A recent DesignArounds poll asked learning professionals to identify their most pressing current challenge. No surprises here. 100% reported ‘time‘. Given today’s business climate and economic pressures, it’s no wonder that the training function – like every other function – is being challenged to do more with less. Fewer people. Scaled-back budgets. And a reduced investment of learning time.

Netbook computers with expanded capacity that can fit into your pocket and coin-sized mp3 players holding thousands of songs have established the expectation that good things (and a lot of them) come in small packages. Is it any wonder that organizations expect training to follow suit?

So, what can learning and development professionals do to respond?

Become a ruthless editor: Cut Through the Clutter
Today’s learning professionals must develop the ability to ruthlessly eliminate the non-essential, lay out the ‘critical path’ to new knowledge and skills and delete all else. Eliminating the ‘nice to knows’ allows the available time to be focused on ‘need to know’ information.

Revisit knowledge acquisition: Leverage Multimedia
Current applications allow for the quick and inexpensive development of multimedia presentations that can deliver considerable content in an efficient and engaging fashion. Transform group discussion and discovery exercises into tidy learning objects that can be used in a variety of ways.

Think beyond the event: Quickly Develop Self-Sufficiency
Let’s be honest: compressed timeframes can only accomplish so much. Leave learners with tools and resources that extend their ability to perform where it really matters: on the job. Memorable models, powerful job aids, online resource libraries turn the entire workplace into a training room.

Re-conceive materials: Order up a Combo
Re-thinking training deliverables for greater efficiency can support shorter timeframes. Look for each element and activity to do double – even triple – duty. Get creative. Even name tents can carry critical content.

Re-train the trainer: Change up the Tempo
Among the greatest challenges facing classroom trainers is replacing the previously leisurely learning rhythms with today’s crisper cadence. Comfortable patterns of extended discussions, getting-to-know you exercises, and storytelling must be confronted and adjusted.

These strategies can help to deliver results – even in today’s hurry-up world.

Written by Karen Voloshin and Julie Winkle Giulioni of DesignArounds. DesignArounds designs, develops and delivers training that works in today’s dynamic and pressure-packed workplace. For more information, visit www.designarounds.com.

1.  Share stories of great service within your company, agency or location. Use bulletin boards, email or meetings—whatever you’ve got at your disposal.

2. Ask customers what they want! You can use surveys or focus groups to get feedback from customers directly OR ask employees what they’ve been hearing from customers in the way of wants, needs and desires.

3.  Look! Listen! Learn! Have employees actively check out what other organizations are doing –both good and  bad. (It’s especially great when you can have them observe what the competition is doing.)  Recognize or reward them when they bring forth observations your team can use to improve its service level.

4.  Regularly reward employees for giving great service. Small and inexpensive rewards can work well.  For example: movie tickets, coupons to leave work a half-hour early, a pass to park in the boss’s space for a week, etc.

5.  Post key customer service concepts in prominent places.  Add visuals and snappy phrases.  Post in the break room, cafeteria or on entry/exit doors.

6.  Ask employees to keep a lightbulb list nearby so they can jot down new ideas to improve customer service as they occur.  Reward and recognize employees whose ideas are implemented.

7.  Train employees by: providing brown bag lunch learning sessions where you bring in a guest speaker or motivational video; sending them offsite for a community college training course  or paying for them to take a course online; maintaining a lending library of self-study audio CDs, DVDs, books and periodicals.

8.  Job Rotation Day.  Designate one day a month when a number of employees cross-train and learn a little bit about somebody else’s job.  Draw names randomly so everyone gets a chance to do this over time.  This gives employees a chance to see the big picture of the workplace and gives employees who don’t typically interact with customers an opportunity to do so.

9.  Revolving Brainstorm Bulletin Board.  Set up a webpage or suggestion box for employees to bring forth customer service problems (anonymous is usually best). Post the problems and provide methods for other employees to propose possible solutions.

10.  Have fun at work!  Studies show happy employees are healthier and they give better service. Here are just a few ideas:

·         Awards – Create a rotating award relevant to your organization.  The awards can be funny or serious.  Once a month, give the award to a team member.

·         Decorate – Decorate the workplace for holidays or seasons.

·         No Reason Parties – Throw a little party for no reason at all.

·         Ice Cream Social – Walk around and hand out a selection of ice cream treats.  If your employees work on a retail floor, put them in the freezer for everyone to have on their break.

This material excerpted from the Leader’s Guides to the video programs Remember Me and Fun is Good.

Need more help in this area? CRM’s new video program, WAYMISH (Why Are You Making It So Hard…for me to give you my money), comes with a special video just for supervisors.  Find out why WAYMISH was voted a “Best Product 2009” by Training Media Review.

Getting people to use learning resources in the company library can be tricky, Kathleen Miller-Buettner and Susan Hayley-Gates say.

Their library has books, videos and audio tapes on communication skills, management skills, balancing work and home lives, and dozens of other topics.

But, as in many organizations, the materials once went mostly unused.

To encourage corporate library use—and learning—the training department initiated a TOM (theme of the month) Club. Membership is free. Each month has a topical theme – effective feedback, industry information and the like. Trainers, however, don’t disclose what the month’s theme is. Instead they post clues throughout the office and via email on the first day of each month. Employees guess the theme, placing their guess in one of the special TOM Club raffle boxes around the workplace.

On the 10^th of each month, trainers collect the boxes. The names of participants who correctly identified the theme go into another box, and a winner is drawn. That person receives a prize.

For the rest of the month, material on the theme of the month is posted throughout the office, and a library listing of related materials is published. Seminars, computer-based tests, and games during the month reinforce the theme.

Secret “TOM VPs” randomly ask employees what the theme is. Those who know receive a gift certificate to a local bookstore.

“We recently developed an ASK TOM! feature,” Hayley-Gates said, “in which employees can send messages to the TOM Club asking for more information on a topic. This is done via the email system. Trainers field the questions.”

Enthusiasm about the TOM Club has raised awareness of learning resources to use at their convenience—and they’re using them.