Empathy – Navigating the pandemic

It is a word you hear in business often now, and probably something people really need to also incorporate into their personal lives now more than ever.  What does empathy mean?  Well, according to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of empathy is - the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

If there is one thing this pandemic has really brought to mind for me is that a lot of people really cannot get past their own situation.  There is a lot of anger between people based on social distancing and closing businesses to keep people safe and the opposite camp that keeps pushing herd immunity and opening the economy back up.

What might be the biggest driver of human emotion and decision making is fear.  If you want to understand why people are pushing so hard to “stay inside” or “open up the economy,” both standpoints are driven by fear.  What we all need to understand is that people have concerns and are afraid.

Close it down – Stay at home

Those that are looking to keep things shut down have the fear of losing loved ones or literally just the fear of people dying in general. You can count on the fact that they do not want to get sick themselves nor do they want to see others get sick and die. This fear is trumping their desire to see businesses open and people working. What you may or may not know, some of these people may have already lost loved ones or someone close to them from the COVID-19 virus.

Open it up – Get the economy going

Those people looking to open up the economy and get things rolling have the fear that there will be a depression and that they will be poor.  Some of these people have lost their jobs or have taken pay cuts already. They are already seeing the economic impact of the pandemic, and they do not like it.

Now you have read this far and you are thinking “duh, Mike, no shit…” but what is happening is these people are all angry at one another and most of them may not even know that their decision of what the correct thing to do is based solely on their own personal perspective.  People who have lost a job, suffered a pay cut or fear losing their job, immediately went to “open up the economy.”  People who view themselves or loved ones as susceptible to the virus immediately went to “close everything down.”  It is simply human nature.

Whichever perspective you have here, you most likely think you are correct, and the other standpoint is incorrect.  My question here is “do you have more compassion and empathy towards whatever the opposing view is?”  People have legitimate concerns and fears right now and only through understanding and focusing on how to move forward will we get through this.

Covid-19 the Change Agent

With the advent of Covid-19, we have an influx of Stay at Home orders across the United States, Italy, Bulgaria, France, Spain, China, and many other countries in attempts to slow the spread of the virus. Whether you feel this was necessary or not doesn’t really matter, it is the current situation and what we are dealing with.

With so many people being told to stay at home and not gather in groups the Covid-19 virus is causing a lot of changes to erupt in the way people do things.  The good news is humans as a whole have been extremely adept at adapting to change. This is one of those events in our history we are adapting to rapidly.

Trial by Fire

Right now many children across the United States are currently either being home schooled by their parents with some direction coming from schools, or actively participating in online learning with schools and teachers who haven’t had formal learning on how to switch from classroom to virtual. 

Also important to note, employees at supermarkets, pharmacies, and some other retail stores are now front line people in the face of the pandemic. If you go to the store like I do, more and more people are going through the self-checkout lines. Even deliveries are changing slightly, by using prepay, and by simply leaving the items or food delivered at the door.

Office employees who were never forced to work remotely are now using virtual conferencing systems, and we are seeing it is not the easiest transition for those being thrown into it out of necessity. I have many friends from my world of remote employees giggling at their friends who are struggling, but have no fear, they will adapt, and then they will never want to go back to the way it was before.

Families are having game nights using Zoom, so they can play online with family members in other communities. Friends are getting together and playing online darts from their homes, just so they can stay in touch and have fun. These things happened prior to the pandemic but have become much more commonplace in just 3 weeks in the United States. 

The New Normal

This pandemic will move us even faster towards less direct human interaction when it comes to things such as learning and retail sales. There will be a “new normal” when this is all said and done. The digital age was already upon us, but necessity has made people adapt rapidly in the past month or so to take up things they had been reluctant to do prior.

We are approaching a time when children may no longer have “snow days” if they get snowed in. Children who get mono or another long illness may be able to participate in their classwork remotely more easily. We will be quickly getting to the point where in-class learning and virtual learning are more clearly intertwined in a true blended learning experience for our children. I see this happening already on the corporate side. We will need to adjust our teacher training to prepare them to work more easily in a virtual/online environment now that they have been thrown into it out of necessity.

Retail stores and restaurants will move towards more self-checkout and ordering kiosks immediately to remove the direct contact. More companies will be allowing work from home than ever before, as they are seeing that people are still being productive now working remotely.

The world was already moving into the digital age and the age of automation at a rapid pace, but the onset of a pandemic will push us forward as the change agent we didn’t see coming.  The next few years will be an interesting ride as we see what the “new normal” will bring us.

Be Efficient

Being efficient at work is one of those things people talk about, but not everyone does well. They may think they are efficient, but most people are usually all over the place. For example, perhaps an individual contributor that thinks they must do whatever task comes their way immediately, so prior tasks will wait. Perhaps a manager that thinks that if they don’t do something themselves, it won’t be done properly. People tend to start over-complicating things just because they are smart and they can “see how complicated I made this, that means I am SUPER smart.” None of those things equal efficiency.

Be efficient

I cut my corporate teeth with a company called Grainger Industrial Supply. My initial manager was Steve Rodrigues. I had many great managers while I worked at Grainger, by the way, and Steve was the first. He gave me a chance to put away trailers and to do some customer service work, at a point in my life when it seemed like almost no one wanted to hire me.

Steve is one of the most efficient people I have ever met, and he works at one of the most efficient supply chain companies I have ever seen. Steve and other members of the team at Grainger really taught me how to be efficient – from how you put away a trailer, to how you stage orders for customers, right down to how many steps it takes. Be efficient, save time, and make things easier for the long run.

Steve would take a walking wheel to figure out how to make picking items in the warehouse more efficient. Steve not only looked to be efficient, but he would also explain to me why he did the things he did. Five fewer steps to get a top-selling item meant saved time and increased efficiency. Seems like nothing to the uneducated in efficiency, but makes a huge difference over time. Other team members taught me how to pack items properly for shipping, and how to put away a trailer the fastest way possible.

Save time

One of the keys here is that things must be set up properly. That is, take the time at the beginning of the process to lay things out in a way that will make them more efficient as you move forward. Time spent up front usually means time saved as you move forward, as in the case of using a walking wheel to determine the best places to store popular items in a warehouse.

I have taken these lessons and plugged them into most of the jobs I have had. As an SAP Trainer, I asked myself what do these people really need to know, and how can I make this training session better so they can do their jobs?

As a functional consultant for Grainger, my experience doing various jobs became a huge factor in understanding exactly what people did. It also helped me properly configure systems for them. Even as a project/program manager, I realize how much this focus on efficiency has transferred to things I do. If there is an issue in a software development project, for instance, we check the simplest possible issues first and work towards the hardest to resolve –  NOT the reverse, which seems to be how most people want to approach a similar challenge.

Concluding Thoughts

Simple solutions to complicated ones – NOT complicated to simple. You often find that the issue was something simple to resolve. 

Invest the time up front to plan things out properly and make the process efficient, and the end results will be closer to what you want. Be Efficient!

OutCons Named Top 25 HR Vendor of the Year

With a relentless focus on delivering innovative HR Technology and out of this world customer service in the human resources space, OutCons today announces that it has been named a top 25 Human Resources Vendor of the Year by OnConferences for 2020.

The award caps off OutCons fifth anniversary in a big way, and we would like to thank our clients and all our employees. The dedication, hard work and enthusiasm of OutCons’ employees brings outright joy to our clients.

To see the full list of winners and find out more about OnConferences Awards: 2020 Award Announcements | OnConferences

Supporting Quotes

Sean Tomarelli Founder and CEO at OnConferences  "OnCon Icon Award Winners are determined by peer to peer votes. This year's OnCon Icon Award Winners were determined from over 4,500 votes in total. It is a tremendous honor to be selected as an award winner, as the selection is based off of peer recognition of performance, impact, and contributions. Winners represent many of the most senior leaders from the world's top organizations. Company winners represent the best vendors as determined by the end user."

Supporting Resources

• Learn more about OutCons services
• Visit the OutCons booth at ATD ICE Booth 333 in Denver May 17-20, 2020
• Connect with us on LinkedIn

Global HCM Transformations in large companies

Over the course of the past 20 years, we have seen a number of global transformation projects.  Some went well, some not so much.  Here are a few tips we picked up along the way and tips we use to help guide our clients to be successful in their transformation.

Understand the culture

Culture is incredibly important in any change.  The team that proceeds with the transformation may have an executive order to complete their mission but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the business lines will just fall into place.  Many implementations and transformations forget about this and fail to meet the needs of all the business lines and groups in different countries.

Strive to know the culture of the people you are transforming. Does the transformation fit their culture?

Remember the project team and the ongoing business team have separate functions

After the project is live, who will be the "run" team?  Are they the same?  If so, will the pains of the transformation follow the team?  During the transformation, hard choices need to be made.  The transformation team may have some lingering issues (professionally) if those decisions were made and not everyone was happy.  There is still work to do after the "we are live!" email goes out.  The team that continues on may have some wounds to tend, but they will be expected to carry on and sometimes rehash decisions made.  The run team needs to move on (fairly quickly) to the business of running the system and ensuring the processes are continuing efficiently, making adjustments where needed.

The project team will have a target on their back throughout the project.  What is your plan to help the project team rise above and become reinvigorated after the go live?

Allow consultants to help through the organizational change management

This may sound counter intuitive, but it is sometimes easier for a third-party consultant to create, manage, and execute the change process.  An internal employee will be biased to make everyone happy for fear of losing their position or receiving a bad review. Consultants can sometimes have the critical conversations necessary to ensure the transformation, without fear of reprisal later.

The more you can assure your internal employees that they don’t need to fear reprisal after the "go live," the more they can be effective during the project.

Stick with the original mission and requirements and only change if absolutely necessary

Something is always lost or forgotten from the time you select the system and Systems Integrator to the "we are live" email.  We often advise our clients to have a monthly (or more often) review of the original requirements and mission.  This helps to keep everyone on the same path and correct some decisions, if necessary.  Additionally, if things have changed since the initial mission, then it may be necessary to rewrite the original requirements.  Either way is fine, as long as it is a collective decision to make the changes or correction.  There should also be a process to follow to manage the scope and change process to reduce the number of surprises along the way.

Constant communication (good news and bad) with the project team, stakeholders, and business lines will help to make sure your global transformation is a success.

It will be harder than you think

We all see the advertising, Twitter feeds, and LinkedIn articles that profess how awesome the projects and the results were.  I have told clients some things are easy and some things aren't – but they are still work.  The easy part is that the process is known, and you are not creating things from scratch….the hard part is the work itself and the sheer volume of it.  Global transformation projects are large, complex, and challenging.  Working through them is often a very rewarding project, but there is a significant amount of work that is sometimes underestimated.

Global transformations can create a wealth of opportunities for growth and success.  These projects are a great challenge for everyone involved.  Internal employees and contractors see the challenges differently, and you can use the different viewpoints for the good of the project and the company.

Microlearning’s Vast Impact on Corporate Training

As millennials continue to grow in the workplace (33% of workforce in 2015) the learning material must adapt. Craig Weiss CEO of eLearning 24/7 believes we will see more 90-120 second courses being pushed to consumers. Yes, millennials are well known for their short attention span, but this trend has more to do with our workforce becoming more tech savvy. Regardless of the attention span, our current workforce is becoming more adept to understand what they want to know and how to find it. Most of the time through Google. Let's adapt to our users behaviors.

Karl Kapp labeled microlearning as one of the five learning trends to look out for in 2017. With the ability to push small portions of specific learning as opposed to broad videos, learning becomes more engaged.

Would an individual rather watch a 5-minute video explaining 5 objectives, or watch 5 short, specific videos? What if they do not need the other 4 objectives, what if they just need to know one specific task? Microlearning puts all learning topics in front of the user to select what they need.

An example of eliminating the redundancy would be cutting down the introduction and review stages of the learning. Based on the title of the video and the description, the user should have a good idea whether this video will answer their needs. Therefore, minimizing the video content's introduction. Here is a great blog from eLearning Industry laying out 7 tips for creating microlearning.

Beyond just making it shorter for the end user, it helps keep your training fresh and on topic.
We live in a world of constant change. Learning content must keep up with these changes and while also being readily accessible. Learning is not confined to our desk anymore. Learning is being everywhere. Whether on a train, bus, Uber or on your lunch break, microlearning is designed to be consumed on any device, at any time.

To be more agile in the market, employees need the most up to date training, tips and tricks that are available. It is much easier to release a 90 second ‘How To’ or ‘What’s New’ video than a revamp of a 25-minute eLearning.

Macrolearning had its run for several decades and it has done us all a great service. But it is time for microlearning to step up in a big way and become the main focus of training moving forward.

A Managers’ Guide to Onboarding New Hires With Ayris

As a manager, it can be difficult for me to find ample time to properly onboard my new hires and ramp them up to speed of the work environment. Whether my hire is a fresh college graduate or an expert in the field, there are always challenges. That is why Ayris has released a new functionality called Programs. 

I can now set up an onboarding program for my new hires using Ayris to push out specific content to my new hires along the schedule that I set up.

I hire people throughout various points in the year, therefore I want this be a universal hiring program. I am going to set it up on a timeline, meaning Day 1, 10, 20 and 30, content will be pushed to my newly hired sales associate. 

Below I outline the first month of my employees onboarding program.

• On Day 1 my new sales associate, will receive a Welcome email with a link to our team page to view the teams structure, responsibility, and current project statuses.
• On day 10 my sales associate, will receive a link to a PDF file containing our pricing strategy and overview documents.
• On Day 20 an exam and survey is sent directly to my new hires email address along with a customized message.
• On Day 30, as the manager, I receive an emailed report of my employee’s progress to date.

If I hire someone else in the meantime, I can assign them this program and their schedule will run independently of the first employee I hired, which is why I used a 1,10,20,30 type set up.

This is just one of many use cases for Ayris Programs.

Ayris schedule can be tailored to fit your needs. To schedule a demo, or to find out more information on Ayris Programs please reach out to support@ayris.com.