TRAINING

5 November 2008

Training Initiatives: Thinking Outside the Box

Non-traditional Methods Produce Exceptional Results

By Jil McIntosh
jil@ca.inter.net

Training is a huge part of every company’s budget, and naturally, you want it to be well-spent. But sometimes there’s a better way than traditional learning; alternative methods can often be more effective, as employees learn new ways to increase productivity. Below are three that use unconventional methods with exceptional results.

Eagle’s Flight: Service excellence

Eagle’s Flight, in Guelph, Ontario, provides what it calls “experiential learning,” but with a twist. While the premise is similar to being stranded in the wilderness and working together, it all happens in one room, in the space of a couple of hours.

“This isn’t a typical training activity where you’re role-playing,” says Sabrina Geldart, manager of Consumer Products at Eagle’s Flight. “You are who you are, and with the information given, you have to figure out how you will be successful and meet your goal.”

In one experience, participants must imagine racing across the desert to find gold in the face of adversity. Once the mission is accomplished, the trainers explain the lesson. “We know exactly what you’ll learn, because it’s embedded into the program,” Geldart says. “You got seven gold bars, what does that mean for your productivity?”

Training sessions are geared to specific needs. “We have a two-day course that talks about the difference between customer service and service excellence,” Geldart says. “There’s what we think of as customer service, answering phones, dealing with customers politely, and then there’s service excellence, where you go in and change the mindset of the employee, going beyond to how you think about your job and the customer.”

Le Chevauthier: Lessons Without Words

Most training programs teach employees how to interact with other people. Le Chevauthier, in La Présentation, Quebec, teaches by matching clients with horses.

“The horse, this noble animal, so impressive due to its size and impetuousness, is motivated by the instinct of fear, just like a human being,” says Diane Authier. “He will be either sympathetic, empathetic, unpleasant, or apathetic. Our workshops allow participants to accurately identify their own strengths and weaknesses in order to use them effectively by assigning the right person in the right place. There are no bad horses; they’re simply not all in the right stable.”

Diane Authier

Le Chevauthier teaches clients how to communicate with a partner who cannot talk. After academic lessons, it’s out to the horses, where each participant leads a horse within a group of four people. “We choose the ones that best suit each person’s temperament, as per our evaluation,” Authier says. “During the entire walk, they will face numerous situations relating to their attitudes and the challenges they will encounter within their work groups. All this, while establishing a zone of rapport and trust with this horse which becomes, for the duration of the exercise, the reflection of the person walking by his side.”

Pit Instruction & Training: Shaving Seconds

Car racing is the ultimate in teamwork, as a pit crew jumps over the wall, fuels the car, and changes the tires, all in thirteen seconds. Pit Instruction & Training in Mooresville, North Carolina not only trains real pit crews, but also teaches teamwork to those who will only ever watch racing on television.

The company’s “Lean Performance U” program teaches how to get the job done while reducing waste, time and cost, and improving quality and value to the customer. It’s based on skills that helped real pit crews to pare five seconds off each pit stop—a huge increment in racing that might translate into hours over a day’s work in a shop.

Combining the excitement of racing with lessons, the program starts in the classroom and then moves to the pit, where clients face a variety of challenges to learn communication, work standardization, efficiency, and preparation. The program is effective enough that United Airlines has used it to help train its ground crews.