Effective Training

The goal for any trainer is to present effective training. This is especially true in a newsroom where time is short and newsroom people are quickly turned off by ineffective training.


Adult learning theory makes two points over and over about effective training design. The material should be practical and the training should be active.

Education professor Malcolm Knowles says it is essential to recognize that adult learners are different from students. Adults are more self-directed and expect to take responsibility for decisions. The familiar information dump, classroom lecture format will not work with adults. According to Knowles, effective training designs for adults must take into account:


Adults need to know why they need to learn something.

Adults need to learn experientially.

Adults approach learning as problem solving.

Adults learn best when the topic is of immediate value.

As part of his "Conditions of Learning" theory, psychologist Robert Gagne developed a sequence of nine "instructional events" that he found provide effective adult learning. Gagne's outline is a good starting point for designing effective newsroom training. The nine steps are:

1. Gain attention
2. Identify objective
3. Recall prior learning
4. Present stimulus
5. Guide learning
6. Elicit performance
7. Provide feedback
8. Assess performance
9. Enhance retention/transfer
Sample program


Here is how Gagne's nine-step model might be applied in a program on anecdotal leads:
1)Gain attention: Share examples of a good and a bad anecdotal lead.


2)Identify objective: How to write good anecdotal leads.

3)Recall prior learning: Ask participants to list other types of leads, their strengths and uses, and reasons to use an anecdotal lead.


4)Present stimulus: The how-to lecturette: List the four elements of a good anecdotal lead.

5)Guide learning: Evaluate examples of weak anecdotal leads using the how-to material.

6)Elicit performance: Ask participants to evaluate and rewrite weak anecdotal leads with the how-to material. (Alternative: Present raw material for another story and ask participants to construct an anecdotal lead.)


7)Provide feedback: Share and discuss their anecdotal leads.

8)Assess performance: Identify successful examples.

9)Enhance retention/transfer: Ask participants to share potential anecdotal leads from stories they are now working on.


Timing

When planning such a program, block out times for each of the nine sections with an eye toward limiting lecture and facilitating self-directed learning. Below is how the anecdotal lead program might look in a 60-minute outline.

(10 min.)

1. Gain attention: Share examples of a good and a bad anecdotal lead.
2. Identify objective: How to write good anecdotal leads.
3. Recall prior learning: Ask participants to list other types of leads, their each strengths and uses, and reasons to use an anecdotal lead.
(15 min.)

4. Present stimulus: The how-to lecturette. List and explain the four elements of a good anecdotal lead.
5. Guide learning: Evaluate examples of weak anecdotal leads using the how-to material.
(25 min.)

6. Elicit performance: Ask participants to evaluate and rewrite weak anecdotal leads using the how-to material. (Alternative: Present raw material for another story and ask participants to construct an anecdotal lead.)
7. Provide feedback: Share and discuss their anecdotal leads.
8. Assess performance: Identify successful examples.
(10 min.)

9. Enhance retention/transfer: Ask participants to share potential anecdotal leads for stories they are now working on.
Note lecture time is short. More time is spent on applying the how-to material to solve problems. Active training plays to adults' learning preferences by providing time to practice new skills and learn by doing. This increases the likelihood new skills will be learned and applied on the job - the test for effective training.


In a program outline, a long lecture segment is a warning the program is trying to cover too much material. When a program tries to cover too much material, and does not allow time for practice, it will be ineffective.


This is by no means the only way to design a newsroom training program. But Gagne's model does provide a basic outline that can be applied to many newsroom topics. When you develop your own training designs, Gagne's model is still a good reminder of the basic ingredients for effective training.


By Michael Roberts

Conquer Telephone Tag

Conquer Telephone Tag

By: Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

I love technology. I am not a technical person but I admire the techno-things that have helped my business, productivity and profitability. Things like laptops, the Internet, and email have cut costs and boosted productivity and profits dramatically during the last decade.

With almost all new technological breakthroughs, there is a period that is heralded as the answer to all our problems followed quickly by a learning period during which we figure out how to best capitalize on this new way of working.

Voicemail fits this paradigm. Voicemail-the culprit that heightened “telephone tag” to an art form.

Ten years ago, I had to pay the salary of a receptionist or acquire the services of an answering service to handle incoming telephone calls. Or I might use an answering machine with a limited recording limit. I opted for the live receptionist. More personal, more real, I thought.

Then along came voicemail, a way of accepting incoming phone calls at a low cost with more options than an answering machine and a way of more effectively handling phone calls than before, giving the caller the opportunity to receive answers to their inquiries without talking to a real person.

Multiple menu options surfaced (if you would like sales, press 2, if you press 2 and would like to receive a copy of our catalog, press 4, if you press 4 and would like our winter catalog, press 5, but if you would like our spring catalog, press 6…..). I actually timed a menu option thing recently and it took over a minute and a half to get to the option that I wanted to get to the information I needed.

Voicemail also creates a new opportunity for people to duck your calls. Many people rarely answer a phone when it rings waiting until you have slogged through their voicemail menu, then to play your message and decide whether or not to call you back. Of course, when they call you back, they get your voicemail system and then you have to listen to their message and decide whether or not to return their call. Hmmm. Telephone tag and you’re it!

We need a better system. Here are a few suggestions to better deal with voicemail and avoid telephone tag.

1. Use an alternative to telephone. Look, people you call are going to duck your call via voicemail so use a different mode of communication that might have a better rate of success of getting through. Fax your message or email it or even use a first class letter. Some of those “old” methods are better than the new technology.

2. Don’t spill the beans. Want someone to call you back? Don’t give them the entire speal in your voicemail. Less is more. A little intrigue. Teasers. “Debbie. Please give me a call to talk about how to maker your job easier” v “ Debbie. I found a new online course for only $259 that will show us how to get a lot more done in less time with a lot less stress. The problem is I can’t afford to buy it on my own. Would you be willing to kick in half of this and we could share the program? Let me know if you want to do this.”

3. Be specific. If you want a return call, don’t end with “Call me as soon as possible” or “Call me soon” or “Call me when you can”. Everyone has “too much to do”. You are then just one more thing to do. Those vague requests wind up in the “as soon as possible” pile of Never Never Land that rarely gets acted upon. Instead, give a specific day and time to call back. Don’t give two or more choices because that will necessitate a call back from that person to confirm which date and time is best to return the call.

For example: “Joe, this is Don. I need to speak to you about how to make the Anderson research run more smoothly. Give me a call back on Tuesday, the fifth at 9:00 a.m. I blocked that time for you. If this doesn’t work for you, please give me a call to reschedule and leave a message on my voicemail with at least two alternate dates and times for us to talk. Gutsy? Offensive? Well, 95% of the time you will not hear back from this person to change the date and time you have selected and you will accomplish what you intended to do on the date and time you have selected.

Resolution and New Year!

HOW TO MAKE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS STICK

By: Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

At the beginning of each year so many of us commit to changes and worthy
goals to be accomplished in the next twelve months only to be
disappointed come next December 31 when we discover we are no closer to
achieving those resolutions than we were on January 1. The noble
resolutions we made early on became unstuck. So I looked at this dilemma
and created four useful suggestions to increase the probability that
your New Year’s resolutions will stick this year.

1. Quantify it. Sometimes we are just too vague about what we want.
Therefore, a resolution such as, “I want to lose weight this year” will
probably fail. It is too vague. How much weight? Be specific. What would
your ideal weight be, less what do you weigh now, is what you are going
after. It is not enough to resolve that; “I want enough money in the
bank this year”. Quantify. What specific amount would soothe your soul?

2. Set a deadline. Resolutions that are to be achieved “as soon as
possible” wind up in the heap of “Someday I’ll”. Deadlines are
commitments. Without a deadline as a self-imposed pressure point,
getting started is easily postponed. You see, deadlines put us on the
line and define when failure occurs. Deadlines also help us to break the
resolution down into little bite-sized pieces. For example, if your goal
is to lose 25 pounds by June 30, that translates into approximately 4
pounds per month, one pound per week, or a daily reduction of caloric
intake (or an increase in daily caloric burn) of just 500 calories per
day. Now that’s manageable. 500 calories a day is easy to achieve. 25
pounds seems like a leap across the Grand Canyon. Until we quantify our
goal, set a deadline, then break it down to its daily requirements, the
resolution will forever seem unattainable.

3. Change one or two things at a time. We generally do not like change
in the first place. We seek the familiar and avoid the strange. The more
change you put yourself through, the higher the probability your
campaign will collapse. Focus in on one or two of the more important
resolutions you seek to accomplish this year. When you achieve one or
the other, start on the next one. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too much
change all at once.

4. Be realistic. There’s just something about the start of a new year
that gets us all wound up for changes in our lives, sometimes
extraordinary and unrealistic changes. We become much like the child in
the candy store whose eyes are bigger than his stomach. Be realistic.
You can only accomplish a certain amount within a period of time. Don’t
saddle yourself with unrealistic resolutions that will only spell
failure later on.

Employees in the Dark on Training

Employees in the Dark on Training

It’s all well and good that you offer your employees the best training and development your company can afford. The problem is many of these workers have no idea such opportunities to better themselves exist. According to the Emerging Workforce Survey, released last fall by staffing and recruitment firm Spherion Corp., based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., there may be a serious disconnect between your training department and the workers it purports to help.

The findings are based on two separate surveys; the results of the employer survey are based on 502 telephone and online interviews with senior human resources executives at U.S. companies conducted between March 21 and April 27; data on U.S. employed adults was gathered from the Harris Interactive QuickQuery online omnibus conducted monthly by Harris Interactive on behalf of Spherion. Sample sizes of the Spherion Employment Report vary between 2,500 and 3,100 among U.S. employed adults.

A comparison of results from these two groups shows a substantial gap in understanding. While 92 percent of employers who participated in the survey reported offering funding to attend seminars and trade shows, for instance, just 28 percent of employee respondents said such funding exists. When it comes to the provision of internal training sessions, 91 percent of employers said it’s available to workers, but, by contrast, only 46 percent of employees reported that they knew of such programming. Similarly, 89 percent of employers said they offer external training sessions, though just 26 percent of employees reported that their company provides these sessions to them.

On tuition assistance, 69 percent of employers claimed they offer it, but just 31 percent of workers reported their companies making it available to them. The ignorance of workers to their companies’ training benefits extends to the online world as well, the study points out. Though 58 percent of employers said they provide online skills training; a scant 20 percent of workers reported their companies supplying them with this service. And, while 37 percent of companies said they offer online career development programs, only 14 percent of employees responded that their employers are providing them with this.

For more information, visit www.spherion.com

saving time

Microsoft Software Engineers Aided By Performance Support Tools

When Redmond, Wash.,-based software manufacturer Microsoft Corp. wanted to save its software engineers time searching for information, it developed a set of performance tools, such as prescriptive guidance, templates, samples and learning objects. These tools are expected to save engineers two to three hours every week.

Measuring the ROI on Training

Measuring the ROI on Training

Measuring training's impact comes down to asking the right questions to find the data that can be linked to changed behavior, Richard J. Wagner and Robert J. Weigand argue in their new book, Measuring Results of MBTI Type Training, ROI in Action. Wagner, a former corporate trainer who is currently professor of management at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and Weigand, the director of management training and development at St. Luke's Hospital and Health Network in Bethlehem, Pa., use the implementation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality assessment tool to illustrate how training's ROI can be measured.

Most organizations and companies only are measuring the effectiveness of training at the most superficial levels, such as simply asking students to rate how happy they were with the program, or how much information they will take back to the office, Weigand says. Just how much of the training ends up making a difference in employees' work isn't usually looked into because it is thought of as impossible, or too difficult to measure.

To make determining training's ROI easier, the authors try to show trainers how the worth of training programs can be measured using the easy-to-attain data that's right in front of them. Weigand says he and Wagner only applied their methodology to the MBTI, but that it can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of any training program. "We believe if you ask the right questions, and go to the right data sources in the organization, if the data is there, you can find the data out and link it to changed behaviors," Weigand says.

For example, Weigand says the head of biomedical engineering at St. Luke's was able to successfully pitch a change of work schedule to subordinates, thanks to the understanding of their personalities that he gained through use of the Myers-Briggs tool, which assesses personality type, or how different types of people prefer to approach life. The department head had a goal of reducing overtime expenses in his department. He realized that tinkering with his employees' work schedules could significantly impact costs for the better, but he worried that workers, used to their old routine, would react unfavorably to the changes.

He was able to get his approximately 20 workers to agree to the shift in schedules at least partly because he knew how to sell the idea to each of them. While one worker may be driven to make decisions based mostly on hard facts, such as the amount of money that will be saved after making the change, another worker, based on his personality type, will likely need to be convinced by non-monetary, non-bottom-line factors, such as the maintenance of comfort to his lifestyle. As a result of getting employees to go along with the change in routine, he saved his department between $81,000 and $100,000 in reduction of overtime pay this year, Weigand says

SYSTEMATIZE AND SIMPLIFY

SYSTEMATIZE AND SIMPLIFY

By: Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

During thirty years as a Time Management speaker and consultant, I have
learned and shared a lot of simple practices that help my audiences to
increase their daily results. A lot of time is wasted because we don’t
have a system in place for many of the repetitive tasks we do so that we
have to pay over and over again, with our time, for the same results.

So here’s one neat tip: systematize. (I don’t think this is really a
word, but hey, if no one invents new words, how will our language grow?)
Systematize is the simple procedure of creating a routine way of
responding to a myriad of tasks that will open our time for more
important things. We can systematize in all areas of our life. Here are
a few places you may wish to begin.

1. Standard text documents. I have dozens of documents in “My Documents”
section of my computer. These include a lot of the articles that people
request through our website and standard letters I send out for business
and personal contacts, standard information documents (like directions
to our office). Most of the information I need to send to respond to my
emails is there or easily modified and tailored so that I don’t have to
type out a lot of repetitive information.

2. A single calendaring system. Some people use as many as a dozen ways
of tracking their appointments and scheduled events and their “To Do”
list items. There’s a calendar for work and one for personal things.
There’s stuff lying out on the desk reminding us what needs to be done.
The dentist appointment card is on the bathroom mirror and the dry
cleaner claim slip is hanging from the visor in the car. The softball
schedule is on the refrigerator and we have several other commitments in
our heads. Boil this all down to a single system. I use Daytimer
products, but whatever product you feel comfortable with is fine. Just
make it a simple, singular, master system from which you take control of
appointments and scheduled events and your “To Do” list items.

3. Clean up the messy desk or work area. Studies have shown that the
person who works with a messy desk spends, on average, one and a half
hours per day looking for things or being distracted by things. That’s
seven and a half hours per week! (“Out of sight, out of mind.” And the
reverse of that is true too, “In sight, in mind”.) And, it’s not a solid
block of an hour and a half, but a minute here and a minute there, and
like a leaky hot water faucet, drip, drip, drip, it doesn’t seem like a
major loss, but at the end the day, we’re dumping gallons of hot water
down the drain that we are paying to heat. If you have ever visited the
office of a top manager, typically, that person is working with a clean
desk environment. Many would attribute this result to that person’s
access to other staff members. While there may be some truth in that
conclusion, in most cases, if we went back some years in that person’s
career, they probably were working with a clean desk back then which
gave them the focus they needed to become promoted to where they are
today.

4. Have adequate supplies. Some people spend a lot of their productive
time looking for a pen or a pad of paper or staples for their stapler.
Have enough pens, pencils, yellow markers, “sticky notes”, writing pads,
fax paper, printer cartridges, updated telephone directories, staples,
“Wite Out”, report forms, index cards, paper clips, rolls of adding
machine tapes, etc., etc.

5. Make your physical surroundings workable. Move the fax machine closer
(or further away!) from your desk. Have the most frequently used and
needed files within arm’s reach and the less frequently required items
further out. Have adequate space at your desk to do what you need to do.
Remove some unnecessary items, if necessary, to make room.

6. Set up a functional briefcase. I travel a lot and am out of my office
at seminars or meetings with clients requiring that I tote along a
briefcase. In addition to the stuff I need for where I am going, I have
my briefcase stocked with a lot of neat things like a calculator, a
pocket map of the United States, basic office supplies (writing pads,
pens, yellow markers, small stapler, paper clips, stamps and a few
envelopes), blank checks, a few deposit slips, a paperback book I have
been intending to read, and at least one project I can work on if I get
stuck in traffic or am waiting for the meeting to begin. It gives me
more choices.

7. Schedule maintenance. The equipment you use, your car, stuff around
the house, and oh yeah, you. You know your car needs to be serviced. Why
wait for a breakdown to get it done and spend more time on what could
have been accomplished in less time. (You still need a tune-up, but now
you have to wait for the tow truck to arrive.) Regular medical and
dental checkups save huge amounts of time in our future by fixing small
conditions before they become major costly issues.

8. Catalog contacts. Develop and maintain your contacts list so that
networking can enhance your future with the contacts you make. A
computer-based program such as ACT is excellent, but even a simple 3x5
card system will work. Keep track of a growing list of contacts, help
them at every turn and they will be there to help you.

Performance Management Not Performing

Performance Management Not Performing

Organizations plagued by an inefficient workforce despite their best training efforts may find the root of the problem in an unexpected place. According to a survey released last week, it all may boil down to lackluster performance management.

Based on a survey of 265 U.S. companies across industries and a complementary survey of 1,100 workers, the study, conducted by the Washington, D.C.,-based human capital and financial management firm Watson Wyatt and the Scottsdale, Ariz.,-based nonprofit human resources professional organization WorldatWork, found that most employers have adopted best practices, such as the 98 percent that say they provide formal annual reviews, and the 91 percent that say they offer coaching and feedback, but not many are successful at implementing them. While 92 percent of programs, for instance, are designed to link pay to performance, only 79 percent of employers say managers at their respective organizations are moderately or greatly effective at it. Moreover, only 52 percent of employees indicated that their managers tie pay to performance.

The study also found a deficiency when it comes to providing formal career development and planning to workers. Eighty-two percent of performance-management programs reported on the survey are designed to include career development, but just 37 percent of employers say that managers at their organizations are at least moderately effective at providing it, and only 31 percent of employees say their companies offer career development.

Management also was deemed sub-par in linking employee goal-setting to business objectives. Such a link was reported in the performance-management program design of 91 percent of the companies surveyed; however 74 percent say their managers are moderately or greatly effective at it. Additionally, only 48 percent of employees report that a link to business objectives is provided.

Some 57 percent of employers say their managers are moderately or greatly effective at providing coaching and feedback to employees throughout the year; 48 percent of employees report this is the case.

The problem may lie with the managers left to execute the programming, the findings suggest. Only 36 percent of the organizations surveyed have a formal training program to enhance managers' ability to manage rewards. This is an essential point since Watson Wyatt and WorldatWork point out that companies that offer such a program are more effective at providing coaching and feedback, providing formal periodic performance discussions and helping poor performers improve.

Full survey results are available for purchase at www.watsonwyatt.com.

Tuition Reimbursement Pays Off for Blue Cross

Best Practices:

Tuition Reimbursement Pays Off for Blue Cross

Offering workers tuition reimbursement makes a big difference for Chapel Hill, N.C.,-based health-care insurance product and service provider Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. The company, which did a study of the correlation between employee turnover and tuition reimbursement during the years 2001 to 2003, found turnover was seven to eight points lower among employees who received this benefit.