The Performance Improvement Blog

Amazon.com Continues to Put Customers First

This is no time to be short changing your customers. Amazon.com is a great example of the positive things that can happen when you continue to keep customers your primary focus. The company has not let the depressed economy become an excuse to stop doing the things that have made them successful. Fourth quarter sales at Amazon were up 18%. BusinessWeek recently put Amazon top on its list of this year's "customer service champs."

What are they doing that many other companies are not doing? First of all, they pay attention to the entire customer experience. And by customer, they mean everyone, including buyers, distributers, re-sellers, small merchants who sell through Amazon, and, as I know from my own experience, writers and publishers. Jeff Bezos, the Fortune 500 CEO with the mindset of a start-up entrepreneur, said in an interview with PBS Nightly Business Report's Scott Gurvey:

We didn’t do anything special to recognize this economy…we continue to focus on fundamental things we’ve focused on for 14 years: having the lowest price, having the biggest selection, and getting products to customers really quickly and accurately…Our whole mentality around how we run the company is to focus on obsessing over the customer rather than our competitors. We try to pay attention to our competitors, but we don’t obsess over them.

I have to assume that their customer service training is exceptional. Technology takes care of most of the buying process, but when there is a special request or problem, employees get involved. Their responses are consistent, decisive, and intended to satisfy customers even when it is a financial loss to the company in the short run. The proof of the effectiveness of this approach is in the numbers and reputation of this exceptional company.

Companies are making deep cuts across the board and doing anything they can to reduce costs. The customer experience and customer service are often victims of this slashing. Amazon is an example of a company that thinks differently about the economy and customers and, so far, has the evidence that proves them right.

February 26 Webinar on Increasing Business Success from Training

In these times of shrinking economies, shrinking budgets, and shrinking workforces, every organization needs to make sure it is getting the most out of every dollar invested in employees. On February 26th, Sean Murray, from RealTime Performance and I will be leading a Webinar on how to make sure that your organization is using its investment in training wisely. We will be talking about the 5As Framework and how to use that model to get business success from any kind of learning intervention. You can register for this free Webinar in the left side column of this blog. I hope you will join us.

Employee Training Analytics

Everybody is trying to do more with less. Companies are scrutinizing every expense and trying to eliminate as much waste as possible. This is true for employee training and development programs, as well. The most common way of measuring effectiveness of these programs has been attendance and end-of-session "smile sheets". I and others have been arguing for years that these are poor proxy indicators of learning, let alone performance. Arif Ahmed writes in TrainingZONE that there are better measures of performance:

With today's economic climate, organisations will increasingly find that the drive for efficiency is pushing performance analytics up the agenda. I believe that it is possible to evolve current measurement processes within an organisation by simply adding a series of 'value metrics' such as:

• Has the number of customer queries reduced?
• Has customer satisfaction improved or declined?
• Has quality of output from staff improved or declined?
• Is there an alignment of individual and organisational performance?
• How quickly are technical queries resolved per person?
• Is customer and staff retention getting better or poorer?

I agree that the answers to these questions might be better indicators of training effectiveness than the more common measures, assuming that these are the goals of the training intervention. But even if these are the intended outcomes, how do you know that it was the training that made the difference? How do you find out what else contributed to the change? And how do you find out what are the unanticipated consequences of training? This is where interviews come in. You need to talk to learners and customers to hear their stories that link training to results. When done with care, this approach can be a valid, credible, and practical way to use information to drive waste out of training and development programs.

NPR Talks About Annual Performance Reviews

In a recessionary economy it is more important than ever for companies to retain talent and help every employee do his or her best. A critical aspect of retention and performance management is helpful feedback to employees. Annual performance reviews are the typical method for conveying feedback but they are not the solution anymore and probably never were, especially how they are usually done. Wendy Kaufman did a story for NPR’s Morning Edition today, titled “Companies Rethink Annual Performance Reviews,” giving examples of companies that have switched to providing feedback on a continuous basis, using a coaching-oriented process.

Companies need to make this switch to an on-going coaching alliance between employee and supervisor. This will be essential if they want their employees to learn, develop, and be successful in this economically dynamic and uncertain environment.

OJT Can Be No Training At All

Boss: "Dilbert, I need you to take over Carl's function. He's already gone, but Ted can train you. Ted was sometimes in the general vicinity when Carl did the function." Ted (after failing to explain the job to Dilbert): "Anyway, that's all I know. The rest is common sense."

"Dilbert," the Scott Adams cartoon about organizational life, usually gets its humor from the absurd. On February 8th, he nailed reality! The cartoon described accurately how on-the-job training gets played out over and over again in all kinds of companies. Employees who don't have all of the information, are not experts at the job, and don't know how to train others are asked to make another person job-ready. Especially, at this time when so many knowledgeable and skilled people are leaving companies because of retirements and lay-offs, it's not always the most competent (at the particular job) people who are doing the training. The risk to these companies is enormous. There are health and safety concerns. There are job and product waste concerns. And there are lost customer concerns due to poor service.

What is an example of this scenario from your organization?

Employee Benefits, Turnover, and Productivity

In these times of downsizing and layoffs, it’s easy for companies to lose sight of what it takes to continue to attract and retain the best talent. This means paying attention to the culture for company survivors. A study out of the University of Michigan reminds us of the importance of creating a positive, supportive culture, even in a recession. Two Business School professors, Cindy Schipani and Norman Bishara, found a strong direct correlation between “complementary alternative benefits” and employee turnover and productivity. The researchers examined companies on Fortune magazine’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work For” that also provided complementary alternative benefits. Schipani and Bishara determined that these companies had much less turnover than the industry average, saving about $275 million per company.

They extrapolate from there by saying that it is likely that complementary alternative benefits have an effect on other positive aspects of business and even civic life. Schipani is quoted as saying:

Such benefits may be used to build camaraderie and understanding among employees, help promote employee loyalty to the firm by providing enviable treatment of employees, and serve as an example for society and perhaps even as a model for future government action…In all, companies can play a direct role by taking care of their work force through employment practices designed to reduce stress and promote camaraderie in the workplace.

I would not want to infer a causal link between benefits and lower turnover from this data. Lower turnover and increased productivity might be due to the kind of people who were hired, the overall compensation program, leadership, or any of a myriad of other factors. However, the relationship of alternative benefits to productivity is worth careful consideration. It is logical (as Mr. Spock would say) that a work environment enhanced by such benefits as flexible work hours, subsidized health care classes, an onsite fitness centers, and laundry and dry-cleaning services, would reduce stress, create a positive atmosphere, and, therefore, increase employee engagement.

Accountability: Measuring Results to Achieve Success

The impact of training is increased when we hold trainees, their bosses/supervisors, and the organization as a whole accountable for results. We do this by measuring results and identifying those things in the organization that contribute to achieving positive results, as well as those things that get in the way of achieving the results we want. Without accountability, it’s like playing golf in the dark. Players don’t know if they hit the ball towards the pin and they don’t know if they got the ball in the hole, and, after awhile, nobody cares.

Sometimes we forget that the power of training is not in the elegance of design, nor in the charisma of facilitators, nor the enthusiasm of participants, nor even the self-report of learners. Rather, it is in the difference that training makes in achieving important business results for the organization. The critical question is not, “What do participants think of the program?” The critical question is, “How does training contribute to achieving business goals?” See Sarah Boehle’s excellent analysis of these issues in Training Magazine.

The process of holding trainees accountable can add tremendously to their learning. Simply by asking people questions about what they learned and how they are applying this, learners think about their experiences and reflect on what they learned and what they’ve done with their new knowledge and skills. This inquiry can renew individual commitment to improving performance that might have waned in the face of work responsibilities and job pressures. We have found that asking managers about the impact of a leadership development program they attended is like a jump-start for action. They frequently remember changes they had intended to make after the program and then they re-commit once again to making those changes.

One of the methods used to measure results is the Success Case Method. This was developed by Robert O. Brinkerhoff and is described in his book, The Success Case Method: Find Out Quickly What’s Working and What’s Not. This method involves creating an impact map that specifies the intended outcomes of the training program, identifying who has and has not been successful in applying learning from that program, and then interviewing a small sample of these two groups. The products of this process are stories that reveal the nature of alignment between what was learned and business results. These stories can also expose the expectations that learners had before, during, and after training and how the alliance between learner and boss/supervisor affected results.

Increasing Business Results From Training: 5As Framework

In these economically troubled times, companies should be doing whatever they can to ensure that employee training dollars are spent wisely and that these dollars contribute to achieving positive outcomes for the business. The talent that remains after downsizing and layoffs should be developed to its fullest so that companies survive and are prepared for the inevitable turnaround.

Five key organizational factors determine whether employee training and development programs contribute to achieving positive outcomes for the business and develop employees to their fullest. These factors are: 1) alignment; 2) anticipation; 3) alliance; 4) application; and 5) accountability. We call these factors the "5As Framework." Sean Murray, from RealTime Performance, and I have created a short, pecha-kucha style introduction to this framework.

This framework represents the core principles behind the Advantage Way, used by Advantage Performance Group, leaders in sales and management training. One of the primary tools used in Advantage Way is the Success Case Method, an efficient and effective way to study training impact, which supports the fifth factor in the 5As Framework: “accountability”. For more information on the Success Case Method, read Robert O. Brinkerhoff’s The Success Case Method: Find Out Quickly What’s Working and What’s Not; also read Courageous Training: Bold Actions for Business Results by Tim Mooney and Robert O. Brinkerhoff.

Application: Learning By Doing

Imagine trying to learn to play the piano, improve your golf swing, or make a chocolate soufflé…without practicing. It’s absurd. But this is what training programs in organizations do every day; they put employees through workshops, seminars, product demonstrations, and e-learning without practicing application of the new knowledge and skills.

We know that for people to learn and retain knowledge and skills they must apply that knowledge and those skills during and soon after training. Whether learning how to use a software program, build a team, or solve a strategic problem, application of new knowledge and skills should occur as part of the learning process and within hours and days of the learning event, not within weeks and months, or never, as so often happens in organizations. This means that learners must have opportunities to apply that learning and bosses and supervisors must plan ahead with learners to ensure these opportunities during and after training.

The latest research on the brain suggests that repetitive practice strengthens neural connections which are the basis for memory. To remember “knowledge items” one has to practice using them in situations similar to what will be required in the workplace. Sometimes application can only be practiced in a simulated environment, but that can be sufficient. When pilot Chesley B. Sullenberger III, with his co-pilot and three flight attendants, safely ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, saving the lives of 155 people, it was simulation training that saved the day. It would not be safe nor practical to practice actually landing an A-320 jet on water. Practice and repetition with a flight simulator and walk-throughs of cabin procedures prepared the crew for this extremely rare event.

Whether simulated situations or real situations, application is essential for learning. As Chickering and Ehrmann, wrote:

Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.