Shaun Hopkins Seminars UPDATE

Innovapost Launches Professional Development Series

Created in May 2002, Innovapost Inc. is a joint enterprise of Canada Post Corporation and CGI Group Inc. with Accenture as a preferred shareholder. Innovapost provides IS/IT services and eBusiness solutions to the Canada Post group of companies and to postal organizations worldwide.

As a new company, Innovapost has the advantage of "starting off on the right foot" with its performance management system. Mr. Gilbert Deschêne, Executive Vice President of Human Resources and his team have assisted the company in identifying the core competencies that every employee needs to be successful. These competencies include: business knowledge, innovation, customer focus, leadership, results focus, teamwork, communication and personal effectiveness. Each competency has five levels of expectation corresponding to the job levels in the company. These competencies are the basis of each employee's job profile, competency profile, annual performance review and yearly training plan.

In order to assist the company employees to acquire these competencies, Innovapost asked Shaun Hopkins Seminars to design and deliver a series of training programs that would impart the knowledge and skill of each competency. The new program was titled, The Innovapost Professional Development Series of workshops. The program consisted of 12 one and two-day workshops covering skills such as: customer service, presentation skills, managing conflict, team building and leadership skills. The kickoff to the program began by inviting all 400 employees to a half-day session titled, Taking Control of Your Development.

The purpose of Taking Control of Your Development was to introduce employees to the new competencies and to inform them about how these skills formed the basis of the performance management system at Innovapost. Once the competencies were understood, the Professional Development Series was introduced as the primary vehicle for acquiring the competencies. Employees were provided with the tools to assess their own skill level in each competency and the means to determine which workshop would provide the most personal benefit. In essence, each employee conducted their own personal needs analysis before attending training.

As a new company, Innovapost wanted to ensure that their training dollars were spent wisely. Part of their mandate to Shaun Hopkins Seminars was to find a means by which they could measure the ever elusive return-on-investment of the workshops. After each training session, participants completed a Training Action Plan. The Training Action Plan identified the skills that the participant acquired in the workshop and detailed how those skills would be applied on the job.

At the end of every workshop, each participant created a SMART objective. This Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Result-Oriented, Time-Sensitive objective provided the participant with an opportunity to apply his/her new skills to a specific work situation and to identify the benefits to the organization of achieving this objective.

As a follow-up to the classroom session, participants attended a one-half day reinforcement session. The reinforcement session had two purposes. The first was to review the skills that were acquired in the classroom session and the second was to report on each participant's progress in completing their SMART objective. It was this achievement of the SMART objective that provided the return-on-investment information to the company.

The Professional Development Series has been a great success for Innovapost. There is a high demand for the workshops and the employees are making amazing improvements in their performance. Real company problems are being solved, new revenue is being generated and time is being used more efficiently. Most important is that the employees at Innovapost are creating a new and vibrant company culture.

For more information about the Professional Development Series, contact
information@ShaunHopkinsSeminars.com

What's On

Training 2006 Conference & Expo, March 6-8, 2006 – Orlando, Florida

Marketing Skills for Trainers: How to Promote Your Training Service
Monday, March 6, 2006 from 8:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Shaun Hopkins
President, Shaun Hopkins Seminars

Having difficulty filling your classes? Need to improve the marketing of your training? In this session, you will learn dozens of practical tips on how to promote your training, the four keys to marketing success and how to create a marketing plan. Learn how to align your training with the priorities of your company, to differentiate your courses from the competition and how to build lasting relationships with your internal customers. Learn to:

Create alignment between training and the company’s mission and goals.
Write persuasive hooks in your marketing materials.
Write a marketing plan for your training services.

Training Needs Analysis Clinic
Monday, March 6, 2006 from 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Shaun Hopkins
President, Shaun Hopkins Seminars

Training needs analysis is the first step to designing and delivering learning that will meet the needs of your target audience. Learn techniques to gather the most accurate information about your audience and to determine if training is the right solution. In this clinic, you will plan and conduct a training needs analysis. Learn to:

Identify the target audience for the analysis.
Identify the gaps in actual performance and determine the reasons for them.
Determine whether training is necessary.
Identify the best training strategy.

In addition to the onsite meeting this clinic will meet twice online prior to the conference at the following dates and times:

ONLINE – Tuesday, February 14, 1:00-2:30 pm EST: How to Lay the Foundation for a Training Needs Analysis

ONLINE – Tuesday, February 21, 1:00-2:30 pm EST: How to Analyze Performance Gaps

ON-SITE AT TRAINING – 2006 Monday, March 6 from 10:30-12:30 pm: How to Gain Acceptance for Your Recommendations

Training Needs Analysis: Quick, Accurate and Complete
Tuesday, March 7, 2006 from 8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Shaun Hopkins
President, Shaun Hopkins Seminars

Training needs analysis is the first step to designing and delivering learning that will meet the performance needs of your target audience. Knowing what the audience needs will create an effective training intervention. This session will teach you techniques to gather the most accurate information about the needs of your audience and to determine if training is the right solution.

Book Review

Management Skills for IT Professionals
By: George M. Doss (ISBN 0-13-032009-9)

A growing part of my practice as a training and development consultant is developing the business skills of IT professionals. The professionals in the IT/IS sectors are extremely capable technically, but there is a recognition that they also need the business, management and interpersonal skills in order to be successful in the long-term.

That is why I was thrilled to find this book by George M. Doss titled, Management Skills for IT Professionals. Doss recognizes the technical competencies of IT professionals, but also realizes their need for people skills. To be called a professional by Doss, you need both sets of skills.

What makes this book different is that it takes the management/leadership field and applies it directly to the IT world. In this book, IT managers learn how to use different management styles, creativity tools and sales skills. They are shown how to resolve conflict, delegate work, motivate their team, and negotiate with vendors. Each chapter is filled with bullet points, checklists and self-assessments, which make it easy to navigate and use as a reference tool. The book comes complete with a CD containing all the job aids in the 373 pages.

I was hooked on this book by the last paragraph in the introduction. "The great leaders (managers) are the ones who challenge complacency and who are prepared to lead their teams forward toward a personal vision. They are the ones who recognize risks, seize opportunities, and create a future that involves the whole team. This book seeks to identify skills that you the reader might need to become a better project or functional IT manager, if not a great one. All of this means being labeled a professional."

Of course, it doesn't hurt that Doss dedicates this book to the coaches, players, and goalies of the National Hockey League! This is a great book for your IT project managers, team leaders and managers.

Monthly Tip

A Guide to Coping with Change

Everyday brings new changes to our workplace. Products and services are delivered faster and cheaper. Customers expect better service and more exacting specifications. Technology is changing how we interact with one another. The changes to our job, team, organization and personal life are constant. Here are some tips Managers can use to help their employees adapt to their ever-changing circumstances:

Describe the reasons behind the change
Provide people with opportunities for sharing their thoughts and feelings about changes that take place
Encourage people to strive for higher goals on a continuous basis
Provide a verbal outlet for constructive venting. This should help reduce frustration and bitterness.
Encourage people to be open about their feelings to change
Encourage people to try new things; to take risks. Discuss the results, and build confidence as successes take place.
Update work processes when you see room for improvement
Continually cross-train your staff
Eliminate rumors about the change with accurate information
Set an example with your own reaction to the changes

Local Wisdom

The tradition of mentoring younger employees is a long standing tradition in business. Eager, up and coming employees would informally be matched with the "eminence gris" of the firm who would provide advice and guidance to the employee. The senior manager would steer the employee in the right direction, help solve problems and ensure that the employee's voice was heard at the higher levels of the organization. This relationship was beneficial for both parties. The senior person was able to demonstrate his influence in the company and feel satisfied that his legacy was continuing through the younger person. The employee had a senior person on his side and his career prospects were greatly enhanced.

This concept of mentoring has now gone mainstream. While the traditional style of mentoring still exists, we now call this relationship coaching. Formal coaching programs are popping up everywhere in business and becoming an important part of companies' performance management systems.

Is this a good thing? Yes to the concept, no to those who are being selected as coaches and protégés. Every employee does not need a coach and every senior manager does not have the skills or desire to coach. Many companies want to tap into the experience and expertise of its senior managers so that knowledge and skill can be passed onto the next generation of employees. However, setting up coaching programs where every senior manager is automatically a coach and every employee is automatically a protégé may not be the best use of the time and talents of the company's resources.

I suggest to my clients that they identify a pool of coaches who have both the skill and motivation to coach employees in a mentoring relationship. These coaches should be someone other than the protégés immediate manager. Sure, coaching is not for everybody. There are many reasons why a senior manager would want to be a coach. Coaching is for the people who enjoy helping other people develop their skills and want the satisfaction in knowing they had an impact on someone's professional and personal development. Instead of compelling compliance towards coaching, ask for volunteers. Ask senior managers why they want to be a coach and what skills they are bringing to the coaching relationship.

By the same token, not every employee will benefit from coaching. Individual employees who are struggling or only meeting their performance objectives would benefit from spending more time with their immediate manager, finding ways to improve their performance. Coaching should be a reward and incentive for those employees who achieve superior performance reviews and who want to assume more responsibility and a greater leadership role within the company.

There are many tools and techniques we can use to develop the talent of our employees; choosing the right tool for the right situation will ensure success.