Recruit, Inspire & Retain

Today’s grave new world has put workplace security at the top of the list. More than half (59%) of respondents to the November 2001 World at Work study, "What Matters Now?" have recently embarked on new emergency and contingency planning activities. New security measures include enhanced mailroom safety, new/enhanced building security, employee identification systems, and parking security. Here’s what you should do:

!!Conduct a new risk assessment. Look particularly at any ties you have in the Middle East, transportation, offices in landmark buildings, and areas of your business that supply services to a large number of people.

!!Monitor the pulse of your employees to stay in tune with their level of apprehension. As you know, even if your new security risk assessment indicates that nothing has really changed, your employees may not feel that way. Even if an investment in extra guards will not make your company any safer, it might be worth the cost if it makes employees feel safer and thus more productive.

!!Keep your defenses up. If your security team decides it makes sense to hire new or more security personnel, make sure all candidates meet your requirements for background screening. Demand is high for security personnel right now so you need to be extra careful.

!!Emergency preparedness. Until now, many companies’ emergency planning consisted of an evacuation route map posted on the wall. You’ll need to develop plans to include recognition of bioterrorism, violent behavior by employees, outsiders or customers and recognition of threats to your facility (bombs, etc.).

!!Budget and priorities. Most available evidence suggests that, at a minimum, the events of September 11 are forcing corporate management to take a fresh look at their security spending levels. What companies are adding to budgets:

!!Technology. Some analysts are predicting that the access control systems market will grow, and that more companies will look at the feasibility of using biometric security systems. According to analysts with the International Biometric Group (New York; www.biometric.com), there is going to be a "dramatic leap in spending on these technologies," as devices that companies perceived as too expensive or too complicated now seem much more reasonable.

1. Disasters rarely follow plans, and big disasters (like the World Trade Center) will overwhelm even the best-laid plans. Start your planning process with a hazard analysis: What disasters can reasonably plan to meet? Which are we most likely to encounter?

2. Different scenarios require different responses. Limit the number of alternatives you present to your employees to as few as necessary to meet the range of likely emergencies.

3. Training is paramount. Because there are myriad scenarios, appropriate training of people with emergency responsibilities is perhaps the single most critical element in good emergency preparedness. Safety managers, security managers, people responsible for threat recognition and evacuation need training that prepares them to make the right decisions based on the events as they unfold.

4. Make drills worthwhile. Do more of them; make them more realistic; drill using a variety of scenarios; and throw a few obstacles at workers during drills (such as blocking an exit).

Remember that the ultimate purpose of eLearning is not to reduce the cost of training, but to drive business results. If you cannot identify the business goal of an eLearning program, you should ask why you are doing it in the first place. ELearning is a business performance improvement tool, not a training tool.

Effective eLearning drives you toward measurable business goals: increasing product revenue, reducing turnover, reducing rework, or increasing customer satisfaction ratings. Before you measure this business result, however, you do have to know if the eLearning program itself is being used and if it is changing people’s knowledge and behavior.

Monitor enrollments over time. If training is launched on June 1, and the number of learners is 1000—what percentage of the people have enrolled by June 10? Monitor enrollments week by week. If learners are not enrolling, then you probably have a marketing problem. Either people can’t find the training, they don’t know how to enroll, or they do not understand why it is important! You may have to establish a more active marketing program. 

If the training is one needed in order to actually do their jobs, enrollments should pick up fast. If it is elective, then perhaps the training is named poorly, not well positioned in the catalog, or people do not even know it exists. Be sure people understand the benefits to them, or they’ll ignore the program completely.

"Are people moving through the training?" Have they started? What percent have they completed? Whoever designed and developed the training will be able to give you this information.

Monitor activity correlated to enrollment date. For example, if you take a group of people who enrolled the first week of February, how far have they progressed by the end of February? There should be a natural activity level which continues throughout the training. If you find a large number of these people started but are not now completing or using the training, you have a content or learning method problem. Either the content is inappropriate, too difficult, hard to operate, or just uninteresting and hard to work through. 

The most important factor which governs how much activity you have in a particular training module is the incentive to complete. If the training is truly "optional," then the content itself must entice the learner to finish. If the training is "directed" (meaning that they must learn from the training in order to do their job), then activity will typically continue.

How long should it take to complete training? What is a reasonable rate of activity per week? That depends. For training that’s a few hours long, people progress at an hour a week or so. People usually go quickly and then stop at a particular point. Find out what that part is and look at it for ways to increase its relevance or usability.

Completion is just a special case of Activity—but a very special case. People who truly complete a training module deserve special recognition. They will give you the best feedback on content quality and effectiveness toward the business goal. They wanted to finish.

Another interesting point—you can’t "average" completion percentages. A group of learners who achieved 30% completion is not the same as 1/3 of the learners who achieved 100% completion. The former means that you have a poorly performing program. The latter means that you may have a great program, but it’s not targeted very well.

• Did they really learn the content?
• Did they copy from someone else?
• Did they already know the content?
• Did they just try the test 15 times until they got it right?
• Does the training count the number of times a learner attempts a question?
• Are scores only taken at the end or are there assessments along the way, which you can use to measure learning?
• Were there multiple assessments, enabling you to measure progress toward the final learning goal?
• Did you receive the score and completion percentage together?

STEP 5: FEEDBACK OR SURVEYS

• Did the training actually work when they started up the CD or clicked on the web links?
• Did the assessments work?
• Did the video, audio, and other media work?
• Were the content and learning methods engaging?
• Was the content useful?
• Were the graphics interesting?
• Did the training have a graded assignment that goes to a real mentor or tutor?
• Did it have live synchronous sessions?

"Think of employees as ‘internal customers’", says Delta Hotels’ Sr. VP, Bill Pallett. Not a new concept, but we’re not all practicing it at a level that allows us to keep our great employees.

The firm already offers its guests guarantees; for example, if a guest is not checked in within one minute, the first night’s stay is free. Pallett says the company applied that thinking to its employees. "We asked ourselves, if we are offering customers guarantees, should we not have guarantees for our internal customers?"

What kind of guarantees would their employees want? "We found they want to be assured they’ll get trained well and that they’ll know how they’re doing," Pallet says. "What we heard most often, ‘they threw me on the job: I had no training, and no idea how I was doing.’ "

That led to the unusual promise to its 8,000—person workforce: a minimum of 12 hours of job—related training each year and an employee review within 30 days of the employee’s anniversary date (not so unusual). If the promise is not kept, the employee can claim an extra week’s salary (very unusual).

And Delta makes good on the promise; it pays the extra week’s salary to about 30 employees each year. The idea helped the hotel chain win a Canada Excellence Award from the National Quality Institute last year. "It’s a matter of putting your money where your mouth is," Pallet says. "Employees appreciate that and it’s reflected in the retention rate." 

Adapted from workindex.com