01 August 2006

Taking the trainer out of training

Working closely with his IT department helped Endsleigh Insurance's HR manager, Kevin Ball, ensure delivery of a training solution that also cut roll-out time for new software.

If you type the name 'Endsleigh Insurance' into any search engine your results will most likely include a page from a site called anagramgenius.com. Mix up the letters, it suggests, and Endsleigh Insurance becomes 'insane rescheduling'.

It's a discovery that may well amuse human resources manager Kevin Ball, who, with no experience in IT, found himself in charge of reducing the roll-out of the company's new quotation software from six months to six weeks. With more than 500 sales people spread across 130 branches around the UK, effective re-training posed a major challenge.

"The nature of our business means that our software systems need to be changed every five or six years for faster response times and better presentation," he says. "When we implemented a new system six years ago, the training was done via a residential course which lasted three days. Clearly, not everyone could attend the course at the same time and the roll-out stretched to six months."

By 2000, however, the playing field had changed. Just as the technology available for building Endsleigh's quotation software had progressed, so too had technology-based options for training the users.

The previous system was OS2 based and, according to systems development manager Peter Leahy, was already beginning to look tired when work began on the new software in January 1998. "We decided to write our new system for NT with a three-tier architecture and the look and feel of an internet application that our clients and staff could use," he says. "We forecast that within two or three years we would be dealing with other aspects of our business via the internet, so we wanted an in-house application comparable to an external internet application."

Indeed, for a company geared towards a market of young professionals and students – Endsleigh was originally formed by the national union of students in 1965 – a genuine presence on the web has become increasingly important. A website did exist when the project began, but it wasn't integrated with Endsleigh's in-house systems. "You filled out forms online and thought the policies were issued, but they weren't really," says Leahy. "Everything was printed out then manually keyed into the back-end. Since then we've employed an external company to write a fair bit of our front-end stuff, and have written our applications in such a way that we now move aspects of that into our in-house web server."

The typical end user of the quotation software developed by Endsleigh systems team is the insurance advisor dealing with customers everyday, either on the phone or face-to-face in the office. These young sales people – generally under 25 – are confident with technology, and they were the students in Kevin Ball's virtual classroom.

A novice in the house

Ball joined Endsleigh 10 years ago as a sales manger before assuming a training roll after two years, and later responsibility for the personnel aspect of human resources. Before a computer-based training was chosen, he had no IT experience at all. "Prior to joining Endsleigh I worked in wine sales, which is possibly the least technological industry known to man," he says. "Like most sales managers I always regarded technology as something other people give me in order to get the job done."

It was not an appointment Leahy questioned. "At the end of the day, the in-house development team are concentrating on adding value to the areas that we know best," he says. "We say 'if there are packages available out there we will try to make use of them', and 'the best people to choose the functionality are the experts in that field'. You should never be driven totally by technology, and in these kind of roles IT is subservient to the user department, or should be."

A similar logic was applied to the design of the quotation system, which, to a great extent, was driven in consultation with the sales department. The input of Ball’s team also kicked in early. "Long before we were ever in a position to identify a live date I was involved in discussions with our IS project managers, partly concerning design, because I believe we have a more strategic view than sales on the pattern of the presentation required," he says.

For Endsleigh, with its 130 branches stretching from Aberdeen to Plymouth, the immediate attraction of a computer-based training solution was the opportunity to train people where they worked, providing savings in cost and time compared with previous residential courses. "Obviously, if it gives you reduced costs but poor training value it's not going to be of interest," says Ball. "But once we decided on the direction to take, it became a matter of finding the right service provider to work with."

In search of training logic

The involvement of Leahy's IT department in that process was simply to outline the technological parameters the chosen vendor would have to work within. "We told them we were using Visual Basic based on C++, and that was it," he says. "Because our software is bespoke, our training solution needed to be also. Kevin drove it from there."

Ball started with a list of vendors, which was eventually narrowed down to three. It was a lengthy process of seeing what providers had done for other organisations and developing an in-depth understanding of what the market had to offer. "I saw a lot of fantastic technology lacking in good training logic," says Ball. "A lot of these vendors' clients seemed to have been unsure of where in their organisation the relationship with the technology provider should be. It's often not the provider making that mistake, it's the client organisation cutting the training element and leaving it as an MIS project."

It was an ability to demonstrate a good appreciation of training theory, together with a flexibility for change, that eventually saw Knowledge Solutions win the contract. "In common with the rest of the insurance industry, we need our e-learning to be easily updatable," explains Ball. "Things such as changes in regulatory controls make that necessary."

HR and IT move closer

Once the e-learning project started in earnest, the management of the relationship between HR and IT grew in importance. "I was always keen for IT to be involved," says Ball. "We’re using technology built for us by Knowledge Solutions to sell our new system to 500 sales people. The people in IT who built that solution need to be comfortable that I'm selling it right. What surprised me was the extent to which their experience of using technology-based training enabled them to offer a training perspective by responding almost as if they were trainees. That was a bonus."

Predictably, it wasn't all straightforward. Firstly, Knowledge Solutions was not designing a training package for a finished product, as Endsleigh was still developing the software. "Our involvement with them was a bit fractious at times, primarily because we were having to cater for last-minute screen changes which then involved HR having to redo training scripts," says Leahy. "There was some confusion because you can do tests and specifications, but it's not until you actually start getting people using the software in anger that the need for change can emerge. That drives the training people mad because they've got to have a stable system. We explained that we weren't just doing it for a whim, and they put in extra hours and worked around it. We ended up a good team."

For Ball, it was this aspect of the project that represented the greatest learning curve, and it was an experience that left him sympathetic to the role of the systems developer. "The inevitable and correct developer's instinct is for perfection and they would argue tooth and claw with me on time and deadlines," he says. "The software developer is saying it must change now. The training developer is saying it can't change now because it's already gone to Knowledge Solutions. It created tension throughout the life cycle of the project and my role became a kind of business arbiter between conflicting demands."

Window of opportunity

For a salesperson, time spent in training represents a lost opportunity to sell. As such, any business is eager to minimise the disruption a software roll-out will cause. At Endsleigh, where sales of products such as travel insurance experience various peaks throughout the year, scheduling was an important part of avoiding loss. "We wanted to miss the autumn because that's a busy time for us," says Ball. "We also wanted to get it in by Christmas. Network and hardware issues and business issues combined in the end to dictate a six-week roll-out period."

It was a deadline they met. Once the software was shipped into the office, the branch manager would allocate time for each salesperson to devote to the training package, ensuring overall disruption was minimal. "You go and spend an hour on the training while everyone else holds the fort," explains Nick Harwood, a sales manager from the Solihull branch, which was one of the first to undergo the transition. "Everything was set in place for us by the computing department. One day there was nothing there and the next day the training package was ready to use with full instructions on how to use it."

Onsite instruction was delegated to branch managers. "They were fully trained in the use of the kit beforehand," says Ball. "The training time was directed at making sure the managers overseeing the implementation knew what they were doing, with us being available to offer support and trouble shoot."

As an end user, Harwood was impressed with what he saw. "This type of training works really well because you're actually using the technology you have to learn," he says. "You start off quite eager so you try something and go 'what happens if I do this?'"

Subsequently, the new hardware was fitted and the office would go live overnight with the training kit continuing to be available as a support. This process took a week on average, and with the network being built around a number of nodal points, these nodes were converted to the new network in six weeks.

More than the money

Six months on from the roll-out Endsleigh can measure its success on a number of levels. Certainly, a smooth transition to the new software was a testament to the effectiveness of the e-learning package. "The software has had a couple of tweaks to make it more effective," says Ball. "That's been largely driven by user response, which has been really strong."

Ball estimates that the reduction in roll-out time alone saved the company £150,000. "What was important to us was making sure that the focus of the technology-based training was correct and that the infrastructure that surrounded it was right both in training terms and cost terms," he says. "A lot of organisations underwrite an e-learning solution with supplementary face-to-face delivery and end up with a negation of benefits. The usability of the software obviously dictates the complexity of the training solution, but the support which is built around the technology needs to be in proportion to the benefit which you believe it's going to deliver."

Leahy agrees, but warns: "You can't cut the human element out of the training altogether, but you can change it. If we were doing this again we would have fostered a lot more centres of excellence around the country to act as mentors."

The e-learning package is now also used in the training of all new sales recruits, in combination with the residential training offered in the past. Importantly, the time spent at those courses can now be concentrated on developing broader sales skills.

Having seen what the technology has to offer, Leahy and his team are now looking to find even greater cost savings in the future by developing training solutions in-house.