March / April 2013

Employers want certain skills. Employees don’t have them. Why? And what can organizations and Training, employees, and the educational system do to eliminate the disconnect?

Edited by Margery Weinstein Last year, Caesars Entertainment Corporation was facing stagnant customer service scores on weekly and quarterly surveys, the metric that determines success of customer loyalty and satisfaction. Each quarter and annually the organization strives for a 3 percent shift of non-A to A scores on customer service surveys year-over-year. Ingrained customer service behaviors helped keep the scores near the same level as the previous year, yet improvement to meet the goal of continuous improvement was becoming a challenge.

By Bob Pike CSP, CPAE, CPLP Fellow How long should training be? Almost every time I lead a seminar in the U.S. I get feedback that trainers are being pressured to deliver training faster. If, as a trainer, you believe it will take three days to develop the needed skills and knowledge, you’re asked to deliver it in two. If it can be done in two, then do it in one. If one, then a half-day should do it. If in an hour, then don’t you just have a pill people can take? In the U.S., it seems, it always will take too much time.

By Tony O’Driscoll Last month, I was sitting in a leadership development program listening to two talented executives share personal stories about how they had learned to lead. As they shared their leadership lessons with the participants, I noticed that one word kept coming up over and over again. That word was “CONTEXT.” “Before I tell you this story, let me set some context,” one said. “To understand why I made the decision I did, it is important for me to give you some more context,” said the other.

By Stacey Harris, VP of Research, Brandon Hall Group

By Martha J. Cardi, JD, Reed Group Chief Compliance Officer, and Megan G. Holstein, J.D., Reed Group Senior Counsel, Compliance and Employment Law An employee’s request for a leave of absence as an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) poses Human Resource (HR) challenges. The EEOC is pursuing violations of employers’ ADA obligations, obtaining multi-million dollar consent decrees against employers for absence policies that violate the ADA. Employers are asking when, why, and how much leave must be provided as an ADA accommodation.

The woman who checked me in at the Walt Disney World Coronado Springs Resort for the Training 2013 Conference & Expo last month was friendly, courteous, and helpful. She handed me my room key, drew the route to my room on the map, told me where I could get food and go swimming, and asked if I had any questions. I cheerfully (and, it turned out, mistakenly) replied, “No, I’m good.”

By Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA You’ve no doubt heard of ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). For many people, this has meant they can work from anywhere. As long as they get their work done, it’s OK to not come into the office.

By Kent Sipes, Senior Consultant, CedarCrestone In customer service offices around the world, employees interact with customers, then intently study their computer screens, then interact with customers again. Often, the switch from customer to screen and back is awkward, and most customer service professionals are more comfortable dealing with people than with computers. There’s often a tendency to do all the “computer” work, then all the “people” work.

Most people think they will get their next job thanks to in-person networking, according to a poll of nearly 600 U.S. and Canadian workers by Right Management, the talent and career management expert within ManpowerGroup. Whether currently employed or unemployed, half of those surveyed expect that person-to-person networking is how they will find their next position, while 1 in 5 thinks it will come from a posting on an Internet job board. How do you think you will find your next position?