by Brian Clark | Uncategorized
In a recent client survey of the DOTS client community, I was intrigued by the response to the questions relating to the greatest challenges facing learning and development professionals. There were a few. Employee engagement was high ranking in the survey responses across all industry sectors and sizes of organisations.
I am interested in learning more about this challenge. There are a couple of questions in particular that I am going to add to my conversations with clients in the near future. These are;
Is employee engagement an equal reciprocal relationship or is it weighted more to the employer or to the employee? I am referring to responsibility and activity undertaken to improve engagement. I know one colleague who is a HR consultant who would argue adamantly that the bulk of responsibility for employee engagement rests with the employee. What is your opinion?
The second question I am asking is around different perceptions of employee engagement based on generational differences. I do not buy into a lot of the stereotypes about generational differences although there are some that warrant attention. I am interested in employee engagement as a derivative of leadership and how this may require different tactics for the different generations or age brackets within a diverse organisation.
As always, please let us know if you have some ideas and/or experiences you would like to share in these areas.
by Brian Clark | DOTS LMS, Innovation, Knowledge Management, Marketing
I came across an interesting blog on the Mindjet site by Troy Larson. There are individuals in some very successful companies that hold the title of Chief Collaboration Officer. In my experience, the contribution that collaboration makes to a competitive business includes:
- A culture focused on activity and execution
- Knowledge and learning is informal and effective
- There is greater resilience against both internal and external forces acting on the business
- Reduced risk of knowledge drain when people leave the organisation
Many of my clients see the use of an online learning platform like DOTS LMS to be an integral tool in supporting a collaborative environment. I have recently been introduced to an online collaboration platform called Podio that is a feature rich, multi- faceted solution that includes knowledge capture, sharing, project and task management, recruitment, customer relationship management among many other features. The client using Podio has a diverse workforce operating in corporate and home offices. The employees are able to access the online Podio environment via a link in the DOTS LMSuser interface.
The technology is only the easy part of collaboration actually. The more difficult aspects of collaboration relate to organisational and individual change processes. The best collaboration tools will not overcome a reluctance or unwillingness to engage in collaboration. The people side of collaboration is where most efforts fail.
There are many reasons for such failure. In his blog, Troy Larson covered the idea of having a person or team accountable for collaboration as opposed to leaving collaboration to individual whim or interest. In your organisation, is there a person accountable for collaboration? If not, what role would be most likely best aligned to plan and execute a collaboration strategy?
by Brian Clark | DOTS LMS, LMS, on-boarding, recruitment
Do you use your LMS during the recruitment process? Our potential candidates able to access your LMS on the web and engage in learning about your organisation or positions available in your organisation? Once you have appointed a new candidate, do you use the LMS to begin the on-boarding process with acculturation, company information and position information? All of these are options that will help increase your productivity and return on investment in your LMS. If you are using DOTS you have a number of tools you can utilise to support your recruitment and on- boarding. You can establish any number of external websites from the website module in your admin settings. On these websites you can add access to surveys, courses, libraries or landing pages off a web marketing/recruitment campaign. The DOTS LMS is acting to engage new candidates and ensure they are motivated and interested in your organisation when they arrive for work. The persons accessing these web pages are completely outside your internal LMS environment. If you would like some more information about these tools and processes please contact us.
by Brian Clark | Business Process, Innovation, Performance
I think SWOT analysis may have earned a bad reputation in some circles. I was speaking to a new client last week and could almost see their eyes glaze over when I told him of my desire to undertake a SWOT session with his managers. SWOT analysis should not be discounted based on prior experience of poor execution. The key to executing an effective SWOT analysis is how deep you are prepared to dive. Instead of simply throwing words and phrases on the whiteboard or flip chart, set up some questions and background material to help ‘churn’ some ideas and conclusions. I usually use either Mindmanager 2012 or Mindmanager for Mac with a projector. I am the scribe so the participants can focus their energy on engaging in the process. Here are some quick tips for more effective SWOT sessions:
- prepare the participants by providing a clear PURPOSE for the session.
- set some ground rules for how the session will be conducted.
- have a third party capture the inputs.
- use visuals as well as providing post it notes, coloured pens and paper so you can add breaks for individual or small group ‘brainstorming’ and reflection sessions.
- ask lots of questions and use the ‘5 whys’ technique; it really works to uncover reasons and root causes. I have also found it adds an element of innovation to the SWOT analysis.
- when people start to fade in energy and attention take a break for water, stretching and food.
- make sure every participant is provided a copy of the output.
- add follow up tasks for further research or investigation if there is not enough clarity no a certain item or you uncover something worth pursuing immediately.
These are just a few ideas that should help you get more out of the SWOT analysis process. The deeper you dive the more benefit you will achieve.
by Brian Clark | Business Process, DOTS LMS, learning management systems, LMS
There is always risk with the implementation of an enterprise learning management system. The risk starts early in the planning process with such factors as:
- lack of or inaccurate resource planning
- failure to engage key stakeholders, influencers and decision makers
- business requirements are not specified, incomplete and/or inaccurate
There are two primary facets to an LMS implementation project; technology implementation project plan and the change strategy/management plan. If either or both are deficient in any way the risk of an unsuccessful LMS implementation increases dramatically. It has been my experience that it is more common that organisations fail to plan and execute an effective change strategy than it is to fail in a software implementation, although both are common. In the past month our company has been approached by two companies seeking assistance wtih implementing other vendors’ learning management systems. In one case the vendor has attempted an LMS implementation project with a lack of expertise ‘on the ground’ in Australia. This implementation was attempted from an overseas office with a prescriptive generic project plan that did not address the client’s business requirements. In the second example the vendor completed the implementation and failed to assist in the change strategy implementation. The client team was poorly trained and the user experience suffered horribly. In this case it is going to be an uphill battle to win back the hearts and minds of the end users as well as senior stakeholders.
Learning management systems have evolved to have an enormous breadth of capabilities. Not all clients need all these capabilities but every organisation has unique business requirements, cultures, and operating environments. As a key enterprise software solution it is vitally important that both the vendor and the client are realistic in their implementation project planning to meet clear business requirements. Without this commitment the client is under enormous risk of a failed implementatiion. If you would like further informatoin about learning management system implementation strategy, project planning and business analysis, please send us an email or use the form on this website.
