Continuous Training at the Speed of Business

Marrying IT applications, processes, and sales methodologies within an enterprise can pose a significant challenge. Too often, managers attempt to tackle this issue with large-scale, one-off training sessions. Today, employees need continuous training, at the "speed of business," in order to keep up with ever-emerging changes to workflow, products, and processes. A performance support system (PSS) is a specialized knowledge management system that delivers role-specific content in a form to support employees quickly while they perform job tasks. A PSS fosters employee competency and efficiency through informal or workflow learning and "fingertip knowledge," rather than through traditional training methodologies. Training magazine asked Ted Gannan, CEO of Panviva, and developer of SupportPoint, to answer five frequently asked questions about whether a PSS is right for your company.

1. Where is a PSS most applicable?

A PSS enables employees to perform time-sensitive or complex tasks or work with multifaceted products. Examples include:
Regulated environments, such as banking, insurance, and healthcare
Large- and mid-size organizations with CRM and ERP systems
Environments that require a high degree of accuracy and competency
Organizations with a large number of new hires who require fast-time-to-competency

2. How does a PSS affect classroom or e-learning training strategies?

Having a PSS means that training sessions no longer need to teach all the details of how to use the system or implement the process. Rather, training can focus on providing context as well as equipping employees with the skills to find the information they need when they need it on the job. Therefore, a PSS encourages a more informal learning approach.

3. How does a PSS differ from an on-demand simulation?

Simulations are suitable for many types of training, but are less useful in a post-training environment when the employee needs support rather than training. Simulations make it difficult to get just the bit of information an employee needs on the job, which is frustrating if the employee is experienced and doesn't need to review a quantity of information they already know to get to the one "nugget" of documentation they are looking for. Moreover, the "video" simulation modality does not provide well-developed text-based support. This makes it hard to incorporate important supplementary information like 'what, when, and why.'"

In contrast, PSS more readily provides a comprehensive knowledge base in a more accessible format.

4. What cost savings should be expected from a PSS?

Potential cost savings are enormous and can be realized from:
Reduced training time on application and process details
Fewer help desk and support calls to training and subject-matter experts
Reduced escalation from frontline and back-office staff for questions, issue resolution
Reduced cost of change management, particularly documentation and delivery
Faster on-boarding for new hires
Faster acceptance of new products and processes

5. What benefits should a PSS contribute to the organization as a whole?

PSS yields several benefits, measured by usage and output. They include:
Greater user adoption and compliance to new systems, processes, or regulations
Greater on-the-job productivity from better use and less information searching
Less rework and higher accuracy
Faster acceptance of new products
For call centers, more first-time resolutions or reduced hold times
Faster time-to-competence and productivity for new employees

Ted Gannan is CEO of Panviva, a leading developer of performance support solutions. Its flagship product, SupportPoint, was designed to improve workforce performance, accelerate user adoption and compliance and reduce training and support costs. For more, visit www.SupportPoint.com.