Employee Training Consultation
For this sample, I will walk you through a few points from a project I had advising a small retail business on their training materials and training system. It might not be obvious at first, but education plays a crucial role in the business world. A well-trained sales team means higher conversion rates. By auditing the present company training programs and materials, I was able to advise and plan a training program that was customized to the company's particular needs.
Key points:
- Auditing company materials helps bring gaps to surface
- Designs must fit company culture
- Not all companies are created equal
Fitting into the Business Context
Having worked in retail myself, I am aware that a knowledgeable and well-trained staff is a major aspect that separates competitors. I had the opportunity to work with a smaller retail business (~50 employees) who was looking to update their onboarding and training materials.
This company did not experience much turnover, so the onboarding materials were not as urgent as the on-going training materials. In this particular retail industry, the sales team has a lot of down time where their skills could either become rusty or, by integrating a modern training program, mediocre skills could be leveled up.
Image 1. A thoughtful course design in the Canvas LMS.
Image 2. Customized homepage for convenient navigation to high traffic content.
Centralizing Training Materials
During my audit which includes interviews, one of the upper management members told me that they really wanted the sales team to be engaging in continual education, and they wanted to be able to track progress.
The company had about 5 locations that were dispersed within a 100-mile radius, so there was not much interaction between sales people at the different locations, but they all had a similar environment: slow weekdays, very busy weekends. They all sold the same products, so there was significant uniformity in what skills and information needed to be maintained.
My recommendation was to incorporate a learning management system (LMS) into their training program. By utilizing an LMS, the company would be able to track the material being taught to the sales team, they would be able to analyze the progress of the sales people, and by integrating the LMS with a sales database, they would be able to track any correlations between training and sales. All of this would be able to be done from one central location by using the LMS as the central hub.
Reinvigorating Sources of Knowledge
Once the idea of the LMS was presented, the focus shifted to updating the training materials to be more multimodal and interactive. The previous materials, while containing excellent information, were a bit dated in the sense that they were dense and based on a traditional lecture-styled learning environment.
Since the LMS would create the digital learning environment, it only made sense to make the training materials digital. But, they must also take into consideration the constructivist approach to education by having the sales people create their knowledge through discussion, role play, and analysis.
It is important to note that while one strategy might work for one company, that same strategy might not fit another company, even in the same industry. The benefit of a consultation is that I am able to take into consideration the company’s specific mission, culture, and the overall vision so that the training strategy is cohesive with the other aspects of the business.
Image 3. A bare-essentials menu.