Casino revenue earmarked for workforce training
Beginning in January, manufacturing businesses in the state of Ohio are able to apply for reimbursement for incumbent worker training. This funding is linked to casino revenue / profits which began to accumulate in 2011. This is unique in a number of ways:
The state government is taking revenue from one industry and applying it to another
Manufacturing is the only targeted industry to receive this benefit; organizations must be in advanced manufacturing, aerospace, autos, energy, food processing, IT, and polymers and chemicals.
The reimbursement is specifically earmarked for incumbent workers (whereas must government sponsored or supported workforce training is to get people jobs / new-hire training)
The companies can only receive reimbursement once people have completed the training
Part-time workers are eligible (a minimum of 25 hours per week)
The employer must pay at least 150% of minimum wage to the eligible employees
The training can be provided by a trade school, trade association or other 3rd party entity and certificate completion is allowed, up to $4000
The state government is only reimbursing up to 50% of the cost of the training
A state official has said that the underlying motivation is for Ohio-based manufacturers to remain competitive by investing the technology and their workforce skills in new(er) methods.
This seems like a very well thought out plan for employee development, sponsored by a government organization. Bravo!
Music for e-Learning
Need music for your e-Learning? Here are 34 websites to download FREE music for use in your learning programs http://tinyurl.com/c2pdtwc
Heard around the water cooler: Snack Learning
Mmmmm - sounds yummy
Meant to be consumed in a couple of minutes, snack learning is convenient when you have a five-minute break between meetings or need a quick tutorial on how to run a software program. It's great for brushing up on an old topic or learning the basics of a new one and caters to all types learners, from those of us with short attention spans to the knowledge-hungry learners.
Learning "snacks" are perfect for additional reinforcement, quick tutorials, and the immediate assistance that the workplace demands.
60 Minute Needs Analysis
Do you wish you had a quick and easy way to determine if a particular training course / request would truly be successful? We can't promise it is foolproof, but by asking 21 questions - in just 60 minutes - you CAN make a better informed decision.
Want to learn what those 21 questions are? You have two opportunities coming up:
1 - A FREE webinar, sponsored by InSync Training.January 28, 2013 at 10am or 7pm New York Time Register here: http://us.insynctraining.com/insync-byte-series/?qs=
2 - Or come see us at Training 2013 in Orlando FL, February 18 - 20, 2013
Here is a $200 discount code: CT2SP
5 Free web based resources for learning
Here are a number of sites which offer free learning opportunities. Most are in the form of recorded lectures (video and audio). Some enable you to download the lecture to a mobile device so you can learn on the go.
www.OpenCulture.com/freeonlinecourseswww.YouTube.com/eduwww.Apple.com/education/itunes-uwww.ocw.MIT.eduwww.oyc.Yale.edu
Basic Rules of Test Creation
With the recent popularity of LMS systems that call for testing and tracking of student results, our participants are starting to see a lot of quizzes, assessments, and certifications that are designed by a course designer or – worse – a subject matter expert.
Very few trainers (and no SME’s) have had training in how to create tests that are fair to the participant and legally defensible for the organization. Creating an equitable test is more than just asking 20 questions about the content. A test for knowledge is constructed quite differently than a test for skill. Tests for knowledge, such as paper and pencil tests, need to be constructed in such a way that the correct choice is unambiguous. They should not confuse or purposefully stump the test-taker.
Performance tests need to assess the participant’s skill as well as knowledge of the task or process. Often a person can prove they know what to do – but cannot actually perform the task.
Before inflicting an “exam” process on your participants, you must know what you are testing, why you are testing, and what you intend to do with the test results because the impact of testing is far reaching and can often be damaging to individuals as well as organizations.
Quotable: Karl Kapp
...fill-in-the-blank testing only really has value when measuring a person’s ability to be successful at fill-in-the-blank tests, not real-world application.
Karl Kapp (karlkapp.com)
Training Industry Report
Training Magazine recently published its Training Industry Report. Interestingly, in cleaning our offices over the holiday break, we happened to find the same report from 2010.
Let's compare....
2010 Salaries down $2,338,
2012 Salaries down $8,000
2010 Companies spend $1041 per 41 hours of training per learner
2012 Companies spend $1059 per learner per 40.1 hours of training
2010: 32% of respondents budgets decreased
2012: 22% of respondents budgets decreased
2010: 22% executives get training
2012: 10% executives get training
Other comparisons:
Online learning tools or systems remained the largest expected expenditure in both years
Management and supervisory training was projected to be the mostly widely funded topic in the coming year
Instructor led training (classroom) is the #1 delivery method both years
The topic which utilizes online learning the most is Mandatory + Compliance training
Of all learning technologies, virtual classrooms were used the most in 2010 and learning management systems the most in 2012
Mnemonics?
We all know that mnemonics help us to to remember facts, order, steps, etc. But, sadly, we rarely use them in training. Take a look at this video to get some ideas for how to help your learners memorize facts faster and with fun. Muy brilliant! !http://tinyurl.com/cqplh3r
Accessing Employee Training through your local College or University
Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of an interview published in December 2012.
Miner: Another way that you can provide employee training and not do it yourself is to take advantage of colleges, universities or community colleges that are in your local area. Many people don't realize the wealth of information and the wealth of training opportunities that exist in their local colleges. They think of a college as a formal degree granting institution, but every college has a continuing education division which offers loads of professional development topics such as PowerPoint or supervisory skills.
I have a colleague that runs the Continuing Education division of a university near me. He's making money hand over fist by teaching lean manufacturing techniques to local manufacturers. Small manufacturers in our area who need the training and don't want to develop it themselves - don't have the savvy, don't have the time, don't have the money to develop it themselves - but it would benefit their business to learn about lean manufacturing techniques. So he created this whole week-long curriculum and his classes are always filled by individuals from the local manufacturing community.
That's one of the benefits of using a local university. It's not cost effective to develop training yourself if you only have one or two individuals who need a particular topic. You can buy customized training for an individual. If you have a Director of Operations that needs to learn about lean manufacturing techniques, you can send him to the university for that kind of training and not have to develop it yourself.
Local colleges are very cost effective - you can spend $79 for a short course or maybe $1000 for a week long course, which is much cheaper than you would ever be able to develop training yourself. And it's right in your backyard, so it really doesn't disrupt your worker’s life.
In addition to the Continuing Ed division, almost every community college has a Business and Industry division, but it might be called something different in your local area. In our local area I know we refer to it as the Business and Industry division. That division is actually a consulting-type division that is tasked with providing training to the local community. They do offer courses very similar to what the Continuing Ed division might offer, but in addition they will send facilitators to you if you have critical mass. So if you have 12 people who need to learn Microsoft Office 2010 and you have enough people, they'll send a facilitator to you. Not only do you not have to develop the training, you don't even have to send your people off to the local college - they'll send the instructor to you!
In addition, what's really beneficial about the Business and Industry division is that they will sometimes customize an offering for you. For instance, I had a client that wanted to teach their employees coaching skills. The “off the shelf” product that the local business and industry division offered wasn't geared toward my client’s industry, which was retail. They felt their employees wouldn’t really grasp it or identify with the concepts if it wasn't more specific to the retail industry. So they asked the Business and Industry division of their local Community College to tweak it, which they did for a minimal fee.
You can also ask your local college or university to develop a course or curriculum specifically for you. One of the most incredible examples that I have witnessed is a community college that developed a new hire data processing training curriculum for a local insurance company. The school opened a new division of the community college – in a small office building - right next to where the insurance company was located. Everybody who got hired by this insurance company went right to the community college for their first month of training. So, basically, the college was the de facto data-entry training program for the insurance company and the insurance company didn't have to do anything other than pay a monthly bill. They didn't have to design a curriculum, they didn't have to provide the facilities, they didn't have to provide the instructor - it was incredible.
So look to the resources that are right in your own backyard because a lot of times they're just there - ready to help you.
T/D: It sounds like even if you're a small or one-person training department you shouldn't feel overwhelmed by all your training responsibilities - 99% of the time the training's already happening informally or it's available in your backyard. All you have to do is take advantage of it.
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Dr. Nanette Miner has been an instructional designer for over two decades. She is President and Managing Consultant for The Training Doctor which specializes in working with subject matter experts to take the knowledge from their heads and design learning in such a way that others can adopt and implement the training immediately. She is also the author of The Accidental Trainer and co-author of Tailored Learning: Designing a Blend that Fits.
Does Anyone Work “In the Office” Anymore?
The term "telecommuting" seems like such a quaint, 1990s anachronism, but the fact is worker mobility is playing an ever-increasing role in where and when people work. Today's workforce is more mobile and wired than ever before. How millennials commute to work is becoming less of an issue than where they decide to live.
A [US] Federal Highway Administration report noted that as of 2010, 26 percent of millennials - that's more than a quarter of our [workers] who fall into the age range of 17 to 32 - don't have a driver's license. It's also somewhat of a wakeup call that a Deloitte study notes that 46 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds would choose Internet access over owning a car.
Time for us to rethink: Who we are hiring, where they will work, and how will they be trained? Things that make you go: hmmmmm. No?
Note: This article based on a column by Rick Bell, Workforce Managing Editor.
Hey, Big Spender….
Average spending on employee development in the US was $800 per learner, in 2011, according to Bersin & Associates.
5 Questions to Ask a Stakeholder Before Designing Training
Performance problems can be caused by a myriad of things. Perhaps your organization has undergone a downsizing, or perhaps a department is understaffed or their equipment is unreliable. Unfortunately many managers and organizations assume that poor performance is directly linked to a lack of skill or knowledge which can be solved by training.
In my 20 plus years of consulting experience, I’ve found that what is initially presented as a training problem is often something else entirely.
Before embarking on any training program it is imperative that a needs analysis is conducted in order to pinpoint the exact cause of poor performance and to ascertain if the poor performance can be solved by applying training. Unfortunately, most organizations skip the needs analysis, assuming that they already know the cause.
The following 5 questions will help you to pinpoint the true cause of a performance problem and also help with the design process by ascertaining what training truly needs to be created. Ask these questions of the individual in the organization who is requesting that you design and develop a training program to address an assumed training issue.
1. What is the problem you are experiencing?
Often you'll hear a request along the lines of, “My sales team needs training on teamwork." Well that’s putting the cart before the horse, isn't it? Ask the requestor to give you a big picture view of the factors they see as contributing to the poor performance. Do not accept their definition of the performance problem (in this case, lack of team work) until you hear more about the work environment, the intended audience, their job related duties, etc.
2. What are the symptoms that led you to believe this was a problem?
Notice the key word “symptoms." Very often what presents itself to be a performance problem is truly a symptom of a deeper or related organizational problem. For instance, a large publishing company believed it needed customer service training because it came in dead last in the customer service category in a survey published by its industry magazine. When more investigation was done, it was determined that the organization was suffering from an inadequate technology system that led to the symptom of poor customer service.
3. Why do you think this is a training need?
Remember, the person requesting you to design and deliver training has their own perspective on the situation. When this question was posed to a retail executive his response was that a particular department's reports were consistently wrong and therefore they must not know how to use the reporting software. The executive made a huge leap from the evidence of erroneous reports to employee’s lack of skill or knowledge. The intended trainees will also have their own perspective and it's a good idea to ask them, at some point, if they feel a need for training based on the evidence at hand. When further investigation was done with the intended trainee group, from the above mentioned retail organization, it was discovered that the employees lacked basic math skills but knew how to use the software quite well.
4. What organizational factors might be playing a role?
When organizations are in flux, a sense of ennui trickles down to every individual's performance. If the organization has been talking about an acquisition or merger, it can cause people to change their work habits. If a downsizing has occurred and more work needs to be accomplished with less people, it’s logical that poor performance will follow. Perhaps the department has had three different managers in the last 18 months, and every manager has a different perspective on how the work should be done; eventually people start to second-guess their abilities and perform at a minimal level in order to “play it safe.”
5. What training already exists?
Often you'll find that a “training problem” is a frequent issue within the organization, and one that has been addressed in the past. Determining what training already exists is helpful in two ways: 1) it helps you to determine what training people have had in the past and alerts you to look for reasons why that training did not “stick,” and 2) it should minimize your need to reinvent the wheel because it's probable that you can repurpose the existing training content.
Tech Industry Thinks to the Future
New York City's recently built Academy for Software Engineering (high school) is supported with direct help from many leaders in the tech industry, including Google, eBay, Facebook and FourSquare.
Surely They Don’t Mean the Company Party!
The most time-wasting learning and development activity reported by employees is.... Teambuilding Activities; according to the 2011 National Learning and Development Index conducted by the Australian Institute of Training and Development.
Keep It Suitably Simple
While there is still a need for formally-packaged courses, these are for special occasions, when we or our employers require some formal record of achievement (or at least of participation). In the meantime, there's a job to be done, and that's far better achieved through access to videos, PDFs, forums, blogs and simple web articles. These are much easier to produce than highly-structured e-learning and just as easy to consume. Nothing lasts more than five minutes and the emphasis is strictly on practical application.
Excerpted from Clive on Learning - Clive Shephard's blog. You can read the full text here: ttp://tinyurl.com/cc9kwhn
Bring Your Wii to Work!
Too often, e-learning modules end up being glorified PowerPoint presentations. The learner reads through the information in a linear, beginning-to-end format, and is tested for knowledge retention at the end. As detailed in 5 Gaming Elements for Effective E-Learning (Training Industry Quarterly, Fall 2012), there are five takeaways from video games that can take e-learning to the next level.
Contextualization takes the e-learning out of the void, and puts it into a time and place, such as a scenario or story that provides the back bone for the training.
Curiosity draws the learner into exploring the e-learning module, enticing them to completeness.
Control allows participants to direct their own learning, driving the direction of the training, and causing them to retain more information due to engagement.
Cooperation / Socialization integrates a very popular factor of many online games, removing feelings of isolation and fostering teamwork.
Engagement / Interactivity puts the learners in situations where they are participating in the training from the start, rather than at the end of a module.
And with the growing popularity of BYOD (bring your own device) we could have everyone bring their Wii controller to work! <grin>
