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

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).

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• 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 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.

  Download the whitepaper and how-to guide 

 Read about the experiment on our blog

We have helped our clients with California’s mandatory Sexual Harassment Awareness training since the law took effect in 2005.  Many of our clients are now asking us for even more help.  We’re a performance company at heart, so here are my top three tips for using compliance initiatives to boost productivity.

Tip #1: Train Now or Pain Later
The knock against most compliance training is it takes too much time, it’s boring, and it costs too much.  We’ve resolved some of these issues by making our workshops very interactive and incorporating our clients’ policies so the training is more relevant.  In our Managing within the Law workshop, we utilize challenging discussion scenarios that reflect situations a client’s employees are likely to encounter.

Here’s a simple Pros and Cons list that makes an even stronger case:

Tip #2: Align compliance policies with business needs
Smart businesses maintain strict compliance with employment laws by integrating compliance into their standard operating procedures.  The alternative is making your operations conform to a set of ‘compliance-first’ policies, which can be costly, or ignoring legal issues altogether, which can be even costlier. 

Example: Meal and Rest Periods

Compliance Approach
Create a policy that regulates when employees take their meals and rest periods.

Tactical Approach
Train managers to proactively monitor payroll to ensure compliance, spot other trends such as excessive overtime, and use payroll data to schedule employees more efficiently.

Strategic Approach
Create a staffing plan that incorporates meal and rest periods among the many other variables that affect the organization's staffing needs.

Tip #3: Develop a positive culture
The best defense against workplace legal issues is to develop a positive company culture.  Many companies have a set of “values” that are proudly displayed on their website or on a poster in the lobby, but few companies actually ‘walk the talk’. 

The table below gives some examples that contrast a positive culture with a negative one.

Questions? Challenges?
Please contact us if we can help you turn a compliance challenge into an opportunity to boost productivity. I'm not an employment lawyer, though I know a few good ones, but we do offer practical guidance and suggestions.

Ideal recently hired Toister Performance Solutions to help them create a service culture based on the company’s values and outstanding reputation in the San Diego community.  Don Teemsma, Ideal’s President, wanted to make their approach to customer service more consistent and deliberate.  They were already doing a great job, but he also knew that every service call could lead to repeat business and referrals to friends and neighbors if the customer was delighted.

Our Approach
Don wanted to provide his employees with some fundamental customer service skills, so we used our Delivering Next Level Service class as the foundation for this initiative.  We started with their technicians and met with them for one hour a week for six weeks.  The classes were scheduled before they went on their service calls for the day, so they could immediately try out their new skills.  The classes also gave the technicians an opportunity to share successes they had achieved from the previous week.

Once we finished training the technicians, we turned our attention to the office staff.  The office staff included the customer service, dispatch, inventory, and accounting departments, all of whom had direct customer contact and also supported the technicians in the field.  We took the same approach as before and divided the class into six one-hour sessions that allowed participants to try out new skills between each weekly meeting.

Sustaining Momentum
A successful training program is often just the beginning of an ongoing process.   Don and his leadership team employed three strategies to sustain the momentum achieved in our initial training series. 

1. Weekly Team Meetings
Customer service is now a topic at weekly team meetings.  Aided by a set of facilitation exercises, the meetings feature active discussions among the participants.  According to Don, “We often hear stories about how a tech turned around a negative to a positive or how they were more effective in their communication with a customer.” 

2. After Action Reviews
Ideal employees regularly review customer service interactions to learn what went well and what can be improved upon.  A recent after action review led to the team finding ways to correct a misunderstanding with a customer who initially appeared to be very upset.  The end result was a very happy customer who purchased a new heating and air system and continues to call Ideal for all his plumbing and electrical needs. 

3. Refresher Training
Toister Performance Solutions recently facilitated a refresher training session to help Ideal’s technicians continue to develop their customer service skills.  The one hour workshop included activities to help reinforce the importance of customer service in their work culture. 

The Results
Ideal’s customer service initiative has had some great results so far.  Don Teemsma described the highlights in four primary areas:

Happier Customers
Through our customer check-up program, our customers tell us they genuinely appreciate the extra care coming their way.  The feedback is better than ever.

Happier Employees
Employees like to be trained and shown skills to make their jobs easier.  Being able to delight customers with a sharpened set of techniques has provided greater customer satisfaction and in turn has given everyone more satisfaction in their job.  This has been a win-win situation.

Increased Sales
Our technicians are building better rapport and through this rapport they feel more comfortable about offering solutions to our customers who need goods and services.

Culture
In our mission statement we say our goal is to delight the customer.  By providing training we have helped build a stronger culture of service and show action beyond lip service and a mission statement hung on the wall.

About Ideal
Founded in 1960, Ideal Plumbing, Heating, Air & Electrical prides itself on exceeding customer expectations. From the most complex installation to routine service and maintenance, Ideal has the tools, people, and products to provide a quality job that fits your lifestyle and budget.  They are a top-rated San Diego contractor and possess the expertise and technically advanced equipment to handle all commercial and residential projects.  Please visit their website to learn more.

#1: The Thank You Letter
This powerful exercise helps you make your vision a reality.  Start by writing a ‘thank you’ letter to yourself as if it was written by an actual customer.  Describe the service you provided and how it made an impact.  Next, read the letter at the start of every work day for three weeks and then try to receive a real version of the letter.  It’s amazing how well this works!

#2: Make it Visual
Customer service visions are truly meant to be visual, so you can really make yours memorable if you translate the words into pictures.  Some people draw their vision while others use pictures from the internet or magazines to make a collage that represents their vision.  I decided to make mine into a short video:

#3: Ask a Customer
A customer service vision describes how you hope to serve your customers, but you’ll need a real customer to tell you how you are actually doing.  I often ask my customers for testimonials and their words allow me to synch my vision with what they’re experiencing.  Here’s what one customer wrote not long after I did exercises #1 and #2:

"If I had to choose only one outside company to help with some training initiatives this year, that would be Toister Performance Solutions; Jeff is reliable, dependable, and flexible to incorporate the organizational culture in whatever he presents."
- Gabriela Alvarez, Training & Development Manager

#4: Tell Stories
Great customer service stories provide memorable examples of your vision in action.  They also provide a connection between the lofty ideals of a vision statement and your day to day activities.  Share your customer service stories with co-workers, colleagues, and even your boss.  (Hey – those great stories will help you come review time!)

#5: Reflect and Reconnect
It’s easy for the big picture to get lost in our daily work.  From time to time, I find it helpful to step back and reflect on my customer service vision.  It helps me reconnect my core values with my work and make sure I’m still heading in the right direction.  This exercise only takes a few minutes but I find it to be very powerful.