The Hidden Price of Weak Enterprise Search

Tips to Make Knowledge More Accessible Across Your Organization

By John Schneble, Product Director, Technology Solutions, Expertus

John Schneble, Product Director, Technology Solutions, Expertus

Do you know the real cost of an employee or partner failing to find the information they need, when they need it?

Are they simply less productive?

Or are they less competitive, too?

And less profitable?

Now, multiply that individual’s reduced productivity and profitability by 1o or 1,000 or 10,000+ employees, contractors, sales and business partners. The problems and costs associated with  poor enterprise search are probably much larger than you think!

Consider these sobering statistics from technology analyst firms:

• The typical knowledge worker spends 30% of their workday searching for information. (IDC)
• An enterprise with 1,000 knowledge workers wastes nearly $2.5M per year due to an inability to retrieve information. (IDC)
• 10% of a company’s salary costs are lost as employees search for adequate and accurate information to finish assigned tasks. (The Butler Group/Datamonitor)

Yes, the price of poor search is high. But there is something you can do about it…

Tip #1 – Identify Your Workforce’s Key Information Sources

Would you believe that many learning management system users have actually stopped searching for information in their LMS? There are 2 main reasons:

1. It’s too time-consuming to gain access
2. Appropriate information isn’t available within the LMS environment

One senior executive at a large pharmaceutical company says his sales team only used their LMS for required training – not product information. Instead, they relied on Wikipedia (a publicly maintained encyclopedia) to research the disease states and drug interactions of their company’s own drug products!

Are your employees taking similar risks?

Tip #2 – Leverage Collective Knowledge, Enterprise-Wide

Have you carefully evaluated how your workforce learns? The fact is, today’s employees spend a lot more time learning via informal and social methods (researching and reviewing documents and other content, sharing experiences and seeking expert advice) than formal means (attending classes and using eLearning modules). Like it or not, training departments can no longer afford to operate as if they’re the sole source or guardian of organizational knowledge.

Formal learning can be slow and expensive to develop, limited in its effectiveness, and often becomes quickly outdated. That’s why many progressive training departments are transforming themselves into knowledge-sharing facilitators and performance consultants – working to leverage collective knowledge, skills and expertise from across the enterprise.

Tip #3 – Adopt Next-Gen Search Technologies

Besides updating your learning structure, you should also consider adding new, state-of-the-art search technologies that streamline information inquiries and empower workforce performance. Consider 3 methods:

Full-Text Search

A full-text search engine literally reviews all of the words within the available resources to “match” results with the term(s) users enter. This approach ensures highly relevant search results – as specific as a link to terms in the paragraph of a document or the bullets of a presentation slide.

Federated Search

Thanks to advancements in web services architecture, it’s possible to integrate your learning systems and portals with all of your other enterprise systems and databases. So now, with just one click, learners can search for relevant content  across your entire ecosystem of knowledge resources (forum posts, YouTube channels, CMS diagrams/docs, formal learning, and so forth). The result is seamless enterprise-wide information access that dramatically improves workforce productivity.

Semantic Search

A major issue with search is an engine’s inability to truly understand what users mean. Semantic search constructs a scenario-based ontology that focuses on how content is used. And this capability allows individuals to search content with results that are far more relevant to their business, job role, or the business context in which they initiate a search.

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Conclusion

By combining federated, full-text and semantic search, you can finally provide your workforce the on-demand knowledge they need for success. You’ll reduce costs, improve productivity and help maintain a competitive edge. This advanced, integrated approach is a hallmark of cloud-based enterprise learning applications, such as the ExpertusONE dynamic learning platform.

Note from John: Would you like to know how ExpertusONE can help your organization transform learning through advanced enterprise search? Contact me anytime at johns@expertus.com.

Employee On-Boarding – Making it Stick

Reconfigure New Hire Orientation Programs to Reduce Turnover

By Mohana Radhakrishnan, VP Client Services, Expertus

Mohana Radhakrishnan, VP Client Services, Expertus

Even in today’s tight job market, many top companies are struggling with new hire retention. One example is Kelly Services – a leader in temporary staffing, recruiting and workforce outsourcing.

In recent years, the company was losing 40% of new employees within only 6 months of their start date.

Do you face a similar dilemma? If so, do you know what to evaluate, or where to start in strengthening a weak on-boarding program?

It’s not as difficult – or as expensive – as you may think! At Kelly Services, it was possible to make significant progress within only a few short months. Here’s how key metrics shifted:

• New hire turnover rate decreased from 40% to only 6%
• New hire time-to-competency accelerated by two months
• Program and retention costs decreased by more than $1 million

Tip #1 – Focus on the Fit: Why It’s Great to Work at your Company!

This is where Kelly Services experienced tremendous results – retooling its training content to reinforce the fact that joining the company is a good career decision.

“The new content includes career success stories and reminders about the importance of their jobs and how they will be helping to put people to work,” said Allison Kerska, Sr. Director of Global Learning at Kelly Services. “We also got executives involved in the deliveries, and used the forum to get folks excited about how they can contribute to the organization.”

Here’s how 2 other Expertus clients successfully engaged new hires through reconfigured training content:

• One focuses on building a solid understanding of company methods, systems, policies, and resources.
• Another thoroughly immerses new hires into the company culture.

Tip #2 – Foster Team Connections and Support with Social Learning

A commonly overlooked problem with traditional new hire bootcamps is that the personal connections made with peers and leaders are fleeting. Unless they’re working in the same office, there’s no real structure to help geographically dispersed teams stay connected in a purposeful, focused manner – which can negatively impact morale, loyalty and retention.

This is where social learning tools can make a huge impact. New enterprise learning systems, like ExpertusONE, build-in these tools – enabling online workshops, real-time web conferencing, chats, wikis, blogs, expert lists and more. They provide a virtual venue where bootcamp teammates and SMEs can reconnect to continue conversations, share tips, learn best practices, and other knowledge and guidance long after their “official” training ends.

At Kelly Services, “We gave employees access to information that keeps them from having to figure things out on their own,” Kerska explains. This, of course, results in faster time-to-competency and enhanced job satisfaction.

Tip #3 – Use Virtual Classrooms for Low Cost, High Impact Programs

Some companies are still leery of providing new hire training virtually. Will the impact be the same? Will attendees be just as engaged? In short – yes!

Kelly Services piloted a program in 6 markets – 3 based on virtual classroom delivery and 3 based on traditional ILT delivery. The outcomes were exactly the same.

Another leading company – Microsoft – turned to the ExpertusONE POD on-demand learning platform for new-hire orientation programs. Microsoft simultaneously delivered top-notch technical courses and labs to trainees across 46 countries. One attendee echoed the sentiments of many, “Both the service provided and user experience reached a professional level higher than I’ve ever seen.”

So, if carefully planned and implemented, virtual on-boarding can be just as effective at engaging employees – while offering a much more attractive solution for those on tight training budgets. Here are just a few of the benefits learning organizations can expect:

• Eliminate travel and/or venue costs of in-person events.
• Significantly reduce downtime for participants and presenters who would otherwise need to travel.
• Potential to increase the frequency and reach of orientation programs.

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Conclusion

New hire training is probably one of your company’s biggest investments. So why not take the time to ensure you’re getting the biggest return possible? Innovative cloud-based technologies can make a dramatic difference, much more quickly an easily than you might expect.

Note from Mohana: To learn more about how your organization can apply any of the new-hire retention solutions featured in this article – or to learn more about the ExpertusONE POD for New Hire Bootcamp – contact me anytime at mohanark@expertus.com.

SAP Partner Education Rides The Perfect Storm

How One Learning Organization Turned Adversity on Its Head

By guest blogger Sue Martin, Global Certification Manager, SAP

Sue Martin, Global Certification Manager, SAP

In 2008, our education organization at SAP faced a perfect storm that forced us to rethink the way we did learning. It’s a challenge that others may still be facing.

The economy hit our customers and channel partners hard, so they had smaller budgets to spend on traditional instructor-led training.

In addition, our business changed overnight, as the result of multiple SAP acquisitions. This transformed our channel partner landscape from a few organizations into a vast ecosystem of partners, consultants, and independents, who worked globally selling, implementing and supporting SAP software. Most of our new partners were small companies with limited resources, time and budget for training.

Our partners demanded more collaborative learning and more peer-to-peer interaction so that they could learn from each other and collaborate on global projects.

For our extended enterprise to successfully sell and support more SAP products, we needed an easy and less obtrusive way to access training.

Very early on, we realized that our learning technology would be a key part of overcoming these challenges. We began by implementing a learning environment that:

• Expanded our learning technologies to provide a global environment for social and collaborative learning.
• Developed a user-friendly “Amazon-like” front end that made self-service possible.
• Focused the technology to support virtual and modular learning, which our customers demanded.

The results have been impressive, with a large increase in virtual training consumption and to our surprise; the evaluation scores have actually been higher than traditional classroom courses.

Feedback from customers and partners has been excellent. Global channel partners with complex training and information needs who need training fast can easily find courses, enroll, cancel, and develop blended learning solutions that are tailored to their unique projects and staff.

Our ultimate goal is to enable the ecosystem to empower partners and employees to maximize the value of the customer’s SAP investment. We are pleased with the results so far, and are happy to be heading in a very positive direction.

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Conclusion

As Sue points out, it takes a highly flexible, user-friendly LMS to engage channel partners, and encourage them to consume the training they need to sell your products successfully. It also takes a solid learning strategy. Your competitors know this, but making it happen is a big challenge. Here are more insights from other partner education leaders:

• Case Study: How Autodesk leveraged the power of its massive reseller network with ExpertusONE cloud LMS.
• Think Tank Summary: What learning executives say is essential for successful channel training programs.
• Webinar On-Demand: How to Build a World-Class Partner Certification Program.

To learn more about how our cloud-based LMS can make channel training more accessible and effective for your company, contact us at Expertus info@expertus.com.

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Editorial Note: Do you have a real-world enterprise learning story to share? Contact our editor anytime at info@expertus.com.

Photo credit: Storm in the Sea by Rodolfo Belloli.