Bite the Bullet.

Jo is the L&D Manager for a company with an employee base of 1000+. Jo’s role is primarily re-active. Responding to the ‘business as usual’ requests and day to day business takes up 80% of his time whilst the other 20% is spent wishing to be more proactive! Jo is part of a team of six, two administrators, three trainers and himself. There is a backlog of requests, unhappy employees feeling disenchanted with the L&D department and business managers with little or no faith requests are being dealt with promptly. Budgets have been cut and there have been redundancies within the company, morale is low all over. It’s no fun for Jo.

Jo receives a request; this is not Business as Usual it is an ‘exception’ request from Fiona, Manager of the Sales team. Fiona has requested a team workshop for her six team members to build morale and ultimately work towards increasing sales.

Jo arranges a meeting. Fiona is impressed with the response received, and agrees to meet Jo the next day.

At the meeting Jo scopes the requirements asking all the right questions. He has a clear understanding of the needs, the what, why, when, where and who and has mentally started to compile the how. Jo’s understanding is that the team is not gelling. Some are progressing well and meeting targets whilst others were falling behind. Jo discussed with Fiona the Bruce Tuckman’s team formations. Fiona could relate to this. Fiona also stresses that this is top priority and it must be dealt with quickly as she can not continue missing the sales targets or spending a heavy amount of time on the internal team squabbles. At the meeting Jo offers to conduct individual learning needs analysis with the team. Followed by a report on where they want to be (sourced from this meeting), where they are and the solution.

Following this meeting Jo designs the appropriate LNA questionnaires, arranges the individual meetings, carries them out, collates the feedback and writes up a report.

This is then discussed and Fiona agrees wholeheartedly with Jo’s thinking and is very impressed with the information that includes costs, dates, reviews, statistics, training providers, evaluation etc.

By the completion of the project including the reviews (excluding actual training days) etc, Jo and his team have spent ten working days on executing this. Fiona is over the moon with the results and is telling some of her colleagues.

What did Jo do well and where can he improve?

When dealing with this project Jo managed to tick all the right boxes. He ensured that he met the important elements in service delivery. He offered excellent customer care and insured the whole experience for Fiona were positive moments of truth.

Thinking bigger picture, what was the real cost of Jo’s excellent Customer Care?

Jo spending most of his time on this project neglected all his other work. As a training manager can you justify the time spent on meeting seven peoples needs versus 000s of others?

Would the 80:20 principle work for Jo? It is probable that: 80% of Jo’s outstanding requests will account for 20% of development subjects; to clear the 80% of outstanding requests may only take 20% of Jo’s time. 20% of Jo’s customers will account for 80% of the requests.

Might the ten days spent on this project have been put to better use?

What might Jo want to do going forward? Devise a Service Level Agreement (SLA) (even if it is only agreed within the immediate department) to ensure that all requests are treated fairly, not just responding to those who shout the loudest, put the pressure on or sweet talk. The SLA would include goals, metrics, and remedies. This would be reviewed regularly.

Introduce processes that are capable and effective. This would include an ongoing ‘continuous improvement’ process.

Establish a Customer Relationship Management process that would build customer relationships: determine mutually satisfying goals between the department and customers, establish and maintain customer rapport and produce positive feelings in the organisation and the customers.

Spend his time effectively managing the majority of the work and not just the ‘fun’ tasks - A personal Time Management process, ensuring Jo is able to schedule and prioritise his work as well as his teams.

Delegate to other members of the team.

Bite the bullet; see how the 80:20 principle may work for you and your customers.

What may be done at any time will be done at no time. Scottish Proverb

Complete article from the Training Journal, April 2009 www.trainingjournal.com.