December 15th, 2010 by Robin Green

Many organizations suffer the consequences of poor training in the simple procedures of soft skills.

An organization’s success depends not only on hard technical skills, but its members’ ability to work together effectively. Success can be jeopardized by factors such as inter-staff politics, personal agendas, lack of energy and commitment to organizational goals, and poor communication.

How can your organization avoid these dangers and achieve actionable outcomes with LMS online training?

The purpose of any kind of training is the acquisition of skills. So what kind of skills are teachable? What skills can you expect to nurture in online training? The truth is that all skills, both soft and hard, are teachable–and critical to an organization’s success.

Soft skills, or “people skills,” are utilized in both professional and personal life, and include all the procedures involved in effective communication. These include listening, engaging in dialogue, providing feedback, functioning in a team setting, resolving issues and conflicts, and contributing in staff meetings.

Hard skills, on the other hand, refer to the occupational requirements of a position. These include technical or administrative skills related directly to the organization’s business. Examples include typing, software knowledge, operating machinery, and speaking a foreign language.

Hard skills are often contrasted to soft skills and defined as specific and “teachable” abilities which can be quantified and defined. However, unlike a personal attribute or natural talent, a skill is always something that can be learned, and converted into a personal and professional attribute.

It’s simple. In order to learn any skill, you need to learn and recall information accompanied by certain steps to follow. Then you need to apply the information and steps. It isn’t necessary that a learner understand all the principles behind the subject matter in order to gain the skills required to perform the tasks well, but that he or she understand what steps to take and how to take them in a given situation.

So how can you deliver effective LMS training for project management and other  In order to deliver effective online training in soft or hard skills, there are three simple steps: 1. Provide the information and steps. 2. Reinforce through practice and exercises. 3. Use quizzes and tests to confirm knowledge.

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Coggno.com is a leading provider of world-class LMS platforms.

December 8th, 2010 by Robin Green

Do you believe your organization to be unique? Just as every company is different, every organization manages performance appraisal in its own way. However, if performance appraisal strategies are ineffective, they can do great damage not only to employees, but to your organization and its bottom line.

What damage can they do? Improperly conducted performance appraisals can give an inaccurate impression of employee performance, and consequently of the entire organization’s performance.

The best way to create an effective performance appraisal process? Simple training for managers and supervisors.

All too often, appraisals are performed by managers and supervisors who have never been trained on how to perform them. LMS performance appraisal training provides managers the tools for preparing both parties–managers and employees–for the review. Training helps managers to develop a clear connection between employees’ jobs, the organization’s strategy, and individual performance.

Performance appraisal training can help answer questions about many topics, from the more general down to the particulars.

These questions include: As a manager, how can I create, monitor and track employee development plans? What is the best method of evaluating performance and rating employees? How do I remain objective during the appraisal? How can I deal with non-performers and employees who do not cooperate? What are the techniques for setting goals? How do I respond to different employee reactions to the appraisal? How can you structure the appraisal to focus on improving performance?

Part of a good performance appraisal strategy is development planning, where managers and employees work together to create an individual development plan, which is later monitored for effectiveness.

LMS training means you’ll be not only be prepared for performance appraisals, but you will have the know-how to establish an effective and ongoing performance appraisal strategy, which is year-long as opposed to once or twice and year.

Before you perform appraisals this month, invest in online training. Get educated on the standards for performance documentation, improving rapport and communication, building employee morale, motivating employees, and observing and measuring performance. At this time next year, you’ll be happy you did.

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Coggno.com provides a robust Learning Management System platform.

December 6th, 2010 by Robin Green

One of the big issues around online training is perception that measuring and monitoring the effectiveness and substantive results of this training can be elusive.

In other words, turning the training into an actionable outcome is the difference between a pretty screen that your learners will stare at, and a meaningful translation of what they just learned into accountable result.

The question is, is the result of Online training a measurable outcome? To answer this, you must first ask yourself a series of questions. Who is the target audience? How will the training be used? What specific result are you trying to effect? What will be done with the results, and who how will you measure them?

Once you know the answers to these questions you are better equipped to decide what types of outputs you would like to see as a result of this training. So as important as it is to develop a great online training course, it is just as important to develop an evaluation methodology to measure the impact of the training. Impact can be measured by the amount of change in behavior, skills, attitude, or knowledge of your learners

Another effective means of beginning the process is by first evaluating if you are trying to correct a process, create a persuasion or outcome, affect a sales or business object, or define and teach a skill.

Leading the learner thru a process in an online training course is often a great way to facilitate this. By establishing a protocol, giving an example of a broken protocol, and demonstrating how it is easily and effectively corrected you can use the cognitive eye of the learner to develop their own substantive learning outcome before you even need to demonstrate it for them. By affectively reinforcing what they have already discovered for themselves, your online training course becomes most effective. In this way you’ve successfully created a context from which they can explore, question, and achieve a result. In addition, they can begin to understand for themselves the relative value of the training and enable them to take responsibility and “ownership” of the training.

Finally, effectively interacting with your learner inside your online training course is an important element. Check in, measure comprehension, create short quizzes, and ask for an evaluation at the end of the course.

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Coggno.com offers a wide range of high-quality online courses.

December 2nd, 2010 by Robin Green

Why all this audio training craze? (See previous post.) Last week, due to my own personal discovery of online tools (which are available to anyone seeking knowledge or the means of providing it), I was able to complete a book that would have otherwise taken me about two weeks.

That’s if I worked for about 2 or 3 hours a day, in the traditional sit-at-your-desk-and-read style. However, with my audiobook of Don Quixote, I completed the task in just 4 days. LMS online training courses could benefit from this kind of methodology.

Book I of Cervantes’ masterpiece is about 500 pages, or 18 hours of audiobook. Instead of spending each night reading the old text, I took advantage of my 45-minute bike commutes downtown every morning and afternoon. I listened to the audiobook while I cooked, while I cleaned my apartment, while I bought groceries.

My daily chores and commutes suddenly became interesting and relevant to my life, and they seemed to go by faster. In just four days, I had read the whole Book I, without making any changes in my daily schedule.

Podcasts and audiobooks are a pedagogical tool not used widely enough in today’s education system, from youth to adult learning. With LMS platforms for employee training, podcasts are extremely easy–and fun–to create.

Every employee, no matter what their daily routines are, can surely find at least an hour or two daily that is “sunk” time, or time when they are not doing much other than skimming the newspaper in the subway, driving, or exercising. Everyone has gap spaces in their schedule while are perfect times for LMS online training homework.

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Coggno.com provides high-quality e-learning education.

November 27th, 2010 by Robin Green

As I suggested in last week’s blog, failed training initiatives–which squander organizations’ time and resources–are often due not only to the quantity or length of the training, but also to their texture. I touched on a few phenomena related to the quantity of training and their effect on employee turnover as well as performance management. But how can LMS training texture make or break your company training program?

Although you’ll surely want to expose your employees to hands-on training via simulations and other LMS online tools, you probably have a great of deal of information to share with trainees. In the transfer of all this information is where empathy and texture/resourcefulness figure in.

First, empathize with your employees. What are their daily schedules and routines? Do any of your employees have lengthy train, auto, bus, or bike commutes to work? Do any of them work out at the gym, enjoy jogging or cooking? Knowing about your employees’ hobbies is not only key for good management and building trust between management and employees, but it can also help you to design training that fits easily into their day-to-day lives.

Second, be resourceful. One medium that fits like a glove into everyone’s daily lives are podcasts and other audio information. Audio is a fantastic way to deliver large chunks of material. In particular, podcasts are simple to create, produce, and share with learners, and don’t require any special hardware to listen to them. LMS online training platforms like Coggno include a simple Apple Podcast Producer as part of its pack of user-friendly course creation tools.

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Coggno.com is a premier LMS platform.

November 17th, 2010 by Robin Green

Part of successful performance management is your ability to empathize with your trainees and be realistic in the kind of LMS online training administered. When I say “kind” of training, I don’t necessarily mean considerations like which LMS platform you choose, whether or not you utilize previously established training methods, the options of online or in-person or a mixture of both, or any other basic decisions regarding training. What I mean is the style, form, texture, and resources your training employs, and what how these choices are reflected in the day-to-day training activities.

There are many causes of failed training initiatives, which are obviously a huge waste of organizations’ time and energy. Many of these causes are related not only to the quantity or length, but also the texture of the training.

Let’s face it: management often has a difficult time in gauging the appropriate amount of time to devote to training. One common mistake is to skimp on training. It’s rushed through, and ultimately the manager figuratively shrugs his shoulders and concludes that employees will learn the particular skill or topic on-the-job. However, managers should keep in mind that training IS on-the-job. Training is a critical part of employees’ work experience, which delivered effectively, can make an enormous difference in performance, greatly ease the task of performance management, and save an organization an enormous amount of time and money in employee turnover.

Do you expect trainees to read a large quantity of material during the training? One of the most prevalent reasons for failure in longer training sessions is the fact that they don’t fit into the trainees’ schedules and busy lives. For this reason, take the time to investigate the brilliant but simple-to-use texture-lending training tools offered by online training platforms, such as video and audio tools, which can provide the large quantity of information you need to relay in dynamic and convenient ways.

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Coggno.com is a leading provider of premier LMS platform.

November 11th, 2010 by Robin Green

How can you create a positive atmosphere in your workplace and provide LMS training that is effective, stimulating, and prompts  a sense of “flow” that boosts performance?

In Csikszentmihalyi’s studies, he found that one major preoccupation that prevented people from enjoying what they are doing is how they appear to others, or what others might think about them. As Doctor Phil has said many times (love or hate him, he has some great things to say about human behavior), one thing that unites humankind is the fear that we don’t measure up. Everyone feels this way at one time or another, and the kind of workplace and training that are present in a person’s life have a great deal to do with the strength of this feeling. It can affect performance in ways that managers don’t even imagine. If a worker feels underestimated, unchallenged, or bored, he or she is unlikely to perform to the optimal capacity.

Achieving a sense of flow in one’s work involves rising above such constraints. What are the elements of the flow? First, feeling totally involved or focused, which is due to natural curiosity of the result of good training. Second is a feeling of inner clarity; knowing what must be done, and an awareness of how well it is going. The third element is a knowledge that the activity is doable, and that one’s skills are adequate. Fourth, timeliness (ignoring ego and time) and fifth, intrinsic motivation; the flow becomes its own reward. Most elements of the flow are direct results of strong LMS training, which helps not only to boost performance, but employees’ satisfaction in their jobs and their lives.

Coggno is now offering a free trial for performance review training creators on its learning management system. Create online training for free, whether it be for internal use, for inclusion in Coggno’s E-learning Marketplace, or for outside syndication on hundreds of websites.

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Coggno.com offers world class LMS platform.

November 5th, 2010 by Robin Green

Motivating employees and ensuring that they are satisfied and fulfilled in their tasks isn’t an easy managerial task. How does one create a sense of dynamism in the workplace or in an LMS training program?

In 1991 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote his groundbreaking book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience,’ in which he described the work he had done on the “flow” and human motivation. The idea of flow is like the state of being “in the zone” or “in the groove.”

Flow is a feeling of total absorption, fulfillment, and skill during which the person forgets normal and/or temporal concerns such as the ego, food, and time. It’s the optimal state of intrinsic motivation, in which the person is fully engaged and immersed in what he or she is doing, as if playing a sport or reading a good book.

In the “flow,” people feel completely involved and focused. A state of ennui, boredom or depression is prevented by being in the flow.  So is the agitation of anxiety.

How can you prompt your employees to achieve this state at the workplace and enjoy more thoroughly the tasks that they are doing?

One way to instill this state is to prevent your employees’ workflow from becoming stagnant. Refresher training via a learning management system (LMS) or other online learning platform is a great way to keep tasks dynamic and changing.

Another element that will impact employees’ sense of engagement and satisfaction in their work is training that is effective, interactive and comprehensive.

How does the job connect to the other parts of the organization and how do the tasks assigned to each employee fit in to the larger scope and organizational goals? Create your own online training customized for your business using a learning management system that allows you to include an overall scope.

Coggno is now offering a free trial for training creators on its learning management system. Create an online course for free, whether it be for internal use, for inclusion in Coggno’s E-learning Marketplace, or for outside syndication on hundreds of websites.

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Coggno.com is a leading provider of world class e-learning education.