Corporate Training Materials

Great companies value employee training and development. Take your team to the next level with corporate training materials that will improve vital business skills like communication and negotiation.

8
nov
0

INFOGRAPHIC: How to Uncover High-Potential Employees

Posted by Coaching Skills, Communication Styles, Corporate Team Building Games, Corporate Training Materials, HR TrainingNo Comments

By Rick Lepsinger

Have you ever promoted someone who was great in his or her role but fell short of your expectations in a leadership position?

As it turns out, many of the criteria we use to promote employees—such as instinct, seniority and personality—are poor predictors of leadership potential. This causes us to invest significant time and money into the wrong employees while overlooking the right ones, who become discouraged and move on.

How can you uncover the high-potential employees who are most likely to succeed as your company’s future leaders?

Let this infographic be your guide.

Blog_infographic_highpotential

OnPoint Consulting helps some of the world’s most successful companies uncover their hidden gems using practical, cost-effective and data-driven techniques.

This article was reprinted here with permission from the author.

Rick and HRDQ-U are hosting a webinar November 30th at 2pm ET. Save your seat here!

29b89ba2d6ea268fe9acac13e66e60da_headshot-rlepsinger_200-200-cRick Lepsinger is President of OnPoint Consulting. His career has focused on helpingorganizations and leaders identify and develop leaders, work better virtually, enhance cross functional team performance, and get from strategy to execution faster.  He conducts numerous seminars and workshops on succession management, leading from a distance, leading cross functional teams, and enhancing execution.  Rick has written numerous articles and is the author or co-author of several books. Click here for more information.

14
jun
0

Remove the Sting of Compliance Courses: Make Them Short, Succinct, Easy to Learn

Posted by Corporate Training Materials, Critical Thinking Training, HR Training, Human Resource TrainingNo Comments

By Ray Jimenez, PhD
Chief Learning Architect

More often than not, compliance courses have received a bad rap and reputation. The main complaint is that compliance courses are just “clicking boxes to meet lawyers’ needs.” As the perception persists, part of the blame is caused by designers, trainers and leaders abandoning the “learning side” of compliance. Consequently, these courses have been relegated to the category of being necessary evils.I am not giving up on compliance courses. From what I know of compliance courses, the intent is to protect peoples’ lives, reduce costs, avoid fraudulence, keep our environments safe and many others. Without good compliance courses, we are all at risk.

Recently, I spoke at the  ATD (Association of Talent Development) Conference in Las Vegas on the topic Micro-Compliance Learning. My goal was to share how to remove the sting of compliance courses by making them short and easier to learn.

Live Demos of Micro-Compliance Lessons

Please play a couple of examples of a micro-lesson. These demos are prototypes only. They address a small but significant section of a large compliance course.

Code Pink – Hospital Compliance Stash the Cash – Banking on Money Laundering

Why and How Micro-Compliance Works

The key principles are:

  1. Shorten compliance courses by focusing on the most important lesson.
  2. The average time of a lesson is 2-3 minutes.
  3. Relegate readings of policies and procedures as reference links. You can still track these readings by using a tracking device when learners scroll the page.
  4. Invest in the lesson story and not in a series of long slideshows about the policies with just text.
  5. Deliver the micro-lessons in smaller bits and pieces, weekly, daily or spaced over time.

Insights Invaluable to Successful Implementation of Micro-Lessons

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At the conference, it was interesting to have participants raise challenging questions, yet, at the same time offer answers and solutions.

“What if it is required that learners must read pages?”

The cheaper way is not to put lengthy policies and government rules in long, narrated slideshows. Keep them in PDFs or text that learners could scroll through and still track if learners have done so.

“Is it enough to focus on the story and some important parts of the lessons?”

This approach engages learners and help them to remember better as well as apply ideas at work.

Overloading learners will likely bring results, although, records show they simply clicked through all pages in typically long, very long lessons.

“But our lessons must be learned in 2 hours. Lawyers require this.”

Let learners focus on key ideas, like the examples, then let them do additional activity and readings to consume the hours. By doing this, you are not boring the learners.

“We are required to test for knowledge retention and compliance.”

In most cases this works. However, oftentimes, this encourages the learners “to game” or “cheat” the system. True or false and multiple choice types of tests are clicked repeatedly for a trial and error approach just to complete the test. Asking learners to write something may also help them to reflect their understanding of the lesson. There are authoring ways to provide feedback to learners without having someone track all the answers.

How can you deliver by spacing out lessons?

Learners are busy and would welcome receiving maybe once a day or once a week, a 2-3-minute micro-compliance lesson. Most compliance courses are repeated once a year and to avoid the yearly end rush, advance spaced out lessons are usually convenient.

Conclusion

Compliance courses are often the first line of defense to keep companies compliant. It does not mean, however, we relegate these courses to data dumps and verification of scanning pages. They can be made engaging, short and help learners learn important contributions of compliance courses.

This article was reprinted here with permission from the author.

acb81f5317c9882f892f7b6d892badd9_Ray-Jimenez-200-c Ray and HRDQ-U are hosting a webinar July 27 at 2pm ET. Save your seat here!
Ray Jimenez has spent 15 years with PriceWaterhouseCoopers in the areas of management consulting and implementation of learning technology solutions.  Currently, Ray is the Chief Learning Strategist for www.vignetteslearning.com. Ray has worked with American Bankers Association, Dollar Tree Stores, U.S. Force, NASA, Blue Cross, Good Will Industries, Pixar Studios, California Institute of Technology and many others.  Ray is the author of 3-Minute e-Learning, Scenario-based eLearning, Micro-Learning Applications and Impacts and Story Impacts- Using Stories and Systems to Impact Performance. Workshop participants describe Ray as “fun”, “engaging”, “technically savvy”, “provocative”, “and inspiring” and “has depth in e-learning experience and innovation solutions.”

24
may
0

Leading Teams from Resistance to Performance

Posted by Coaching Skills, Conflict Management Strategies, Corporate Team Building Games, Corporate Training Materials, HR Training, Human Resource TrainingNo Comments

The change curve is a simple framework to help track the progression of individuals, teams and organizations through change. Across different industries, cultures and personality types, people go through four very consistent phases of change. Much like people experience a few consistent stages of grief, there are some clearly consistent phases of change.

  1. First, we’re all usually in denial. In the first phase, people are either just waking up or have recently awakened to the realization that something needs to be different. If this comes from outside your own initiation there is a greater tendency to stay in denial. Examples include a major change in the marketplace that undercuts a strategy, or a demand by a boss you don’t agree with. It’s easier to not pay attention to these, to deny them. If however, the desire to change comes from an internal motivation to improve a frustrating state, or comes from customer input that you agree with, then denial moves through more quickly on to the second phase.
  2. The second phase is the time in the change process when it goes from being an “IT” to a “ME”. What I mean is that people experience the loss and disruption of their long held patterns in this phase. People “resist” in this phase. They’ve moved past denial, but now they’re wrestling with the fact that they have to let go of something.
  3. In the third phase, people, teams or organizations begin to see the future. The frustration or fear of a change has been dealt with to a significant degree, and there is a glimpse of something better, a sense that the change could be good. This is not a uniform experience, and people have this moment at different times, but on the whole, the group enters an exploring phase where they are eager to DO something that leads them forward.
  4. This is the culmination. In the fourth phase people return to a steady state, and commit to it. The change has been integrated, and a new pattern emerges. This happens best and most thoroughly when there has been a sense of acknowledging the past and consolidating the group’s commitment and shared understanding of the new pattern

This model was very helpful in a recent client engagement of mine. A brand new leader had just joined a very large technology services company. This particular team had actually experienced a change in leadership every few months for a few years. They had had 6-10 managers in less than 3 years. The current new leader had been there for about 7 weeks, and had projects requiring team cohesion for quick action. I used the change curve to help her fashion an interactive workshop session that allowed her to bring a sense of renewal, connection and clarity to the team.

The first part of the session consisted of acknowledging just how much change had gone on. By discussing, remembering, and acknowledging the past, people were able to come out of the first denying phase. Something does need to be different now. Then we broke the group up into 3 subgroups dubbed by internal culture as “Old-olds”, “New-olds”, and “Brand-news”.

“Old-Olds”: Had been at the company for a long time, and also in that particular division for a long time. These were the veterans.

“New-olds”: Had worked at the company for a long time, but were new to this group.

“Brand-news”: Were recent hires, new to both the company and the group.

We helped these three groups talk with each other about what they knew, their perspectives, what had changed, and what had stayed the same. The old-olds could share the history, the new-olds could bridge the gap to other divisions and overall company culture, and brand-news could ask questions and offer fresh perspectives. This conversation allowed them to bridge into exploring about what they actually wanted to keep, drop, and create going forward with this division. It allowed them to acknowledge their different histories, and emerge as a more unified team. We then ended the session with a time to acknowledge how far the group had come just that day, and identified specific actions the group could take in the future to continue their process of renewal. We built resilience.

You’ll notice that the design and facilitation of this session connected directly to the change curve model. We moved through all 4 phases:

  1. Denial phase: We acknowledged the amount of change. Waking up to the reality helps people move out of denying.
  2. Resisting phase: Listening then helps people move through resisting. By grieving, being heard, and hearing others, people are able to stop resisting.
  3. Exploring phase: Then discussing new priorities and goals allowed the team to connect
  4. New reality: Acknowledging and consolidating the days work allowed the team to confidently move forward with renewed purpose and cohesion. This is what good leaders do to help navigate and set a new beginning.

If you have a major change you are experiencing or that you are leading, take the time to identify which phase of the change curve you and your team are in at the moment. How might you move to the next phase?

This article was reprinted with permission from the author.

Cynthia and HRDQ-U are hosting a FREE webinar June 1 at 2pm ET. Save your seat here! 

a4aaed3b11d718f0ce79bbcd012baa59_headshot-Cynthia-Scott_200-200-cA founding principal of Changeworks Global, Dr. Cynthia Scott is a recognized author and leader with over 20 years of experience. She is the author of numerous books, including Rekindling Commitment and Take This Work and Love It!. Dr. Scott’s clients include Blue Shield of California, Benjamin Moore, Charles Schwab, Kaiser Permanente, AT&T, the Internal Revenue Service, Deloitte & Touché, Estee Lauder, and National Semiconductor.

15
apr
1

The Funology of Engagement

Posted by Communication Styles, Corporate Training Materials, HR Training, Personality Style, Team Building ExercisesNo Comments

By Marc Ratcliffe

FUN = enjoyment, amusement, or light-hearted pleasure.

OLOGY = subject of study; a branch of knowledge.

FUNOLOGY = A study of (learning) enjoyment!

Author Joanne Oppenheim wrote “when fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning…” I wholeheartedly agree. There is a misconception that we are not serious about learning if we are having fun. On the contrary, we can be very serious about our profession, the art of our instruction, the well-being of our participants and even the importance of our subject matter. This doesn’t mean we have to take ourselves too seriously. It doesn’t preclude us from bringing levity to our delivery and doesn’t deny us the opportunity to shine a big bright light on our content. Fun is not the enemy. The way that we involve learners and engage their learning is what counts and fun can be an effective vehicle for creating the kind of atmosphere where students feel comfortable and learning can thrive.

Having fun does not diminish learning capacity or marginalise subject matter. In fact, it is likely to make it more memorable and help the content to stick, if it evokes wonder and excitement! We are seeing this with the rapid expansion of gamification within the learning and development sphere. It is more than just a catchy buzz term; it as an educational movement which is fast gaining traction in the mainstream, because it works.

With fun you stop the clock watching, the sneaky email checking and the classroom snoozing. Because, if we are doing it right, we will be constantly involving the audience and inviting contributions so they haven’t got time to be distracted by other things. Fun is therefore a conduit to learning, focus and retention.

Moreover, we can use fun as a distraction TO the learning rather than a distraction FROM the learning.

Here are five tips to engage any audience:

  • Use a pre-training exercise- the sets the scene for creativity and honours those who are there on time. This could be a word puzzle like hang man, number puzzle like sodoku, physical puzzle like Pictionary or a short video used to stimulate interest in the following content.
  • Get them connecting in pairs/small groups- there is safety in the smaller numbers and some participants will need to build confidence in smaller groups first, before sharing with the group at large.
  • Recognise their experience and use it! The best trainers harness the experience of the whole group, rather than just their own. An experience line-up can be a quick way to identify the experience in the room and then you can encourage table regroupings based on a more diverse mix of experience. For instance in the activity “experience pods”, you could ask the class to form new table groups with a minimum combined experience of 15 years per table.
  • Chunk into bite-sized pieces- This has been a tenant of effective education for many years. We don’t want to overwhelm the participants, so we break the content down into more digestible pieces. This, therefore provides a perfect opportunity to inject fun in the form of quizzes, polls, problem-solving tasks, team-building activities, gallery walks and poster development as a way to promote retention and reinforcement and check for understanding as you go.
  • Involve the audience early and often- If they are not playing, they are straying so seek opportunities to involve the group in the flow of content. This could be in the form of self-reflective tasks like action planning and consideration of things to “start, stop and continue”; small-group activities such as poster tasks and table discussions; and whole group involvement though debates and sit-stand polls.

We have more to distract us than at any other time in human history; text messages, instant messages, push notifications and any number of other alerts finding their way to our mobile devices and wearable technology. Now is not the time to be drilling down on which cannon of classics we should be the focus for our students. Rather, we should be concentrating on how we keep them engaged and consider how to leverage their existing devices and current preferences for consuming media. If we can create dynamic and meaningful learning opportunities which tap into fun and enjoyment we can truly teach anything.

This article was reprinted with permission from the author.

Marc and HRDQ-U are hosting a free webinar on May 25thth a 2pm ET. Register here! 

Marc head shot 2Marc Ratcliffe is the CEO and founder of MRWED Training and Assessment, Australia’s largest provider of Trainer Training and five time-listed Australian great place to work. He has been involved in Workplace and Vocational Education for 23 years and has conducted more than 300 Training and Assessment courses since 2000. He is the author of the “The Trainer’s Toolkit” (2011) and “The Trainer’s Cook Book” (2014) and is a co-author of three of the “S.C.O.R.E. for Trainers” publications. He has presented workshops internationally in 12 countries and is certified to deliver Bob Pike’s Train-the-Trainer Boot Camp, the world’s most respected train-the-trainer program.

In 2009, he was listed as one of the top 10 young trainers in the world by US Training Magazine, was awarded a Global HR Award for “Strategic Leadership” by the World HRD Congress in 2012 and was named as AITD’s Learning and Development Professional of the Year in 2013. Most recently, Marc was named as a finalist in the Category of “HR Champion” at the Australian HR Awards (2014) and was presented with the “Outstanding Leadership Award” (2015) by the World HRD Congress in Mumbai.

25
mar
0

Improving Staff Morale Through Authentic Appreciation

Posted by Coaching Skills, Communication Styles, Conflict Management Strategies, Corporate Team Building Games, Corporate Training Materials, HR Training, Human Resource Training, Personality Style, Team Building Exercises, Teamwork GamesNo Comments

By Dr. Paul White

In my work training and consulting around the country, the most common responses by employees when discussing employee recognition typically range from apathy to cynicism.  One woman stated, “I haven’t heard anything positive for two years and you expect me to believe that they value me?”

Why Most Employee Recognition Programs Don’t Work

While the purpose of employee recognition activities are well intentioned, they actually often lead to negative results.  For example, the generic nature of rewards that many programs use feels impersonal- when everyone gets the same “employee of the month” certificate.

Another problematic aspect is the focus on recognition in front of large groups:  30-40% of individuals indicate they do not want to go up in front of a group to receive an award.  In fact, one staff member emphatically stated, “They can give me the award, but I won’t go up and get it unless they carry me up there!”   Finally, most recognition programs heavily emphasize tangible rewards- plaques, certificates, gift cards, coupons, and small tokens.  While most people don’t mind receiving gifts, if they don’t also hear verbal praise, receive individual attention, or get assistance when it is needed, the objects received seem superficial.

Core Conditions for Staff to Truly Feel Appreciated

Four core conditions have been identified which need to be present in order for employees to truly feel appreciated (which differs from recognition just being communicated).  Team members will feel valued when appreciation is communicated:

  1. Regularly. What is ‘regularly’? It varies depending on the work setting, the frequency of interaction between co-workers, and the nature of the relationship.  However, ‘regularly’ clearly implies more than once a year at an employee’s performance review, or when someone receives the “Staff Member of the Month” award.
  1. Through the ‘language’ and actions important to the recipient. The key word is “recipient”. Most of us tend to communicate appreciation to others through the actions that we value- like giving a verbal compliment or sending an email. But not everyone feels appreciated in the same ways.  Some people appreciate words of affirmation, while others are encouraged when someone helps them with a task.  Spending time is another way to demonstrate support, like stopping by a colleague’s office to see how they are doing. Bringing a colleague a special cup of coffee when you know they’ve had a long day can be a “pick me up”.  Even a “high five” or a “fist bump” can be a form of celebration when a difficult project has been completed.
  1. In a way that is personal and individualized. While group-based recognition is a good start (“Way to go, team. Our satisfaction ratings improved significantly last quarter.”), if the appreciation doesn’t relate to what the individual team member did to help achieve the goal, the communication can fall flat. Team members want to know what they have done that is valued- that you appreciate that they stayed late after an event to help clean up.
  1. In a manner that is perceived as genuine and authentic. If the communication of appreciation is not perceived as being genuine, nothing else really matters. Actions of recognition can appear inauthentic when: a) the actions suddenly appear after implementation of a program on appreciation; b) a person’s tone of voice, posture, or facial expressions don’t seem to match what they are saying; c) how a person relates to you in front of others differs from how they interact with you privately; d) the individual has a history of “saying one thing and doing another”; or e) there is an overall question of the motivation of the deliverer- do they have an ulterior motive?  There are other potential factors that undermine perceived authenticity, but these are some of the most common mentioned.

Practical Steps for Communicating Authentic Appreciation

Helping individuals change their actions is difficult. No one is looking for more work to do.  As a result, the focus needs to be on making actions of encouragement more efficient- to spend time with those who value time, to send notes to those who are impacted by them, to help someone out who will be grateful for the assistance, and to give a gift to someone who will appreciate the thought.

Two important points should be emphasized:  1) appreciation can be communicated by anyone to anyone, and 2) any team member, regardless of position, can positively impact their workplace culture.  Employees report they want to know how to encourage one another- they do not just want to be recognized by their supervisor.

How do people know (or find out) what their colleagues value?  The topic of “how do you feel appreciated” is not a common workplace conversation and this type of question can make individuals feel somewhat uncomfortable.   But people do tend to think in terms of “encouragement” and “discouragement”.  So, the question to ask is:  “When you are discouraged, what is something that someone can do or say that would encourage you?”

Additionally, an online assessment tool is available that identifies the primary language of appreciation of individuals, along with the specific actions that are most important to them The results can be compiled to create a group profile and list of valued actions for a team who works together.

Getting Started

Focus on yourself first.  Commit to do what you can to communicate appreciation to others.  Don’t look to your supervisor or administrators to take the lead.  Start by doing what you can, where you are.

Team up with others.  Any behavior change is more likely to occur (and to continue over time) when others are involved.  Ask a colleague, your supervisor, or the team you lead to discuss how this could apply to your setting.  Commit to work on a plan of action together.

Persevere.  See what works, and what needs to be changed, but don’t give up.

This article was reprinted with permission from the author.

Dr. White and HRDQ-U are hosting a free webinar April 6th at 2pm ET. Register here! 

Dr Paul White HeadshotPaul White, Ph.D., is a psychologist, speaker and consultant who “makes work relationships work”.  He is the co-author of Rising Above a Toxic Workplace, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, and Sync or Swim.  Go to http://www.appreciationatwork.com for more information.

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