markanthonygay.com

HR Magazine, Sept, 2008 by Kathryn Tyler

Jerry Gratton, director of learning and development for l-800-Got-Junk?, a franchised junk-removal service headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, used to spend several weeks a year on the road bringing training to franchise employees, sometimes visiting eight cities in two weeks. He has replaced that travel-heavy schedule with frequent telephone-based training. For less money, he now reaches more employees and has wider impact throughout North America and Australia. Instead of reaching a handful of franchises, he reaches them all.

When the economy takes a downturn, training budgets often get slashed. But HR professionals such as Gratton find ways to fill the gaps with in-house initiatives that often have greater impact than more costly alternatives. Some initiatives are well-known but underutilized. Others are one of a kind.

“It has become part of our process to determine how we can deliver on our original ideas and achieve the proposed learning objectives for the lowest possible cost while upholding the integrity of our design. Out of limitations comes creativity,” says Jayme Walls, director of Corporate Gaylord University for Gaylord Entertainment Co., based in Nashville, Tenn.

To do more with less, HR professionals recommend focusing on peer teaching; keeping instructional modules simple, specific and immediately applicable; leveraging technology; and maximizing what you already have.

Peer Teaching

Instead of hiring external consultants, turn to the real experts: your own employees.

1 Highlight internal talent. Sande Scoredos, executive director of training and artist development for Imageworks, a division of Sony Pictures, in Culver City, Calif., fosters peer review among her creative talent, reflecting, “If, after a show wraps, there was some great work done on it, then we showcase it. We’ll have a team or an individual do a noontime lecture. We’ll invite everyone to see the explanation of the work” that was done. Employees who attend the lectures learn techniques, and the showcased employee or team gains recognition, boosting morale.

Gaylord Entertainment is taking a similar approach. “We have begun to seek and utilize the talents of our internal stars [high-potential employees] as additional design and development resources, in lieu of hiring external consultants,” Walls says. The stars want to be involved and “thus more committed to the final result.”

2 Create your own live “radio shows.” Gratton creates “radio shows” using a conference call phone line. “I, or one of the other leaders, will be the host of the call, so there’s no cost for that. We schedule these calls at a few different times during the day to reach different time zones, from Boston to Sydney, Australia. Then we record the 20-minute training session, and it becomes an MP3 file.”

During the call, Gratton will have one or two top employees answer carefully thought-out questions in talk-show format. “Have the message come from one of their own,” advises Gratton. Employees learn about best practices for closing sales, handling objections and building customer rapport, for example.

3 Implement job shadowing. Job shadowing requires more than just following a colleague around all day. Shadowers view the company from a different perspective and learn firsthand about the challenges facing workers in other departments. This perspective helps employees realize the impact their decisions have on other groups.

Job shadowing at Choice Hotels International in Silver Spring, Md., “has been well-received and has virtually no cost,” says Becky Wedemeyer, vice president of organizational development and learning. “We offer associates at all levels an opportunity to work for a day in one of our franchised hotels to get a true feel for what a day in the life of a hotel operator is all about.”

4 Create or expand formal mentoring
junk removal vancouver