Solving the Field Training Problem

If you are a technical manager, responsible for the performance of a field force of installers, system techs, and maintenance techs, you know the problem. Every hour your people are out of the field for training is lost productivity. You have to juggle schedules, pay overtime, or lose work because of it. 

But, you need your people to be capable, confident, and knowledgeable. You need them to acquire, hone, and master the skills of the job. They must have training and education and there has to be a way to measure if what they learned is having a positive impact on your team's performance.

Or else this happens:

Traditional methods of removing personnel from the field are not relevant anymore. Your people are learning on their own. 

They are:: 

• sending informal Q&A via texts and phone calls to other techs
• accessing Google and YouTube
• accessing manuals on vendor sites
• accessing their own-created knowledge bases

Read this link. It's about kids and parents but is relevant to our situation

Do you care about certifications anymore? Are you rewarding your people when they acquire a certification? We're hearing that tech managers don't believe these awards anymore. Passing a test doesn't always turn into stellar performance. In the field, there's a lot more to success than a piece of paper. But, certifications are important to both the tech and the employer. Just make sure you have a way to verify that the new-found knowledge can be put to good use.

Certification: What does it mean to you?

So, what is a tech manager to do? 

1. We suggest that you reinvent the learning delivery platform. Scrap the LMS or at least use it less and less. Make all your learning self-paced and easily accessible. Reduce your learning down to 30-second and 60-second chunks and "suggest" playlists of chunks.
2. Encourage your people in the field to send videos (moderated, of course) that will help other techs get the job done right. 
3. Create an easy to access repository of all, and I mean all, data sheets, specs, and user manuals on everything a tech might find in the field, including tools, equipment, and materials.
4. Create a culture of mentoring and challenge. I won't go into detail here. for that, you need to call me. Let's just say that this single element can mean the difference between success and failure.
5. Change the role of your training department. Make their job a daily challenge of supporting the people in the field, the headend, the office and the call centers. Stop creating and reinventing training and start optimizing what you already have.

So, whether you like it or not, traditional eLearning is dead. Your people are learning on-the-job and the younger ones are making the more seasoned (older) techs look outdated. Give them all the tools they need to succeed! We can show you how.