On-Site Corporate Training
Sometimes there is just not enough time to do it all, or your team doesn’t have the expertise needed to get you where you’re wanting to go. This is where we come in. Whether via remote or onsite visits, we are able to help you implement, execute and manage the various plates that need to spin in order to achieve your organization’s goals.
Leadership Development
Since 1995, Zoe has partnered with corporations and government agencies to create and provide successful Leadership Excellence training series, and this offering continues to be our most requested training solution. The importance of strong leadership within an organization becomes evident when you look at the impact it has on employee engagement and improved company culture. With companies facing a looming shortage due to a retirement boom, organizations are tuned into the increasing need for effective leadership development strategies to drive results. Zoe's leadership series provides a wide variety of development opportunities for current and future leaders, such as critical thinking and decision making, emotional intelligence, and presentation skills. Our leadership series is often utilized by Zoe clients on a recurring basis, which helps create a strong "talent pipeline" and enhances the leaders' future success and the organizations they serve.
Team Development
There are, of course, many different assessment tools that rate behavior, preference, styles, attitudes, etc. and provide a framework for understanding the way in which you see the world and the differing ways in which others may approach the same set of facts or circumstances. Myers-Briggs/MBTI, Emergenetics, Lominger, Insights, StrengthsFinder and many others remain popular, but the most common tool we see clients utilizing is the DiSC. The DiSC framework is easily learned and flexible enough to apply to a variety of individual and team learning needs – communication, teamwork, conflict resolution, decision making, and others.
Emotional Intelligence/EQ
Experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of human communication comes from non-verbal clues such as voice inflection and body language. In business writing, however, you have only the words to get your meaning across, so the way the writer uses those words becomes more important. On-the-job writing matters – from RFPs to planning documents to client emails, your employees represent your organization every time they craft a document. Workshops on this topic can cover grammar and punctuation errors along with common writing mistakes and memory tips for avoiding them. In addition, participants can learn strategies for writing more efficiently and effectively.
Web Content Writing
You might not have much experience with writing for the Web, but learning to create top-notch content isn't as daunting as it may seem. Whether for your website pages, or your blog (or both), our team can teach yours how to master the key elements of high-quality content, including an authoritative and genuine voice, organic SEO, rock-solid writing fundamentals, and conversion techniques.
Business & Email Writing
Experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of human communication comes from non-verbal clues such as voice inflection and body language. In business writing, however, you have only the words to get your meaning across, so the way the writer uses those words becomes more important. On-the-job writing matters – from RFPs to planning documents to client emails, your employees represent your organization every time they craft a document. Workshops on this topic can cover grammar and punctuation errors along with common writing mistakes and memory tips for avoiding them. In addition, participants can learn strategies for writing more efficiently and effectively.
Time Management/Productivity
In today’s busy world it is important for workers to be as effective as they can with the limited hours of time during the day. If the unexpected interruptions and crises are affecting your employees’ productivity, then it is time to take control of the workday! Efficiency training can include topics such as practical and specific time management skills to increase effectiveness and reduce time-wasted activities; effectively managing Outlook and email; managing calendar and to-do list; how to prioritize and plan your day using your natural energy cycle; the basics of important decision-making of action items; and action steps to reduce interruptions and procrastination.
WordPress Maintenance
Customer Service
Poor customer service can hurt a company in many ways, including loss of current and future customers, loss of employees, declining revenue, and ultimately complete business failure. Since improving customer experience is one of the most important objectives a company can work toward to becoming a recognized brand and realizing increased profits and sustainability, customer service management must be implemented by recognizing then addressing the causes of poor customer service before a bad reputation quickly spirals out of control. Customer service excellence training can offer proven ways for employees to manage various types of challenges. Specifically, it can show them how to handle conflict, stay calm and learn to defuse angry customers, improve communication, use emotional intelligence to enhance relationships, and use their natural abilities and talents to serve customers. These skills can help eliminate the biggest customer service complaint, which is rudeness and discourteous behavior (tied with being unable to get a human on the phone).
Analyze
Let’s say that you have a problem with employees keeping track of their billable hours. What is the issue? Is it that they don’t understand how to use your tracking software? Is it that they just don’t care?
If it’s the first one, it’s a training issue. If it’s the second one, your employees lack motivation and training isn’t likely the solution.
The key in the Analyze stage is to determine what issues the training needs to address. A thorough needs assessment is critical at this stage and often uncovers issues that you may not have known existed. It helps break the issue down so that all of the contributing factors can be examined and prioritized.
Design
How do you reach the people you are trying to teach? This is where design becomes important. How will your learners best learn? Do you use video? Should the content be in a game format? Do you need audio? How do I test for knowledge retention?
There is a LOT to consider when you are designing your eLearning. But, eLearning also offers a LOT of options. A good training program is:
- Rich in experience for the learner. It captures the learners’ attention and engages their minds.
- Relevant to the learner. It is framed in a context that is in line with the learners’ needs and goals.
- Ready and available to use, anytime and anyplace.
A good training program challenges the learner with problems to solve, media that adds to the learning experience and allows learners to use their knowledge as they learn in a way that is meaningful.
Develop
Training programs begin with a storyboard. This document captures your content and your design ideas on paper. Many instructional designers use Microsoft Word or PowerPoint to create storyboards. Some use authoring tools that allow you to create the storyboard and complete the online authoring at the same time.
You will want to create storyboard templates or use some of the many that are available online. Here are some sites to check out:
A few things to keep in mind when developing your content include:
- Inject a bit of humor into your content if it’s appropriate but only a bit. Too much humor is distracting and takes away from what is being taught.
- Use real examples or case studies to help bring the lesson home.
- Use relevant photos and other visual media to enhance the learning experience.
- Add online links to relevant websites when possible.
- Ask questions that check the learners’ knowledge at regular intervals.
- Parcel the content into manageable bits rather than having one great big lesson.
After the storyboard is written, it’s time for one of the scarier moments in instructional design – the client review. Clients will be tough and thorough regarding the content and an instructional designer needs to develop a thick skin. Remember, this is NOT YOUR CONTENT. It belongs to the client. They are the ones have to be happy with it.
After the reviews and a couple of drafts (documents, not beers), and the client has approved the storyboard, it’s time to move the content into production. Here is where the magic happens and the storyboard becomes a training program.
Implement
How your eLearning is presented depends on your (or your team’s) creativity and the authoring tool you use. Don’t get confused! We’re not talking about a word processing program here – it has nothing to do with being an author.
An authoring tool is a type of software that allows users to use all sorts of media to create professional, engaging and interactive e-Learning. You can find a variety of authoring tools on the Internet. Many of them offer free trials. One place to start is this website:
After your e-Learning has been produced, it’s time for another scary moment. That’s right, it’s client review time once again. Clients should review the e-Learning content BEFORE it goes online to make certain that the content is correct and that it is correctly presented.
Evaluate
Most clients will also insist on a course pilot. Think of this as a training program test drive. A group of select learners will go through the course with critical eyes. They’ll tell you what they liked and what worked for them. More importantly, they’ll tell you what they didn’t like and what didn’t work. Based on that feedback, changes may have to be made before the e-Learning goes live on line.
Evaluation is an ongoing process. A good LMS will provide clients with reports on exam questions (most passed, most failed) and learner progress. A survey at the end of a course will allow learners to evaluate the effectiveness of the course and provide feedback on how it can be improved.
Are you ready?
Let Us Help You Grow
We've been helping motivated people, groups, businesses, and organizations to clarify their desired direction, assembling intelligent research into solid plans that lead the way, producing the visual concepts, design, and materials (logos, websites, collateral) needed to arrive. Along the way, we stand by ready to help with implementation and management needs or provide you with whatever training you may need to reach your destination.