Sixmonths ago your global firm tasked you with developing training designed toensure that design and production processes and practices used by employees areconsistent across the organization. Theinstructional design team you assembled developed the trainings, but some of themfailed to hit the mark. Employees aren’t signing up in some regions, and feedbackfrom class attendees is weak. Your job and the program are on the line.
None of us want to experience that feeling. How canyou make sure you avoid it? A training program can help bridge cultural and workplacepractice differences. One that is delivered via eLearning modules or liveonline classes can be particularly effective, but it takes a lot of upfront workto get a successful program off the ground. Here are five keys that we have foundhelpful to designing and delivering a successful global training program.
Understand the key business objectives
Obviouslyyou need to discuss budget and timeline, but it is even more important to ask whythis program is needed. What is the most important business objective? What arethe other specific goals or business objectives that this program must accomplish?What is the downside to failure? Every key decision you and your team make indesigning and delivering the program must focus on meeting the businessobjectives.
Identify barriers to success and plan to get around them
Oftenunits within global organizations have significant cultural differences thataffect how you design or deliver the program. You may find that employees orcustomers from certain countries ask questions during a live online event, whileparticipants in other parts of the world are more comfortable asking via chator email. In scheduling live events in multiple time zones, you may find that someoffices are willing to work late or come in extra early, while others are notwilling to do so. You might also run into regional connectivity issues thatmake certain types of eLearning classes difficult to deploy. Think through thebarriers and plan for them.
Define success metrics upfront
Fromthe first meeting, discuss the metrics you will use to define success and howto gather them. Is it the number of individuals that complete the courses? Apercent positive response on a post-class survey? While participantquestionnaires are helpful, follow-up surveys to see if employees have put theireducation to practical use are also important, as are surveys of those whosupervise the people taking the courses. One of our clients compared the no-showrate to the industry average and was pleased that the rate was half that ofsimilar businesses.
Select the right team leader
Unlessyour client has a manager tasked with leading an instructional design andtraining team, identifying the right project manager is the most importantstaffing decision. Select someone with experience building and running largetraining and instructional design projects. They must be able to estimate thework effort, build the work plan, and manage a large project. Once the leaderis selected, let them have the final decision on selecting every other teammember. In addition, the instructional designers on the team need to be able towork seamlessly with subject matter experts, some of whom might be skeptical ofthe value of the training program, including the value of eLearning. And don’tforget about ancillary services. One of our clients was pleased with thecourses the instructional designers put together, but disappointed by thenumber of employees signing up. We suggested a marketing writer to add somezest to email copy advertising the classes. The result: The email open-rateimproved significantly and class enrollments increased.
