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Improving Front-line Training Practices 2008
The Ascent Group, Nov 2008
Improving Front-line Training Practices 2007 Executive Summary
According to the American Society for Training & Development, companies are spending more per employee on training and the average number of hours of formal learning per employee is increasing. The use of technology to deliver learning content has increased and companies are also spending more on external services like content design, development and delivery or technology infrastructure.
Training and training delivery systems are changing, slowly but surely evolving to take advantage of the power of the Internet, mobile communications, and handheld technologies, the technologies that are changing society itself. Technological advancement has made it possible and practical to shift from classroom training to individualized learning. In turn, corporations are expecting trainers to become performance consultants, with the goal of developing custom learning content to help individual employees achieve their desired outcome.
More and more subject matter experts are assuming the training role. More live instruction is being delivered remotely or online and more and more self-paced or computer-based training is being offered to busy employees, making it even more convenient to brush up on skills or learn a new procedure. Training that is portable, self-directed, and available on-demand is becoming popular, through pod casts, PDAs, or even mobile phones. Simulation technology is also being more widely implemented, allowing learners to realistically “try the job” before actually on the job.
Companies are expecting more from their training organizations—to maximize results while minimizing resources; to prove that the investment in training is paying off in employee performance; to develop content more quickly; and to deliver learning in such a manner that it is more accessible, even seamless with work duties. More so than ever before, an organization’s training function is being run like any other business function with increased attention on operational efficiency, accountability, and connection to organizational strategy.
These challenges are reflected in the top concerns identified by training and development professionals in recent industry research:
Managing training costs and funding
Getting the most out of e-learning, learning development systems
Linking learning to performance
Aligning learning with business needs and individual employee competency needs.
It's no longer acceptable to hope an employee learns something at a training session. The best performing companies are thoughtfully developing their most important resource: the people they employ.
Benchmark Study of Training & Development
With all this in mind, the Ascent Group conducted research in mid- and late-2005 to better understand training and development practices for front-line customer service employees. This research was conducted in concert with additional research into the recruitment and hiring of front-line employees and performance measurement.
The main objective of the study was to identify “best practices” for training and development. In particular, focus was given to understanding how best-in-class customer service organizations prepare front-line employees to deliver service to customers.
Secondary objectives included understanding:
What initial training programs are used? Duration?
What on-going training programs are used? Duration? Frequency? Pass/Fail?
What job rotation processes are in place? Are they effective in increasing productivity and customer satisfaction?
What technologies are improving the training process?
Participants were asked to share management tactics and strategies, as well as identify any improvement in performance. The study also asked companies to include considerations, successes, and plans moving forward
The Intranet is overwhelmingly the most effective job aid & training tool for new front-line employees. Companies are using the intranet to post policies, procedures, preferred scripting, transaction forms, interactive reference manuals, letter templates, online-help, webinars, Q&A, recent announcements, self-paced learning modules, performance progress, chat boards…
Other effective job aides include: cheat sheets, video examples of good and bad service, and special topic-based workshops and seminars. A small number of companies report simulation technology as an effective training tool.
Technology can certainly provide quick and easy access to reference material, corporate policies, as well as customer information. The rise of e-learning, simulation tools, and workstation-based video/audio has made training more accessible and tactile for front-line employees, facilitating comprehension. Employees can fine-tune skills through online e-learning modules during slow times, departmental policy changes can be communicated quickly to busy front-line employees through electronic processing, and new employees can “chat” with seasoned employees online, without leaving their workstation, to solve problems while still on the phone with the customer. The possibilities are limitless.
continued…
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