology increases the viability and impact of sharing customer service experiences. The spiraling economy sends organizations scrambling to retain customers, save dwindling profits and strive for growth. In the next 10 years, and probably beyond, customer service will be the differentiator as organizations staff up to meet the demand.

A Solution

My vote would be to train and re-train. And then do it again. Take a look at your culture: What is it demonstrating to your customers? Training customer service representatives should be seen as a must-do in any organization. It is possible to create a program that fits into busy schedules. Your training representative can help make this work. Two products fit into this scenario: STAR Service and Winning Through Customer Service, both from Vital Learning Corporation.

What I like about STAR Service is that it is a solid half-day program that isn't fluffy. It teaches a clear, practical, four-step process to transform negative and neutral customer experiences to positive and memorable ones. That is right on the mark for retention of customers and the increase of customer referrals. That ties us back to the power of word of mouth.

What I like about Winning Through Customer Service is the flexibility of the program for delivery, either online or in the classroom. Your training representative can additionally help you with some blended learning ideas. There are four modules that can help turn on your representatives to problem-solving, successful communicating, adapting to different behavioral styles and more. I leave you with this thought. Having a customer service culture will lead to long-term customers who are generally more profitable. In a Whitepaper published by CISCO, the headline reads: "Are you providing your customers with the satisfying experiences that will keep them coming back?"

For general supervisory leadership skills, we continue to offer you the award-winning series by Vital Learning. Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org

Leadership Lessons: Frontline Managers

Organizational Challenge As Peter Drucker advised us several decades ago, frontline managers are critical to an organization's ability to gain and maintain competitive advantage. These managers understand the skills, activities, and processes that are important to the organization. They also understand the needs of their customers. Despite this, many organizations have not fully tapped into this resource. Is your organization one of the guilty ones? Solution

There are several programs on the market today that do a good job of providing basic supervisory/leadership training. However, there is a major gap in these programs. They typically do not address business process improvement. Business process skills can help frontline managers improve the bottom line by producing clear, measurable outcomes in terms of expense reduction or increased revenues.

Thus, once armed with the knowledge of basic leadership skills, the next natural step is to train these frontline managers with business process improvement skills that help them to:

• Clearly understand the key business issues and goals of the organization
  
• Look for measurable opportunities to align current processes to more effectively meet the needs of the organization
  
• Seek alternative resolutions through the help of customers, vendors, and the organization's employees
  
• Select the best solution
  
• Gain commitment from all parties
  
• Execute a process that produces, clear measurable outcomes
  

Does this seem like a tall order for a frontline manager? Not really, if they are given the know-how, freedom, and support of upper management. Once frontline managers are empowered with the skills and management support, the opportunities to improve processes that produce measurable outcomes for increased revenues or reduced expenses are essentially ongoing and endless. Why? Because change is inevitable, and to stay competitive, your organization will either institute new technology and/or take on new products or services. And, these areas will continually need to be reviewed, tweaked and improved.
Future Implications

Recognizing a need to fill this gap, Robin Byrne, then a manager with Xerox in the UK, developed a business process improvement program. He subsequently refined the program and went out on his own to create Robin Byrne's Measureable Management™. This program is designed primarily for frontline managers and team leaders.

I was recently contacted by Robin who asked me to evaluate the program's content and design. I was very impressed with the concepts as well as the results he has achieved with clients. Consequently, I decided to become one of their founding corporate US licensees. I'm further working with Robin's group to launch an update of this exciting practical and effective program to meet specific needs and expectations of my larger corporate clients. We plan for this update to be completed by December 1st.

One of the things that appealed to me most about this program is their money-back guarantee. Your organization will achieve measureable results in expense reduction or increased revenue equal to or greater than the cost of the program. If that doesn't occur (and they claim that it hasn't happened yet), we will refund the difference between your program cost and your measureable results. To date, their experience has been typically been three to four times in expense savings or revenue generation over the cost of the program.

Stay tuned for more information on this as we get closer to launch. Click on the link if you would like to see the basic course overview and testimonials.

For general supervisory leadership skills, we continue to offer you the award-winning series by Vital Learning. Available in Classroom, Online, or Blended delivery options, the Vital Learning curriculum includes the following essential topics.

• Delegating - understanding when to use delegation and how to make it motivating
• Complaints - being able to effectively manage complaints
  
• Coaching - knowing how to productively coach job skills
  
• Project Management - being able to run projects, both on-time and on-budget
  
• Conflict - understanding how to successfully resolve conflict
  
• Hiring Winning Talent- knowing what to do to consistently hire the right talent
  
• Providing Feedback - understanding how to establish performance goals and standards and give feedback
  
• And more...

For detail go to www.TheLearningEngine.org