Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 - (Page 52)

beneﬁts included letting learners take the printbased modules at home to avoid tying up valuable computer time and allow for easier revisions during the beta testing process. In addition, it reserved the use of the interactive computer resources for practice activities, for which the computer is well-suited. This high-tech/high-touch approach, in which a real human introduced the trainee to the Webbased training, helped people who were not used to computers or the Internet feel comfortable with the training process. Development program, which takes very little additional support, has been used to train new staff and volunteers individually and in small groups. Evaluation Evaluation has occurred regularly since the program was initiated. It is now connected to the LMS to ensure usage is tabulated, and more than 1,500 courses have been delivered to date. As the contact center’s procedures and technology have changed, the program has been updated to accommodate these changes. In addition to assisting the association in efﬁciently rolling out the contact center to the chapters, the learning system has greatly helped the association address ongoing training needs related to staff turnover. The ability to bring new people up to speed quickly and consistently has been a major beneﬁt of the system. The program provides a tangible way to practice call handling and decision making with hands-on activities that use the simulated phone system. This results in higher-quality service to caregivers and persons with Alzheimer’s disease. Perhaps the best evaluation comes from callers to the contact center who provided the following feedback in a recent contact center survey of callers: • “I can’t rave about this organization enough! The 800-number and local chapter have been a godsend — keep up the good work! • “Professional, compassionate, helpful suggestions provided and prompt materials mailed to me. I have already referred another family and would deﬁnitely call again. Thank you!” • “The helpline has been wonderful!” Conclusion This training program successfully addressed ongoing training needs and was instrumental in permitting the contact center to roll out smoothly to all the chapters without training becoming an issue or limiting factor. In this way, the blended learning program has been a signiﬁcant factor in the contact center’s success and has permitted not only a smooth rollout but also faster, more efﬁcient training of individuals and small groups at the local chapter level. The training program has been in use for more than four years. It has been linked to an LMS for recordkeeping purposes and continues to provide toplevel, scenario-based training. Not only has the training program helped enable the success of the business unit, but it has assisted the association in achieving its mission of improving the lives of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. CLO Roy Strauss is president of Cedar Interactive. He can be reached at editor@clomedia.com. As the contact center was rolled out to the local chapters, it became apparent that sending trainers from the national headquarters to train the local chapters was an expensive and unsatisfactory method. Development began simultaneously on all three learning methods: live, facilitator-led, printed self-study guides and interactive Web online. This development included traditional instructional design activities such as developing learning objectives, interviewing subject matter experts, planning scenario and screen ﬂow and developing content. In addition, a photo shoot was held on-site at the contact center, and audio was recorded using voices of contact center personnel. The online modules were programmed in Flash, and printed materials were produced for the leader and user guides. The entire program was then beta tested with a small group, revised and readied for ﬁnal implementation. Implementation The program was implemented by holding an initial train-the-trainer class, in which a dozen representatives from the chapters that were closest to implementing the contact center were trained. Following this session, those chapter personnel trained people at their respective chapters. This process continued as new chapters partnered with the contact center until all the chapters received the initial training. This same 52 Chief Learning Ofﬁcer • August 2008 • www.clomedia.com http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Trends Best Practices Effectiveness High-Octane Leadership Development Leadership and Personality CLO Profile Discussion Groups: Harvesting Value from Real-World Experiences Kimpton 2.0: Discussion on the Web Learning Olympics: Development Through Competition Bypassing the Obstacles to Change Listen Up: A How-To-Guide for Podcasting University of Toyota: A Success Story in Podcast Implementation What Stinks About Webinars? Webinars for Learning Professionals Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - August 2008

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