The Ontario Broker - October 2019 - 29

A PAPER TRAIL OF
YOUR STOLEN TIME
BY KEVIN O'HARE, SUPERVISOR & INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNER, IBAO

T

wo years ago when I started in
IBAO's Education Department,
I saw paper everywhere. With
how much I dislike clutter-I'm
practically allergic to paper. It wasn't ideal.
But since that time, we've successfully
made a number of technology changes and
improvements within the department. And
although these solutions are specific to our
processes as an association, perhaps our
approach might be useful when looking for
efficiencies at your brokerage.
Spoiler alert: technological change is not
an easy ride. It takes time, humility and
patience with your systems and your team,
until you all start to feel the payoff.

type out a shipping label for each student's
textbook order. When we started looking into
it, we found out our database had unused
address fields. Using this existing functionality
we created a shipping address field that
students now see at checkout that captures
information in the correct format. This data
is now uploaded directly to Canada Post to
create labels automatically. This tweak to the
system created efficiencies and freed up a
dozen hours a week for our staff to refocus on
our learners.
Another example of reevaluating our
processes is our new focus on surveys.
In this case what we hope to gain is more
valuable feedback from students. To

When you're considering what technology
can improve for you, it's not a matter
of shiny and new. The most important
question is what do you hope to gain?
Within IBAO Education we needed to free
up more time for staff to focus on the learner.
Older processes like creating shipping labels
and emailing accreditation letters were
draining the spare time from everyone's
schedule. So when we designed our new
eLearning platform, My IBAO Learning
Path, it was an opportunity to consider every
part of the learner's journey to identify what
we could automate with technology.
The vision was to improve our learners' touch
points and experience with IBAO Education.
To accomplish this we had to look for places
within existing systems to make modifications
and find efficiencies-for example the
checkout process for our Basic Broker Online
Prep Course, which used to require staff to

WWW.IBAO.ORG

WHEN YOU'RE
CONSIDERING WHAT
TECHNOLOGY CAN
IMPROVE FOR YOU,
IT'S NOT A MATTER
OF SHINY AND NEW.
THE MOST IMPORTANT
QUESTION IS WHAT
DO YOU HOPE TO
GAIN?

29

improve the learner experience, we need to
find out what they value about our courses
and facilitators. But our surveys weren't
generating enough responses, which made
the data unreliable. We wanted to increase
engagement to get a better sense of how
we're doing and where we can improve.
Surveys that are short and easy to
understand gather the most useful
information, so we pared down what we ask
to only the most essential information. We
analyzed the timing of when surveys were
sent out against their respective response
rate and found responses were much higher
if surveys are sent out immediately upon
course completion.
By thinking carefully about what we were
asking and when we were asking it, we've been
able to drive engagement levels. The average
completion rate for surveys was sitting around
10-20%. Now we're consistently getting at
least a 40% completion rate. It took time to
get there, but now we're collecting valuable
analytics to inform our decisions on future
course materials.
While we've implemented many other
improvements in these past two years,
we're always reviewing processes to further
optimize. Change can be intimidating, but
once the team feels the benefits of moving
through the process once or twice, they'll
be more willing to go through it again. Start
with existing processes, ask questions to
find out what can be modified to better
suit your needs and how much can be
automated. But never lose sight of your
vision and why you're doing it in the first
place.

OCTOBER 2019
http://WWW.IBAO.ORG
The Ontario Broker - October 2019

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