Category Archives: Training

The Undercover Job Start

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I’ve had quite a few friends start new positions in this past year.  It’s exciting to see so many people get great opportunities after living through the recession!

One common thing happens to all of these folks. It goes something like this:

1.  Social announcement that they got a new position!  Yay! Congrats! When do you start?! We all know the drill.

2. Actual announcement on the first day they start the job.  This happens in a number of forms, social, press release, etc. This is Day 1 on the job, they don’t even know which bathroom they should be using based on their position, and Bam!, you’ve been announced to the world you’re open for business in your new role.

3. Everyone in the world is contacting you on your first day for a variety of reasons. Some will want to just congratulate you. Some will want to pimp your for business. Some will want dirt on why you left the last place. All will want time you don’t have because YOU JUST STARTED A NEW JOB AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE BATHROOM IS!!!

4. You spend the first week trying to find the bathroom.

5. By week #2, you found the bathroom, your email works on your smartphone, and your new company is already beginning to discount your ideas and opinions. Welcome to the show kid, it moves pretty fast!

That’s why I think you should do away with the current job announcement practices, and do something else.  Here’s my new Sackett Job Announcement Plan for Success (like a Trump policy, but it works):

1. Day 1, will now be called Day A.

2. Day A – E, will be your first days of employment, but no one will actually be told that you started.

3. Day 1 (which is really day 6) will happen on the first day of week #2.  Now, you’re actually ready to announce your new position, and take on the coming storm of emails, phone calls, tweets, etc.

Better, right?

We can call it the Undercover Job Start.  You’ve started, but let’s keep it on the down-low until I find the bathroom and stuff.  It’s like the same job start, but without all the stress.

They do this in the restaurant industry when they open a new restaurant. They ‘soft’ open a week before the actual Grand Opening.  People trickle in. It gives the staff a chance to work out the kinks and fix stuff without having a full restaurant to deal with.  That’s how you want to start your job!

T3 – @Learnkit

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This week on T3 I’m reviewing elearning company Learnkit.  Learnkit is a custom elearning agency that, through our unique Learn-cycle pedagogy, produces engaging and enjoyable learning experiences to help organizations and individuals get better, everyday.

What does that mean?  They take your old and tired corporate learning materials and make them innovative, cool and fresh.  Learnkit is an extension of your Learning and Organization Development team.

They offer similar benefits reaped by an internal marketing department that outsources their creative work to a high-end agency.  Bringing this same level of expertise and experience in-house can be very expensive, and often internal teams don’t have the resources to develop elearning at the pace their organization needs. A company like Learnkit has the ability and specialized digital learning experts to rapidly produce tailor-made learning solutions that will match your brand and take advantage of the most cutting edge learning experiences on the market.

5 Things I really like about Learnkit: 

1. Measurable data. Learnkit builds on an elearning platform that provides you with great data, real-time. LOD teams are being pushed to innovate and prove ROI. You only do this by having the data available.

2. Standardize experiences. Learnkit provides a standardized experience across all those you are developing in your organization.

3. On demand access. Our organizations, leaders and employees expect training and development differently today, than ten years ago.  We can no longer wait until the training course is offered again, next month.  On demand elearning systems are a must for large organizations today.

4. Learnkit was impressive in their understanding that in every learning situation in an organization, it’s not just about delivering content, it’s also about having an opportunity to engage and aspire your workforce to be better. Better as individuals, but also better as a whole. This is unique.

5. Learnkit doesn’t offer a cookie cutter, one-size fits all approach.  You see this a lot in elearning solutions. We built something, we throw your content into it, it will work. Maybe, maybe not. I saw multiple client elearning sites that Learnkit put together and none were the same, and all fit the culture and brand of the client they were working with.

Here’s what I know.  In every organization I worked for on the corporate HR side, we had great LOD folks.  The problem was they never had the resources, time and creativity to produce great training and development materials. They were good, but they weren’t great.  We are beginning a time in HR where organizations are going to have to put money into training and development.  For my money, I’m shopping out the design and digital work to experts, and letting my internal team build the content.

 

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.