February 20, 2025 • 33 mins
In episode 188, Coffey talks with Amy Rosellini about the importance of emphasizing behavior change in workplace training.
They discuss the high cost and low effectiveness of current workplace training approaches; the importance of measuring behavior change rather than just knowledge transfer; the role of peer feedback in learning; how to engage resistant learners; strategies for packaging training to increase voluntary participation; and using the Knowledge Transfer Measurement Model (KTMM) for measuring training effectiveness and sustained behavioral change.
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About our Guest:
Dr. Amy Rosellini is a distinguished Human Resources consultant specializing in organizational learning and human capital strategy. Since 2013, Amy has led RLT Impact, a consulting firm offering fractional CHRO and learning services. With over two decades of experience spanning diverse industries including manufacturing, retail, construction, real estate, and financial services, Amy excels in designing impactful knowledge management strategies to enhance corporate learning.
Amy also chairs a CEO Advisory group in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, convening monthly to tackle pressing business challenges. She is deeply involved in facilitating strategic planning, executive coaching, and leadership development initiatives nationwide, fostering robust talent planning and bolstering employee engagement.
Educationally, Amy holds a Bachelor of Science from Texas A&M University, a Master’s degree from the University of North Texas, and completed her Ph.D. in Information Science from UNT in 2020. She remains actively engaged with the academic community, serving as adjunct faculty at the University of North Texas G. Brint Ryan College of Business, SMU Cox School of Business, and University of Dallas Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business. Amy's current research endeavors focus on augmented reality in corporate learning and addressing learning disparities in early childhood education.
A published author, Amy's research has been featured in numerous refereed articles and books. She is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences nationwide, delivering compelling talks on learning methodologies, improvisation for business, and innovative human capital strategies.
Amy Rosellini can be reached at
http://www.linkedin.com/in/amyrosellini
About Mike Coffey:
Mike Coffey is an entrepreneur, licensed private investigator, business strategist, HR consultant, and registered yoga teacher.
In 1999, he founded Imperative, a background investigations and due diligence firm helping risk-averse clients make well-informed decisions about the people they involve in their business.
Imperative delivers in-depth employment background investigations, know-your-customer and anti-money laundering compliance, and due diligence investigations to more than 300 risk-averse corporate clients across the US, and, through its PFC Caregiver & Household Screening brand, many more private estates, family offices, and personal service agencies.
Imperative has been named a Best Places
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy Rosellini (00:00):
We tend to say, here's the 99 things you need to
do to turn this valve instead ofhere's what a valve is.
Mike Coffey (00:06):
And
Amy Rosellini (00:06):
the next time we meet, let's talk about what you
do with this valve. Next time wemeet, let's talk about what the
valve will do when you do thatthing. And so giving people just
enough information that they canhandle at that time and creating
other systems within theworkplace where they can learn
that, not just when they'resitting in a conference room
looking at a PowerPoint.
Mike Coffey (00:26):
Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of
Imperative, Bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. And this isthe podcast where I talk to
business leaders about bringingpeople together to create value
for shareholders, customers, andthe community. Please follow,
rate, and review Good Morning HRwherever you get your podcasts.
You can also find us onFacebook, Instagram, YouTube, or
(00:49):
at GoodMorningHR.com.
According to the Association forTalent Development, firms spent
an average of $1,283 peremployee on workplace learning
in 2023, totaling more than ahundred and 1,000,000,000 with a
b dollars. However, anecdotally,most of us would agree that a
lot of workplace training is notas effective as we need it to
(01:12):
be. And according to Gartner,sixty four percent of managers
don't think their employees areable to keep pace with future
skill needs. And worse, 70% ofemployees said they haven't even
mastered the skills they needfor their current jobs. Joining
me today to discuss why trainingoften fails and how
organizations can fix it isdoctor Amy Rossellini.
(01:34):
Amy is a human resourcesconsultant with over two decades
of experience specializing inorganizational learning and
human capital strategy. Since2013, Amy has led RLT Impact, a
consulting firm offeringfractional CHRO and learning
services. Amy holds a PhD ininformation science from the
(01:54):
University of North Texas, andshe also chairs a CEO advisory
group in North Texas where shemeets monthly with a peer group
of CEOs to help one anothertackle their most important
business challenges. And sheserves as an adjunct faculty in
the business schools at UNT,SMU, and the University of
(02:14):
Dallas. Welcome to Good MorningHR, Amy.
Amy Rosellini (02:18):
Thanks so much. It's a lifelong dream to be
here, and I'm so grateful tohave the opportunity.
Mike Coffey (02:24):
Well, I we met at the APNA conference, I think, in
San Diego last fall, and I go toso many conferences. And it's
rare that a conference that'ssomeplace in my wheel or a
presentation at someplace in mywheelhouse, you know, people
leadership stuff really blows meaway, but the stuff that you
shared there, I think I went upto you after the conference and
(02:45):
then emailed you. I really wannado you know, get you on, and it
took us several months to getthis done, but I'm glad you're
finally on the podcast. So Isaid a hundred and
$1,000,000,000 with a big o b,in training, and it just doesn't
seem that a lot of companies aregetting the ROI that they want,
from that money. Do you thinkthat number's accurate?
(03:07):
I mean, you know, or is is thereis that a is that impression
that training isn't giving uswhat we want accurate? And if
so, where do you think we'refailing at it? You know,
Amy Rosellini (03:17):
I do think the number's accurate. I I was able
to serve a CHRO in a fewdifferent organizations, and our
average spend per employee was athousand dollars. The stronger
the culture, the the higher thatnumber went. So for it to be a
little over a thousand dollars,12 hundred dollars per employee
on training, that that number'snot surprising. And then I think
when it comes to ROI,unfortunately and sadly, putting
(03:38):
out the training, you know,maybe what we're measuring is
did we do it?
Did they attend a training?Yeah. Is that we we we did it,
and so it must be successfulrather than really understanding
at the beginning when weintroduce training what is the
measurable, how do we determinesuccess, and I think that's a
lot of what's missing out there.
Mike Coffey (03:58):
And so when we're talking about these budget
numbers, this is actual not thisisn't knowledge transfer from a
supervisor to an employeesitting at a desk or let me show
you how to do this. This is morestructured, you know,
organization development kind offormal training. Is that what
we're talking about?
Amy Rosellini (04:15):
Yeah. In my experience, it's more it's it's
absolutely formal training. It'seither sending somebody off-site
or maybe the dollars and centsput into an internal training
program, vendors brought in,consultants, things like
Mike Coffey (04:26):
that. But I can tell you from the employee
relations issues I've beeninvolved with with clients over
the last thirty years, I thinkthe training from that manager
to that employee, just whetherit's in a conference room,
across a desk, alongside oneanother, I think that kinda
sucks too a lot of times. And,you know, I did the training.
(04:48):
Why don't they get it? And, youknow, and and it's always the
employee's fault.
You know, I I hate you know? I Iwell, I say I hate those
supervisors under the busbecause it's not their fault.
They weren't trained to do itwell. They weren't you know, we
it's it's it's our standarddrinking game here on the
podcast if, you know, we wesomebody's good at a job, so we
(05:09):
make them a supervisor withoutever giving them the training
and and tools to do the job.There we go.
So those numbers are right. Thenwhy do you think it's failing?
If we're if we're just not ifit's not working, why is that?
Amy Rosellini (05:22):
Well, so let's talk about maybe that informal
piece that you just mentioned ofthe supervisor sitting right
across from the person. They'retelling them everything they
need to know. And if you're notwilling to throw supervisors
under the bus, I'll throw my momunder the bus if that's fair.
Why not? Yeah.
I had dinner with my parents.Listening.
Mike Coffey (05:38):
So
Amy Rosellini (05:39):
She's I doubt it. I doubt it. She's not big in the
HR world. I did dinner with myparents last night, and she was
talking about another familymember. I won't name them just
in case.
She was talking about anotherfamily member, and she said,
well, are you giving them themadvice? Are you telling them
what to do? And my response was,when's the last time you did
something because someone toldyou to do it? Right. And and so
(05:59):
I don't think it's thatdifferent in the workplace.
I think supervisors havepositive intent. They wanna help
their employees. They're tryingto do what's right for a team.
But at the end of the day, theydon't have the tools to know how
to change behavior. And so Ithink we're putting money into,
well, let's let supervisorstrain them.
Let's get supervisors to tellthem. Let's train the
supervisors on telling them inthe right ways. But at the end
(06:21):
of the day, we learn by doing.We learn by failing. We learn by
experiences.
So having a supportive culture,having recognition in the right
places might be better spends ofour money to help those
supervisors and how do I givethem the experience to learn
this instead of how do I tellthem what they need to
Mike Coffey (06:41):
know? So what do you think the things behavior
wise that affect how well weconduct training or how well
people receive training? Youknow, so much of the workplace
if everybody was robots, wecould just write the code and
just get it done. But, you know,we bring people, you know, come
into the workplace, and they'rejust they're a hot mess. So how
(07:02):
does behavior how does, youknow, people's just their
natural behaviors affect howthey receive training or how
they provide training.
Amy Rosellini (07:10):
Yeah. So so twofold. Right? So if we're just
talking about the trainerthemselves, I think it from the
company standpoint, they'remeasured on, did I get all this
content out? Maybe we're tryingto fit so much content in a
short time frame.
I've certainly been in trainingswhere they said, well, hold on.
I just need y'all to listen so Ican get the rest of this out
because you need to hear this,and and y'all are asking too
(07:31):
many questions. We don't havetime.
Mike Coffey (07:33):
Right.
Amy Rosellini (07:33):
And where people are learning the most is the
questions. So the other side ofthis coin is when employees want
to know the information, theyare more likely to change
behavior because they are morelikely to accept the knowledge
that is shared with them. You'reless likely to take on knowledge
you didn't ask for. You're morelikely to do something with
knowledge that you were actuallyinquisitive and wanted to know
(07:55):
about. You know, we live in aworld where we can access
whatever information we want atany given moment, and so that
just in time information is whatworks best for a lot of folks.
Instead of just get in here, sitdown for six hours, let me tell
you what you need to know. Ithink that's where the struggle
is is maybe how we compensate atrainer is make sure you
struggle is is maybe how wecompensate a trainer is make
(08:15):
sure you get all thatinformation out, but how an
employee learns isn'tnecessarily how we're training
those trainers to speak.
Mike Coffey (08:23):
And companies have trainers that they bring in from
the outside, and they haveinternal trainers. I've always,
you know and I'm the guy who onoccasion is the outside trainer
who comes in, but I've alwayshad a bias towards that internal
trainer who understands thecompany, understands how what
I'm training right now is howit's relevant to the
(08:45):
organization's culture. What'syour take on on those two,
inside versus outside?
Amy Rosellini (08:52):
Yeah. So I'm I'm very similar. When companies ask
me to come out and do a trainingone time, I price it in such a
way that you really don't wantme to do that. I can you know,
money's money, and I do havechildren. So Right.
I gotta send some people tocollege here. So I'm willing to
do what I need.
Mike Coffey (09:08):
Probation fees. And so, yeah, I've got yeah.
Amy Rosellini (09:10):
There you go. There you go. And so what what I
I believe, and I just spoke witha company this morning, a little
larger organization, is I thinkmaybe initially they were
looking for you'll come in andtrain this. And, ultimately,
where we landed was I'll come inand help develop the strategy
and help facilitate, but,ultimately, let's put your
leaders in front of people asmuch as we can. It might not be
(09:31):
for an entire training.
It might not be for the entireprogram. But if we're building a
leadership development that's,let's say, eight months long,
I'd like your executives andyour leaders to get in front of
them as much as possible. Icertainly have companies that
say, you know what? Why don'tyou come in and continue so you
become a part of our culture?You become a part of who we are?
(09:51):
And so it's one of those twoways I prefer to wait work.
Either I'm alongside thoseexecutives and those leaders in
the company, or they arebringing me in on a regular
enough basis that we're notwe're not basing everything on
one training class. We'recontinuing to meet with the
leaders, to help train thetrainers, to help create
recognition programs and otherways to get that knowledge to
(10:11):
become part of who the companyis.
Mike Coffey (10:14):
And, I mean, you were talking about leadership
training, and I always say whatwe call the soft skills are
really the hard skills, and Ithink those are really
important. What do you think thedo you think that training is
more or less effective than,like, hard skills training, you
know, putting tab a in slot a,that kind of work? Or do you
think it's equally is there adisconnect on both, of them?
Amy Rosellini (10:36):
Yeah. There disconnect on both, but I'll
answer it actually in a waymaybe a little different from
what you're asking so you cantell me to clarify if if you
don't like this answer. I thinkhow we market and how we talk
about the soft skills is whatmakes people discount them, so
they are harder to train. Andwhen we say, hey. You need to
come here, and we'll teach youhow to build trust.
That's that's initially, I'mlike, no. I know how to I'm
(10:59):
trustworthy. I'm honest. I haveintegrity. And so we kind of
build the trainings wrong wherewe say, you don't have this
thing, so you need to come learnit, instead of let's find out
where people are.
Let's do some assessments. Let'sthose people that are really
great at it, let's put them infront of others. And so I think
sometimes it's just how westrategize from from go and how
we package it.
Mike Coffey (11:19):
So if what we're doing is right now is not
working and we're not gettingthe ROI well, let me first ask.
Do most companies really knowwhat the r what ROI they're
really expecting when they spendwhen they spend all this money,
or is it just, you know,rainbows and unicorns and we're
gonna do this and sing Kumbayaat the end? Or, you know, do
they do they have, you know ordo you see companies that have,
(11:43):
you know, hard expectations?Okay. We're gonna see employee
engagement go up by x percent,or we're going to see retention
change, or we're gonna see ourcost per hire reduced or
whatever.
Do you see those numbers outthere that companies go into, or
what are they looking for whenthey say they're looking for an
ROI?
Amy Rosellini (12:01):
Yeah. I would say they're looking at those numbers
more once I've been in there.No. Before this in there. But
coming to companies raw, wherethey maybe haven't had a lot of
learning strategy or trainingdevelopment strategy, they
measure success on how manyhours did we train, how many
hours did an employee receive oftraining, what we what you just
(12:21):
said at the beginning, how muchmoney do we put into training.
So that's a lot of what I thinkthe focus has been in the past,
and I think what we're trying tocome to is how do we measure a
successful training, and are weassessing and auditing and
determining if we have asuccessful training programs
instead of just did people sitin a seat for a certain amount
of hours. And so there there'sthat opportunity to look at cost
(12:44):
per hire, to look at yourretention rates, to look at what
behavior changed or howperformance management, you
know, maybe they needed lessperformance management, maybe
they were more motivated, maybethey were became a better
learner after they've attendedthings within the training
program. And I think that'sstill new and on the cusp of us
measuring those pieces toassociate with training, I I
(13:05):
don't think that's becomestandard yet.
Mike Coffey (13:08):
And so our our traditional training model is
we're all called you know, whereeverybody's in the conference
room of some sort, and there's aspeaker talking to the audience,
and they've got their 8,000PowerPoint slides with 1,500
words on each one. And they gothrough it. And the
presentation's over and theyleave. But it's still even if
there's follow-up and but it'sstill follow-up, you know,
(13:30):
presentations, it's still thatone speaker talking to the
audience. Is that model flawed,or is is there is there a way to
change that dynamic that makesit makes it more effective?
Or how do you how do youapproach that?
Amy Rosellini (13:42):
Yeah. I feel like you answered that in your
question. I think you know thatthat Yeah.
Mike Coffey (13:45):
I read your paper. Okay. Full full full disclosure.
Amy wrote a very detailed paper.I I guess that was was that your
dissertation?
Amy Rosellini (13:55):
Or I don't know which paper you you read.
Mike Coffey (13:57):
The one about knowledge transfer, it was I had
to look a lot of the words up.There were a lot of words with
more than four syllables, and II still
Amy Rosellini (14:04):
looked at it. Use multiple syllable words in all
of my presentations.
Mike Coffey (14:08):
I give them a big
Amy Rosellini (14:09):
you should know.
Mike Coffey (14:09):
Yeah. Okay. So okay. So my question, tell me,
feed it back to me so that, itmakes sense.
Amy Rosellini (14:17):
Yeah. For sure. So, knowledge transfer happens
in my mind and in in the modelthat I I wrote about when there
is behavior change. So meaningif people understood what you
shared but they didn't doanything different after the
training, that was anunsuccessful training. And I
think we're in a world where, atbest, we are doing an assessment
(14:38):
of, did this person understandwhat the training was about?
Did they have a newunderstanding? And I think we
check the box and say, they havea new understanding. We did it.
Successful. Done.
And instead, what we should besaying is, did this person do
something different in theworkplace as a result of the
training that they attended?That's really what we're looking
for. And that isn't a thesolution for that is not we need
(15:02):
new training, though that's apiece of it. And having more
experiential learning, nothaving somebody stand and talk
to you, but instead having waysfor you to learn through
failure, through growth, throughexperiencing different things
within a training environment,or within, work with your
supervisor where you're doing onthe job learning. Those are
great ways.
Also, creating recognitionprograms, creating step by step
(15:24):
ways where people are learning alittle at a time. We tend to
say, here's the 99 things youneed to do to turn this valve
instead of here's what a valveis. And the next time we meet,
let's talk about what you dowith this valve. Next time we
meet, let's talk about what thevalve will do when you do that
thing. And so giving people justenough information that they can
handle at that time and creatingother systems within the
workplace where they can learnthat, not just when they're
(15:46):
sitting in a conference roomlooking at a PowerPoint.
Mike Coffey (15:49):
Building one competency or one piece of a
competency at a time andbuilding it that way. Yeah.
That's that's certainly how howwe do it. We've for, all of our
analysts, they've got common youknow, we've got a whole for each
of the sections in our company,we've got competency models for
each of those roles and wherethey can start in any any
(16:10):
section, but then we try tocross train a %. But everything
is one little piece at a time,and we measure it.
We make sure you know? And theydon't ever go do anything that's
unsupervised. You know? We'redealing with, you know, people's
lives, their jobs, the you know,our clients' expectations until
they're checked off thateverything that their peers have
(16:32):
fed given feedback consistentlythat, yeah, this met
expectations. This is what wewere looking for.
And then we let them loose. Butand then before that, though,
they've got that safety net thattheir peers are looking at
things, and things aren't gonnago straight to a client or to a
consumer or anything like thatuntil it's been cleared. But
(16:52):
then once they're once we takethat safety net away, they know
and we've seen actually somebodywill be at 94%, ninety three %,
you know, quality level. Andwhen we take the safety net, it
goes up to 98, 90 nine, becausethey know the safety nets. And
and, you know, we know to expectthat now.
But we teach them one littlepiece at a time, and and for us,
(17:13):
that's what's been, you know,really successful. And it's it
they know where they're going.When they see the competency
model, they know how it fits inhow we serve our clients and all
of that. So telling that storyaround it, I guess, is
important.
Amy Rosellini (17:26):
Yeah. Another piece you're doing right, if I
can comment. If I can comment onhow well you're doing, if
Mike Coffey (17:31):
you don't mind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stop.
Amy Rosellini (17:33):
Thank you. No. Is is the the peer review. So
having, like, a peer assessmentor a peer feedback because we
tend to, in training, do a lotof self review, which we know is
50% inaccurate. Then you domanager review, which the
manager, if if they're not doingit right, now I have to do more
training.
So it benefits me to say thatthey're doing it right, whereas
there's nothing in it for peers.Peers, it's like, if you don't
(17:55):
do it right, one of us is gonnahave to do it. We need you to
learn to do it right. They havea vested interest in being more
honest in that audit and inproviding that feedback. So I
just kind of wanna applaud andrecognize that's a really
positive way to kind of get afeedback loop going is with
peers.
That tends to be the moredependable way to get feedback
and get information back tosomebody who's trying to learn
(18:16):
something new.
Mike Coffey (18:17):
Yeah. And my my people get every day when they
come in, they see their qualitynumbers from their peer reviews
from the day before. Plus,they've got internally, we we've
got a system where they can gosee everything that got that got
flagged. So they can learn fromthat experience. But then
everybody each team has theirown quality.
And so I like I said, I've got avested interest in making sure
(18:39):
that my team's quality is high.So I'm gonna help this person to
get up to the competency levelthat we need them. And they're
still peer even after they'reself approving, they're you
know, they can release work tothe wild. We still do some a a
smaller set of peer review onevery day. So everybody is still
seeing the bits and pieces andmaking corrections or or
(18:59):
suggestions along the way.
But all of this sounds like somuch work for the supervisor.
It'd be so much easier if Icould just check a box. How do
you change that supervisor'smind that this is an investment
that that's that they need tomake the time to do?
Amy Rosellini (19:13):
Yeah. And so that is where you look at, again,
recognition and reward. How arewe compensating that supervisor?
If ultimately, the better theytrain people, the higher people
will perform, which means thehigher their department will
perform, which means the higherthe company will perform, what's
the supervisor skin in thatgame? So whether there's a
system of rewards, whetherthat's tied to a bonus or
compensation of some kind, Ithink it's really looking at how
(19:35):
do you reward people for forpositive behavior.
And so so, typically, a trainingsolution is not just a solution
in a classroom. It's muchbroader, and it really touches
kind of all of that peoplestrategy.
Mike Coffey (19:48):
And that means redesigning that supervisor role
too. I mean, if if supervisor'srole is really just supervise
or, better yet, lead people andthey're sucked into the daily
work of getting the job done ona daily basis, and they have
task oriented roles that aretaking more of their time than
the people leading roles. Ithink that makes it really hard
(20:09):
for a supervisor to to spend themake the connections, spend that
level that much time at thatlevel working one on one with
employees, paying attention tothe dynamics of what's making
somebody successful or what'sgetting in their way.
Amy Rosellini (20:22):
Right. And if we're making assumption that
most supervisors are that playercoach role where they're doing
the work as well as, you know,trying to help supervise and
lead the work, in those cases,they are probably being more
rewarded for the execution.They're probably getting more
recognition, more positivereinforcement on what the job
they're doing because you feelreally valued when you do a job
well. And you were promoted tosupervisor because you were
(20:44):
probably one of the best atdoing that job. So if that's
where I feel valued and that'swhere I feel recognized, what
what the company is actuallydoing is affirming, keep doing
that.
Don't keep supervising. Becausewith supervising, it's a hard
job. You're probably hearing alittle bit more negative
reinforcement and a little bitmore coaching and redirection.
And so it's hard as a playercoach not to lean into the
(21:06):
player side when that's thereason you got promoted in the
first place.
Mike Coffey (21:10):
Yeah. And we just often don't don't train them to
set that expectation and what wemeasure. And like you said, you
know, if we're measuring numberof hours of training delivered
or that we sent our people or wespent our budget or whatever it
is, you'll you'll get what youmeasure. Right? And those those
those more difficultmeasurements about true
productivity, engagement,whatever you're trying to fit
(21:32):
whatever problem you're tryingto fix, and that's always a
problem too, is some executivesgo to some conference someplace
and they hear a speaker and theythink they get excited about
that topic and bring thatspeaker in to do the training
because I think it's gonna, youknow, motivate the troops, but
there's no there's no answerabout what what problem we're
trying to solve here, how do weyou know, what's the measurable
issue.
(21:52):
It's the same thing with AI,though. Right? I mean, I'm I'm
hearing from people, for thelast two years whose CEOs are
saying, I wanna see AI used inHR. Okay. Well, how?
What what problem do you wannasee solved? And and so I keep
and people keep coming to mebecause I speak about AI at a
lot of these conferences andsaying, okay. So what we should
what what should we implementfirst? And I'm like, first, you
(22:13):
figure out what your problemsare and figure out what your
biggest problem are is, and itmay not be an AI solution. Let's
just let's just figure let's fixour biggest problem.
Maybe technology is the answer.Maybe it's a people. Maybe it's
training. Just work on yourbiggest problems. Don't, you
know, don't just go you know, assoon as you say I'm gonna solve
something with AI, every youknow, if you've got a hammer,
everything that looks like anail, don't go that route.
(22:34):
So we've gotta get we've gottaget those expectations correct
about what we what we wannasolve, what the problems are.
And let's take a quick break.Good Morning HR is brought to
you by Imperative, bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. If you're anHRCI or SHRM certified
professional, this episode ofGood Morning HR has been pre
(22:55):
approved for one half hour ofrecertification credit. To
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Then select episode one eightyeight and enter the keyword
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(23:16):
page at comparativeinfo.com. Andnow back to my conversation with
Amy Rossellini. So we we do ourtraining and we have maybe some
measurements going up.
What is what does that follow-upprocess look like? What is the
feedbacks, you know, what doesthat cycle look like?
Amy Rosellini (23:35):
Yeah. I thought you had a good example of, in
your training having thefeedback loop with peers. And so
the first is how are wemeasuring training? So before
you ever even decide what atraining should be about, it's
exactly like you said. You haveto ask the question, what do we
expect to change because ofthis?
And so then that question is ifthat's a behavior you expect to
change, I've seen companies putin place an audit where somebody
(23:58):
actually measures behaviorchange. So somebody from that
organizational development teamis going and observing, whether
it's in a automotive you know, acar dealership, whether it's in
a factory floor, whether it's inan office environment and just
tracking, you know and there'splenty of IT tools that can
track kinda screen time andwhere people are utilizing their
(24:18):
time and which sites they'revisiting. But where do we expect
people to change behavior? Andif you just did a CRM training
where you expect productivity togo up 20%, and you can track CRM
usage, and you can see, like,how many you know, what higher
percentage of customers are weputting through, or what how
many follow ups as a percent arewe putting through. And you can
see, are we seeing that thatincrease that we plan to see in
(24:39):
efficiency, and in utilization?
That's where again, I think alot of companies are missing.
They didn't determine what thatmetric was before they started
the training, so they don't knowwhat they're measuring after the
fact.
Mike Coffey (24:51):
And we've all worked with them. We've got
people who are knowledge subjectmatter experts in how we used to
do it or the way we do it rightnow, and convincing them that we
need to make a change in how wedo it, that they need to go to a
training, maybe learn some newskills. And I'm convinced this
(25:13):
is could be another drinkinggame here. The the skills you
have right now are are not gonnabe the skills you're gonna need
in your job in four years, fiveyears, and and the job's gonna
be different. The technology'sgonna be different.
The things that we we we'retrying to accomplish or, you
know, the mission may be evendifferent. So, but there are
people who think they know it.And how do you convince those
(25:36):
folks to not just attend thetraining, but to really
participate in it and be open tothe idea that maybe there's some
value here beyond, you know,what we've done in the past. And
that's probably the problem isso many companies have a long
history of dog and pony showtraining that does doesn't
really accomplish anything. Sohow do you convince somebody
(25:57):
who's either got that stalemindset or that, you know, well,
yeah, I've been through thisbefore, idea.
How do you convince them toreally invest themselves in that
training?
Amy Rosellini (26:07):
Yeah. So there's a couple examples, maybe some
here's what not to do and here'swhat to do. When it comes to
what not to do, maybe not say,hey, employees. We want you to
learn empathy, so you need tocome here and learn empathy, and
we're gonna teach you empathy.Nobody that doesn't sound fun.
I don't wanna go to that. Thatdoesn't sound like a good idea.
And, again, we talk about, like,our phones where you pick up the
(26:29):
phone because you wanna checkthe weather, and all of a
sudden, you've gone down arabbit hole of politics that you
didn't even know you wanted togo down, because you have some
marketing geniuses really sayingand selling to you on something
that you didn't know you wanted,and then you start learning it
and you start wanting to knowmore about it. So I think some
of it is even how we packagetraining that it we we because
(26:51):
we look at it as a check the boxand we don't look at it as how
do we sell this as anopportunity for growth, I think
that's one piece of kind ofchanging how we package training
and how we look at it. And thena second piece that is, in my
opinion, related to that,instead of requiring training,
offering training, giving peopleopportunity.
Why not get a MBA in this topic?You're not gonna get an MBA at
(27:14):
the end of it. Like, you're notactually going to have a new
degree, but you're gonna bereally solid at what leadership
means at this organization.You're gonna be really solid at
what being a supervisor hasbecome at this organization.
You're gonna be really solid athow to sell in this company and
providing people, like, hey.
You wanna move your careerforward? Here's ways to do that.
And allowing people thatoptionality or that
(27:34):
customization where they get tochoose and they get to select
when they walk into a training.Again, if you package it really
well and give people thatoption, I think you will know if
your training is successful byhow many people are choosing to
go do it rather than how manyyou're requiring to go and do
it.
Mike Coffey (27:49):
And the, you know, you mentioned empathy. So, you
know, let me do that horriblesales interview process, but
here's a bottle of water. Sellme this bottle of water. Sell me
well, how would you if I wantedto if if we knew we had an issue
that leadership wasn'tconnecting to people, didn't
there wasn't that leadershipemployee connection, and I need
(28:11):
to develop empathy. So what doesthat what does that sales job
sound like to convince somebodythat, yeah, we need to, you
know, con you know, go to thistraining on empathy?
How would you how would youframe that?
Amy Rosellini (28:23):
I love that you're asking that. So it would
depend on a lot of things priorto the training on empathy of
what's going on in the company.
Mike Coffey (28:29):
Right.
Amy Rosellini (28:30):
That leadership decided or the executive team
decided that that's needed. Andso something's happening, and so
I'd probably start more with theproblem of, are you seeing this?
One that I could I could seefrom a supervisor level. Has it
been hard going from a peer togoing to a leader of your your
former friends or your currentfriends and the people that that
(28:51):
you've worked alongside for tenyears? That, it could be an
empathy training.
Like, understanding how that'sdifficult for them,
understanding the transitionpeople are having to make as
they reframe who you are intheir lives. Like, that's an
empathy training. But you don'tneed to call it empathy
training. You call that goingfrom peer to supervisor because
that's somebody that a newsupervisor is like, yeah. It's
hard.
I used to go drink with theseguys Thursdays and Fridays, you
(29:14):
know, after work every week. AmI allowed to do that anymore?
Can I not do that? I mean,there's a lot of questions that
that type of a training couldcould answer that I think how
you package it and say, here'ssome struggles we've seen at
this level. This is gonna be anopportunity for you to come for
ninety minutes, talk throughsome case studies, talk through
some things that have happenedin the past and how you can
learn from that, instead ofsaying, come learn empathy now
(29:36):
that you're a supervisor.
Mike Coffey (29:38):
Right. So I want I want you to plug your model, and
I wanna get give me the big the,you know, 50,000 view, you know,
foot view of the KTMM model andhow a company what it looks like
when a company is implementedand is, you know, getting
outcomes and improved outcomesfrom it.
Amy Rosellini (29:56):
Yeah. So the big piece is, one, certainly,
there's that feedback loop. Thatis what it's all about. We've
talked a little bit about that.But the keys are the
measurements in between eachphase.
So as you decide what thecompany needs or where there's a
gap, how are you gonna measurethat this training actually
fills that gap? And then the bigpiece, which I think is the the
(30:16):
second half of the model thatpeople are missing the most, how
do you make sure that not onlydid they understand what was
communicated in that training,but their behavior changed
because of it? And that's thenext measurement piece. How do
you measure that behavior changehappened? And that might be a
place where they could bring inAI, and there might be a a way
through the technology to see ifthings have happened, and you
can get some automated reports,and you can understand that.
(30:37):
But a lot of the time, certainlywith soft skills, it's not so
easy to measure as and then weget a quick report to tell us if
this person has empathy now inthe workplace. So there's
there's engagement surveys.There's there's pieces that are
out there, but it's reallyunderstanding what are we
expecting from a employee'sbehavior. And if we take
something in leadershipdevelopment, which is hard to
(30:58):
measure, that that KTMM modelreally says, how do you measure
when somebody goes from Iunderstand this training to my
behavior is different now? Andthen the loop is my behavior is
different.
Now I'm better. Now I have newproblems. So now how does that
how do we identify those gaps,and how do we continue down that
path of, okay, what are the newgaps? What do we need to train
(31:20):
now? Now that we're trainingthis, at the end of it, how are
we measuring that theyunderstand this concept?
And then once they understandthis concept, how are we
measuring if their behaviorchanged because of it? And if
their behavior changed after asustained amount of time, new
issues will occur. What are thenew gaps? How do we go back to
the beginning and and look atwhat the training needs today?
So it's it's kind of a constantevolution.
(31:40):
You were talking earlier aboutthere's those people in the
workforce that don't wannachange. They're used to doing it
a certain way. I love thosepeople. They're usually the best
at their jobs. Right?
We need those people. We neededthose people to get us to where
we are today. The beauty is ifwe can start to recognize and
reward people for learning. Yougot us here. We need to learn
(32:02):
new, and we don't even know whatwe need to learn.
We need you to help us learn andget those people to enjoy
learning rather than you yougotta know how to do it this way
now. It's not about doing itthis way. It's just about
learning a new way and learninga new way and learning a new way
and and letting that process bewhat makes people successful and
how we reward how we rewardfolks in the workplace.
Mike Coffey (32:24):
That's the perfect place to end it. That's all the
time we have. Thank you forjoining me today, Amy.
Amy Rosellini (32:29):
Thank you so much. It's a lifelong dream and
it's been a pleasure. I reallyenjoyed meeting you.
Mike Coffey (32:33):
Thanks for joining me. And thank you for listening.
You can comment on this episodeor search our previous episodes
at goodmorninghr.com or on yourfavorite social media channel.
And don't forget to follow uswherever you get your podcast.
Rob Upchurch is our technicalproducer, and you can reach him
at rob makes pods dot com.
And thank you to imperativesmarketing coordinator, Mary Anne
(32:56):
Hernandez, who keeps the trainsrunning on time. And I'm Mike
Coffey, as always. Don'thesitate to reach out if I can
be of service to you personallyor professionally. I'll see you
next week and until then, bewell, do good, and keep your
chin up.
We tend to say, here's the 99 things you need to
do to turn this valve instead ofhere's what a valve is.
Mike Coffey (00:06):
And
Amy Rosellini (00:06):
the next time we meet, let's talk about what you
do with this valve. Next time wemeet, let's talk about what the
valve will do when you do thatthing. And so giving people just
enough information that they canhandle at that time and creating
other systems within theworkplace where they can learn
that, not just when they'resitting in a conference room
looking at a PowerPoint.
Mike Coffey (00:26):
Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of
Imperative, Bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. And this isthe podcast where I talk to
business leaders about bringingpeople together to create value
for shareholders, customers, andthe community. Please follow,
rate, and review Good Morning HRwherever you get your podcasts.
You can also find us onFacebook, Instagram, YouTube, or
(00:49):
at GoodMorningHR.com.
According to the Association forTalent Development, firms spent
an average of $1,283 peremployee on workplace learning
in 2023, totaling more than ahundred and 1,000,000,000 with a
b dollars. However, anecdotally,most of us would agree that a
lot of workplace training is notas effective as we need it to
(01:12):
be. And according to Gartner,sixty four percent of managers
don't think their employees areable to keep pace with future
skill needs. And worse, 70% ofemployees said they haven't even
mastered the skills they needfor their current jobs. Joining
me today to discuss why trainingoften fails and how
organizations can fix it isdoctor Amy Rossellini.
(01:34):
Amy is a human resourcesconsultant with over two decades
of experience specializing inorganizational learning and
human capital strategy. Since2013, Amy has led RLT Impact, a
consulting firm offeringfractional CHRO and learning
services. Amy holds a PhD ininformation science from the
(01:54):
University of North Texas, andshe also chairs a CEO advisory
group in North Texas where shemeets monthly with a peer group
of CEOs to help one anothertackle their most important
business challenges. And sheserves as an adjunct faculty in
the business schools at UNT,SMU, and the University of
(02:14):
Dallas. Welcome to Good MorningHR, Amy.
Amy Rosellini (02:18):
Thanks so much. It's a lifelong dream to be
here, and I'm so grateful tohave the opportunity.
Mike Coffey (02:24):
Well, I we met at the APNA conference, I think, in
San Diego last fall, and I go toso many conferences. And it's
rare that a conference that'ssomeplace in my wheel or a
presentation at someplace in mywheelhouse, you know, people
leadership stuff really blows meaway, but the stuff that you
shared there, I think I went upto you after the conference and
(02:45):
then emailed you. I really wannado you know, get you on, and it
took us several months to getthis done, but I'm glad you're
finally on the podcast. So Isaid a hundred and
$1,000,000,000 with a big o b,in training, and it just doesn't
seem that a lot of companies aregetting the ROI that they want,
from that money. Do you thinkthat number's accurate?
(03:07):
I mean, you know, or is is thereis that a is that impression
that training isn't giving uswhat we want accurate? And if
so, where do you think we'refailing at it? You know,
Amy Rosellini (03:17):
I do think the number's accurate. I I was able
to serve a CHRO in a fewdifferent organizations, and our
average spend per employee was athousand dollars. The stronger
the culture, the the higher thatnumber went. So for it to be a
little over a thousand dollars,12 hundred dollars per employee
on training, that that number'snot surprising. And then I think
when it comes to ROI,unfortunately and sadly, putting
(03:38):
out the training, you know,maybe what we're measuring is
did we do it?
Did they attend a training?Yeah. Is that we we we did it,
and so it must be successfulrather than really understanding
at the beginning when weintroduce training what is the
measurable, how do we determinesuccess, and I think that's a
lot of what's missing out there.
Mike Coffey (03:58):
And so when we're talking about these budget
numbers, this is actual not thisisn't knowledge transfer from a
supervisor to an employeesitting at a desk or let me show
you how to do this. This is morestructured, you know,
organization development kind offormal training. Is that what
we're talking about?
Amy Rosellini (04:15):
Yeah. In my experience, it's more it's it's
absolutely formal training. It'seither sending somebody off-site
or maybe the dollars and centsput into an internal training
program, vendors brought in,consultants, things like
Mike Coffey (04:26):
that. But I can tell you from the employee
relations issues I've beeninvolved with with clients over
the last thirty years, I thinkthe training from that manager
to that employee, just whetherit's in a conference room,
across a desk, alongside oneanother, I think that kinda
sucks too a lot of times. And,you know, I did the training.
(04:48):
Why don't they get it? And, youknow, and and it's always the
employee's fault.
You know, I I hate you know? I Iwell, I say I hate those
supervisors under the busbecause it's not their fault.
They weren't trained to do itwell. They weren't you know, we
it's it's it's our standarddrinking game here on the
podcast if, you know, we wesomebody's good at a job, so we
(05:09):
make them a supervisor withoutever giving them the training
and and tools to do the job.There we go.
So those numbers are right. Thenwhy do you think it's failing?
If we're if we're just not ifit's not working, why is that?
Amy Rosellini (05:22):
Well, so let's talk about maybe that informal
piece that you just mentioned ofthe supervisor sitting right
across from the person. They'retelling them everything they
need to know. And if you're notwilling to throw supervisors
under the bus, I'll throw my momunder the bus if that's fair.
Why not? Yeah.
I had dinner with my parents.Listening.
Mike Coffey (05:38):
So
Amy Rosellini (05:39):
She's I doubt it. I doubt it. She's not big in the
HR world. I did dinner with myparents last night, and she was
talking about another familymember. I won't name them just
in case.
She was talking about anotherfamily member, and she said,
well, are you giving them themadvice? Are you telling them
what to do? And my response was,when's the last time you did
something because someone toldyou to do it? Right. And and so
(05:59):
I don't think it's thatdifferent in the workplace.
I think supervisors havepositive intent. They wanna help
their employees. They're tryingto do what's right for a team.
But at the end of the day, theydon't have the tools to know how
to change behavior. And so Ithink we're putting money into,
well, let's let supervisorstrain them.
Let's get supervisors to tellthem. Let's train the
supervisors on telling them inthe right ways. But at the end
(06:21):
of the day, we learn by doing.We learn by failing. We learn by
experiences.
So having a supportive culture,having recognition in the right
places might be better spends ofour money to help those
supervisors and how do I givethem the experience to learn
this instead of how do I tellthem what they need to
Mike Coffey (06:41):
know? So what do you think the things behavior
wise that affect how well weconduct training or how well
people receive training? Youknow, so much of the workplace
if everybody was robots, wecould just write the code and
just get it done. But, you know,we bring people, you know, come
into the workplace, and they'rejust they're a hot mess. So how
(07:02):
does behavior how does, youknow, people's just their
natural behaviors affect howthey receive training or how
they provide training.
Amy Rosellini (07:10):
Yeah. So so twofold. Right? So if we're just
talking about the trainerthemselves, I think it from the
company standpoint, they'remeasured on, did I get all this
content out? Maybe we're tryingto fit so much content in a
short time frame.
I've certainly been in trainingswhere they said, well, hold on.
I just need y'all to listen so Ican get the rest of this out
because you need to hear this,and and y'all are asking too
(07:31):
many questions. We don't havetime.
Mike Coffey (07:33):
Right.
Amy Rosellini (07:33):
And where people are learning the most is the
questions. So the other side ofthis coin is when employees want
to know the information, theyare more likely to change
behavior because they are morelikely to accept the knowledge
that is shared with them. You'reless likely to take on knowledge
you didn't ask for. You're morelikely to do something with
knowledge that you were actuallyinquisitive and wanted to know
(07:55):
about. You know, we live in aworld where we can access
whatever information we want atany given moment, and so that
just in time information is whatworks best for a lot of folks.
Instead of just get in here, sitdown for six hours, let me tell
you what you need to know. Ithink that's where the struggle
is is maybe how we compensate atrainer is make sure you
struggle is is maybe how wecompensate a trainer is make
(08:15):
sure you get all thatinformation out, but how an
employee learns isn'tnecessarily how we're training
those trainers to speak.
Mike Coffey (08:23):
And companies have trainers that they bring in from
the outside, and they haveinternal trainers. I've always,
you know and I'm the guy who onoccasion is the outside trainer
who comes in, but I've alwayshad a bias towards that internal
trainer who understands thecompany, understands how what
I'm training right now is howit's relevant to the
(08:45):
organization's culture. What'syour take on on those two,
inside versus outside?
Amy Rosellini (08:52):
Yeah. So I'm I'm very similar. When companies ask
me to come out and do a trainingone time, I price it in such a
way that you really don't wantme to do that. I can you know,
money's money, and I do havechildren. So Right.
I gotta send some people tocollege here. So I'm willing to
do what I need.
Mike Coffey (09:08):
Probation fees. And so, yeah, I've got yeah.
Amy Rosellini (09:10):
There you go. There you go. And so what what I
I believe, and I just spoke witha company this morning, a little
larger organization, is I thinkmaybe initially they were
looking for you'll come in andtrain this. And, ultimately,
where we landed was I'll come inand help develop the strategy
and help facilitate, but,ultimately, let's put your
leaders in front of people asmuch as we can. It might not be
(09:31):
for an entire training.
It might not be for the entireprogram. But if we're building a
leadership development that's,let's say, eight months long,
I'd like your executives andyour leaders to get in front of
them as much as possible. Icertainly have companies that
say, you know what? Why don'tyou come in and continue so you
become a part of our culture?You become a part of who we are?
(09:51):
And so it's one of those twoways I prefer to wait work.
Either I'm alongside thoseexecutives and those leaders in
the company, or they arebringing me in on a regular
enough basis that we're notwe're not basing everything on
one training class. We'recontinuing to meet with the
leaders, to help train thetrainers, to help create
recognition programs and otherways to get that knowledge to
(10:11):
become part of who the companyis.
Mike Coffey (10:14):
And, I mean, you were talking about leadership
training, and I always say whatwe call the soft skills are
really the hard skills, and Ithink those are really
important. What do you think thedo you think that training is
more or less effective than,like, hard skills training, you
know, putting tab a in slot a,that kind of work? Or do you
think it's equally is there adisconnect on both, of them?
Amy Rosellini (10:36):
Yeah. There disconnect on both, but I'll
answer it actually in a waymaybe a little different from
what you're asking so you cantell me to clarify if if you
don't like this answer. I thinkhow we market and how we talk
about the soft skills is whatmakes people discount them, so
they are harder to train. Andwhen we say, hey. You need to
come here, and we'll teach youhow to build trust.
That's that's initially, I'mlike, no. I know how to I'm
(10:59):
trustworthy. I'm honest. I haveintegrity. And so we kind of
build the trainings wrong wherewe say, you don't have this
thing, so you need to come learnit, instead of let's find out
where people are.
Let's do some assessments. Let'sthose people that are really
great at it, let's put them infront of others. And so I think
sometimes it's just how westrategize from from go and how
we package it.
Mike Coffey (11:19):
So if what we're doing is right now is not
working and we're not gettingthe ROI well, let me first ask.
Do most companies really knowwhat the r what ROI they're
really expecting when they spendwhen they spend all this money,
or is it just, you know,rainbows and unicorns and we're
gonna do this and sing Kumbayaat the end? Or, you know, do
they do they have, you know ordo you see companies that have,
(11:43):
you know, hard expectations?Okay. We're gonna see employee
engagement go up by x percent,or we're going to see retention
change, or we're gonna see ourcost per hire reduced or
whatever.
Do you see those numbers outthere that companies go into, or
what are they looking for whenthey say they're looking for an
ROI?
Amy Rosellini (12:01):
Yeah. I would say they're looking at those numbers
more once I've been in there.No. Before this in there. But
coming to companies raw, wherethey maybe haven't had a lot of
learning strategy or trainingdevelopment strategy, they
measure success on how manyhours did we train, how many
hours did an employee receive oftraining, what we what you just
(12:21):
said at the beginning, how muchmoney do we put into training.
So that's a lot of what I thinkthe focus has been in the past,
and I think what we're trying tocome to is how do we measure a
successful training, and are weassessing and auditing and
determining if we have asuccessful training programs
instead of just did people sitin a seat for a certain amount
of hours. And so there there'sthat opportunity to look at cost
(12:44):
per hire, to look at yourretention rates, to look at what
behavior changed or howperformance management, you
know, maybe they needed lessperformance management, maybe
they were more motivated, maybethey were became a better
learner after they've attendedthings within the training
program. And I think that'sstill new and on the cusp of us
measuring those pieces toassociate with training, I I
(13:05):
don't think that's becomestandard yet.
Mike Coffey (13:08):
And so our our traditional training model is
we're all called you know, whereeverybody's in the conference
room of some sort, and there's aspeaker talking to the audience,
and they've got their 8,000PowerPoint slides with 1,500
words on each one. And they gothrough it. And the
presentation's over and theyleave. But it's still even if
there's follow-up and but it'sstill follow-up, you know,
(13:30):
presentations, it's still thatone speaker talking to the
audience. Is that model flawed,or is is there is there a way to
change that dynamic that makesit makes it more effective?
Or how do you how do youapproach that?
Amy Rosellini (13:42):
Yeah. I feel like you answered that in your
question. I think you know thatthat Yeah.
Mike Coffey (13:45):
I read your paper. Okay. Full full full disclosure.
Amy wrote a very detailed paper.I I guess that was was that your
dissertation?
Amy Rosellini (13:55):
Or I don't know which paper you you read.
Mike Coffey (13:57):
The one about knowledge transfer, it was I had
to look a lot of the words up.There were a lot of words with
more than four syllables, and II still
Amy Rosellini (14:04):
looked at it. Use multiple syllable words in all
of my presentations.
Mike Coffey (14:08):
I give them a big
Amy Rosellini (14:09):
you should know.
Mike Coffey (14:09):
Yeah. Okay. So okay. So my question, tell me,
feed it back to me so that, itmakes sense.
Amy Rosellini (14:17):
Yeah. For sure. So, knowledge transfer happens
in my mind and in in the modelthat I I wrote about when there
is behavior change. So meaningif people understood what you
shared but they didn't doanything different after the
training, that was anunsuccessful training. And I
think we're in a world where, atbest, we are doing an assessment
(14:38):
of, did this person understandwhat the training was about?
Did they have a newunderstanding? And I think we
check the box and say, they havea new understanding. We did it.
Successful. Done.
And instead, what we should besaying is, did this person do
something different in theworkplace as a result of the
training that they attended?That's really what we're looking
for. And that isn't a thesolution for that is not we need
(15:02):
new training, though that's apiece of it. And having more
experiential learning, nothaving somebody stand and talk
to you, but instead having waysfor you to learn through
failure, through growth, throughexperiencing different things
within a training environment,or within, work with your
supervisor where you're doing onthe job learning. Those are
great ways.
Also, creating recognitionprograms, creating step by step
(15:24):
ways where people are learning alittle at a time. We tend to
say, here's the 99 things youneed to do to turn this valve
instead of here's what a valveis. And the next time we meet,
let's talk about what you dowith this valve. Next time we
meet, let's talk about what thevalve will do when you do that
thing. And so giving people justenough information that they can
handle at that time and creatingother systems within the
workplace where they can learnthat, not just when they're
(15:46):
sitting in a conference roomlooking at a PowerPoint.
Mike Coffey (15:49):
Building one competency or one piece of a
competency at a time andbuilding it that way. Yeah.
That's that's certainly how howwe do it. We've for, all of our
analysts, they've got common youknow, we've got a whole for each
of the sections in our company,we've got competency models for
each of those roles and wherethey can start in any any
(16:10):
section, but then we try tocross train a %. But everything
is one little piece at a time,and we measure it.
We make sure you know? And theydon't ever go do anything that's
unsupervised. You know? We'redealing with, you know, people's
lives, their jobs, the you know,our clients' expectations until
they're checked off thateverything that their peers have
(16:32):
fed given feedback consistentlythat, yeah, this met
expectations. This is what wewere looking for.
And then we let them loose. Butand then before that, though,
they've got that safety net thattheir peers are looking at
things, and things aren't gonnago straight to a client or to a
consumer or anything like thatuntil it's been cleared. But
(16:52):
then once they're once we takethat safety net away, they know
and we've seen actually somebodywill be at 94%, ninety three %,
you know, quality level. Andwhen we take the safety net, it
goes up to 98, 90 nine, becausethey know the safety nets. And
and, you know, we know to expectthat now.
But we teach them one littlepiece at a time, and and for us,
(17:13):
that's what's been, you know,really successful. And it's it
they know where they're going.When they see the competency
model, they know how it fits inhow we serve our clients and all
of that. So telling that storyaround it, I guess, is
important.
Amy Rosellini (17:26):
Yeah. Another piece you're doing right, if I
can comment. If I can comment onhow well you're doing, if
Mike Coffey (17:31):
you don't mind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stop.
Amy Rosellini (17:33):
Thank you. No. Is is the the peer review. So
having, like, a peer assessmentor a peer feedback because we
tend to, in training, do a lotof self review, which we know is
50% inaccurate. Then you domanager review, which the
manager, if if they're not doingit right, now I have to do more
training.
So it benefits me to say thatthey're doing it right, whereas
there's nothing in it for peers.Peers, it's like, if you don't
(17:55):
do it right, one of us is gonnahave to do it. We need you to
learn to do it right. They havea vested interest in being more
honest in that audit and inproviding that feedback. So I
just kind of wanna applaud andrecognize that's a really
positive way to kind of get afeedback loop going is with
peers.
That tends to be the moredependable way to get feedback
and get information back tosomebody who's trying to learn
(18:16):
something new.
Mike Coffey (18:17):
Yeah. And my my people get every day when they
come in, they see their qualitynumbers from their peer reviews
from the day before. Plus,they've got internally, we we've
got a system where they can gosee everything that got that got
flagged. So they can learn fromthat experience. But then
everybody each team has theirown quality.
And so I like I said, I've got avested interest in making sure
(18:39):
that my team's quality is high.So I'm gonna help this person to
get up to the competency levelthat we need them. And they're
still peer even after they'reself approving, they're you
know, they can release work tothe wild. We still do some a a
smaller set of peer review onevery day. So everybody is still
seeing the bits and pieces andmaking corrections or or
(18:59):
suggestions along the way.
But all of this sounds like somuch work for the supervisor.
It'd be so much easier if Icould just check a box. How do
you change that supervisor'smind that this is an investment
that that's that they need tomake the time to do?
Amy Rosellini (19:13):
Yeah. And so that is where you look at, again,
recognition and reward. How arewe compensating that supervisor?
If ultimately, the better theytrain people, the higher people
will perform, which means thehigher their department will
perform, which means the higherthe company will perform, what's
the supervisor skin in thatgame? So whether there's a
system of rewards, whetherthat's tied to a bonus or
compensation of some kind, Ithink it's really looking at how
(19:35):
do you reward people for forpositive behavior.
And so so, typically, a trainingsolution is not just a solution
in a classroom. It's muchbroader, and it really touches
kind of all of that peoplestrategy.
Mike Coffey (19:48):
And that means redesigning that supervisor role
too. I mean, if if supervisor'srole is really just supervise
or, better yet, lead people andthey're sucked into the daily
work of getting the job done ona daily basis, and they have
task oriented roles that aretaking more of their time than
the people leading roles. Ithink that makes it really hard
(20:09):
for a supervisor to to spend themake the connections, spend that
level that much time at thatlevel working one on one with
employees, paying attention tothe dynamics of what's making
somebody successful or what'sgetting in their way.
Amy Rosellini (20:22):
Right. And if we're making assumption that
most supervisors are that playercoach role where they're doing
the work as well as, you know,trying to help supervise and
lead the work, in those cases,they are probably being more
rewarded for the execution.They're probably getting more
recognition, more positivereinforcement on what the job
they're doing because you feelreally valued when you do a job
well. And you were promoted tosupervisor because you were
(20:44):
probably one of the best atdoing that job. So if that's
where I feel valued and that'swhere I feel recognized, what
what the company is actuallydoing is affirming, keep doing
that.
Don't keep supervising. Becausewith supervising, it's a hard
job. You're probably hearing alittle bit more negative
reinforcement and a little bitmore coaching and redirection.
And so it's hard as a playercoach not to lean into the
(21:06):
player side when that's thereason you got promoted in the
first place.
Mike Coffey (21:10):
Yeah. And we just often don't don't train them to
set that expectation and what wemeasure. And like you said, you
know, if we're measuring numberof hours of training delivered
or that we sent our people or wespent our budget or whatever it
is, you'll you'll get what youmeasure. Right? And those those
those more difficultmeasurements about true
productivity, engagement,whatever you're trying to fit
(21:32):
whatever problem you're tryingto fix, and that's always a
problem too, is some executivesgo to some conference someplace
and they hear a speaker and theythink they get excited about
that topic and bring thatspeaker in to do the training
because I think it's gonna, youknow, motivate the troops, but
there's no there's no answerabout what what problem we're
trying to solve here, how do weyou know, what's the measurable
issue.
(21:52):
It's the same thing with AI,though. Right? I mean, I'm I'm
hearing from people, for thelast two years whose CEOs are
saying, I wanna see AI used inHR. Okay. Well, how?
What what problem do you wannasee solved? And and so I keep
and people keep coming to mebecause I speak about AI at a
lot of these conferences andsaying, okay. So what we should
what what should we implementfirst? And I'm like, first, you
(22:13):
figure out what your problemsare and figure out what your
biggest problem are is, and itmay not be an AI solution. Let's
just let's just figure let's fixour biggest problem.
Maybe technology is the answer.Maybe it's a people. Maybe it's
training. Just work on yourbiggest problems. Don't, you
know, don't just go you know, assoon as you say I'm gonna solve
something with AI, every youknow, if you've got a hammer,
everything that looks like anail, don't go that route.
(22:34):
So we've gotta get we've gottaget those expectations correct
about what we what we wannasolve, what the problems are.
And let's take a quick break.Good Morning HR is brought to
you by Imperative, bulletproofbackground checks with fast and
friendly service. If you're anHRCI or SHRM certified
professional, this episode ofGood Morning HR has been pre
(22:55):
approved for one half hour ofrecertification credit. To
obtain the recertificationinformation visit
goodmorninghr.com and click onresearch credits.
Then select episode one eightyeight and enter the keyword
training. That's t r a I n I ng. And if you're looking for
even more recertificationcredit, check out the webinars
(23:16):
page at comparativeinfo.com. Andnow back to my conversation with
Amy Rossellini. So we we do ourtraining and we have maybe some
measurements going up.
What is what does that follow-upprocess look like? What is the
feedbacks, you know, what doesthat cycle look like?
Amy Rosellini (23:35):
Yeah. I thought you had a good example of, in
your training having thefeedback loop with peers. And so
the first is how are wemeasuring training? So before
you ever even decide what atraining should be about, it's
exactly like you said. You haveto ask the question, what do we
expect to change because ofthis?
And so then that question is ifthat's a behavior you expect to
change, I've seen companies putin place an audit where somebody
(23:58):
actually measures behaviorchange. So somebody from that
organizational development teamis going and observing, whether
it's in a automotive you know, acar dealership, whether it's in
a factory floor, whether it's inan office environment and just
tracking, you know and there'splenty of IT tools that can
track kinda screen time andwhere people are utilizing their
(24:18):
time and which sites they'revisiting. But where do we expect
people to change behavior? Andif you just did a CRM training
where you expect productivity togo up 20%, and you can track CRM
usage, and you can see, like,how many you know, what higher
percentage of customers are weputting through, or what how
many follow ups as a percent arewe putting through. And you can
see, are we seeing that thatincrease that we plan to see in
(24:39):
efficiency, and in utilization?
That's where again, I think alot of companies are missing.
They didn't determine what thatmetric was before they started
the training, so they don't knowwhat they're measuring after the
fact.
Mike Coffey (24:51):
And we've all worked with them. We've got
people who are knowledge subjectmatter experts in how we used to
do it or the way we do it rightnow, and convincing them that we
need to make a change in how wedo it, that they need to go to a
training, maybe learn some newskills. And I'm convinced this
(25:13):
is could be another drinkinggame here. The the skills you
have right now are are not gonnabe the skills you're gonna need
in your job in four years, fiveyears, and and the job's gonna
be different. The technology'sgonna be different.
The things that we we we'retrying to accomplish or, you
know, the mission may be evendifferent. So, but there are
people who think they know it.And how do you convince those
(25:36):
folks to not just attend thetraining, but to really
participate in it and be open tothe idea that maybe there's some
value here beyond, you know,what we've done in the past. And
that's probably the problem isso many companies have a long
history of dog and pony showtraining that does doesn't
really accomplish anything. Sohow do you convince somebody
(25:57):
who's either got that stalemindset or that, you know, well,
yeah, I've been through thisbefore, idea.
How do you convince them toreally invest themselves in that
training?
Amy Rosellini (26:07):
Yeah. So there's a couple examples, maybe some
here's what not to do and here'swhat to do. When it comes to
what not to do, maybe not say,hey, employees. We want you to
learn empathy, so you need tocome here and learn empathy, and
we're gonna teach you empathy.Nobody that doesn't sound fun.
I don't wanna go to that. Thatdoesn't sound like a good idea.
And, again, we talk about, like,our phones where you pick up the
(26:29):
phone because you wanna checkthe weather, and all of a
sudden, you've gone down arabbit hole of politics that you
didn't even know you wanted togo down, because you have some
marketing geniuses really sayingand selling to you on something
that you didn't know you wanted,and then you start learning it
and you start wanting to knowmore about it. So I think some
of it is even how we packagetraining that it we we because
(26:51):
we look at it as a check the boxand we don't look at it as how
do we sell this as anopportunity for growth, I think
that's one piece of kind ofchanging how we package training
and how we look at it. And thena second piece that is, in my
opinion, related to that,instead of requiring training,
offering training, giving peopleopportunity.
Why not get a MBA in this topic?You're not gonna get an MBA at
(27:14):
the end of it. Like, you're notactually going to have a new
degree, but you're gonna bereally solid at what leadership
means at this organization.You're gonna be really solid at
what being a supervisor hasbecome at this organization.
You're gonna be really solid athow to sell in this company and
providing people, like, hey.
You wanna move your careerforward? Here's ways to do that.
And allowing people thatoptionality or that
(27:34):
customization where they get tochoose and they get to select
when they walk into a training.Again, if you package it really
well and give people thatoption, I think you will know if
your training is successful byhow many people are choosing to
go do it rather than how manyyou're requiring to go and do
it.
Mike Coffey (27:49):
And the, you know, you mentioned empathy. So, you
know, let me do that horriblesales interview process, but
here's a bottle of water. Sellme this bottle of water. Sell me
well, how would you if I wantedto if if we knew we had an issue
that leadership wasn'tconnecting to people, didn't
there wasn't that leadershipemployee connection, and I need
(28:11):
to develop empathy. So what doesthat what does that sales job
sound like to convince somebodythat, yeah, we need to, you
know, con you know, go to thistraining on empathy?
How would you how would youframe that?
Amy Rosellini (28:23):
I love that you're asking that. So it would
depend on a lot of things priorto the training on empathy of
what's going on in the company.
Mike Coffey (28:29):
Right.
Amy Rosellini (28:30):
That leadership decided or the executive team
decided that that's needed. Andso something's happening, and so
I'd probably start more with theproblem of, are you seeing this?
One that I could I could seefrom a supervisor level. Has it
been hard going from a peer togoing to a leader of your your
former friends or your currentfriends and the people that that
(28:51):
you've worked alongside for tenyears? That, it could be an
empathy training.
Like, understanding how that'sdifficult for them,
understanding the transitionpeople are having to make as
they reframe who you are intheir lives. Like, that's an
empathy training. But you don'tneed to call it empathy
training. You call that goingfrom peer to supervisor because
that's somebody that a newsupervisor is like, yeah. It's
hard.
I used to go drink with theseguys Thursdays and Fridays, you
(29:14):
know, after work every week. AmI allowed to do that anymore?
Can I not do that? I mean,there's a lot of questions that
that type of a training couldcould answer that I think how
you package it and say, here'ssome struggles we've seen at
this level. This is gonna be anopportunity for you to come for
ninety minutes, talk throughsome case studies, talk through
some things that have happenedin the past and how you can
learn from that, instead ofsaying, come learn empathy now
(29:36):
that you're a supervisor.
Mike Coffey (29:38):
Right. So I want I want you to plug your model, and
I wanna get give me the big the,you know, 50,000 view, you know,
foot view of the KTMM model andhow a company what it looks like
when a company is implementedand is, you know, getting
outcomes and improved outcomesfrom it.
Amy Rosellini (29:56):
Yeah. So the big piece is, one, certainly,
there's that feedback loop. Thatis what it's all about. We've
talked a little bit about that.But the keys are the
measurements in between eachphase.
So as you decide what thecompany needs or where there's a
gap, how are you gonna measurethat this training actually
fills that gap? And then the bigpiece, which I think is the the
(30:16):
second half of the model thatpeople are missing the most, how
do you make sure that not onlydid they understand what was
communicated in that training,but their behavior changed
because of it? And that's thenext measurement piece. How do
you measure that behavior changehappened? And that might be a
place where they could bring inAI, and there might be a a way
through the technology to see ifthings have happened, and you
can get some automated reports,and you can understand that.
(30:37):
But a lot of the time, certainlywith soft skills, it's not so
easy to measure as and then weget a quick report to tell us if
this person has empathy now inthe workplace. So there's
there's engagement surveys.There's there's pieces that are
out there, but it's reallyunderstanding what are we
expecting from a employee'sbehavior. And if we take
something in leadershipdevelopment, which is hard to
(30:58):
measure, that that KTMM modelreally says, how do you measure
when somebody goes from Iunderstand this training to my
behavior is different now? Andthen the loop is my behavior is
different.
Now I'm better. Now I have newproblems. So now how does that
how do we identify those gaps,and how do we continue down that
path of, okay, what are the newgaps? What do we need to train
(31:20):
now? Now that we're trainingthis, at the end of it, how are
we measuring that theyunderstand this concept?
And then once they understandthis concept, how are we
measuring if their behaviorchanged because of it? And if
their behavior changed after asustained amount of time, new
issues will occur. What are thenew gaps? How do we go back to
the beginning and and look atwhat the training needs today?
So it's it's kind of a constantevolution.
(31:40):
You were talking earlier aboutthere's those people in the
workforce that don't wannachange. They're used to doing it
a certain way. I love thosepeople. They're usually the best
at their jobs. Right?
We need those people. We neededthose people to get us to where
we are today. The beauty is ifwe can start to recognize and
reward people for learning. Yougot us here. We need to learn
(32:02):
new, and we don't even know whatwe need to learn.
We need you to help us learn andget those people to enjoy
learning rather than you yougotta know how to do it this way
now. It's not about doing itthis way. It's just about
learning a new way and learninga new way and learning a new way
and and letting that process bewhat makes people successful and
how we reward how we rewardfolks in the workplace.
Mike Coffey (32:24):
That's the perfect place to end it. That's all the
time we have. Thank you forjoining me today, Amy.
Amy Rosellini (32:29):
Thank you so much. It's a lifelong dream and
it's been a pleasure. I reallyenjoyed meeting you.
Mike Coffey (32:33):
Thanks for joining me. And thank you for listening.
You can comment on this episodeor search our previous episodes
at goodmorninghr.com or on yourfavorite social media channel.
And don't forget to follow uswherever you get your podcast.
Rob Upchurch is our technicalproducer, and you can reach him
at rob makes pods dot com.
And thank you to imperativesmarketing coordinator, Mary Anne
(32:56):
Hernandez, who keeps the trainsrunning on time. And I'm Mike
Coffey, as always. Don'thesitate to reach out if I can
be of service to you personallyor professionally. I'll see you
next week and until then, bewell, do good, and keep your
chin up.
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