Are you wondering how to effectively move content prepared for classroom presentations to an electronic format? Don’t know where to begin? I was there once. I hope that this two-part case study will assist you to begin, revise, or validate what you are doing.
- A Case Study of Drastic Change Part 1
- A Case Study of Drastic Change Part 2
The case study is from a financial services company where I formerly fulfilled the roles of instructional designer, course designer, multimedia designer, script writer, and learning management system administrator. The company agents (my audience) were exclusive and contracted and yet were responsible to manage their own office and staff.
The beginning of the story
Companies are always looking for ways to save money, right? One way seems to be to trim the training budget. In my case, the company had reorganized under new management, but was willing to make a reasonable investment in training. Essentially, the name of the game was to spend money to save money in the long run. The caveat was that training had to go to be a better product with a positive impact on retention. One goal set forth by the new management was to increase agent retention. Retention had been fairly flat for many, many years. The new CEO wanted to increase retention.
Some of the potential students were multiline insurance agents and they had offices in multiple locations in an eight-state territory. The other students were agents who sold only our life products. These were in an additional seven states. Managing training for all these agents about products, processes, regulations, and laws was a challenge, to say the least. There was a multiline training department and a life-only training department. There was some redundancy between the two.
The company had grown slowly and methodically for several decades. As opportunities appeared, the company would take time to consider all of the options, sometimes to the point of paralysis. The idea of introducing alternative training methods was radical. Expecting to have the system introduced within six months sent a wave of culture shock through some departments. Luckily, the vice president of education was a company veteran, an educator by trade, and a self-proclaimed radical. With a plan in mind, the wheels of change started to turn faster.
The plan
The existing training program started with a twelve day face-to-face session during the agent’s first month. The agents and trainer met at a central location for three sessions of four days each. The agent became an employee of the company the first month to ease the concern of income. In order to gather the group together, the company incurred travel and lodging expenses, and provided lunch on the class days. This practice accounted for a large part of the new agent expenses.
The training sessions consisted mostly of expert or guest lecture with review and discussion of out-of-class assignments. There were a few hands-on activities and agents completed these independently as assignments between sessions.
The vice president of education reviewed the situation. Based on the expenses, he had devised a plan that would alter the current training program drastically. This plan would make use of available technologies and course content. The new pieces were the learning management system and additional staff members. This is where I came in.
The new plan had three parts. The first part was the agent’s sales manager. This manager would be integral to the plan. The second part was regional trainers. Since travel expenses were a large part of new agent training, regional trainers would hold face-to-face classes throughout the agent’s first year. The third part was courses delivered electronically through the learning management system or on CD-ROM, with supplementary print materials.
This plan became the basis for the company’s approach to blended learning. It combined the three parts — e-Learning, regional trainers, and the district sales manager — with the goal of using the best of the three to train and retain agents in a more fiscally responsible manner. (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1 The company’s approach to blended learning for agents used the best combination of e-Learning, live instruction, and managerial guidance.
To be more specific about this structure, here are the roles that each of the three parts played. The Regional Trainer:
- Met five times with new agents in their region within the first 90-days
- Used PowerPoint slides to support delivery of lesson plans provided by Multiline Training
- Reinforced electronic training through practice and application
- Prepared and presented case studies
The District Sales Manager’s goals were to:
- Recruit and train agents to increase retention
- Enable knowledge and skill transfer through on-the-job experiences, appointments, and one-to-one coaching
- Conduct District Meetings with Educational opportunities for all agents
Electronic Training was to:
- Build knowledge and comprehension
- Delivered as self-directed; self-study; asynchronous courses and assessments
- Provide practice – on and off line
- Use supplementary physical materials such as brochures and CD-ROM video tutorials
- Satisfy compliance and regulatory requirements
Technical constraints
As with any plan, there were constraints and issues. The plan we developed was not immune to such issues. This was how some in the company tried to slow the wheels of change. However, the vice president of technology was much like the vice president of education, a rebel with a cause and a good friend of the latter.
The company used a wide area network, and this presented opportunities for creative thinking. With the help of technology experts, we tested various components to establish the capacity of the network and the file size that we could transfer to learners.
One example was the deduction that streaming video and audio were not feasible with the existing network. We had two choices. A software program could push videos and audio to computer desktops. Or CD-ROMs could be the delivery medium. We opted to provide CD-ROMs. Agents were to complete the electronic training before they officially started with the company. This meant that not all users would be within the wide area network. Thus, the files could not be pushed to all computers.
Technology at its best
The technology department became invaluable when issues came up that we hadn’t experienced previously or ones that we couldn’t completely troubleshoot. More than once, an issue surfaced where the technology and multiline training department worked together to create communications for the audiences. This would include documentation to perhaps work through an issue proactively, such as answering yes to an Active-X security message.
Also, we became involved in the computer standardization project. The company wide project was to pattern computers according to jobs. Multiline training helped ensure that the computer patterns included necessary software, such as Flash Player, the current version of Adobe Acrobat Reader, and audio software. These programs were necessary for the CD-ROMs and electronic training components.
Bottom line
The purpose of the initiative was to use resources more effectively and efficiently, so that they cost less and produced more. We achieved this by regionalizing the core studies. This significantly reduced travel costs and improved staff utilization.
Agents started their pre-contract work after successfully completing their licensing tests, sometimes twelve weeks prior to contract start date. This enabled agents to be better prepared from day one. New agents were ready to start work immediately and moved from licensure to company-specific training earlier.
Needs assessment
As with any educational initiative, research must pinpoint the needs. We formally and informally assessed the needs of the agents, managers, company, departments, and many other groups.
Activities happened simultaneously throughout the first year. I traveled to experience face-to-face training personally. I interviewed agents, agents’ assistants, sales managers, and home office personnel. We were also researching learning management systems (LMS), the current technical capacities, and sharing information about the initiative.
One task delegated to the new trainers, and to me as well, was to assess the previously existing training program. We considered the instructional objectives, the graphics in the instructional materials, and company Web sites. We also scrutinized the PowerPoint presentations, tests, and case studies. As a team, we identified which content would lend itself easily to alternative delivery blending of electronic and paper media while retaining the effectiveness of face-to-face delivery.
Off and running
After considering four learning management systems, we purchased our system (IntranetU) in October of 2003. The first two courses were operational by the last week of November. Of course, the first courses were rudimentary in technical terms. We saved the PowerPoints as Web pages. We made the documents into PDFs. We created the test using the measurement tool within the LMS.
The first version of the training consisted of all the content from the original courses. We simply used what we had at the time. Amazingly, the training took off.
We continued to add asynchronous “courses” while conducting a pilot from November, 2003 to March, 2004. At the same time, we were designing and developing the face-to-face components for the regional schools. The electronic and regional experiences had to support and enhance one another. In March, we introduced the regional trainers to the electronic training and provided them with their materials. In April, we formally launched the new program.
As the program went into full swing, we had to train our audience to look for Help documents. The company culture was, if you had a problem, you called the home office. We monitored calls received by the Help Desk to establish areas of need and to provide proactive training. We could also revise the training, using feedback from our learners. "Teach others to help themselves," became my mantra as the audiences became more technically savvy about the program site and its capabilities.
Launching the program
My manager and I started talking to anyone in the company who would listen. He made presentations to various groups. I presented the program to the District Sales Managers and Regional Sales Vice Presidents, at their invitation. Additionally, we elicited the expertise of the Marketing Department. They created the program logo and set up a marketing plan for the program. The marketing plan included venues to inform agents and sales management of updates, changes, and general information sources.
We worked with a pilot group of new agents as they started with the company in November through March. In each session, I worked with the agents to introduce the site and I explained how to navigate the courses. The agents completed the first course during their live session with me. Then they completed homework between the first and second sessions, and again between the second and third sessions. The groups also participated in two surveys that gave us in-depth information about agent attitudes toward learning through alternative delivery mechanisms, and their opinions about the experience, site, materials (electronic and physical), and instructions.
Marketing analyzed the surveys. Results were positive from agents and sales managers alike. Ultimately, our efforts and results impressed the management team and they approved a larger budget allocation for tools, technology, and staff.
Blended approach defined
Throughout the process of purchasing the LMS, identifying the content, and working with fellow trainers, the term "blended approach" kept surfacing. We eventually defined "blended approach" as the innovative use of delivery mechanisms to provide educational experiences to a geographically dispersed audience.
The LMS provided one part of the online or eLearning component of the new training plan. Additional electronic training components included tutorials and videos delivered via CD-ROM. For example, the original face-to-face ethics presentation consisted of showing a video and discussing key points. To revise this training for electronic delivery, we converted the video for delivery on CD-ROM, we rephrased the key points into questions that the agents answered as they watched the video. Discussing the questions and answers became part of a conversation with the agent’s sales manager.
Another piece of the blended learning puzzle was print materials. Some courses contained instructions to print the necessary materials. Other materials came to the agents in a binder designed to accommodate the course materials and other pieces such as brochures or job aids. Print materials could also be case studies, informational pages, or references provided during training sessions with the district sales manager or the regional trainers.
Our initial surveys revealed a concern for a loss of face time with experts. The district sales managers and regional trainers became the experts in the agent’s region rather than the trainer. This was another way to engage the district sales manager in training and mentoring the agent.
Actionable reporting
One of the items that sparked interest was how managers used reporting to gather actionable information. We proactively provided step-by-step instructions to create available reports. The managers also requested functionality to run a quarterly training report to assist them with compliance reporting. I knew we had manager buy-in when the managers and compliance department were seeing a common use for the LMS.
One manager told me how he used completion reporting as a pre-contract assessment. If a potential agent was working through the online content and was following the manager’s directions, the manager considered this to be favorable and an indicator that the agent would do well and be able to follow instructions. If another potential agent had to be reminded several times to complete certain items, the manager would dismiss the agent because the person had proven to be too independent and not able to follow directions.
In the next installment
So far, I have given you an overview of the scope and objectives of our transition from exclusively live, instructor-led training to a blended approach. In the concluding article of this two-part series (to appear June 4, 2007, after the U.S. Memorial Day holiday break), I will tell you how we learned to work smarter, not harder, by using templates. This single advance gave us a way to move beyond our initial patchwork of content from the old courses, to a professional-looking, all-inclusive product. I will share these templates with you, and give you examples of them in use.
I will also tell you how we forged a partnership with our subject matter experts, and the benefits we derived from mutual understanding. We learned many valuable lessons. I think you will find the next installment worth the wait!
