by Brian Clark | coaching, competency frameworks, DOTS LMS, e-learning, Performance, performance management
The new range of learning modules we have released are getting a great deal of interest. These modules are designed to deliver competencies to learners with a short video introduction, step by step implementation guides and downloadable job aids.
Research has shown that 70% of development happens on the job and these courses are designed to leverage a more natural way of personal development. Since these content modules are short and include tools to implement the learning in the work environment they are highly suitable for blended delivery.
The Development Plan, Performance Management and Profiling modules in DOTS LMS are ideal for supporting the successful roll-out of these modules. The key is ensuring that the learning activities are supported by coaching and collaboration either individually or in groups.
Development Plans – include these modules as part of your Development Plans and assign them or enable your people to enrol in them out of interest or need. Your managers will be able to track progress and meet to discuss outcomes and the application of the learning.
Performance Appraisals can be used to ensure that one-to-one meetings occur in conjunction with the enrolments in these modules. You can include the competencies delivered by these modules in the Performance Appraisal module. Both the employee and the manager will be able to comment on experience and observation. This has proven a highly effective way to embed these competency based learning modules in an organisation and improve engagement with managers and employees focusing on ‘positives’ [learning & development] in a regular appraisal cycle.
The Profiling Tool in DOTS LMS helps you create as many profile as you need. In one case we developed a 360 Profile that included feedback on a large number of competencies included in the Project Management course catalog. We created both self-assessments and 360 profiles mapped to these competencies to provide some peer review.
If you would like to have a look at these learning content modules please get in touch and we can organise a pilot for you. If you decide to use these modules in your organisation we can help you implement their roll-out using one or all of the DOTS LMS modules mentioned in this blog.
by Brian Clark | crm, customer relationship management, DOTS LMS, internet marketing, Marketing, Performance, social marketing, social media, strategy
Based on a quick survey including some of our clients and other RTOs, the biggest issues facing these businesses are:
- Attracting and retaining high value clients.
- Managing AVETMISS and other compliance requirements.
- Managing staff and contractors.
These businesses use enormous resources to support administrative functions to manage and execute key business processes. Many are also facing enormous competitive pressures due to commoditisation of their products and services. Commoditisation is making it harder for many RTOs to differentiate themselves to prospective clients and increase their sales revenue.
Here is a short list of some solutions that we have implemented for clients and were found to be effective.
- Get very clear on your target market[s] and your ideal client profiles.
- Adjust your ‘messaging’ and communications to fit your market and ideal clients. One size does not fit all.
- Get some help with your internet marketing. Unless you have some spare time or a resource available to do this critical work. Internet marketing includes your website, social media, search engine and content marketing.
- Automate as many processes as possible. Our clients use DOTS LMS as a multi-faceted business management tool for compliance, client and staff management. You may already have the tools to do this effectively but have not leveraged them effectively.
- Use technology to personalise the client and learner experience. Our clients have the option of creating unique learning management environments for their corporate and government clients. You may not have the resources for a comprehensive LMS but you can still set up online resources for your clients that cost little or nothing depending upon your objectives.
- Start having regular meetings with staff and contractors on a team and individual level. Create an agenda and use these meetings to make sure you are touch with every element of your business. Regular one on one meetings with staff that review goals, performance and roadblock issues are much easier than one big performance appraisal every 6 – 12 months.
- Use technology to support your sales process from prospect to client stages. If you have a system use it well and if you do not have a system look for one that is easy to use and includes reports. This type of software does not need to be super expensive.
If you have any questions about these points or you are interested in exploring some ways to make your RTO more successful in 2014, you are welcome to get in touch using the contact details on this website.
by Brian Clark | capability, competency frameworks, DOTS LMS, learning and development, learning management systems
This is a guest post by Cindy Pascale, CEO of Vado Inc.
As a teenager, my first job was working at a Dairy Queen making ice cream cones, sundaes and shakes. On my first day, my manager showed me how to make the famous DQ swirl that sits on top of all DQ cones. First, he showed me how to make a cone identifying all the minor movements that need to be made to create the perfect ice cream cone. Then he handed the controls to me. The first few were sloppy and lopsided. He told me to keep practicing and practicing until I got it. And I did. Within a short while, I was able to create the signature swirl.
Without giving it a name, my manager had me develop my skills to create the perfect DQ swirl by practicing and developing my skills on the job.
Most learning and development professionals can quickly recite these statistics “70% of development happens on the job; 20% through coaching and mentoring; and the final 10% through formal learning.” So this leads to the question, what are companies doing to develop their employees on the job?
Job skills are pretty easy to develop on the job. For instance, managers, technical trainers and front line leaders show employees how to run a piece of equipment. They then have their employees practice until they can run the equipment at the required level of productivity and quality requirements. Yet, in a recent study from the Towards Maturity Benchmark Study 2012 – 2013, they found that while 94% of learning and development leaders seek to speed up the application of learning back into the workplace, only 23% believe they achieve this.”
It is much harder, though, to develop employees’ soft skills through on the job application. That is why training and development leaders turn to Vado. Vado is the only off the shelf e-learning courseware that provides a step by step Implementation Guide to help the learner apply skills on the job to develop their behavior based competencies. The Implementation Guide helps the learner make the transition from the formal learning environment (the e-learning course), to application, by walking the learner through each step of the process to develop on the job and leverage the natural way a person develops.
Companies win because instead of having employees sit in an e-learning course for long periods of time, over 95% of the development time of Vado’s courses is the application on the job. The results are accomplishing two goals at one time: development while doing work that needs to be done.
You can get more information on the large range of modules available here. Request a full catalog of modules and a 3 month pilot by contacting us here.
by Brian Clark | competency frameworks, DOTS LMS, Innovation, learning management systems, LMS
The LMS is not often thought of as a platform directly supporting or driving innovation but it should be. There may be differences in how your LMS may support innovation based on what features it has, however I will offer some generic ideas that should be applicable to most LMS software.
- Set up a course catalog specifically for innovation content. There is plenty of off-the-shelf courseware on innovation but I encourage you to consider creating some ‘home-grown’ modules that align with your business specifically.
- Create a competency framework for innovation. You may wish to start with specific user populations but this framework can be extended throughout your organisation. Remember you may have different tiers to the competencies to ensure they are relevant to the person’s position and strategy horizon.
- Include the innovation competency framework[s] in the performance management process. When your competency frameworks are integrated with courseware and development planning this becomes a powerful tool to encourage innovation in your culture.
- Set up groups of users that are ‘outside’ the normal organisational structure. This works very well to encourage communities of practice and thought leaders. Ideally the groups will have content authoring permissions as well as other collaborative tools such as a wiki, discussion forum and blog. These can be external tools accessible via links in the LMS interface.
- If you have established some innovation processes using other platforms that capture ideas and include polling and commentary, link the platform to the LMS. I have seen specific software as well as more common tools such as Microsoft SharePoint and Citrix Podio. Most of these are very easy to link to and if you add access via the LMS interface you will have a learning support system operating in real time.
- Select some reports to measure innovation focused learning and collaboration in your LMS. You should measure the enrolments in your innovation courses, assessment results [if you use assessments], identify users with high and low participation, competency gap analysis based on the innovation frameworks, and others depending upon your system and your innovation objectives.
Innovation occurs in all parts of an organisation and all tiers of positions and job titles. When you introduce learning support for innovation you will go a long way toward breaking through the misconception that innovation is some ‘activity’ undertaken only by senior positions or positions focused on product development, marketing and so forth.
Please get in touch if you would like some more information on innovation and learning. I am also interested in hearing from persons who have integrated an LMS or other platform to support innovation.
by Brian Clark | crm, DOTS LMS, Marketing
You have developed a new set of marketing and sales collateral for your sales team. You load it into your CRM to enable the sales team to access it easily for email and face to face presentations. You are unsure that each member of the team will know how to access and use the new collateral. It is too risky to simply send an email to each member of the team and hope. This new collateral is part of a new product launch and the company needs consistency to maintain and develop its brand. What next?
In my client’s case this is what the Marketing Manager did. Firstly, she used a screen capture tool to show visually how a sales person accesses the new collateral in the CRM. In her case she used Camtasia and there are plenty of other tools out there including the much acclaimed Storyline. Once she captured the navigation to the files, she demonstrated how to attach them to emails and use them for both online and face to face presentations. Total time to create and edit the screen captures? About 2 hours. Next she did a voice over, it was not ‘talent quality’; it was short and to the point. Time to do the voice overs? About another 1.5 hours including editing.
Next step was converting the screen captures to SCORM, importing into DOTS LMS and configuring the course settings. She made herself the trainer so she could track the learning and interact with the sales team. She enrolled each member of the team in the course and each member of the team was alerted by email of their enrollment with a message to complete asap. Overall we are up to about 4 hours of time spent creating and deploying the course. This particular individual is familiar with Camtasia so she was productive from the start.
The course was effective and to the point. It was not intended to be a showcase of e-learning content mastery or be linked to a compliance competency. The Marketing Manager had automated what could have been a logistical headache of assembling the sales team together at the office for a presentation. She would have had to prepare the presentation anyway so she used her time wisely creating content that can be re-used both as a refresher and for new hires as part of their induction.
