Chief Learning Officer - February 2008 - (Page 27)

learning solutions delivered in the store when no one’s watching. Once employees have been observed displaying all the different steps of the program, they earn a SKATE pin. “Store managers conduct the SKATE assessment as part of the certification process for their associates, but that also happens regularly throughout the year, as the store and district managers ensure what we’ve rolled out is working and [employees] are performing all the different steps of the program,” Stern said. “Next year, we’re looking to potentially launch a short DVD to complement the written SKATE materials and the in-person training, for consistency. Then we’ll have visual demonstrations and examples that people can model and customize to their own style.” Mattress Giant doesn’t have an online training platform at present, but they are hoping to put one in place by the end of next year. Smart explained that the company was making somewhat cautious forays into e-learning. “We are working in that general direction,” she said. “What we don’t want to do is put a learning management system (LMS) out into the field that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles because then you have a product out there that’s not as exciting as it could be, and in a year or two years, you’re going to have to go and pay all the additional money to upgrade it anyway.” Mattress Giant recently did a pilot program that gave employees a chance to explore a couple of online modules, which was well received. “They were pretty excited about it, and we had a general consensus across the board that ‘Hey, we want this,’” Smart said. “[But] we will never go away from the classroom training format, because as sales associates, they need that interaction with other people, and you just don’t get that on a computer.” Use Technology in Moderation Because retail companies are typically dispersed, technologies such as DVDs, CD-ROMs or e-learning are very attractive modalities. And when used correctly, they are effective tools for learning delivery. Yet, learning executives in the retail space shouldn’t go overboard with d-learning, e-learning or m-learning. For instance, Home Depot’s online training platform, which was launched about six years ago, constitutes about 30 percent of the learning and development at the organization. “The positive parts of it are consistency of message and knowledge, the accessibility, and it is adaptive to the learner’s knowledge level so they can move at their own pace — either slower or faster, depending on what they know,” Joyce said. However, she added that the company isn’t planning to expand its virtual offerings anytime soon. “To be honest, we are rethinking our entire elearning strategy because what we’re finding is that e-learning does not work as well for many of the things that we want associates to know,” she said. “When we put together blended solutions, the e-learning piece gets done and the blended piece does not. We have learned that our associates learn best by doing, and so our challenge now is to figure out how to do that at our scale.” “We get very high marks from our learners on elearning, so they like it and they believe that it helps them do their job,” she added. “But given a preference, the vast majority of them would prefer to do things one-on-one or in small groups so they can do things hands-on. I think we do have an overreliance on e-learning, and so we will back off of that to some degree.” Share and Share Alike Learning strategies for retail have not been shared across the organization like they have in other industries. Smart said practitioners in this sector shouldn’t be so hush-hush, and companies should benchmark with their peers. For her part, she is a member of the Dallas Area Retail Trainers group, which has been an invaluable resource for her. “Trying to find out what everyone else was doing was really a significant challenge,” she said. “If you are looking to start a new program or revise your program, talk to those people that you know in the business. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call a director of another retail company. Find out what they’re doing and the quickest way they went about getting to that point. That insight is priceless.” In that spirit, Home Depot’s Joyce offered a few pieces of advice on learning strategy for her professional colleagues. “It really has to be done from the outside in, meaning that the learning strategy should be directly related to the customer experience. The second piece is [that] I think the learning strategy needs to really reflect the complexities of the retail environment, meaning scale and scope. Third, you really have to exploit all the different learning methodologies that exist.” “If you are looking to start a new program or revise your program, talk to those people that you know in the business. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call a director of another retail company.” - Sharon Smart, director of training, Mattress Giant 27 February 2008 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - February 2008

Chief Learning Officer - February 2008 Editor's Letter Table of Contents Business Impact Trends Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial Learning Solutions Home Depot: Building Better Associates CLO Profile Environment Realizing the Vision of “One Philips” Tactics Sun Microsystems’ Next-Generation Worker Video Game Recruiting Tool Productivity The Regence Group: Blended Measurement Human Capital NASA: A Case Study in Technical Leadership Development Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - February 2008

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