Month: March 2020

CLOSE THE SKILLS GAP: GET WITH THE 21ST CENTURY

Recent graduates can’t land jobs, while employers complain that they can’t find people to hire. The facts just don’t add up, yet the troublesome gap is widening.
Educators, entrepreneurs and political pundits alike are weighing in on the so-called skills gap — the widening split between what educators are delivering and what today’s modern workforce needs. We live in a world in which half of the jobs today didn’t exist 25 years ago (think app developers, data scientists and social media managers), Dennis Yang writes on Forbes — so the gap is presenting an interesting hiring dilemma.
How can employers and educators anticipate and build skills for the future workplace that likely will change shape even faster in the coming years?

Accept and Adapt Practical Skills Courses

Students and experienced workers need to take education into their own hands, Yang says. There is already a healthy demand for online classes geared toward practical skills — the market hit $91 billion last year and is projected to top $256 billion in 2017, according to investment firm IBIS Capital.
Online platforms like Codeacademy and Dev Bootcamp offer classes in computer programming. Skillshare’s online, project-based courses focus on creative disciplines like photography, interior design and sound editing. With so many options to choose from, students don’t always know which ones will land them a good job. Yang says that companies will need to step in and apply the lessons of these programs in a more systemic way.

Make Job Requirements More Transparent

Employers also will need to alter the job descriptions they post, according to Yang. “Companies would define jobs not only by traditional job descriptions but also by a set of skill-based courses over which prospective jobs seekers can demonstrate mastery. Job descriptions could include a playlist of courses required to prepare for the job,” he says. This strategy also applies to developing the skills of existing employees, who could benefit from individualized learning plans to help them reach the next level.

Rethink the Workplace Along 21st-century Lines

Many workforce training initiatives ignore new realities, Ira Wolfe writes on The Huffington Post. “Even when the skill training and education is on the right path, it doesn’t consider how the definition of work, the description of a job, and the re-shaping of the workplace has changed,” Wolfe says. Few jobs are permanent; more generations work side-by-side than ever before; and many employees work remotely. “Employers must rethink the concept of a workplace and the definition of work and jobs before they can expect communities and government to develop more skilled workers,” Wolfe says

Medical Assisting Grant Now Available to New Students

UPDATE: The Medical Assisting Grant offered for the September 2016 semester is no longer being offered. To determine if you’re eligible to receive grant, scholarship or loan funding to help pay for your education, please contact the financial aid department at Bryant & Stratton College.
Bryant & Stratton College has recently introduced an exciting educational grant program for new Medical Assisting students who begin their degree program in September 2016. Students enrolling in the Medical Assisting associate degree at Bryant & Stratton College, this fall, now have another way to help pay for school.
New students enrolling in the Medical Assisting degree program may be eligible for up to $6,000 in grant funds that will be applied to their tuition cost. This grant provides students valuable savings as students complete some of the most important courses of their 60-credit associate degree in Medical Assisting. The Medical Assisting associate degree program provides a high-quality education designed to propel graduating students into the medical assisting career field.
In addition to academics, Bryant & Stratton College focuses on career-ready education as a cornerstone of this program. Key employer feedback was utilized in determining the courses and career preparation which make up this degree program. A strong mix of classroom and lab work ensures student complete the program with a foundation in the theory and practice necessary to succeed as a Medical Assistant. With the Medical Assisting grant, students will gain a decided financial advantage towards a degree program in an exciting, growing professional field.
Upon applying for the Medical Assisting program, students will work with their personal admissions and financial aid representatives to apply for the grant. If eligible, the grant will be applied to their tuition costs in separate increments as they complete the degree program, ensuring the tuition savings are spread across multiple semesters.
To learn more about this exciting grant program, call 1-888-836-9748 or apply today!

LEARNING CORNER WITH JEFFREY PFEFFER: EMPLOYERS CAN—AND SHOULD—MAKE EVERY DAY PAY DAY

When a former participant in a Stanford executive program invited me to join the advisory board of PayActiv, a company providing employees access to their earned wages between pay periods, I had no idea about the pressing need for what has become a growing industry and movement. Yet giving people access to their money more quickly represents one small but important step to reducing an epidemic of employee financial stress.
Like all forms of stress, financial stress negatively impacts people’s psychological and physical health, an issue very much on my research agenda. Moreover, it adversely affects employee turnover, absenteeism and presenteeism. In fact, one in three employees say that personal finance issues are a distraction at work.
Here’s why human resources departments should embrace the movement to make every day a payday.

Let’s Look at the Problem

Unless you are a day laborer or a participant in the “gig” economy—in other words, if you are a regular employee—odds are extremely high that you are going to be paid for your work some time after you did it. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, only nine states require weekly pay, and some of those states have exceptions. In other states, employers can pay people every two weeks, semi-monthly (like my employer, Stanford) or even monthly.
Consider the fact that in the second quarter of 2019, median weekly earnings were $911 for full-time wage and salary workers. With seven days in a week, that means the median worker is earning $130.14 per day. If someone is paid every two weeks, they will have accrued but not been paid earnings of around $1,301 (minus tax withholdings and deductions) after 10 days.
The fact that people are paid what they have earned some time after earning it may not seem like a big problem, but data shows many people in the U.S. are in a financially precarious position. The annual survey conducted by the American Psychological Association consistently finds that money and work are the two leading sources of stress, with these levels only rising. Even among employees earning more than $100,000 annually, PwC’s 2017 Employee Financial Wellness survey shows that 28 percent found it difficult to meet household expenses each month, and 58 percent consistently carried credit card balances.

The Current “Payday” Industry Is Enormous—and Wildly Expensive

The payday lending and “check cashing” industry arose in response to people’s needs for small, presumably short-term loans to tide them over until they receive their next paycheck. And business is booming. There are now more payday lenders in the U.S than McDonald’s or Starbucks. A study by the Consumer Financial Protection Board found that almost half of the borrowers had done 10 transactions, and the median fee was equivalent to an annual percentage interest rate of 322 percent. 
Meanwhile, Flexwage estimates that people are paying $32 billion in bank overdraft and insufficient funds fees and $6 billion in lending fees at U.S. pawn shops. Along with the $9 billion in estimated payday lending fees and high interest rates, that’s close to $50 billion being paid each year by some of the poorest and most financially stressed Americans. And it turns out this is something that should concern HR managers, too.

Financial Stress is a Giant Problem—for Employers

PwC’s survey reported that employees who were worried about their finances were five times more likely to be distracted at work and nearly twice as likely to spend three hours or more at work dealing with financial matters. Stressed employees were also twice as likely to miss work and more inclined to cite health issues caused by financial stress, the survey showed.
This massive productivity and engagement cost is one reason that a 2019 Bank of America survey found more than 50 percent of employers are now offering financial wellness programs as an employee benefit, a doubling in just four years. Such programs can include education about budgeting, direct deposit of wages to a bank to avoid check cashing fees, retirement savings plans (which less than half of employers offer in any form), income smoothing for people in jobs where pay varies significantly over time and programs to have employees automatically deposit a set amount or percentage of their pay into a savings vehicle.

One Simple Step Toward a Solution

These are all helpful options, but there’s a better solution: Simply offering employees quicker and easy access to their money will go a long way toward increasing productivity, improving retention and even attracting more applicants (who won’t need to deal with the unnecessary added financial stress that comes from dealing with predatory lenders).
Most earned wage providers, such as Flexwage, Instant, and PayActiv, sign up employers—who, in many cases, pay the nominal fees (which vary by vendor and specific customer but are typically on the order of 3 percent) on behalf of their employees. Employers then offer the option, which often includes a debit card and no-fee access to ATMs, to workers.
To be clear, this will not solve all of your employees’ financial problems. For instance, if people aren’t earning enough money, providing better and quicker access to an inadequate wage won’t eliminate their financial stress. If people are doing a poor job of financial planning and budgeting, accessing their wages more readily won’t suddenly make them better financial managers.
But it just might reduce at least some of the overdraft fees and high interest costs that make their precarious financial situation and resulting stress even worse. And reducing financial stress, by any amount, can only benefit workers and their employers. 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

AVOIDING FRANKEN-SUITE SOFTWARE (ORGANIC VS. ACQUIRED)

For those of us who have been working in and around HR technology for a while, the last two years have been remarkable in terms of the pace and scope of market consolidation.  No fewer than a half dozen significant learning and performance management companies have been acquired by other vendors and are now in various states of being cobbled together, prodded and cajoled into their respective acquirers.
The change in the landscape for the prospective buyer is real. First of all, there are simply fewer names to slap on that RFP list.
Second, there are tangible implications in terms of functional offerings – for example, it seems that every performance or recruiting vendor suddenly got the urge to add an LMS to their suite (hey, learning does matter after all!). Separating talent management vendors on the basis of what silos of functionality they offer just got harder.
However, for buyers, the biggest issue of all might well be this: Is your technology vendor really a Frankenstein patchwork of acquired and merged companies and technologies?  And if so, what does this mean in terms of product and service delivery?

Grilling the Vendors: Key Questions for Buyers to Ask

If you are looking at the market for talent management software today, you’re lucky in the sense that there are fewer options and therefore fewer vendor evaluations to slog through. But the simplicity stops right there. Deeper investigation will likely show many of these companies are actually cobbled together through a lot of recent merger activity.
Some key questions as you navigate the turbid waters of HR tech:
Issue
Questions to Ask Vendors
Integration Points
How are the various pieces of your talent management software connected – pass-throughs, patched data feeds, and work-arounds? For example if the LMS and EPM systems come from different acquisitions, what’s the real story on how they work together?
User Experience
Is the user experience and interface consistent across the talent management system? If not, where does it change? If you click out of succession planning and into performance reviews, for example, does the user interface suddenly change? If so, how will this impact end-user training, engagement, adoption rates and overall experience?
Customer Support
How does the vendor support their products from different legacy software acquisitions? Are there different support teams for the LMS and EPM and succession planning and compensation tools? Does supporting multiple acquired products under one roof raise the overall costs of support?
Reporting & Data
Can the talent management system produce consistent reports from every part of the system? Is the reporting tool the same across the suite? Are the underlying data models the same across the system – and if not, can the vendor explain how this will impact your ability to generate timely and useful reports?
Upgrades & Maintenance
If the talent management system is pieced together, how will this impact product upgrades and enhancements? How are different versions and interfaces synchronized? Can the user interface and data model across the talent management spectrum be upgraded at the same time?
Administration & IT Support
If the system is cobbled together from different user interfaces, administrator interfaces, data models, and customer support teams, does this increase headaches for admins or IT? How many touch points are you going to have to deal with (and what’s the true cost of all that switching around)?

 

Caveat Emptor

The press release that trumpets the announcement of the latest HR technology company merger always includes lofty proclamations about how the new, combined systems will change the world.  But savvy buyers know that that piecing together different software platforms is never as easy as it sounds. 
Integrating multiple software tools (and corporate cultures) under the same roof is hard work – it often takes years to complete, and, even then, the combined system is often a patchwork of different user interfaces, data models, upgrade paths, and customer support options. The lesson? Buyer beware.

Going Organic:   Is This Broccoli or Enterprise Software?

By organic we also mean “homegrown.”  Call it what you like, the idea is software developed in-house and by the same development team over time. The entire talent management suite (from learning to performance to succession to compensation to social networking) is the same software, developed and supported by the same people.
Why does this matter?  Plenty of reasons:
  • One system means tighter functional integration across processes
  • One customer support team for all products
  • One user interface (lower training costs, flatter learning curve)
  • One data model
  • One reporting environment
  • One upgrade and maintenance path
Evaluating enterprise software requires buyers to be ever-vigilant about market dynamics.  It also requires checking under the proverbial hood to make sure you get the real story about a potential software partner.
In the talent management software market today, it might just pay to go organic.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

International Influence

The recipe for success in college athletics varies by team and sport. At the “junior college” level that recipe can be even more challenging when it comes to recruiting and retaining players. Nick Dimitrievski and Alex Grigorita seem to have found one way to stay ahead in the ever competitive United States Collegiate Athletic Association and that is through a strong presence in international recruiting.dennis kicking ball
Both head coaches recruit heavily in the greater Syracuse and New York regions but they also have a strong international presence on their teams. The Bobcats soccer teams have a combined 24 international players between the two rosters; including players from as far away as Gold Coast, Australia, nearly 10,000 miles from Bryant & Stratton College’s Syracuse campus.
“It’s all about networking and trying to find the best possible student athletes,” Dimitrievski said. “Now we’ve ventured into the international market. At the end of the day it’s about finding the best soccer player, wherever [they] come from.”
Dimitrievski’s squad boasts 14 total international players, two each from England, Germany and Serbia and one each from Australia, Chile, Spain, France, Scotland, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Costa Rica. The women’s team features 10 international players, five from Antigua and Barbuda, four from Trinidad and Tobago and another from Barbados.
Bryant & Stratton College’s international presence has been a long standing foundation of the program. This dates back to Grenadian stars Ricky Charles and Sharlie Joseph, the seven-time MLS All Star and 2009 MLS MVP Finalist. Joseph’s legendary MLS career began with the Bobcats as he played two years with Bryant & Stratton College before transferring to St. John’s University to complete his education.
“We’re looking for those types of guys [like Sharlie], that’s the reality,” Dimitrievski said. “A lot of kids what to be that type of player.”
Having one of the most iconic players in MLS history as an alumni makes for a nice recruiting pitch, but another decision may have been more impactful in attracting students to don Bryant & Stratton College blue; the conference move from the NJCAA to the USCAA.Kai Jacobs (Antigua & Barbuda) has been dominant for the Bobcats this year. Scoring 12 goals and adding 11 assists.
The move opened the door for the Bobcats to offer more opportunities to more players. Eligibility rules in the NJCAA only allows student-athletes to play for a school for two years. Unlike the NJCAA, the USCAA allows student-athletes to play for four years as they pursue a bachelor’s degree. This is an added benefit for both the team and players as they have better options to complete their degree program.
That isn’t to say the option of playing two years for the Bobcats and transferring isn’t a popular choice. For example, Scott Robson’s impressive two-year career at BSC was parlayed into a transfer to Bellevue University where he’s already racked up three goals and 11 assists since moving on.
The ability to provide student-athletes the option of playing two or four years is a win-win situation in the eyes of the coaching staff. Every player, regardless of the degree they wish to pursue upon arrival, has the opportunity to turn their on-field exploits with the Bobcats into an offer from a Division I program just as they have the opportunity to spend four years at Bryant & Stratton College and earn a four-year degree. It’s a situation that benefits the program and athletes equally.
Following the footsteps of alums and fellow teammates becomes a pull for future recruits. The opportunity to earn a degree while playing the game they love attracts many international players to Bryant & Stratton College.
“Knowing [Scott] and watching him be able to find another opportunity is appealing to new players like myself,” said goalkeeper Harry Watson. “It gives us a goal to work for to work harder in class and work harder as a player.”
“Not only do players see this as an opportunity to further their education but to improve their soccer as well,” said Grigorita. “The alumni help because [new athletes] know what kind of soccer we play and the level of education they will get here.”
Grigorita has created a pipeline, of sorts, from the Caribbean to the Bryant & Stratton College Syracuse campus. He has had a great deal of success recruiting in areas such as Antigua and Trinidad; That includes leading goal scorers Kai Jacobs and Portia Davis, who both hail from Antigua and Barbuda.
Both Jacobs and Davis are mainstays on the Antigua and Barbuda women’s national team along with fellow Bobcat Kanika Buckley. The draw of Bryant & Stratton College came from the program’s track record and the Antiguan players who played for the program previously.
“Several girls had come in before me who have moved on to other schools,” said Jacobs. “Some are back home and working and are very successful. So that has given me more motivation to come in and have something to look forward to.”
Jacobs added that a previous teammate and fellow countrywoman was selected as a USCAA All-American during her time at Bryant & Stratton College and set the same goal for Jacobs to achieve. After a 12-goal and 11-assist season, Jacobs may just have the inside track on reaching that goal.
Grigorita’s pipeline has even enabled him to recruit three players from the same school in Trinidad and Tobago. Cherise Roberts, Njemile Charles and Jeanille Lawrence all come from the soccer program at Scarborough Secondary in Trinidad, a program that has unearthed a host of talent for the Bobcats. However, Grigorita is quick to point out that the program a student-athlete comes from is secondary for him.
He notes that when he goes to watch someone play, he’s there to watch the player regardless of the team they’re playing on. He contends that it’s more likely his recruiting will draw more players from the same programs as success with the Bobcats often draws more interest for players to come to Central New York for their collegiate soccer.christian perez
That trip is hardly a short one for Bryant & Stratton College’s international players. By comparison, the trip Jacobs, Buckley and Davis make from Antigua (roughly 1,984 miles) is a walk in the park compared to that of Josh Martin’s 9,522 miles from Gold Coast, Queensland in Australia or even the 5,302 miles Cristobal Rojas travels from Santiago, Chile.
Naturally, there’s also a difference in weather for many of the players who trek to a region famous for winter snow from otherwise sunny locales. While the weather surprised plenty of newcomers, particularly those who hail from the Caribbean, the welcoming arms of the Bryant & Stratton College community quickly counteract any nasty weather.
“Everyone is there for you everywhere you turn,” Jacobs said.
The feeling of family and community on campus is a key factor for ensuring the players don’t just feel comfortable in their new city, but they feel at home. As Dimitrievski points out, English is not the first language for many of Bryant & Stratton College’s international athletes. Providing the proper support system for help inside the classroom and beyond is a key aspect of what the coaching staff and academic departments focus on. This includes a new mentor program in which every student-athlete is paired with a mentor who not only checks up on schoolwork, but ensures the transition to life in Syracuse goes smoothly.
“Everyone here makes you feel like you’re family,” Njemile Charles said. “Here, the college is small and compact and not just on the soccer teams but everyone in the classroom and the faculty makes you feel comfortable.
“To be able to be here playing soccer and something I love gives me a sense of pride for both my country and my family. It’s a positive because I’m pursuing my education while doing something I love to do.”
That’s a sentiment echoed by nearly every player on both teams. It’s easy to find athletic teams that are tight knit on the field and in the locker room, but to have that sense of community carry over to the dormitories and classroom goes a long way in creating an enriching environment for every student athlete at Bryant & Stratton College.
It’s that sense of community which continues to play a major role in drawing elite talent to Bryant & Stratton College, keeping the Bobcats soccer teams in the top-10 of the USCAA rankings on an annual basis.

HUMAN CAPITALIST: HOW TO ENGAGE EMPLOYEES ON COMPLIANCE

Companies are increasingly creating programs to make employees feel engaged and part of a community. While HR efforts are actively focused on talent management, Cornerstone OnDemand Jason Corsello explains on Human Capitalist there’s an element that this management directly affects — compliance.
With corporate scandals widespread, companies are staying attentive to company compliance. According to a recent Ernst & Young report, 41 percent of companies plan to spend more money on compliance programs.
So, what’s the link between engagement and compliance? Corsello presents these elements “as two sides of the same coin,” and, he writes, if talent is managed in a proactive way, the demands of compliance can fall into place without a hitch. Here are two examples Corsello presents of companies that let employees become the rule-makers and, in turn, compliance advocates:

Virgin Media Connects Employees to Values Through Social Learning

Virgin Media employees are encouraged to talk about company values, which “helps workers understand them and to gets them invested in creating and ensuring strong ethics,” Mark Lamswood, the company’s talent manager, explained recently. Virgin Media uses social learning in the form of online tools and gamification to increase employee participation in conversation company ethics and compliance. 

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Gives Employees the Reins

Commonwealth Bank of Australia lets employees take control of their values training. As Corsello writes the companies “employee-centric cultural shift not only helped employees better understand Commonwealth’s compliance priorities, but also gave the company a competitive advantage over other companies.”
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCzOJDJZHoBttdHAjJsnN9w?sub_confirmation=1

UVM Student on a Mission to Eradicate Malaria

After four years with the Peace Corps, Matt McLaughlin became program manager of Stomping Out Malaria, a Peace Corps program that aims to eradicate the mosquito-born disease in Africa. He recently began the Master of Public Health (MPH) Program at the University of Vermont. Because the program is offered online, he’s able to keep his job, working out of his home in Burlington and also fitting in travel. We recently asked him about his work in Africa and how an MPH might further his goals.

What was your Peace Corps experience like?

When I joined the Peace Corps, my recruiter keyed in on my business experience, and they sent me to Senegal to work in small enterprise development in the eco-tourism sector. After being in the country for a little more than a year, I came to the conclusion that my business skills would be more useful in the public health arena addressing malaria. Like many other public health challenges, the main issues are not clinical, but logistical. The test for malaria needs little to no clinical skill — an illiterate person can ably administer a malaria test. But stockouts are rampant. And managing supply is a key business process that I had experience with when working in a variety of businesses (mostly law offices) in New York City.
eradicate-malaria

After serving in the Peace Corps, UVM Master of Public Health student Matt McLaughlin is working to eradicate malaria.
My major contribution was in the area of bed net distribution. In 2007, when I began working with nets, there was an understanding that mass distribution could create a “community effect” (similar to “herd immunity” in vaccines).
If you achieve a sufficient level of coverage, even those who aren’t actually sleeping under a bed net receive some degree of protection. But the open question at the time was: How do you effectively distribute that many nets?
And the common thinking was that a thorough census would be too difficult; that local community health workers would not have the skills necessary to accurately conduct a census. Looking back, it sounds ridiculous that that sort of nonsense was a common belief, but it was.
A small group of volunteers and I worked with a small NGO called NetLife and the local health system to pilot a census-taking and net-distribution methodology with about 5,000 nets. The following year, we distributed 20,000. That was when the government of Senegal decided to adopt our methodology nationwide. To date, millions of bed nets have been distributed in Senegal using an approach that we piloted.

How did you get involved with Stomping Out Malaria?

When I finished my service, my then director, Chris Hedrick, who is currently the CEO of Kepler University, suggested that Peace Corps could learn from what we had done in Senegal and launch a focused initiative Africa-wide. At the same time, Dick Day, director of the Peace Corps’ Africa Region, was looking for a way to be more proactive in the fight against malaria; malaria prevention was an issue he cared very deeply about. It was a happy confluence of people all wanting to push Peace Corps to take a more active role in malaria prevention.
I developed a proposal for how the initiative should be structured, and I have been working with Stomp ever since. We’re active in every Peace Corps country in sub-Saharan Africa that has a significant malaria burden.

Can you tell us about malaria and why it’s such a problem?

Malaria kills almost half a million children under 5 years old in sub-Saharan Africa every year. It is a disease that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable population on the planet. It is a disease that manages to cause that much death despite the fact that truly excellent treatment drugs exist and can be purchased for less than a dollar. The way I think of malaria is as a failure of systems thinking in the health system. Malaria can be easily defeated, but it requires people to think outside of the box. It won’t be defeated by doctors at clinics. It requires trusted community health workers in every village with a coordinated, almost militaristic precision to reach every symptomatic individual. And they can do it. I’m desperately tired of people underestimating what community health workers are capable of.

What is your organization doing to eradicate malaria?

As a grassroots development agency, the Peace Corps has been working in malaria prevention for 50 years, strengthening the capacity of our host countries to build their health systems. Traditionally, that capacity-building has been very isolated — each volunteer would work with an individual counterpart, and any lessons learned would tend to be lost or, at most, travel to the next town over.
The Internet is fundamentally changing that equation. What Stomping Out Malaria in Africa is attempting to do is to cultivate knowledge-sharing from volunteer to volunteer across the continent. That means regular town hall-style meetings, use of video conferencing and online forums, and purposeful documentation.
One of the most important things I do is to help identify and evangelize flagship projects. The current most important project is called PECADOM+. It’s a French acronym for home-based care, and the “plus” is a unique addition that Peace Corps and our partners have identified.
For most home-based care, the patient — even if they are to receive care in their home — has to seek out the community health worker. The patient needs to initiate care while the health worker passively waits for patients. But in many places where trust in the system is imperfect, people don’t seek care when they have a fever. The “plus” in PECADOM+ is having the community health worker do a weekly active sweep of the community inquiring at each household for individuals with fever. This simple expedient radically increases the number of malaria cases identified and treated. In a controlled trial in 30 villages, this approach led to a 16-time drop in malaria rates over the course of the 2013 rainy season.
Since that time I’ve been evangelizing the approach across all our countries. I’ve personally met with the ministries of health of Benin and Togo, and volunteers in Cameroon, Madagascar and Zambia are working toward their own pilots of the approach.

What does your work involve from day to day?

I have three pillars of my work: training, mentorship, and partnership development. I run two week-long training events per year in Senegal where I bring together volunteers and Peace Corps staff from across the continent for an intensive malaria prevention training. These volunteers and staff are the focal points for malaria prevention in their countries. Much of my time is spent preparing for and running these trainings. Then I follow up by providing ongoing mentorship. That means that when volunteers are engaged in project design, they’ll send me an email or we’ll Skype and I’ll help them think through the planning process.
Finally, to be successful in the modern age, you need partners. A substantial part of my day is spent liaising with partner organizations, looking for opportunities for collaboration, managing the relationship, and evangelizing the partnership to volunteers who can work with that partner in the field.
My days involve a lot of email, a fair amount of Google Docs, some Skype, and a heap of critical thinking.

Where do you work? Do you travel a lot? Do you use a mosquito net?

I work from home in the new North End of Burlington. No mosquito net, though I do wear repellent in the spring. Especially down by the water, they’re merciless.
I do travel quite a bit. I’m generally in Africa four to five times per year and on domestic work travel (mainly to Washington, D.C.) another five to six times per year. When in Africa, I sleep under my bed net, wear repellent, and take my chemoprophylaxis religiously.

Why are you pursuing a graduate degree in public health?

There are two reasons: knowledge and credibility.
I consider myself pretty good at self-study. I’m extremely knowledgeable about malaria despite never once having taken a formal class to study it. I keep up with the scientific literature and can hold my own with my peers in the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development).
But self-study won’t get you the credibility that a graduate degree confers. And there are some areas where I find unfocused self-study extremely difficult. I’m looking forward to really solidifying my knowledge of epidemiology and biostatistics.

How is the MPH program meshing with your job?

My professors have been extremely accommodating in allowing me to focus papers and projects on malaria-related themes. Particularly, the technical writing we’ve been doing in my environmental health class has provided a springboard to let me explore environmental issues around malaria prevention that I had been struggling with in my work.

Do your colleagues have MPHs, and what do they do?

Most of my CDC and USAID colleagues have MPH degrees. I’m the odd man out. Their jobs range from backstopping very specific areas like malaria in pregnancy or indoor residual spraying, to more general capacity-building of national malaria control programs.

How will the degree fit with your goals?

My long-term goal is to be part (an ever so small and humble part) of the team that eradicates malaria worldwide. To operate on that plane, I will need the credibility that a degree confers and the knowledge and ability to engage with scientific literature. The world needs more people who can bridge the gap between scientific insight and concrete operational interventions based on those insights.
Right now, there’s just too much lag time and every day that passes more children die. I see that translational aspect as one of my strengths and hope that a degree will unlock opportunities in that arena.

What’s something illuminating you’ve learned about Africa?

There have been so many illuminating experiences that have happened to me in Africa that it’s hard to tell where to begin. I think the most important thing I’ve learned is to stop thinking of people as part of a monolithic exotic culture. There’s everything under the sun in Africa. Venality and selflessness, incompetence and excellence, acceptance and prejudice, knowledge and superstition. If that sounds like America, it should

DID YOU KNOW THAT SKILLS ARE NOT BEHAVIORS?

As Learning and Development professionals, one of the big distinctions we need to make when developing training is that behaviors and skills are two different yet related constructs. It is teaching a skill that ensures that the future behavior modification will last longer than just trying to modify a behavior.  Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (1977) argues that one way we learn is through mere observation but also warns that this may be pure mimicking, void of context and social sensitivity. A great example is how a child learns from observation.  A little boy sees his father grab a beer from the fridge after a long day mowing the grass. The child sees this and is compelled to do the same after he does his chores.  One can easily see the issues here.  This is observational learning and reinforced through mimicking.
Behavior is ultimately the thing we want to see changed in people when we are training them to do something. It really is our only manifestation of whether or not we believe they can do something in the future. Although a person is not simply the sum of his or her behaviors, behaviors are the only thing we can observe. Thus, it is important that we are able to answer this question: “How can you tell the difference between a skill and a behavior?” There are three considerations when trying to discern whether someone has gained a skill or is merely performing a behavior.

Skills Transcends Context

To distinguish the difference between somebody knowing a skill versus just displaying the behavior simply change the context. The skill will be transferable, while the behavior will not.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s discuss the ability to play guitar. I have a good friend who sings well; however, he doesn’t know how to play the guitar. During high school, he had the opportunity to be the lead in a musical. This particular role required him to sing a song while playing it on a guitar. He certainly didn’t have enough time to learn how to play the guitar (let alone become a guitar player), so someone taught him the mechanics of strumming and fingering the guitar chords for that particular song. He was shown where to place his fingers on the fret board and how to strum at the right time when he was singing the lyrics to the song. He picked up the behavior quickly and did a marvelous job in the play. Yet, if he had needed to play another song, in a different key, with different lyrics, or even the same song in a different key, he certainly would not have been able to do so. Playing different songs, changing keys, etc. necessitates having the skill of guitar playing. What my friend did was merely demonstrate guitar-playing behavior. He was playing the guitar (behavior) but he was not a guitar player (skill).
Closer to our interest, because of such great emphasis on behavior, many training programs focus on behavior modification and not skill attainment. For example, sales training programs provide the “10-step” process to conduct a sales call. The sales programs are contingent on the context of the sales call not changing. They are laced with assumptions for the program to be able to work. However, anybody who has been in sales for more than five minutes knows that nothing ever goes as expected. Many variables change within any given sales call, sales cycle or overall account management. Thus, to become a well-equipped sales rep, you must have the requisite skill that transcends behavior and context. One diagnosis might be to challenge your skills for behavior by changing the context. If your skill or behavior does not stand up to that change, then it is merely a behavior.

Behaviors = “What”  /  Skills = “How”

The second consideration when evaluating the differences between skill and behavior is the classification of each. In essence, behaviors really describe what is going on while skills describe how it is happening. Again, many training programs give you a lot of what and very little how. For example, how often have you heard “gain trust” or “build rapport”? These are all very valid outcomes for one to tackle if learning better communications; yet, these statements address what one needs to do (behavior), not how she needs to do it (skill). This is commonplace in our field because too often management truly wants the employee to attain an outcome but seems not to care how they get there. Arguably, there are multiple ways of achieving these behaviors; however, rarely are they addressed in a systemic way through skill development.

Behavior Is a Result of Skills

The bottom line here is that we must have some kind of skill to be able to manifest the behavior consistently. We must ask when we observe behavior, “What are the skills that are truly being manifested in the behavior?” Someone who wants to develop a new skill is most likely mimicking what a more successful person is doing and is not developing the skill; rather, she is simply mimicking another’s behavior, which ultimately fails as the context shifts.
It is my experience that many successful employees utilize different skills and approaches to achieve similar results. What distinguishes one employee from another is their associated skills and approaches; thus, someone mimicking another’s behavior without understanding the underlying skill will most likely not lead to similar results. Ultimately, while I can’t say that a particular skill always yields a particular behavior, we can argue that a particular set of behaviors likely stems from multiple diverse skills.
What other constructs in learning and development need more clarity when it comes to their operational definitions in order to enhance training and learning effectiveness?

CHANGING IS NOT TRANSFORMING!

So let’s say you are helping a child with their science homework and so you reach for Google.  The assignment is simple, to talk about how a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.  One website says, “The caterpillar starts to change”, and then you go to another website and it says, “The transformation from caterpillar to butterfly is one of the most exquisite in the natural world”.  Both are reputable websites, one is a university and another is National Geographic for goodness sake.  It would be fair to assume that both change and transformation are actually the same process.  Well, let me ask you this, does the caterpillar become a better caterpillar or a butterfly?  That is the essence of the difference.
Change management anchors itself with a reference point of the past to become better at what was and currently is, while a transformation has a reference point of the future starting from today.  This differentiation is crucial when undergoing any kind of alteration because each requires similar as well as different components for success. “Different isn’t always better, but better is always different”.

Which is Cooler?

In my experience as a Change Management/Transformational professional, I see a common theme that occurs with failed change management projects, what I call ‘the coolness factor’.  Candidly speaking, change processes are difficult and require resources since the basic premise is counter to what we want to do as humans, change.  Those that seek to engage in projects that inherently have change, require funding and often present these projects as ‘transformational’ projects.  
Why?  Because management would rather fund a transformational project than a change management project.  A transformational project suggests that ‘we are getting something new’ while a change project suggests that we are spending more money to fix something, not very appealing.  Though these premises maybe true, the inverse can be also true.
The fact remains that things do change over time and need to be updated.  Look at the computer chip.  It’s fair to say that over the last 20 years, the computer chip continues to gain speed.  What a computer does may still be valid and needed, however, if we can get it to go faster, that is also a good thing.   Therefore, updating your computer system to faster ones is a valid and worthwhile endeavor.  There is no mistake that needs to be fixed, just engaging in smart decision-making. Meanwhile, a transformation may not require something new.
Sometime ago, there was an aspiring engineer looking to make the world a better place.  Specifically, he was concerned with the mortality rate of infants in a poverty-stricken village in Africa.  Through his analysis, he concluded that the reason that infants were dying was a lack of incubation machines to help them early in their life.  To that end, he created a state-of-the-art incubation machine that could run in the village.  He delivered five of those machines and saw the mortality rate of infants plummet in the first six months.  However, after a year, he saw a disturbing new trend, the mortality rates were climbing up back to their original levels.  
Arriving back at the village, he saw the all five machines were sitting in the corner, broken.  He was dismayed, coming to the understanding that the villagers did not have the skills to fix these highly complex machines.  He began to walk back to where he was staying.  During his walk, he notice that the villagers were driving cars and trucks that were fifty years old or more.  He then came to an idea; build an incubator from truck parts.  The villagers knew how to fix trucks; they certainly can learn how to fix incubators made from truck parts.  A transformation occurred.

Components for Success

Each, change processes and transformations, requires an understanding of the ‘As Is’, as well as a sense of urgency and a set of metrics for success.  It’s important to understand where you are staring from, whether you are looking to change something or endeavor in a transformation.  Status quo is what brought you to the realization that something needed to be done.  Second, you will be having an effect on others and therefore understanding the sense of urgency, either good or bad, is needed.  You will be communicating this urgency to others and having clarity is essential.  As humans, we avoid change instinctively unless required (remember the ‘fight or flight’ paradigm).  Lastly, having a good set of metrics, for baseline purposes as well as to show progress is essential as you engage in either a change process or a transformation.
Change Management.  Change Management needs an accurate assessment of the past.  The original requirements are still the same, but we seek a greater level of efficiency.  I think of ‘ER’ words like ‘cheapER’, ‘fastER’, or ‘simplER’. Any item that seeks to achieve these is a good candidate for a change process.  For example, a project that streamlines the payroll process because the company has consolidated business entities is a good example of a change project.
Transformation.  A transformational project needs a clear line of sight to the future, an operational vision statement that is clear when attained.  A historical view is often interesting, however can be harmful as well as people tend to stick to what they know, stifling any innovation that can come about and needed for a transformation. Transformations seek to gain greater levels of effectiveness and quality, ‘birthing’ something new. A simple, yet powerful example is when we transitioned from horses to mechanical means of transportation.  We still sought to travel faster; however, we looked to something different as opposed to creating a faster and cheaper horse. 
Both change management and transformational processes are needed to achieve greater gains.  Each brings a unique and critical perspective to your projects; however, they need to be utilized appropriately such that they produce the requisite outcomes.  
Looking at your on-going projects, are you changing or transforming? Let me know via Twitter @DrTomTonkin —  #ChangeManagement or #Transformation.

WHY DOES IT APPEAR THAT BAD TRAINING WORKS?

Does this sound like you? You are a manager. You’re looking for new and innovative ways to build your organization to perform at higher standards. You just came off an average, mediocre or even less than stellar year and the associated pressure to perform in the next fiscal year falls on your shoulders. You are motivated to find a new and compelling approach to ignite your organization to greater heights. You’re looking for the edge, something new, a structured approach to predict and achieve greater performance.

The good news in this scenario is that many structured training programs will yield a positive return. As a matter fact, ANY structured training program will yield a short-term positive return. You see, at any given time, all training programs provide similar results. Arguably, the associated skills, attitudes, and behaviors that these programs suggest are all similar as well.

Why do I suggest that any of these programs will seem to succeed? Below are two main points that suggest any training program will be beneficial to your organization — at least for the short-term.

Structure in an Unstructured World
There is something to be said for bringing structure into an unstructured situation.  We often see a positive trend towards greater performance when a structured program is installed in an organization. The organization is looking for improvement and, therefore, is soliciting multiple training programs to increase the lift. Presumably it does not have a successful program in place. If it did, it would not be experiencing the unsatisfactory results it currently has.

Once the program gets underway, the organization will usually see early signs of “success.” As the change curve would suggest, any change often brings an associated euphoric feeling. “Something’s being done,” “management cares,” “we will soon be out of this situation.” (see The Hawthorne Effect). There is an aspect of overall common belief that this program will indeed solve problems. This is where organizations see their lift in performance.

However, this approach is rarely sustainable as this euphoric state often dissipates over time since it’s based in artificial solutions to real organizational issues (see The Change Curve). The real fact is that organizations have character, culture, and conviction that are unique only to themselves. Culture is often defined as a shared set of norms, experiences and symbolism that are comprised by a certain set of people over a period of time. If that were the case, then it’s easy to see that every organization has its own unique set of values, beliefs and associated culture. It is only in understanding that and responding in light of it that real sustainable improvement and growth in performance can be achieved. It is rare that on off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all program will achieve lasting performance improvement, in large part because it cannot account for the unique culture of a particular organization.

Synthetic Insight
Another reason training program seem to work, at least early on, is because misreading and misrepresenting data is all too common. In this age of big data and analytics, many sales programs attempt to link training efforts to performance. Unfortunately, many of the associated algorithms contain a self-fulfilling calculation, which presupposes success. For example, much research suggests that being satisfied with one’s job results in higher levels of performance. This may be the case; however, the reverse is also found to be true: performing well at your job creates greater levels of job satisfaction.

Here is where the age-old issue comes in, “correlation does not imply causation.” Implying that correlation means causation has been a statistical myth that continues until this day, often propagated by those who would like to claim success based upon their efforts. As an example, a consulting company boasted that 42% of their customers were Fortune 500 organizations. Simply leaving that statistic in place, one may draw implication that this particular consulting organization was instrumental in companies achieving a Fortune 500 status. Unfortunately, this particular statistic is obviously false and the only real implication is that only Fortune 500 organizations are profitable enough to hire this specific consulting company. In essence, this consulting company is very expensive. This is the only statistically sound conclusion we can draw, since the F500 company in question was already a F500 organization before engaging with the consulting company. The supposed conclusions violate the first rule of causation that A must come before B.

Training programs often utilize positive correlation statistics to induce others to engage in their efforts. They assert that correlation does imply causation.  Therefore, when performance reports correlate in a positive manner to associated training programs, these particular training programs are then listed as being effective. However, in a true set of analysis, we do see a short-term lift in performance (see my first point), as well as other factors that potentially are not measured, attributing to this gain in performance. Such external forces may also be, but are not limited to, an employee’s positive sentiment based upon managerial care, associated compensation programs.

All of this can be a slippery slope for the L&D professional since they are often called to help increase productivity and one of two things happens.  If productivity does increases, then the accolades goes to the recipients of the learning; however, if productivity does not increase, it is often seen as a failed L&D programs.

So, as you look around at your learning and development programs, do you see some of the same issues?  Stay tuned for my next post where I decipher both of these issues.  Happy Learning!

HOW TO ASK A PURPOSEFUL QUESTION

At an early age in your professional career, many were taught to seek ‘why’ people do things.  Whether you are a sales person, a project manager, or an implementer, we were taught to ask ‘why’.  Even in your personal life, we continue to ask why someone would do something like that to us, or why did someone make that decision.  Well, I’m here to tell you that is poor advice.

Let’s Gain Clarity

We need to understand what we are truly seeking and how to go about getting the real answer we seek.  The fact is that we really don’t want to know why, but we want to know, for what purpose.  Yes, there is a difference.  When asking why, we are communicating that we seek justification when what we really want is to seek for what purpose, or value.  By asking ‘why’, which implies justification, that places the individual in a defensive position.  When one is placed in a defensive position, the sole objective is to reduce or eliminate the threat, which, in this case, is you.  So long trying to get any meaningful information.  Now, let’s get practical.

A Common Professional Scenario

Let’s say you are engaged with a customer, either internal or external.  You seek to find purpose in a project or request.  You immediately launch into ‘why’ questions.  Your customer hears ‘give me your justification’.  They become defensive, believing they are not required to justify their request, especially to you.  In their mind, you have crossed the line in a hierarchical position in the relationship. They begin to shut down and gaining information becomes increasingly difficult. You get frustrated and continue to ask questions, badgering the customer, sounding like a four-year-old (why, why, why).  Eventually, they give you an answer, maybe even the justification for their request, which, unfortunately, is not really the information you need as it won’t help you solve their problem or fulfill their request.

What To Do

Okay, so what should you do?  The idea is to seek purpose or value so questions like “for what purpose do you need…?” or “if you had X what would that get you…?” might be more beneficial as they provide you with information that you can actually use.  Providing solution that support others’ purpose is really what you seek.  By raising the discussion to a higher level, you are now coming across as one that wants to help.  A by-product of this approach is that you being to understand not only the value you can bring, but also what your customer values, which is great insight for future discussions.
So, next time a customer has a request, or a loved one needs your help, seek to gain their purpose for the request and not place them in a defensive position by asking for their justification.  You and your customer (and your loved one) will be happier and more fulfilled.  #HappyLearning #HappyLife

ARE LEADERS BORN OR MADE? (WHO CARES!)

Okay, this post is really not about whether or not leaders are born or made.  The particular title of this post is one that’s been debated for a long time and continues to be debated in various circles. This is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart since this is my area of study. Though I pose this question as the title of this post, I would also suggest that we’re not really posing the correct question.
The issue is not really about whether a leader is born or made but more so about having an understanding that allows for intentional development and a process that we can repeat. We know that leaders are both born and made, however, what makes the discussion more interesting is whether or not we can repeat the process. It is obvious that we cannot repeat former, leaders are born, but certainly can repeat the latter, make and develop leaders for the future. So, why am I bringing this topic up on this blog?
The reason is simple, as L&D professionals, we are always seeking to assist in the development and improvement of those we serve. What we are seeking is a set of repeatable processes that not only can be replicated but that their outcome can be predictable. To that end, here are three areas for consideration as you develop learning and development processes.
Competency Model – Yes, I said it, the ‘C’ word. The often used yet trivialized term that we utilize in our circles. As overused as it is, this is the correct word. Basically, a competency is all of the skills, knowledge, and experience that contribute to the correct behavior needed to accomplish an activity or role. Therefore, a model is a set of competencies that combined allow me to completely fulfill the role required. From our example above, there are many leadership competencies that would assist in my understanding of what needs to be done.  This answers the ‘What do I need to do”
Reliable and Valid Metrics –  In this case, reliable and valid actually have a very real meaning. A reliable metric is a metric that measures exactly what it is that you’re trying to measure. For arguments sake, this reliability can be measured statistically, however, it is not the topic for discussion on this post right now. A valid metric is a metric that measures what it is that you want to measure. These metrics usually emanate from valid and reliable instruments. What I’m suggesting here is that we have instruments that reliably and validly measure the competencies stated above. This provides a current state of preparedness that acts as a baseline. This answers the “Where am I?”
L&D Assets to Close the Gap –  Lastly, we need a set of learning and development assets that help us close the gap between where we are, as identified by our instruments, and where we want to be as identified by the scores we would need to achieve. This answers the “How do I get there?”
Are Leaders born or made?  Who cares!  We now have a good understanding of a repeatable process that will get us to our objective.  Have a comment, idea or rebuttal?  Love to hear from you.  I’m at @DrTomTonkin on Twitter.  #HappyLearning

HOW TO BUILD STRONG RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR EXTENDED ENTERPRISE

No business operates in isolation. In today’s increasingly global and interconnected world, fostering good relationships with your entire value chain is not only critical for survival—it’s easier than ever.
No matter how much you invest in workplace and employee training, at the end of the day, success rests on how well the members of your value chain—distribution partners, sales reps, franchisees, service techs, and—work together to produce, market and sell your product or service. When treated with respect, these members can actually become more than just a “value chain”—they become true additions to your team, referred to as your “extended enterprise.”
So, how can you help everyone work better together? By providing resources and training to your value chain, you take the first step towards building  powerful relationships with your extended enterprise that deliver a more enjoyable experience to customers and benefit everyone’s bottom line.

Partner Enablement as a Customer Service Strategy & Profit

Extending your training programs to include your downstream partners empowers your channel sales and customer support teams, resulting in improved customer service and better brand impressions. This is particularly relevant for companies that build and sell complex products— such as software, electronics or machinery—because the crux of their survival lies in the ability of downstream partners to understand and utilize not just the initial product, but any updated versions after purchase. Let’s say, for example, a manufacturer sells armored vehicles to military contractors, and the military contractors in turn resell them to a private security company. If the manufacturer offers consistent training and information as part of their relationship with the contractor, the contractor can then instruct the security company on how to operate and service the vehicles. As a manufacturer, you enable your entire extended enterprise—from reseller to end-user—to do their jobs more effectively and ensure your product is performing at an optimal level.
This in turn provides the customer with a more satisfactory experience, leaving both the customer and the reseller with a stronger impression of your brand. The benefits don’t stop there: A 2014 Global Customer Service Survey by American Express found that “over two thirds (68%) of consumers state that they are willing to spend more with a company they believe provides excellent customer service.”

Satisfied Customers Become Brand Advocates

When a customer purchases your product, you should think of it as a marriage—not just a wedding. Treating this relationship like a marriage means ensuring your customer feels supported throughout their entire tenure, not just at the point of purchase. By providing them with continued support through access to online training and resources, you enable them to get the most value from your product.
This not only impacts future purchases, motivating them to buy your product again, but will also lead to them to recommend it to others in their network. In 2011, Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Michael Luca studied how customer reviews and ratings on Yelp affected revenue, finding that “each ratings star added on a Yelp review translated to anywhere from 5 percent to 9 perfect effect on revenues” and proving that customer reviews have a ton of influence on prospect decisions.

Cohesive Brand Experience

In 2011, a MyBuys and eTailing Consumer Survey “found that 72 percent of consumers wanted integrated marketing communications, but only 39 percent felt they got it.” Three years later, the same MyBuys and eTailing Consumer Survey found that “65 percent of companies still reported inconsistent marketing and messaging across different channels and devices.”
By providing a partner enablement platform where everyone in your value chain can get the same information about your product and company, you not only meet the desire for more consistent messaging—you also instill confidence in your value chain to speak on behalf of your brand. In addition, you’ll instill confidence in your internal employees to trust your extended enterprise to represent your brand, allowing everyone to work more efficiently.
Providing a place online for your distributors, marketers, channel sales and even customers to engage with your brand and each other acts a natural feedback loop, reducing the time customer service will have to spend on one-off inbound requests for information; your customers won’t have to sift through pages of Google links for the answer, or suffer through 30 minutes of hold music just to be transferred four times.

ONBOARDING IN HEALTHCARE: TO SOCIALIZE OR NOT – IS THAT A QUESTION?

I’m sure you remember. It was your first job. You wondered whether or not they would like you. You thought to yourself, “Will I be able to do the job?” Peer pressure seeped in when you walked into the hospital the first time. However, it’s not about your skills. It was whether or not the culture would accept you. Would people embrace you and give you the understanding of the “ins and outs” of this particular hospital?
Leadership told you that you would be onboarded, that murky process when the hiring manager pulls you aside and has you fill out all the employment forms as well as to confirm you are up-to-date with your compliance training. Perhaps you get to meet your boss, some coworkers and go out to lunch. How would you be received? 

Where is Onboarding?

The fact remains that onboarding, as a discipline, is often neglected not only in the healthcare industry but also by other industries as well. Little has been said about the onboarding process since usually confined to employment forms and compliance training. The reality is that onboarding is an integral part of the employee lifecycle and can make a difference to whether or not you can stave off the challenges of attrition for years to come.
In the market, the healthcare industry has suffered an average of 28% turnover year-over-year (Note 1). As baby boomers continue to retire, reports show us that two-thirds of nurses over the age of 54 will be considering retirement in the next three years (Note 2). If these predictions continue, it appears that we will be 1.2 million nurses short by the year 2022 (Note 3). The challenge is real and current.  The need to address onboarding is an immediate one.

Let’s take Different Perspective

Human Resource scholars from Portland State University, Talya Bauer and Berrin Erdogan, decided that they would assume the challenge to define better and address the lost art (and science) of onboarding.
Bauer and Erdogan define organizational socialization (read “onboarding”) as “a process through which new employees move from being organizational outsiders to becoming organizational insiders” (Note 4).  Their conclusions suggested that it is more important to take the time to socialize new employees into the institution early on in their employment history to ensure greater levels of employee satisfaction and organizational commitment, while at the macro level, reducing turnover and increasing personnel performance.  They offer a set of steps that organizations can take to help in the socializing process.  These measures consist of socialization tactics, formal orientation, recruitment and realistic previews as well as, providing organizational insiders as preceptors.

Socialization Tactics

In essence, this step suggests that the organization could intentionally connect new employees into the social structure of the institution. Some socialization tactics utilized, unconsciously, may be described as a “sink or swim” approach in which the employee is made the struggle to figure out the associated organizational norms and how they are to fit in. Though a tactic such as this has been effective to highlight self-directed employees, it is not very predictable in its outcome (Note 4).
An example a socialization tactic that is more useful and predictable is that of providing an activity that brings together current and new employees. Often, the perception of team building is as an activity without an outcome, however, in this case, the journey is far more beneficial than the destination. Having the opportunity to intentionally interact, at a social level, with new colleagues, makes the onboarding experience, not only more useful but also pleasant.
An example of a good onboarding socialization tactic is present at UCLA Health, where new residents are invited to participate in a day long ropes course activity to assist in establishing clear communications and building trust.  These activities also help in the future when teamwork and critical problem–solving skills are required.

Formal Orientation

This particular step is fairly traditional and has a place in the onboarding process. Not only can formal orientations help new employees feel welcome and provide them with the appropriate information for success, but it also shows the employee that the organization is rigorous and well-structured, that it has the best intentions for their success in their new job. Research does indicate that orientation programs can be effective when discussing the goals and the history of the particular institution. Evidence also shows that face-to-face orientation has greater levels of benefit over computer-based orientation when it comes to understanding the job (Note 4).
One hospital in the East utilizes the Wizard of Oz as the primary vehicle to present strong leadership skills.  Each new staff member is required to watch the Wizard of Oz movie before their formal orientation so that they can discuss leadership principals in the movie and at the hospital.  This approach is efficient and memorable when they are in the midst of the hustle on the hospital floor.

Recruitment and Realistic Previews

We have already recognized that social events are essential in the onboarding process, but it should not stop there. Bauer and Erdogan also suggest that a good onboarding process continues to recruit the employee even after the candidate becomes a formal employee. The recruitment process, during onboarding, is not like the recruiting process when discussing a job with the candidate, but more so in providing a realistic view of the job to be performed. A realistic preview encompasses showing the new employee the company culture, in action, and giving them as much accurate information about what is required (Note 4). Often, onboarding processes provide a glossy and unrealistic view of the organization and the associated job, therefore, eroding a proper understanding.   A better approach to this situation is to conduct ongoing job fairs and other cross functional activities so the new employee can continue to embed themselves in the institution and have a more realistic view of what is required.
An example of recruitment and realistic preview come from a national senior living healthcare provider.  Every year, they conduct an operational meeting where many of their 20,000 employees converge at headquarters to hear from senior leadership and take corporate training.  During their stay for the week, there is also a department “fair.”  Picture a large convention hall with many tables set out representing the various departments and major projects currently at the organization.  This strategy allows new employees as well as veterans to see what is happening across the groups and potentially provide a vision to serve in different capacities within the company.

Organizational Insider

One of the more significant discoveries of organizational socialization research is the use of a mentor, or preceptor, assigned to the new employee. Having a one-on-one relationship between mentor and new employee allows for specific questions to be answered as well as job instruction, offering social support during the socialization process. Continued research has found that new hires are more likely to internalize key values of the organization, and its associated culture if they attend social events and spend time with an organizational mentor (Note 4).
Meet Steve and Katrina Greer.  Some time ago, Steve contracted Leukemia and admitted to the Penn State Hershey Medical Center (Note 5).  Katrina, Steve’s daughter, spent many a day and night at the hospital with her father as he underwent treatment.  Katrina, concerned about her father, observed the nurses take care of him.  Katrina had plans to become an orthodontist, however, after seeing the critical role that nurses play in our healthcare system, she deiced to become a nurse herself.  “Nurses saved my father,” Katrina states.  She especially connected with one of Steve’s nurses, Angie.  It was Angie’s actions that convinced Katrina to take up nursing.  Mentorship is a powerful force.
Though there are many influences in the onboarding of clinical staff in a healthcare institute, organizations must begin to tackle the onboarding process in a more proactive way. As the job market continues to be challenging for healthcare institutions to satisfy their need, these same institutions must take heed to current lackadaisical onboarding processes and take advantage of an intentional approach. By examining these four areas with relation to your current onboarding processes, you may be able to be in a better position to provide greater levels of organizational socialization thus achieving better odds in increasing retention, improving performance and overall employee satisfaction.
Onboarding alone is not the answer.  There are many factors that contribute to attrition and productivity.  It is for that reason that Cornerstone is conducting a four-part series focused on healthcare talent issues.  We would love to have you attend the next session on on October 19th where we will be focusing in on engagement.  Interested? Here is the link to register and we look forward to seeing you there.

THREE STEPS TO MAKE LEARNING LAST

I think it’s fair to say we all want our learning to last.   I think we call it ‘sticky’.  We spend many hours reading, watching videos or in training classes, we want to see our efforts (and our expense) pay off. From a corporate perspective, CEB, a research firm, reports that sales representatives are forgetting 70 percent of the content that they receive in one week, and 90 percent in one month.  That’s from the learner side of the equation. From another point of view, leaders are looking for lasting learning to go to the next step and provide bottom line impact.  An ATD/ROI Institute study found that 96 percent percent of CEOs stated that their number one concern in learning is the associated impact it may bring.  They want proof that their investment in learning has a corporate payoff.
In this post, I break down two learning ingredients, the learning process and the learning content into the two areas for consideration to make learning last.

Making Learning Last

The first key ingredient, the learning process, at the lowest level, is to move the new, learned material from short-term memory (STM) to long-term memory (LTM) such that it can be accessed when needed for many years to come.  This process is called encoding.  This process also transcends age, gender, experience and other demographics when we consider creating learning content because we are addressing the human brain.  Whenever we consume information, we are storing it first in short-term memory.  This is a very similar paradigm of that of a PC.  When we are entering information, we are entering it into memory.  When we hit the save button, that moves the data from memory to the hard drive for later retrieval and use.  So, how do we ‘hit the save button’?
The way to move information we consumed from STM to LTM is through rehearsal and repetition, however, we must be sure that that the information consumed is correct.  The adage “practice makes perfect” is false, practice makes permanent.  Be sure you have the correct information when the student rehearses and repeats as we are not only moving information from STM to LTM, but we are also creating new information that is generated from the experience itself.
The second key ingredient, the learning content, suggests that we also need to understand that the human brain is composed, at the highest level, of two sides, the right brain and the left brain.  We know that the right brain addresses aspects that are abstract; it concerns itself with the big picture, while the left brain addresses the detailed piece; it creates the linear directions needed to accomplish something.  The left brain makes the ideas of the right brain come to life.
The last key ingredient, also concerning content is that we need to ensure that the information correctly stored in the brain and easily retrieved.  The default way that the brain stores all sorts of information is using schemas (Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2005)).  Think of schemas as little cubbyholes created from our previous experiences.  When we learn new information, if not given a new schema, we will utilize older schemas to store this new information.  Sometimes the schema could not match-up to the learning purpose.
To illustrate this, in a recent meeting with top level executives at a for profit organization, I conducted a word association exercise.  I presented the group with a word, with no context, or, in our case, a schema, and then gave them 15 seconds to write down other words that described the given word.  The word I gave them was ‘baseball’. After fifteen seconds, we went around the room to see what everyone wrote.  There were some standard answers like ‘past time and ‘sport’, but there was one person that gave us another set of words.  He chose ‘passion’ and ‘dream’. When we discussed his words, he told us that when we was a child, his dream was to be a professional baseball player.  As a matter of fact, he tried out for the Majors at one point.  His schema was based on his experience and without context for the word, that is where his brain placed the word baseball.
So, what do we need to do to make our learning last.  Below are three steps, based on these findings that will make your learning investment last.

Practical Application

  1. Be sure you have a process of learning that allows the learner to rehearse and repeat information.
  2. Insist that the content is sorted in such a way that the learner is consuming the right content for the right reason. Tell them what and for what purpose they need to learn something.  Connecting the right (abstract) part of the brain to the left (linear) part of the brain.
  3. Lastly, Does the learner know for what purpose they are consuming the content?  This allows them to classify the learning for greater retention in the correct, created schema.
Looking at your on-going learning efforts, are you making learning last? Let me know via Twitter @DrTomTonkin — #LearningLast.