The San Diego chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD San Diego) recognizes best practices in workplace learning and performance through it's annual PEAK Awards. Companies in San Diego County are invited to submit applications that highlight their outstanding accomplishments over the past year. This year's winners will be celebrated at a special event on November 4 at ASTD San Diego's Your Turn to Learn Conference.

Jeff Toister has been selected to chair this year's PEAK Awards Committee. The committee is responsible for reviewing award applications, selecting the award recipients, and organizing the awards ceremony.

Learn more about ASTD San Diego's PEAK Awards or download an application

On July 22, Toister Performance Solutions is launching a Human Resources Management Certificate Program through a partnership with Nonprofit Management Solutions. The program is designed for Executive Directors and HR professionals working for nonprofit organizations, but it may serve as a pilot program for future offerings to the private sector.

Many organizations struggle to maintain compliance with a slew of federal and state employment laws. This leaves little time for HR's true focus: getting the most out of your employees!

The certificate program will be delivered via five weekly half-day sessions at Nonprofit Management Solutions. Participants will be encouraged to immediately apply lessons learned back at work and continue dialogue with each other outside of class. The content is based on the HR competencies identified by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).

Learn more...

I was recently the volunteer manager for a day at the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) conference in Chicago.  My challenge was coordinating the efforts of more than 100 volunteers to ensure our attendees, speakers, and ASTD staffers had everything they needed to make it a great event.  The day was a big success, in part because I remembered three simple principles for effectively communicating with employees (or volunteers).

• Use Visuals
• Keep it Simple
• Make it Two-way

Use Visuals

There are three primary ways we take in information: by listening, by seeing, and by doing.  People tend to have a dominant, or preferred, learning style even though we typically rely on all three. 

According to Lou Russell’s Accelerated Learning Fieldbook, the most preferred learning style is learning by seeing.

Do these percentages align with how you typically explain expectations to employees (or volunteers)? 

How can you make your employee communication more effective by adding visual elements?

One of the strategies I used to manage volunteers at the ASTD conference was to do as much showing as I did telling.  (I also mixed in a healthy dose of having them do stuff to ensure they got it.)  The payoff was volunteers quickly got the message with minimal effort.

Keep it Simple 

The most important part of our message can get lost if we surround it with two much fluff.  Consider these two examples – which one is easier to understand?

• Why is the sign on the right so much more effective? 
• How much faster could you communicate if you concentrated on what you want your employees to know, understand, and do? 
• How can you simplify the messages you give to your team?

In Chicago, I realized it was essential to keep my messages simple.  I focused on telling people exactly what they needed to know and then I encouraged them to figure out the rest using the tools and resources that were available to them.  I was amazed at how many times volunteers came up with innovative ideas that I never would have thought of on my own.

Make it Two-way

Short-term retention dramatically increases when communication flows in both directions.  The graph below shows the average short-term retention rates for various types of communication (Source - Bob Pike's Creative Training Techniques Handbook):

How to make sure they get it, and get it quickly:

• Require interaction whenever you set expectations.
• Spend less time telling and more time asking open-ended questions.
• Observe employees in action so you can give them feedback on their performance.

It's easy for supervisors to use the "fire and forget" method of management when things get hectic. They fire off an email and then forget about the assignment. The downside is employees often misunderstand what's expected or don't fully buy-in. I followed my own advice a lot at the ASTD conference in Chicago and was rewarded with a group of motivated volunteers who cheerfully did whatever was required to get the job done.

There’s a lot at stake for trainers these days.  We are getting fewer funds and less time to make more happen.  Anyone facilitating training should know what makes a training program succeed or fail since so much is on the line. 

There are many factors, but my research and experience points to three big ones:

• Set goals and measure results
• Facilitate continuous learning
• Help managers reinforce learning

Set Goals and Measure Results
A training program succeeds or fails based on how well it achieves its goals.  You must understand what the program’s sponsor expects from the training and then provide evidence that shows the goals have been achieved.  Your training program will be a success if you can prove your program achieved the results your sponsor was looking for.  Unsuccessful training programs lack clear goals or measure results that aren’t clearly aligned with expected outcomes.  

Facilitate Continuous Learning
Training has no value until new knowledge, skills, or abilities are applied on the job.  A successful training program helps participants apply what they’ve learned after the primary learning event.  An unsuccessful training program makes no effort to help learning transfer back to the workplace.

Help Managers Reinforce Learning
An employee’s direct supervisor is the most important person in the training process.  Successful training programs help the supervisor guide their employee’s development.  Unsuccessful training programs place responsibility for future performance on the trainer, not the leader. 

I encourage you to take stock of your own training programs, even if these factors seem like common sense.  There’s a difference between knowing and doing.  Actually implementing these success factors can take courage and determination but the payoff is a training program that succeeds.

This white paper details the results of an experiment conducted in March 2010 on how companies engage customers using social media. The lessons learned from this experiment are captured in a simple how-to guide.

  Download the whitepaper and how-to guide 

 Read about the experiment on our blog