Learning in a Tough Economy
The Dow Chemical Company, a multi-billion dollar global organization with thousands of employees and locations, delivers a broad range of products and services to customers that connect chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability. A critical part of overall corporate operations is product development and management. Keeping product managers trained and up-to-speed on the latest processes is an important component to the company’s overall success and helps maintain market leadership.
The economic downturn of 2008 created a unique challenge for Dow’s Global Reporting product managers when they were told to reduce their training budget by 40 percent in 2009. Managers knew they still needed to deliver job-critical training and performance support to employees while balancing learning needs within the constraints of a severely restricted budget. To RWD Technologies, it meant the opportunity to design a creative and cost-effective solution to help Dow meet that challenge.
Building for Success
Historically, Dow delivered its Global Reporting training curriculum in modules lasting six-to-seven hours each via Microsoft NetMeeting™. However, this style of training delivery was somewhat problematic. For example, depending on their learning needs some employees were required to attend multiple training sessions, oftentimes complaining that the training was either too long or that course components were redundant. Additionally, they often had to wait too long before a course became available on the training schedule.
The answer for Dow was to blend several solutions that included reducing the time employees spent in instructor-led training, creating self-study materials that employees were expected to complete both prior to and at the conclusion of the live training event, and offering more courses in a compressed format. “With such a large and dispersed workforce, it is always a challenge to ensure that everyone is being trained with consistency and regularity. Mixed with the current economic downturn, our challenge became much greater and we needed quick and foolproof plans to maintain the quality and regularity of training that we pride ourselves on. We also needed a plan that would take into consideration and scale for a global workforce,” said Kim McVey, SDN Product Manager at Dow. “RWD helped establish a plan that would meet our objectives and satisfy the bottom line. Their deep experience with these issues helped us tackle and overcome challenges very quickly.”
Putting the Pieces Together
For RWD to meet the first goal of restructuring the program and reducing instructor-led training, a few major process changes had to occur. First, generic information repeated in each module was stripped from the courses and used to create a pre-course study document.
Second, the information delivered was tightly focused on the needs of employees to help them fulfill the requirements of their jobs – not just generic job aids and exercises in an attempt to meet the needs of all users. With the pre-course training completed, employees were also tested via an online quiz to prove their readiness to attend live training. Implementing all three pieces resulted in the reduction of instructor-led training by approximately 50 percent or a total of three hours per employee. Finally, upon completion of the training sessions, employees were given a series of homework assignments to complete within a two-week time frame.
These assignments consisted of job aids and user-centric exercises paired with instructor follow-up review and coaching. Instructors provided answers to questions and other user support throughout the two-week period and gave final feedback and coaching to individual users after their homework was received and reviewed. Additional long-term user support was provided by subject matter experts and accessible help documents located on Dow’s Global Reporting support website.
Yielding Results
Having met the two primary objectives of maintaining the quality of training and reducing associated costs, RWD’s proposed strategy exceeded initial expectations. In addition to the savings in time and capital, many employees reported that they appreciated the reduced time spent in class learning from an instructor and more time to spend on their own becoming familiar with the tool and the data, both before and after the training.
Employees and trainers were able to focus more directly on individual user needs and cut directly to the heart of the course work without having to take time reviewing generic or other less-important subjects. Completing the pre-course assignment ensured that each user trainee was prepared and knowledgeable of basic information that was built upon during the classroom experience.
Another result was the increased flexibility for scheduling classes. A 3-hour time slot is much easier to get on people’s schedules. In addition, Dow was able to eliminate the “Europe time zone” classes, by holding a class in North America’s morning time, they could accommodate Europe’s schedule.
“In the final analysis, we were impressed that the significant reduction in instructor-led hours did not mean a compromise of quality or results. The ability to develop a unique strategy for cutting costs and time on a global program is something RWD is well-equipped for,” said Kim McVey at Dow. “When we started this program, we were faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Now we have a long-term sustainable plan to address training programs and a new perspective on building efficiencies within a learning environment.”