Best Practices for Learning and Development - Summary - CEdMA

Summary Report

Best Practices for Learning and Development

© Taleo Business Edition. All rights reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction ................................................................

II. Blended Learning .......................................................

III. Structured Learning Plans ..........................................

IV. Social Learning ...........................................................

V. eCommerce ................................................................

VI. Learning Portals .........................................................

VII. Content Management ..............................................

VIII. Surveys and Assessments .......................................

IX. Compliance ..............................................................

X. Summary ..................................................................

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The director of sales for the U.S. and Canada knew her team was struggling to sell new products and services that were the result of an acquisition. Her team hadn’t had any knowledge exchanges yet so they weren’t comfortable selling the new products or services. She had to get 200 sales reps trained and certifi ed. Yet, they were spread across two countries and always traveling. If she had the budget, she could schedule face-to-face training but she would need to schedule multiple sessions across the country so as to minimize the reps time away from selling.

She also had several new sales reps that needed training on existing products as well as the new offerings from the acquisition. Company training for new hires focused more on HR policies and procedures so each sales region took basic product information and developed its own sales courses. Using her connection to product developers, she had created a sales manual for her team but it was often out-of-date.

The vice president of sales contacted her to get projections on when the team would be able to hit its revenue targets, and he wasn’t happy about her request to send the team to on-site training. The cost and time required to send the team was way over the training budget for the quarter and could impact the ability to close deals and meet forecasts.

Frustrated, the sales director asked the training department if there were any online tools available her team could leverage to get up to speed on the new products and services. There were a few presentations and experts who could answer questions, which could help temporarily, but the sales manager wanted to set her team up for ongoing success.

There had to be a better way to train her team now, and in the future.

I. IntroductionThe Holy Grail for any organization wanting to sustain long-term success is to develop and encourage a high-performing workforce. Workforce performance not only depends largely on how well employees are prepared to do their jobs, but also on how well training focuses on the skills and competencies necessary to achieve the organization’s overall goals.

When an organization incorporates ongoing learning into its DNA, increased performance often follows—and that’s not all. Organizations with strong learning cultures are 46% more likely to be strong innovators in their markets, 33% more likely to report higher customer satisfaction than other organizations, and 58% more likely to be successful at developing the skills needed for meeting future customer demand.1

Ongoing learning can go a long way toward retaining employees that you’ve already made signifi cant investments in as well. Turnover can cost an organization one-and-a-half times an employee’s annual salary to replace that employee.2 When employees feel engaged, valued,and like they are contributing to the organization’s success, they are more likely to stay employed with that organization.

Technology can help you capture and share knowledge, communicate and align goals and objectives, as well as develop the skills of employees. With software solutions and applications moving to a software as a service (SaaS) delivery model, small and medium-sized organizations can take advantage of sophisticated features and functions that were once only available to large enterprises. SaaS technology can be the foundation for a number of variations in the structure and operation of an HR or training department. The costs and resources have been taken out of the equation since there is no longer an infrastructure investment needed—the Internet becomes the infrastructure. Advances in security and availability have set the stage for organizations to transform the way they train and develop their workforces.

In this paper, we’ll look at best practices in learning and development and the technology behind these practices. You will see that through a learning management system (LMS) you can develop the skills, competencies, and knowledge of your employees to improve retention, engagement, and business performance.

1. “High-Impact Learning Culture: The 40 Best Practices for Creating an Empowered Enterprise,” Bersin & Associates, June 2010.2. Rockwell Collins Company Report, 2008.

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5Taleo Business Edition Summary Report Learning Best Practices

3. “Blended Learning: A Cost Effective Corporate Training Solution,” Mary White, M.A., SPHR, Mobile Technical Institute & MTI Business Solutions, 2008.

II. Blended LearningThe day-to-day dynamics required to run a successful organization often take priority over employee training or learning. Many organizations struggle to balance the need to develop employee skills to meet the demands of business and the time it takes to effectively train employees. Relying on an LMS, you can implement blended learning, which is a training method more organizations are relying on to fi t training into a busy workday while meeting the needs of different types of learners.

Traditional blended learning strategies combine various kinds of formal, expert-led approaches, typically instructor led training (ILT), mentoring, and web based training (WBT). WBT has become more popular than computer based training (CBT) as it eliminates many of the drawbacksassociated with CBT such as costs to develop and deliver media, version control, and access to special hardware and software. A new model of blended learning is emerging that mixes formal,informal, and social strategies to solve new kinds of problems related to organizational performance.

There are many benefi ts to using blended learning for employee training including:

• WBT uses the latest training instructional technology so employees can do “self-service” training.

• WBT allows organizations to deliver training to any location at any time to reduce time and costs for travel.

• ILT keeps the richness of live instruction where employees can interact in person.

• Mentoring leverages the experience and skills of your more senior employees rather than hiring outside experts.

• Social learning opens up online communities for sharing ideas that are specifi c to your industry or your employees’ job tasks.

Adopting a blended approach to employee development training can be both cost effective and effi cient. Workers have an opportunity to participate in a greater range of skill and knowledge development activities. Companies can save money while still making training opportunities available to employees. When companies implement a blended approach to employee training, everyone can benefi t.3

“Taleo has been

a significant contributor

in our process of

developing and

implementing

learning objectives.”

Cyndi Laurin, PhD,Training Coordinator,

The Apothecary Shop

6 Taleo Business Edition Summary Report Learning Best Practices

III. Structured Learning Plans As previously discussed, blended learning programs enable organizations to combine different learning activities that may be formal or informal. Structured learning plans act as the container to tie each training element together and the vehicle to deliver related learning objectives in a logical sequence. Depending on the types of training delivered, organizations may consider using soft or hard pre-requisites to encourage or require that learners consume the training in a prescribed order. A prescribed order is necessary if each additional training exercise builds off of the previous topic.

Flexible and confi gurable administration allows organizations to adapt structured learning to a variety of needs. Organizations seeking to develop and deliver a consistent learning experience use structured learning plans with the concept of “create once and map to many.” As training and employee development managers are continually taxed to do more with fewer resources, yet still maintain quality - the ability to create scalable and repeatable process becomes critical.

Effi ciency and scale is equally important for organizations that deliver training to their clients, partners, and overall extended enterprise. Extended enterprise is a term often used to refer to learning audiences that represent an extension of your organization. The extended enterprise includes customers, partners, suppliers, resellers, distributors, association members, or any other external group that benefi ts from your organization’s learning and development programs. Many leading organizations have adopted the use of learning management technology to leverage effi ciencies and create more standardization with regard to education programs for the extended enterprise. Structured learning plans make it possible to develop multiple combinations of learning plans to meet the specifi c training needs of your extended enterprise.

Whether you need to deliver new client education, train existing partners on product and service enhancements, or provide ongoing training for your employees, structured learning plans make it easier for you to package and deliver consistent and repeatable learning programs.


4. “Social Learning A Hit At Classic Residence,” InformationWeek.com, David F. Carr, April 2011.

IV. Social LearningSocial networking has impacted nearly every aspect of how people share and exchange information, including training and employee learning. Within an LMS, you can create “communities of practice” anchored by discussions, blogs, idea and fi le sharing, news, and pertinent market information. By leveraging the wisdom and expertise of online communitiesyou allow employees to collaborate and connect through social learning.

Vi, formerly Classic Residence by Hyatt, runs retirement communities across the U.S. and uses social learning as part of its overall learning and development initiative. The Vi sales team initially adopted social learning to share best practices and monitor trends in real estate and senior housing industries. Other groups within Vi took notice and began asking for their own online communities as an ideal way to create a one-stop shop for information, training, news, and communications. The food and beverage team incorporates Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds from the Culinary Institute into their online community. Human resources and accounting and fi nance also have formed their own communities integrated into their specifi c learning portals.4

While social learning is infi ltrating more training and learning programs within today’s organizations, it is important to remember that there is still a need to satisfy complex regulatory and compliance reporting requirements. This is why any social learning initiatives should still be offered in combination with more traditional online training and certifi cation tracking.

A network is more powerfulthan a single node.

V. eCommerce Most LMSs are designed to address the needs of internal-facing employee development and training. If your organization provides learning programs for your extended enterprise, ensure that your LMS includes robust eCommerce functionality. With an automated system where you can charge for training as well as administer it, you can turn training from a cost center to a profi t center.

Even if you don’t have current needs to sell your training externally, eCommerce functionality will help you charge back internally for training so you can better manage the costs.


Case Study: Intuit Implements Next-Generation Customer Training

Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and fi nancial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; fi nancial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals.

Challenge:Intuit’s business units each have different product price points, market sizes and characteristics, as well as customers with different learning requirements.

Solution:A new LMS played a key role in the transformation of the customer learning at Intuit’s accounting professionals division. Taleo Learn was selected due to its fl exible approach, allowing non-technical users to strip away employee-focused training functions and confi gure content to an external customer audience.

Results:Intuit’s LMS platform makes the customer learning experience easier by giving customersthe option to take training wherever, whenever and however they want it. The LMS delivers self-paced eLearning, hosts webinars and live virtual classrooms, and automates the tracking of student registrations, continuing professional education (CPE) credits and certifi cations.

COMPANYPOLICIES

LEADERSHIP ACADEMY

TRAININGHEADQUARTERS

TRAININGRECORDS

BUSINESSUNIT 1

BUSINESSUNIT 2

SALES RESELLERS /PARTNERS

CLIENTEDUCATION

VI. Learning Portals A learning portal is a gateway for individual learners. Learning portals provide organizations with different divisions or functions the custom learning experience required by each audience yet the centralized administration, tracking, and management to ensure training and development success. Because each learning portal is tailored to a specifi c audience, it creates a self-service environment where the content is relevant to each individual. This goes a long way in eliminating the complaint “I can’t fi nd anything” where all learners are dropped into a single learning portal to fend for themselves.

Your LMS should allow you to create an unlimited number of unique learning portals. Those learning portals will pull information from your central LMS. You can then personalize the content for specifi c audiences so that each portal has its own look and feel. Each learning audience only sees curriculums, courses, training materials, and resources that are relevant to them. The content in each portal can range from being applicable to all employees in an organization to specifi c sub-groups of learners, or it may be customized for individual employees and their roles. Learning portals and sub-portals also support learners external to the organization, such as customers or partners. Your LMS allows you to keep internal content separate from client-facing content and surface the right content to the right audience.

One benefi t of learning portals and sub-portals is the ability to share training costs across an organization. Rubbermaid, for example, when it began expanding its product offering in 2007 faced the challenge of training over 28,000 employees across the globe. The company launched its LMS using learning portals for its 10 training centers and was able to spread the costs for the training expansion. In this way, the company didn’t have to hire and pay multiple vendors to run each center with a separate LMS or take employees off critical projects to manage these efforts.5

When evaluating an LMS, ensure that the vendor supports learning portals and sub-portals. It is critical that your LMS be able to support unlimited learning portals out of the box. That way you can support the different types of learners you have today and ensure you are able to keep up with your changing business requirements and support your future needs.


“Our leadership courses

are the highest-rated in the

company, and employees

are consistently applying

what they’ve learned back

on the job.”

John Moxley,Director of Leadership Development,

Cricket Communications

5. “Rubbermaid: An Airtight Container of Learning,” CLO Magazine, July 2007.

Each learning audience only sees curriculums, courses, training materials, and resources that are relevant to them. Each learning portal has its own look and feel.

VII. Content ManagementContent is often a big challenge for training. Bersin & Associates found that 83% of companies believe that content integration is critical to success yet only 33% say that their systems manage eLearning content correctly.6 An LMS should provide you with the ability to not only author your own content, but also use off-the-shelf content in multiple formats including video, audio, Portable Document Format (PDF), Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations, and Microsoft® Word to reduce development costs.

In addition, you want to have the ability to combine off-the-shelf content with customized content and aggregate content from leading providers such as Skillsoft®, ElementK, Mindleaders®, Wolters Kluwer, Vivid Learning, Medcom, RedHawk, and GetAbstract. The larger the library of professionally developed content, the more your employees and organization will benefi t. Look for an LMS that has tens of thousands of titles in its library of professionally developed content to ensure you can meet your specifi c off-the-shelf learning needs. The library should cover generic subjects such as sexual harassment, workplace safety, leadership, and sales.

Content should be linked to assessments to verify employee understanding of important policies and procedures or new product rollouts. This can be especially benefi cial for organizations that need to certify employees on compliance. For example, Fallon Clinic, a large multi-specialty medical group practice located throughout central Massachusetts, was faced with training its entire organization in a short period of time and verifying that employees understood course material to ensure certifi cation. The organization’s LMS supported this effort and now handles employee certifi cation through quarterly training modules online.

There are two standards for content compliance to be aware of: SCORM® and AICC. Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is a collection of standards and specifi cations for web-based learning. SCORM provides standards for how an LMS communicates between the client side content and a host system as well as how content may be packaged into a transferable fi le.7 Aviation Industry Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC) is an international association of technology-based training professionals. AICC develops guidelines for aviation in the development, delivery, and evaluation of CBT, WBT, and related training technologies.8 Because AICC specifi cations are typically not aviation specifi c, they have broad acceptance across multiple industries. Ensure that your LMS supports SCORM and AICC standards.


6. The State of LMS Industry, Bersin & Associates, March 13, 2009.7. SCORM Explained, http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/technical-scorm/.8. AICC Frequently Asked Questions, http://www.aicc.org/joomla/dev/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=29.

VIII. Surveys and AssessmentsAs measurement is an integral part of the learning process, many organizations use surveys and assessments to determine the level of understanding acquired by the student. They also allow you to gauge learner perception of training. Surveys and assessments should be built into an LMS with the fl exibility to customize them to your specifi c needs.

Assessments can be used as an opportunity to engage the individual as they go through training with a series of knowledge checks, or as an opportunity to measure mastery of certain concepts. Additionally, surveys can be used to get immediate feedback from sessions, as well as an opportunity to determine how previous training has been applied in the weeks and months following delivery. Organizations often organize their assessment questions and answers into categories or pools. This allows for rapid assembly of assessments and surveys with the opportunity to randomize the selection of questions and answer types to discourage cheating.

One example where surveys and assessments are particularly useful is technical support training. Surveys and assessments allow you to control operations to ensure accuracy and consistency in each customer’s support experience. Technical support agents need to walk through the same systems of checks each time a customer requests support. There may be different processes followed for different levels of technical support expertise as well. All of these requirements can be plugged into the LMS assessment features to ensure the support staff is fully trained and certifi ed on processes, which provides consistency and better quality to your customers.

There is also a tremendous opportunity to leverage the data collected from your surveys and assessments to discover trends in your learning and education programs. With this type of information, you can potentially tie outcomes related to learning and development to performance trends, corporate goals, or key performance indicators.


IX. ComplianceCompliance as it relates to an LMS touches on several different areas. These areas include certifi cation and credit management, specifi c industry regulations, workforce regulations dictated by government, and adherence to internal policies and procedures.

If employees need professional accreditation through continuing education credits, an LMS can track credits and provide reporting capabilities. In fi nancial services and healthcare organizations, these credits are a central aspect of ongoing employee education. Some LMSs can also enable organizations to list credit-related courses and events whether they are “in” the LMS or provided through third-party organizations.9 Your LMS should have an electronic audit trail so you can easily report on your different industry and regulatory scenarios.

You may also consider offering required training to employees in your LMS when they would otherwise have to go off site or to a third party to get that training. This is especially important for workers that must obtain certifi cations annually or at other set intervals. Your goodwill gesture as an employer will not only help engage the workforce by making it easier for them to access required training, but also help ensure all certifi cations are obtained on time. You get peace of mind in knowing the organization is complying with regulations, and you can demonstrate to regulatory agencies that your workforce has received its required training.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulated industries including medical device manufacturers, biotech companies, and biologics developers are required to comply with Title 21 CFR Part 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations. To fully comply with the law, organizations must provide records that are suitable for inspection, secure from unauthorized access, include audit trails, require electronic signatures logs, and much more. As a result, the LMS has to comply with 21 CFR Part 11 regulations also. If your organization falls under 21 CFR Part 11 regulations, make sure your LMS allows you to implement compliance controls including audits, system validations, audit trails, electronic signatures, and documentation involved in processing the electronic data that are required to be maintained by the FDA.

While legally required training is often top of mind, an LMS should also support your training initiatives around internal policies and procedures. Many organizations must complete annual training and verify that employees have signed off on policies or are certifi ed in key areas. Link specifi c courses and assessments to deliver training and validate your workforce’s understanding of policies and procedures. With support for learning sub-portals, you will also be able to accommodate company-wide policies and procedures or those that are specifi c to certain departments.


“Vi’s systematic tracking

and reporting of

CE credits has improved

course completion by 12%,

as the availability of

online courses eliminates

the hassle and expense of

nurses having to

track down and attend

courses elsewhere.”

Judy Whitcomb, SPHR,AVP of Learning and Organizational

Development,Vi

9. “LMS Creates Company and Employee Success,” MNCPA Footnote Magazine, February/March 2010.

X. SummaryProviding learning and development opportunities for employees is essential to sustaining long-term success for any organization. Your organization’s performance depends on people learning. Whether it’s imposed by law, management, or self-driven workers, training is a competitive advantage. Meeting your organization’s goals and objectives requires you to align the training needs of your entire workforce and deliver learning programs in the most effi cient way possible. A solution like Taleo Learn enables you to create, deliver, and track the training and education required to establish and develop a high-performing workforce, which will position your organization ahead of the competition.


ABOUT TALEO

Leading organizations worldwide use Taleo on demand talent management solutions to assess, acquire, develop, and align their workforce for improved business performance.

Taleo and all Taleo product and service names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Taleo in the United States, France, The Netherlands, U.K., Canada, Australia, and several other countries. All other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Copyright © 2011 Taleo Corporation. All rights reserved. No portion of this document may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of Taleo Corporation..

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Best Practices for Learning and Development - Summary - CEdMA