Distant Learning – Adult Education Strategies for the Call Center (Part 2 of 2)

Gagné’s Instructional Design Model, is a conceptual model for moving organizational goals into organizational behavior, referred to by Gagné (2018) as a “motivational model of organizational goal pursuit,” (p. S98-S99).  Gagné’s instructional design model collects the curriculum, the organizational goals, needs, desires, managerially acceptable behaviors, and supports the trainer in the training environment.  Important to note, Gagné (2018) stated a known truth, the trainer, and training department, are dynamic influencers in the business organization, and any learning organization will gladly take the trainer and training department and make the importance of learning observable from the first moment a visitor enters to the last impression as the visitor leaves.

As stated in Part 1, there is not a significant difference between Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction, and Gagné’s Nine Events of eLearning Instruction.  The difference is in the modality or training delivery, or how the student interacts with the trainer and the materials.  The events are the same, and only adapted to the specific way the materials will be delivered.  Think of these two models as two different channels on TV, except one channel has the news anchor standing in your front room and the other channel you have your front room to yourself.

The importance of making the shift from training being a singular activity for the extent of the employee working in a role and making training a regular event where learning is ongoing as a competitive advantage, represents a major hurdle for call centers to overcome.  However, it cannot be more emphatically declared, training is an event, and the training events can be replicated for lifelong and lifewide learners to enjoy.  Let us take the individual events and break them down into specific actions a trainer uses to plan and execute training in call centers:

1. 1. Gain Attention – a 360-degree event! Trainer and student should be present physically and mentally.
      • • This is not a game, nor is it an activity. Gaining attention means to tell the introduction to a story.
        • State a real-world example problem statement.
        • Represents a crucial moment in new training, to capture the cognition of the students. Get the students to have a stake in solving the problem.
        • Tell them WHY this class is important to them personally and professionally.
        • The trainer must declare, and then exemplify that they are a student, and the trainer is excited to learn and explore the topic with those in attendance.
        • Encourage the student to be an active participant in giving and receiving feedback!
   2. Inform Objectives – a 180-degree event. Set high standards, train to meet those high standards, and watch the student perform!
      • • Restate the WHY
        • Detail the WHAT
        • Examples of HOW
        • Focusing on these three items in the objectives will advance attention, and this begins to build trust between the instructor and the materials.
        • Encourage the student to be an active participant in giving and receiving feedback!
   3. Stimulate Recall – a 180-degree event
      • • What do they already know? Ask!  Go around the room and get 100% participation, including the trainer.
        • How do they use the materials, or topic of the class, currently?
        • Get the students to declare WHY they are interested.
        • Get the student looking for WHEN and WHERE they should be using the materials being discussed. Anticipation for application is crucial to attention!
   4. Present New Materials –
      • • Encourage the student to be an active participant in giving and receiving feedback!
        • Students can instruct.
        • Ask questions.
        • Go around the class to involve everyone.
        • Use conflict as a positive force to stimulate new thinking on current topics with new materials.
        • Supply a “Parking Lot” for topics not specifically on topic but are questions from the students in the moment.
   5. Provide Guidance – a 360-degree event!
      • • In face-to-face delivery this means answering questions.
        • In eLearning, this means answering questions; but employing technology adroitly to meet the student’s needs.
        • Be honest! Expect honesty.
        • Be forthright. Anticipate forthrightness.
        • Declare what is known and not known.
        • Timely responses are critical to setting up the elements of trust needed to achieve the remaining events successfully.
   6. Elicit Performance – a 360-degree event!
      • • Encourage the student to be an active participant in giving and receiving feedback!
        • Regardless of delivery, get the student practicing what is being taught.
        • Role play.
        • Using software, searching for data, doing the duties of the role.
        • Start as soon as practical and continue in ever increasing levels of difficulty.
        • Emulate real life scenarios!
   7. Provide Feedback – a 360-degree event!
      • • Feedback is NOT criticism. The second the trainer becomes critical, is the moment trust is destroyed and the student stops progressing on the nine events of instruction.
        • Feedback is positive, truth filled, and delivered best in a neutral tone.
        • Honesty is everything.
        • Use the sandwich method. Compliment what is being done well.  Offer opportunities for improvement (NOT Criticism).  Compliment other strengths.
        • Be open to receiving feedback.
        • Encourage the student to be an active participant in giving and receiving feedback!
   8. Assess Performance – a 360-degree event!
      • • Formal exams
        • Informal scenarios where the student talks the trainer through what they would do.
        • Student led instruction on a topic.
        • Student led assessments of other students.
        • Keep event 7 clearly in mind when designing performance assessments.
   9. Enhance Retention to Transfer to the Job – a 360-degree event!
      • • How does a student contact the trainer after the class concludes?
        • How does a student know they have successfully learned the materials?
        • Is the “Parking Lot” empty?
        • Gage the enthusiasm of individuals to do what they are doing in class for real.

How does a trainer know they have achieved success using these events; “Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world, it beats money, power, and influence; it is nothing more than faith in action” – Henry Chester.  Faith in action involves trust and reflects confidence in the trainer by the learner.  Are the students excited to perform; if so, the trainer has achieved success.  If there are reservations, address them on an individual student level.  If there are hesitations; assure the student, the trainer is still there to aid and encourage.  Experience will be the new instructor and the trainer will now be a mentor and advocate.  Explain these roles and show how the trainer is still there through technical means and physical visits; ensure each student remembers that the trainer is still learning and is willing to learn with the student.

How does a business leader evaluate the efficacy of training using Gagne’s tools as detailed; through the performance of the employees in the roles they have trained to perform.  Set the standard for performance using an untrained individual, a newly trained individual, and a trainer, which then becomes the measurement template for evaluation.  For example, if the training was on performance of a task, then use time to complete the task as the metric and use the template in how quickly those tasks are performed as the measurement of performance.

End the silliness of five different methods for evaluating training.  Happy sheets are ambiguous and do not reflect reality.  Measuring learning is uselessly inefficient for judging how much has been learned, mainly because the person taking the test is not applying in real-life the principles learned.  Worse, only a small percentage of the population can adequately take tests and have that test-performance reflect real-life application in using the principles learned.  Measuring just through application is a time-wasting event.  It takes time to setup, time to take down, time to score, and still only a small percentage of the population can adequately show application when under testing requirements.  Speaking of time, using business results or returns on investment as the stick to measure training effectiveness requires long-term time commitment and resource investment which do not reflect the ambiguity of market conditions.

Only through performance-based assessments can training be evaluated as the event that influences business results or reflects a return on the training investment.  Thus, the assessment begins with those being trained able to perform the tasks hired to perform more efficiently because they succeeded at a formal training event.  Does the newly trained person exemplify the behaviors, attitudes, and enthusiasm, as a product of confidence and trust in the trainer, to act independently?  If so, training was a value-added event and the business will see the benefits.

On a final note, give training an actual budget.  Too often training is an unbudgeted expense that absorbs costs unrelated to actual training.  This method of paying for training produces unrealistic costs for trainers to explain or to precisely track.  Changing how training is evaluated, and budgeting the costs of training, without all the garbage of untrackable expenses, will improve the call center immeasurably.  Call center leadership can, and should, be actively learning in the call center.  Learning represents a commitment to changing personally, then professionally.  Change is the key to competing in the current global marketplace, and the company that can change and adapt is the company focused on learning.

Reference

Gagné, M. (2018). From strategy to action: Transforming organizational goals into organizational behavior. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20, S83-S104. doi: 10.1111/ijmr.12159

© Copyright 2020 – M. Dave Salisbury
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