Synapsys Blog - Learning Culture

Training Consistency is Franchise Operation's Key to Success

Subway Restaurants has just managed to top Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500 list for the 15th time—an impressive feat, and one made more achievable by the organisation’s dedicated and consistent approach to eLearning and other training opportunities.

“Providing training opportunities is an integral part of our overall corporate strategy,” says Bonnie Zownir, Director of Worldwide Training.

“Compared to many other franchise systems, the Subway concept has… training and follow-up support from an extensive network of regional and headquarters personnel, who provide foodservice know-how and business guidance,” claims Rob Wilson, Subway’s Public Relations Coordinator.

Subway backs their spokespeople with action. They’re building a custom online university to relay restaurant policies and processes, food safety, and product recipes. The eLearning strategy can be linked with overall business objectives, which allows personnel to see how their efforts directly relate to the success of the operation.

It’s taken Subway 30 years to get this far. But newer ventures can capitalise on the ingredients of their success. Kiwi juice bar company Reload came to Synapsys for assistance with their operations manual and training infrastructure almost as soon as they knew they wanted to sell franchises. They recognise the importance of having good systems in place that can grow with the organisation.

Creating a system that can be replicated is what will allow Reload to make sure that the 100th franchise benefits from the same training as the first, and that a Reload in Mississippi will deliver the identical fruit smoothie as the one in Christchurch.

Michael Gerber, the founder of E-Myth, suggests that every business should treat its operations as if they intended to sell franchises. Even if that intention is not there, the discipline of creating procedures and living by them is what enables staff to deliver a consistent customer experience time after time.

And, whether you have one location or 27,000 (like Subway), your customers want a consistent experience. They want to know that every time they walk in, the food will taste just as good, the service will be just as friendly, and the environment will be just as clean. Confidence in a consistent experience is what allows people to recommend your operation. The worst thing people could say is, “You can try Joe’s Restaurant if you want—it’s kind of hit-or-miss, though.”

Being able to provide a high-quality experience every time requires a clear strategy, explicit policies and procedures, and an entrenched learning culture. When we talk to our clients about their training systems or business processes, we always ask how they fit into the organisation’s overall strategy and culture. Who is the recipient of this information? What is their motivation? What is their optimum learning style? What is the reward for following the system and what is the penalty for not? Is there a clear link between the training or processes and the achievement of the organisation’s big-picture goals?

The lesson from Reload, Michael Gerber and Subway is simple: those who understand the vital role of consistency stand a far greater chance of success than those who don’t.

Communicating with Novices – getting the basics across when you’re the expert

Ever found yourself running training and staring at blank faces when all the time you’re thinking – “but this is simple stuff”? Maybe you’ve been inducting someone into your organization and you’ve simply forgotten to tell them a detail that is important to them but seems like just commonsense to you? It may be that what you’re experiencing is part of the inherent communication difficulties between novices and experts. When we are designing learning experiences for our organization we often turn first to our subject matter experts to provide the content and maybe even the training itself. The only problem with this approach is that experts have often forgotten what they didn’t know and have moved to a stage of performance which is enormously fluid and often difficult to explain.

Contrast this with the needs of Novices – clear rules, simple situations etc and the communication gap can sometimes be too wide to cross. Novices become confused, experts become frustrated and everyone looses out. So how can we encourage our experts, and ourselves, to provide learning experiences that are accessible to novices?
Step by step it – encourage Subject Matter Experts to break information down into workable chunks
Start with the commonplace – guide novices through the ‘normal’ tasks first to allow them to begin to develop a base of experience to learn from.
Provide constant, simple feedback – novices can find lots of complex reasons difficult to absorb so stick with the ‘one reason’ explanation.
Make sure they feel they can ask – remember novices have limited situational judgment so encourage them to seek clarification and feedback by being receptive to questions and providing ‘one reason’ answers.

These tips are based on the Dreyfus and Dreyfus Novice to Expert model of acquiring expertise. For a great summary of the 5 stage model and some coaching tips for each stage – have a look at this article www.nols.edu/store/pdf/leadershipnb_competence.pdf

Why doesn't our eLearning work?

Many organisations approach the issue of eLearning and computer based training by
1. Deciding it might add some value, or reduce training cost
2. Purchasing a Learning Management System
3. Purchasing off-the-shelf content or taking existing training resource and putting it on the intranet.

It is not uncommon for them to discover:
• Implementation costs far exceed estimates
• There are a raft of unanticipated staffing and technology issues
• There is low uptake in the training by staff
• There are real questions over whether the new training is actually delivering changed behaviours

Why? Because effectively leveraging the value of eLearning isn’t just about technology and content. It’s also about your organisations’ culture, how people cope with change, and the quality of the learning experience.

No surprise then, that a truly eLearning capable organisation has strategically addressed issues of:
• Leadership and Management
• Organisational Culture
• Technology, and
• Staffing

It's a daunting list, but the industry is mature enough now for there to be clear indicators of the sorts of characteristics that typify organisations how have developed their eLearning capability effectively.

Synapsys has classified these indicators and developed an audit service that involves mapping your organisation to a series of indicators for each area. We report to you on your organisations’ status, and provide suggestions for tactical initiatives that will target your particular areas of priority. Contact us for more information.

Useful Blended Learning case studies

This White Paper: http://www.centra.com/download/whitepapers/CaseStudy_BlendedLearning.pdf contains a couple of useful case studies illustrating the way in which different blended media can be purposed for different business needs, together with commentary on the decision making processes sitting behind them.

They do a good job of selling blended solutions, but don't go into any depth around the actual change processes that have to take place for solutions such as these to work. Case study 1 includes the use of a range of different technology tools. Unless your organisation already has them bedded down as part of its culture, the job in getting people to work with them may well overshadow the learning that you're hoping to achieve through their use.

Emergent Learning

It's always interesting when someone comes up with a new name for an existing phenomenon. In this case, the term 'emergent learning' has been coined to describe the bottoms-up, inter-connected approaches to learning that we're beginning to recognise in a lot of organisations. (Jay Cross, the author, even suggests that we replace the term 'e-learning' with emergent learning). But regardless of what we call it, the great news is that these grassroots learning activities no longer have to hide in the dark.

"Learning has become a core business process. Emergent learning enables us to push beyond the confines of e-learning to explore combinations with informal learning, storytelling, social network analysis, appreciative inquiry, workflow learning, conversation, contextual collaboration, organic KM, simulation, dynamic portals, expert location and blogs."

More at: http://www.internettime.com/blog/archives/001324.html