RDC Articles

Taking Training to the World...Without Travel
By Craig B. Toedtman, President, Resource Careers, Inc.

Introduction
 Since 1977, Resource Careers, Inc. (RCI), Cleveland, OH has helped dual career couples and families of relocating employees adjust to their new locations as quickly and smoothly as possible. RCI services include tailored Destination Services, Family Relocation Resource Services, and Job Search Assistance for the spouse/partner of relocating employees - worldwide .

Background
 The challenge of providing quality service on a worldwide basis is enormous - especially when operating in a market that many consider to be extremely price sensitive. At the same time, delivery of quality service is largely dependent upon the skills and abilities of our community based consultants and service providers living around the world. As a result, the RCI management team embarked - out of necessity - on a project to use the Internet as a strategic training tool. The overall goal was to ensure that we provide our service providers in the field with plentiful resources to enhance their knowledge and ability to perform the RCI service delivery process with excellence - while at the same time controlling the cost of training.

The goal was ambitious and challenging for our organization. The realization of the goal began with the concept of the Resource Careers, Inc. . We envisioned the as a global communication gateway or portal that would:

  1. Create a one-stop source for RCI corporate learning;
  2. Enhance our ability to provide consistent, standardized training of new service providers;
  3. Affirm life-long learning for service providers with "refresher courses" and/or up-dates of services;
  4. Maintain a proactive Learning Center hub with the ability to implement change quickly;
  5. Provide a quality training presentation with an interactive, self-paced format with 24x7 availability;
  6. Offer a blended learning approach to training;
  7. Help our RCI managers save time from answering the same questions repeatedly, or addressing issues arising out of lack of information.
  8. Support our business goals by providing least-cost, top-quality service.

Our training - of both new and current service providers - is intended to create a "lifeline" that promotes communication, accessibility to information, and general assistance to ensure that our services are delivered in a manner that meets the needs of our clients. We provide training through a blend of instructional processes, including instructor-led classroom training, one-on-one training, and Web-based training.

The Resource Careers is intended to supplement classroom training or, when not possible or more advantageous, to provide online-line, self-instructed training. The goal is to instruct new service providers the Resource Careers "way" of delivering the best assistance available for the relocating employees and their families. The courses within the Center explain the various levels of service that RCI provides, the procedures and processes of service delivery, and provides links to valuable resources. Courses share a number of valuable insights on different topics, such as key concepts refined by service providers over more than two decades of providing relocation assistance. The courses also include a case study for explaining and then testing the potential consultant's understanding of the Resource Careers service delivery process. As well, the is available to established consultants on an on-going basis for a refresher of the Resource Careers service delivery process, for information up-dates, for helpful reference materials, and for directions for completing required procedures and online reporting forms.

The Development Process

Once we conceptualized our , our next major challenge was to design the courses themselves. The first step in creating the courseware was to form a development/implementation team. The team consisted of a subject matter expert, instructional designer, a Web page course developer/designer, and our Web site developer/designer. We decided to begin by creating three courses - one for each of our three main service groups (Dual Career Job Search Assistance, Destination Services, and Family Relocation Resource Services). Our first course would be for our service providers who deliver our Job Search Assistance. Team members were: Laura Lloyd, Director of Employment Assistance Services (Subject Matter Expert), Mary Meadows, owner of Training without Travel (instructional designer), Richard T. Brant, owner of Brant Interactive Design (web page designer).

The team was launched with the specific purpose of defining, designing, developing, and implementing an interactive, on-line training course to help our consultants add to or refine their skills to ensure that we were delivering the best service possible. The course was to provide the optimum training environment by creating a stand-alone instructional process that would be self-paced and supplemented with reference materials and communication with the Director of Employment Assistance Services.

The Challenges:

We expected - and faced - challenges while creating courses for the . The main issues included:

  1. The budget - naturally, a company should not undertake projects without first having a good idea of the cost implications.
  2. Converting current written material to workable, on-line material - it's not a simple matter of cutting and pasting word documents!
  3. Technical challenges - keeping the range of skill levels of the audience is paramount to the success of the course. Keeping it simple...but challenging the audience with meaningful, creative work.
  4. Globally accepted language - as a global firm, we know it is imperative to make certain that the language be easily understood and free of "localized idioms."
  5. Designing the course without jeopardizing current business transactions - the Subject Matter Experts have a primary role in the execution of Resource Careers service - and the time required to design the course could not interfere with the demands of the business!
  6. Bringing closure - There is a point at which the design should be launched, knowing that it may not be totally perfect. The "complete" design is an anomaly, as the course is intended to be completed in a fashion that can be continuously refined - and launched knowing that the content - like learning - is dynamic.
  7. Schedule - obviously impacted by items 1 through 6.

Our intentions were to complete one course at a time - streaking up the learning curve and building on our successes! This proved to be an excellent way to control the design, learning from our mistakes, and eliminating steps that add no value. It also resulted in a consistent design format from course to course.

Measuring the Results

We look for our courses to increase the span of our training capabilities, to lower our training costs - while improving our quality - and to increase the speed with which we implement change. Our first course is complete, and we are committed to measure our results by:

  1. Tracking usage to measure the global reach of our training
  2. Compiling and reviewing test results of participants to measure the knowledge of our consultants.
  3. Comparing quality standards reported for service delivered prior to the on-line course to standards reported for service delivered after training was implemented to measure the impact of the course(s).
  4. Comparing implementation date(s) to process change date(s) to measure the speed with which we implement change.
  5. Identifying previously undetected gaps that require further, special attention either through course up-dates or face-to-face training.

The Project Review
 We learned a lot - especially about the difficulties of balancing our course development effort with the daily activities. The subsequent courses are having the benefit of the following, best described as what we are doing differently:

  1. Improve communications about project scope, budget, and timing.
    Our team receives bi-weekly updates from the instructional designer to keep everyone involved in the project - and letting them know when something is needed!
  2. Utilize better project management methods.
    - in our case it was not as much about controlling the costs as it was to meeting our implementation expectations. The weekly report from the instructional designer indicates the status, confirms (or revises) the anticipated completion date, and keeps the team informed of issues.

The Results:

Resource Career's is up and running, and we are actively promoting its use to our service providers. One course is launched with the second and third to follow shortly! It's all about life-long eLearning...and we're convinced that the Internet provides an additional venue to provide meaningful training - worldwide. As our services evolve and the needs of our clients and service providers change, we will design more courses. We remain committed to provide quality service, using the Internet as a means to ensure that our consultants gain and retain the critical skills to perform with excellence for RCI. We have demonstrated that we will do whatever is necessary to meet the needs of our corporate clients by providing the very best service possible through our global network of well-trained service providers.

Written by:

Craig B. Toedtman, SPHR, Chairman of Resource Development Company, Inc., a Blue Bell, PA executive search consulting company, which owns Resource Careers, Inc., a Cleveland, OH based company specializing in Dual Career and Family Relocation Services. BA - Allegheny College, 1966; MBA Case Western Reserve University, 1973.

With editorial credit to Mary Meadows and Laura Lloyd

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