>> Welcome everyone to session three.
Rolling it out, strategies for success.
Sandra and I are going to be introducing ourselves, and then we're going to dive into the content of this session in just a moment.
So Sandra, would you like to go ahead and start?
>> Thanks so much, thanks so much Angela.
And good afternoon, everyone.
We are very glad to be here with you.
I'm Sandra smith, the manager of staff learning and development at the Denver public library.
I've been a reference librarian a long, long time ago and I always did training.
And I was a supervisor of many branches so I've been a supervisor for many, many years.
And I've done a lot of public and staff training.
And now, I'm all learning and development, which I really love and I've spent a lot of time training, coaching and developing new supervisors.
I've been growing and training them for many years here in Denver and at hennepin county libraries in Minnesota.
Here in Denver we have a supervisor training program but it's time to refresh it and doing the symposium has been giving me a chance to learn new ideas as well as share them with all of you.
>> Hi, everyone, I'm Angela Ibrahim.
I'm the training project supervisor for the pikes peak library district in Colorado springs, Colorado.
Prior to my current position, I was actually an adjunct professor at the university of Colorado, Colorado springs, for about four years, and then transitioned into this role.
Here at PPLD, we have about 500 employees and roughly 30 of those are in the supervisory role and I became involved in this project because here, we're in the early stages of developing a supervisory training program as I can see many of you are in the chat box from the previous two sessions.
So not only am I really excited to be able to deliver some content to you.
I've been happily learning from this process and the other sessions, as well.
Why are we offering this symposium on this topic?
Well, as you've heard in the last two sessions and then for those of you joining us now, on this slide there's some data that explains how the symposium came to be.
It was basically from a round-table survey that was sent out to its members.
And you can see from the data on the screen there was quite a bit of interest in it as well as -- 132 participants completing session three with us.
So it looks like there's a lot of interest around this topic.
We are on session three of the symposium, supervisor success, development programs that work.
We've talked about the how and what, and now we're going to go into the why.
Sandra is going to be explaining what we're going to cover in the session today.
>> Okay.
You may have attended the first two sessions from today where Jerilyn, Heather and Melanie focused on how to develop your program and gave you some really great information and examples and Angela and I are now going to discuss the whys and hows of rolling it out and keeping it going.
We've developed three topic areas to share with you.
The strategic connection, the marketing connection, and the sustainable connection.
And to complement this, let me get back to that slide here and to complement this session, you have the learning symposium's learner guide of questions that you can ponder, as well as two handouts that Angela and I hope that you will find helpful.
So to get us started, Angela has a short survey for us but I think Jennifer are you going to explain how to use the annotation tools?
>> Yeah, we better do that just for the folks that maybe haven't been here before.
We've been using our annotation tools, which if you go to the top left corner of the screen and click on the marker, that will open up the panel that has the annotation tools.
Go about halfway down to the square and in that submenu under the square, click the checkmark and we've got lots of folks practicing, feel free to practice on this slide.
If you're on a mac, those tools may be at the bottom of your screen.
>> All right.
It looks like there's a lot of people practicing those checkmarks, that's fantastic.
Okay.
On the next slide we're going to go ahead and pull up a survey.
So I would ask you at this time if you could pause your practice and we're actually going to put your checkmarks in on a list.
This list has specific areas where you can place your checkmarks so that we can clearly identify where your checkmark is being placed so one moment and I'll advance the screen.
Okay.
We want to hear from you.
What challenges do you face in your organization when you're developing learning opportunities for staff?
Take a look at this list of challenges on the left and place your checkmark in the box on the right.
Check any and all that apply to you and if there are others we didn't list here, please feel free to place those in a chat box.
There are lots of challenges that we face as different sized organizations.
>> Once again, nobody has any time for anything!
[ Laughs ]
>> Yes.
And there's a surprise.
Scarce resources.
We must work at libraries.
>> It looks like scarce resources, skills assessments, saying what the heck do these people need?
And then like we have any time for this.
Everybody's heard sweet Georgia brown, ain't nobody got time for that!
It looks like there's quite a few coming in in that box, as well.
So how do you move forward in developing your supervisory training program?
According to this list and where your marks lie, it looks like we share a lot of similar challenges.
Throughout this training today we're going to be giving you ideas to address these challenges.
To get us started, Sandra is going to walk us through what we refer to as the strategic connection.
>> Okay.
Let's get started here.
So I know when you start out in thinking about developing a program like this, your first instinct is likely to 12 into your program's content details.
But it's really, really important to step into the big picture first.
You must do some work here to create a solid foundation on which to set your program.
This is your strategic connection.
And I do share from my past experience that if you don't do this, you may at best end up with a very rough oh, so painful ride and at worst you'll alienate your administrators and all your work may end up being ignored by your supervisors.
So you need to spend some time on this and this came up in the earlier sessions when we were talking about how do you get buy-in from your administrators?
How do you get them on board with this?
This is exactly the place where you need to start doing that.
So let's start looking at the return on investment for what you want to do.
You look your ROI work that will spell out what will make this program worthwhile for everybody involved?
You have to decide and share out who is going to gain what.
The who is your library as an institution, as well as your administrators, your managers and your supervisors.
Now, the what that these folks want to know is what I call the WIIFM, with these cute little pictures.
The WIIFM is what's in it for me?
Now, to me, this young lady with her cute little goat and a happy smile represents your staff who all ultimately want to be happy in their work, at least I hope so, and they want to be taken care of, all the little goats in our library life.
They want to know how your program will help them specifically, both professionally and even personally.
What's in it for all the people involved from your top levels to your attendees?
They must know how to get on board, what this is in order to be able to get on board with you.
Those of you who may interact with me know that I can be very diplomatic from my southern mother but I can also be pretty earthy from my father from West Virginia, which is why I'm going to say you need to be sure to give them a very diplomatic worded reason for why they should give a rat's behind about your program that you are proposing and knowing that needs to be done.
So you also need to look at what I call the WIIFML, what's in it for your library?
That's the L part.
Your library is your staff's professional Taj Mahal and hopefully, it's that for your community in many ways.
You need to show how your supervisory development program adds to your library's glory and its relevance as a valuable institution.
So first be sure to articulate your WIIFM and your WIIFML and keep those ROI factors in front of you throughout your planning and implementation.
They will help get your staff on board with you, and they will then guide you in your content and marketing and they will ultimately foster your sustainability connection for its future.
Let's talk a few ROI specifics in this next slide here.
Okay.
So some ROI elements.
To get your administrators, supervisors and managers to buy into your program, you need to start by identifying and communicating the nuts and bolts, organizational and operational business needs or what I call the GBRs, the good business reasons, that your training will support.
So all organizations have needs and goals.
And you're either little or your library and busy, busy administrators have ones that are important to them.
So in our verbiage handout that you're going to see, I've shared some library needs and sample language that I've used in various programs over the 18 or so years that I've been rolling them out.
So, for example, here's a verbiage statement.
We looked at the current needs, values and operations of our library today.
We have identified our priority focus areas, and we have defined skills and competencies our supervisory staff need.
So that's just 1ROI statement that you can use with your administrators and there are many, many others on the handouts and I know there are ones that you can develop that will be unique to your library, as well.
So take time to find out what your administrators place importance on.
That's how you're going to get them to buy in.
That's how you're going to get them at the table and be sure that your program will link to those needs.
And then you clearly state those compelling rationales in all your planning and implementation.
So the next thing you do is you want to show how your program is the solution to those needs that your administrators in your library need to have and how will it make a difference to your customers and to your staff?
Some of those statements in the handout might give you some ideas for that, as well.
And then in addition, you want to provide any data that's going to bolster these ROI statements and data could come from a gap analysis or a needs assessment that is completed by your managers that you put together and also by the supervisors themselves.
Get their input on what challenges they face in their responsibilities.
So some examples of what your leadership might find important include highly skilled staff that will have credibility within your community, more work efficiency that supervisors will gain in doing their day-to-day functions so that they can then focus on big picture priority goals for your library.
Another thing your leadership will value would be identifying skills that can be built into your hiring standards for new staff and that you can use those standards to retain and develop existing valued staff.
And that they can also be used in succession planning development, which is something that libraries are really focusing on these days.
So another return on investment tool for you to use is to develop some goals and metrics prior to your course design.
What data will support the need for your program and will help bolster your ability to produce results?
You can do some fancy surveys using, you know, some of the survey products that are out there that are free or you can just do some sample questionnaires or have discussions to get input.
All of this is to support getting your return on investment and your buy-in from your stakeholders.
You need to let them know how relevant your program is.
Back to that kind of rat's behind thing that I talked about earlier.
So let's take a look at some other things on the next slide here, just a second.
My little slide clicker, here we go.
All right.
Some additional ROI statements that you might find useful are some of these and I've used them all and I often find out that others, even administrators, they haven't necessarily thought of these statements with regard to their library's goals and how training can be a tool to achieve these.
I especially like the third bullet rationale of you need individually motivated and confident employees, because as we all know, everything at our libraries starts and ends with strong employees.
And also I want to mention three ROI statements from our expert consultants and you'll find these in your expert's handouts.
For instance, an organization's success is dependent upon the quality of its workforce.
Leadership sets the tone.
The communications style of supervisors has a direct influence on teamwork, morale and employee retention.
And another, supervisors and managers are where the rubber meets the road, regarding organizational effectiveness.
Isn't that the truth?
Think about it.
And finally, Kimberly sweetman says supervisors are a critical link in the service provision chain in that they convey strategy to the people that fulfill it.
If you're feeling a little bit overwhelmed by all this big picture stuff, let's take a little lighthearted approach but a still important view on our next slide here.
Take a look at this quote.
Oh, no.
You may hear or think about the fact that if you think training your employees is expensive, you should try not training them.
So this is something that you can put on the table as well to all of the people in your library world.
I love this quote and I've used it often with all levels of staff.
It's funny but it does have a big implication for you to point out.
What if if we don't do this supervisory training program?
What do we get as a result?
This is a critical strategic question that must be put on the table.
So you can point out the three not so funny impacts that I list the three little images below, starting with shaggy from Scooby-doo.
He's the ultimate slacker staff, the work avoidant people.
Do you want to end up with them?
Or do you want to have many costly mistakes being made by staff?
And, of course, bill the captain shows the high stress for everyone at work when operations run amuck because people are not doing things the way that are the best way to be done and that, of course, impacts everything from customer service to teamwork to health and to retention.
So be really clear in your choice about whether to train or not to train supervisors.
Each choice has consequences, and everybody needs to be clear what they are.
Make your list of negative outcomes for if you don't do the training and you want to share that clearly, as well.
And is that result okay?
How will you manage the consequences with as little damage as possible if you don't do the training?
Another thought is you can also explore if you can't do 100% of your training program goal, what parts do you have the capacity for?
Can you piece it out a little bit at a time?
What would that look like?
Are there other options?
Can you create a short and a long-term plan?
So now on this next slide, I'm going to give you a little variation on humor here.
Let me get to this one.
I love this quote, too.
This is meant for your leaders.
If they're worried that you'll train your employees and they'll leave, would you rather not train them and have them stay?
So put that out to your leaders, as well.
And if they have a fear of loss of retention for the time that you've spent on this, do you really want them untrained and staying and impacting negatively all your services and goals?
So you want to remind leaders that statistics show that the primary reason for lack of retention of staff is because people leave supervisors who don't deal with problem staff.
Tell them your program will help address the skills that your supervisors need to enhance your staff's performance and work satisfaction.
And so finally let's take a look at some of the ROI big picture that you can use for how your program might influence some of your existing processes.
So you can bring these to your ROI table.
What about the performance management view of your program?
How will your program contribute to your library's performance goals for individuals and groups?
What structures can you build into your program to match your performance processes?
And how can you create ways to ensure that your managers and your supervisors continue to dialogue and to actively work with their supervision and that they will do follow-up activities and learning to reinforce your program's content?
You'll be wanting to create tools that they can use after the program, such as expanded activities and discussion templates, you'll want to identify some online resources and also have some intrapersonal sharing opportunities across staff levels.
I think Melanie talked about this a lot when she was explaining her programs and Heather did as well in her management institute.
How can you continue the learning after you do your initial training?
So the next thing is how do you develop competencies for your library staff?
Or do you need to develop competencies?
Do you want them?
And, if so, how will you incorporate those competencies into the content of your program and how will you train to them?
So you want to create linkage in your activities of your program to any performance standards that you want or that you already have.
And certainly don't forget that your program will crash and burn if you don't address concerns about the time and the resources needed.
Everybody from the top of your food chain down, your administrators down to your participants, they want to know this.
It's critical to share with them.
What are the timelines?
What are the logistics?
The who, what, when, where, all that staff commitment piece.
You want to be very transparent about what your program will look like so they will buy into it and realize that yes, indeed it is doable and it is worth it.
So give others the opportunity to work with you to solve any of these issues.
So your success is going to depend on that.
And it's going to depend on the clarity and the partnerships that you have.
In looking at these last two, the performance management and competency elements, they especially tie into our next point, which is the role of the managers in your program, the people who are your supervisors' bosses and Angela is going to share about that so take it away, Angela.
>> Thanks, Sandra.
That's exactly right.
So we've looked at some ROIs for lots of different elements but now, we're going to focus on the managers supervisors, more specifically the what's in it for me for the managers.
Okay when you're training supervisors it's really important to get their managers involved in the process.
Managers are going to know what their staff's needs are based on conversations that they have with them, the issues that they help their supervisors face, things like that, things that you as a trainer are kind of on the sidelines for.
And you really can't do it effectively without them.
They have to play a critical part in this so we're going to look at these four elements.
Do you involve the managers in the planning, participation, accountability and the ongoing learning to help them try to be invested in this process?
So first, the planning phase.
How do you get them involved?
Well, managers can create companion or follow-up case studies.
They can create real-world scenarios and simulations and what if you helped them type up some what-if statements that they can role play through with their supervisors?
This is going to support their understanding of what the course will and will not cover and develop their vested interest in seeing the training succeed, which is always a benefit.
Some other collateral benefits will be an increased understanding about the reality of what training can and can't quote/unquote fix and it will help in informing those managers who honestly, surprise, don't understand what the employees' work involves sometimes.
What if you could provide an orientation session for the managers for your program?
Bring them all together and say hey, guys this is what we're going to cover.
Emphasize that what's in it for you factor for the managers, so that they can understand their supervisors are going to walk away from that training with some really great information.
How do you get them involved in the participation of the program?
Well, I've already given you a few ideas but here's another one.
During the program, how about you provide them with a discussion template for conversations that they can have with the supervisors after the training is complete for the day?
Maybe they have a session that they can go back to and talk it out, role play again one on one during that participation.
What about the accountability of the supervisors during and after the program?
Involve your managers in the completion and evaluation process.
They get to be accountable for facilitating and ensuring their staff participate in a very high-performance way.
That's not always doable but oftentimes, they are extremely knowledgeable in what their folks need.
Establish them as final assessors and provide them with tools to support them in that role.
How about you require that they sign off on the training that's occurred and that they continue to participate in the follow-up activities?
Those follow-up activities lead into the next step, which is the ongoing learning process.
How can they be involved in that in making sure that this is constantly going on?
One second.
Sandra, can I get you to mute yourself real quick?
I can hear some typing.
Sorry about that.
Okay the ongoing learning, you can provide more guides to one-on-one discussions for current reinforcement, like what about a sheet that has questions to start discussions?
Or case studies for ongoing exploration?
And tools for facilitating ongoing performance evaluation standards when looking and asking for that future of what is a supervisor going to be doing in the next phase of this year?
Or templates for manager observation data for ongoing behaviors and skills, like a fillable form or maybe there's a checklist that you can provide saying these are the desired traits that I want to see and here's a checklist to see where you measure up to those desired traits.
So that's the manager's role.
What about the actual people that are going to be taking your training?
The what's in it for me for the supervisors?
How do you get them excited about it?
How do you engage them in wanting to participate but not just that, what about even more enthusiastically participate?
Sometimes, when a supervisor is told that they need to go to a training, it creates apprehension, maybe they think why do I have to go to this training?
I'm really nervous about the fact that I'm going to be in it.
What am I going to be learning?
The ways you can address that is look at those hot button topics with the whys.
Use data that you've collected.
What about the return on investment?
Library goals.
And the specific individual goals from the individual who's going to be sitting in the training as the motivation.
After that, focus on some of these added value ROIs for the supervisors.
These are the areas that you see in the light blue on the screen.
Do you see any of these as more desired or needed at your library?
Like, for example, are people asking for more self-sufficiency?
Are they looking for boosted morale or that feeling that I'm a very valuable person to this organization?
Yeah, I can tell you that I can see some of those from what my supervisors have asked for, too.
So if that's the case, flesh those out.
Let's say, for example, that you're training a group of supervisors that work in the children's department and they're really struggling with the interactive creativity of their staff.
Well get them excited and willing to participate by giving them tools to help them with that challenge.
Make it relevant to their needs, too.
And you clarify where the support for this program is and there are others who agree on its value and want the positive changes that this will evoke.
For example, confidence in their skill set, motivation for being a better supervisor, that their ability to perform these skills will have support from their leadership and that they're not alone in this learning process, because as somebody mentioned earlier in one of the other symposium sessions, I think it was Jerilyn, that being a supervisor is very, very -- you're kind of siloed and on your own and it can be a scary thing sometimes if you think about it from that perspective.
One last thing, remember that people really want to know what is this training going to look like?
The idea that ambiguity creates uncomfortableness is true.
If you don't paint the picture for them, saying this is what it's going to look like, they're going to make it up.
And you get the consequences unfortunately of their stories and the imagination might spread far and wide in your organization.
It's a lot easier to paint that picture up front than it is to try to go back and clean up after things have already been put out there.
Okay.
We've talked about the strategic connection, we've talked about it what's in it for me at the various levels.
What I would like to do now is talk about the marketing segue, how do you get buy-in?
Let's say that you've been given the green light and said go ahead, start this program.
Let's talk about how to market this program to everyone within the organization.
First, you need to keep in mind and share with staff that it's really exciting to act and be considered a learning organization, not every organization has the resources to train their staff properly.
I can attest to that personally and I've seen through some of the chats going on that people are saying the same thing.
Those limited resources that we have available.
It really is a valuable strategic connection for your employees and your external stakeholders.
This gets everyone under the same umbrella of being a team in this program and its activities.
What is the outcome of an organization that does not grow and facilitate the learning of the staff and continually transform itself?
You guys have probably heard this term, it's a stagnant organization, one where things seem to be stuck in a very different era and isn't relevant to the needs of the community that it's serving.
Every organization wants to be needed and valued and ironically so do the people in that organization.
So how do we get them ready for this program?
How do we get them on board?
Well, there's lots of ways.
We want our participants in this program to be engaged, right?
We want them to be enthusiastic, we want them to be active and we want them to be skilled in their own areas of expertise.
We want them to have fun in the program and be able to increase their confidence in their ability to do their job as a supervisor.
This sounds like it's easier said than done but if you put all of these pieces together, it really comes together in a nice, simplistic form, we're hoping.
You want to create active learners, not just staff who sit in a chair, endure the training, and then forget or ignore your content.
So how do we do that?
As Sandra stated, you have to be really clear in that what's in it for me, for them, and how can you show them the valuable-based, emotional relevance of the training to their work desires?
You can speak to that gap analysis that you might have done earlier.
What are the good business reasons for this class?
What is the return on investment for the library?
And for the individual?
And we talked about a handout that has some verbiage on it.
You can refer to that if you're seeking something to get started in that.
You need to make the training relevant.
You train them on the skills that will directly impact their work, not things that they have no control over.
And when you're talking about what they're going to be covering in this training, you mention those things and it says oh, I can connect to that maybe, maybe that is what I do.
I do have control over this and yes, I would like to maybe expand my knowledge and become a skilled supervisor in that area.
How about emphasizing the real-world benefits?
This lets them know why they should care and how it will benefit them.
And by foster a sense of confidence, you set them up for success because you're going to be practicing the skills that they're going to be experiencing in a comfortable environment with other supervisors prior to the real-world scenarios that they're going to be facing once they do have to actually supervise staff.
Embrace collaborative learning.
Everyone can learn from each other by offering their stories of successes and failures.
And you emphasize this via the team aspect.
We're all in this together, right?
And you can build community among the participants by not just embracing that collaborative learning effort but also what about with the instructors and the speakers that are in the class with them?
Bringing in content experts.
The participants will feel more comfortable knowing that they're all facing the same challenges and that they have wonderful resources on their side.
Provide opportunities for sharing success stories and a platform for skill sharing.
For example, what if you were to create a google group for your supervisors to share?
Or let's say you have a learning management system that you can place a folder on or here at pikes peak library district we actually have an intranet and we can put a page or a folder out on the intranet where the supervisors can go and collaborate on.
But the key here is communication.
Clearly identify those learning objectives and the outcomes, the format that you're going to be using, whether it's face to face or e-learning activities, who the speakers and the content experts are that they can go to after the sessions are done, and then the key members of your library or the experts in the field that they can go to to ask questions later on.
Always provide those training logistics, who, what, when, where, how and what is the fun factor?
For example, are they going to get network with their other colleagues?
Are you going to feed them?
I can tell you from personal experience if you feed them, they will come!
What about the swag and the freebies that you offer?
Yes, bribe them in any way that you can.
And what about branded fliers?
Bookmarks, pens, anything that you can provide.
All this goes into marketing the program.
Okay so let's say that you've got their attention and they say yeah, I might be interested in attending this supervisory program.
Sandra is going to talk to you about some specifics in the PR realm that can get them jazzed and excited about this.
>> That's right.
Let's talk about how to have some fun!
Now, it's time to get some excitement going for your program, to continue to foster that operational buy-in and enthusiasm.
You want to get people, first of all, curious and then excited or at least not to feel threatened by their upcoming experience if you've required it of them.
So some examples might include you can see on this slide here a top 10 David letterman kind of like list, a bookmark or flier that you can put out here.
The list is for a different program that I did to get buy-in but you can get the idea.
You can make it a digital or print handout that you send to departments or individuals, you can post it on bulletin boards and your staff elevators if you have any, you can pass it out at meetings, even put it in a holder on your bathroom stall doors.
One library has something called the commode chronicles.
I totally love it.
So another fun idea that you can do has been a great hit with our staff here at Denver public.
You could have a PR party on a cart.
And wheel around a party book truck.
Or if you're in more than one location, you can make it a party in a box.
And you make up boxes and send them out to all your locations if staff are spread out in different buildings.
And in that box you can put in things or on the cart if you're wheeling it around, you put out things that are fun and that you've created to connect people to what's coming to your program.
I'll show you a few details on the next slide but keep in mind you can do like you see here juice bottles, cookies, candies, that nonperishable stuff, if you're sending it out in boxes.
And don't forget balloons.
You can put it in the box for people to blow up and you should have seen our tricked out party on a cart that we wheeled around the different levels of the central library here at Denver for one of our roll-outs of a program.
And then, of course, don't forget you want to add a little bit of the piece to the mashed potatoes by including a fun FAQ info sheet on what your program is all about, what you're going to be doing, and why you're doing it so they can start to anticipate what it will look like, and not be confused or intimidated.
Now, you won't get everybody on board, let's get real, especially those naysayers who aren't going to like anything.
You deal with them in a performance management way.
But instead, you focus on the staff who want to be high-performing or at least know they should be.
And you give them a fun reason to start participating in getting engaged.
So here on the next slide is some of the little bling that we used in our party on a cart and party in a box.
We did spend just a little bit of money and it wasn't very much because I don't have much money, even though it's a big organization here, we bought some cheap funky pens and made a memorable and identifiable logo that we created for our program and I bought this little dude with the funky hair, and then we created a bookmark that you see here, the green one and also it had our logo, and then it had that top 10 list on the back of it as well for people to use as a bookmark or to post up at their locations.
You can even get candy and put a wrapper on it with a QR code that people can scan and that leads to that online space that both Angela and Melanie talked about to create a place for people to go.
And I think Heather mentioned it, too.
So to create a one-stop spot for information about your program and all of its resources.
We also created, you can see the little square on the clip here, we created a little folded tip sheet with what the program was going to look like, you open it up and it spells out all the details, it folds out into an 8 ½ by 11 piece of paper.
And of course, we put a picture of puppies on it because puppies are always good and make people smile.
And we put that on cheap clip holders for people to use.
We spent very little money on these and we created all the paper things on our desktops here.
So think creatively.
Think cheaply and fun to start your swag supply, to get your folks feeling positive about what's coming up.
So besides these fun things, we've got a few little general do's and don'ts on the next slide for what you might want to do for best practices in your program.
Do provide those staff who contribute in any way from the top of your ladder all the way down, anyone who contributes to your learning program, give them some sort of public and a private recognition.
I've done public verbal and written thank yous, notes to supervisors on what contribution their staff people have made and what they've done, acknowledgments to people at meetings and events, do some Friday treats to people and anything else that I can think of to show appreciation and recognize effort and contribution.
So you might also publicize what you're doing near and far.
Late everybody know within your organization and even outside with other colleagues in your neighboring libraries, let them know what you're doing and why and what results you're getting.
It keeps everyone in the loop and it also creates credibility for you and your organization now and in the future.
And also give your senior staff information about your program so that then they can show its value to others who they interact with both externally and internally.
Give them information for their WIIFM needs.
Tell them how you're going to do it, what results you're aiming to get.
And then back up this information with the data and your metrics.
And finally, don't forget to not be intimidated in making your program happen.
Don't get all squirrelly about it.
Just put all the pieces together and have a good time.
10% of your time is plenty to feel nervous and I do say that with a big smile.
Keep your sense of humor as you roll out your program.
Everybody including you will appreciate it.
And don't hesitate to ask for help and advice from other learning and training folks in other libraries around the country and your neighborhood.
We are a very friendly, helpful and generous bunch, I know every single one of you who's listening to us today is absolutely one of those people.
And we have each been through the class or the project from hell.
And we have survived and we have learned.
And so you will do that in any of the programs that you roll out.
So now that we've talked about strategic connection and the marketing connection, Angela is going to walk us through a few things about the sustainability connection and how to keep your program going long-term.
Angela?
>> You've put in all of this work into developing your program, maybe countless hours have been spent in developing self-paced tutorials, videos, activities, etc.
I know how long these things take.
How do you make sure that that content is relevant over time to keep you prom having to redo everything when changes in your organization override some of the content that you've created?
An example I think think of here at the pikes peak library district, we put in hours and hours of time in creating some welcome videos that our leadership team did and they introduced themselves to our new hires.
So when they would come in to their new hire orientation, we would show the video.
What happened when there was turnover in those positions in the leadership team?
Well, those videos quickly became out of date and they had to be redone.
So how do you keep your program systemic and ongoing and go from an exciting launchpad to the operational space station of exploration?
What's look at some of the strategies that we have for you.
We talked about the return on investment for the current needs.
Now, we need to go look at it from a future needs perspective okay?
Things to think about might be what skills do we need to hire for as the organizational needs change?
How about this question?
What will our community look like in 10 years?
And what do we need to train for to best serve that community?
One of the things that you can do is complete an evaluation of your program and utilize the results in the planning for the next phase of the program.
For example, upgrades to a new software system and you no longer use the old one.
Maybe you need to weed out some of the content that you've created in the trainings.
What about any policy and procedural changes that may make some of the content irrelevant?
Those are some things to think about as you look at evaluating your current process.
What about internal processes?
Some of those might need to be included in this program to keep it ongoing in the future.
Some of the things that you might need to do is talk to your administrators about the need to include this training as a part of the organization's performance standards and management process.
Some of the things that you can do for that are look at your annual performance reviews.
Include your competencies and the job requirements as a part of any performance review process you may have.
The results from the performance reviews may indicate a new training need to be included in the supervisor program.
Add your content skills to your job requirements and the postings that go out when you're searching for new candidates and also to your job descriptions to clarify expectations when you're recruiting and hiring for those new positions.
One idea may be to add this program to the on boarding training program so that new hire orientation that I was talking about a second ago, maybe there's an added element on the back end that says hey, supervisors, those of you hired in this role, stick around for a minute.
We're going to talk about some trains for you specifically.
Add this program to your ongoing learning program as a key standard practice or for those of you that this might be the first time training for this particular topic, training for staff, use it to jump-start your being a learning organization.
That's really exciting when you've not had a learning program before.
This is all fresh and new for you.
Do you have a learning calendar or a schedule that you can add it to?
Do you have a learning management system that you can roll it into?
Or what about a checklist of required trainings for staff?
How often will you offer the tram?
All great questions that we have to kind of keep in the back of our mind as we go through this.
And don't forget, okay.
With the future in mind we need to plan for it right?
So utilize your return on investment reasons from the development phase as well as any feedback or data that you get provided by the managers on their observations and needs.
So things to ask ourselves:  Who owns it going forward?
Who makes changes to it?
What roles belong to whom?
For example, who's going to train on certain topics?
Who's the administrative liaison going to be?
The key managers?
And the supervisors who have gone through it and are champions to help promote it?
Maybe create a list of the people that you can go to for those things and if they are no longer available to be a part of that role, they might know somebody who they would say hey, I would strongly suggest this person for this role.
And what do you as the learning leader want to see going forward?
Are there big changes, coming up?
Big organizational goals in place that you can see?
Or does it just need simple tweaking, maybe you've looked at it and said hey, it actually is pretty darn good from when we started, we need to adjust a couple of things and we're good to go for the next thing.
Constantly be looking at it.
Okay I want to check in with you guys at this point.
Are you collapsing in your chair right now thinking oh, my gosh this is a lot of stuff to think about?
You're right.
There are lots of things to think about when designing a training program, marketing a training program, rolling it out, and keeping it going.
But just remember you don't have to do all of this alone.
Seek help from your resources that are available for you.
Sandra has one last tidbit for you.
Sandra?
>> Find ways for all involved in order to recognize the achievement for your individuals so don't forget to celebrate.
It's really important for your partners and your library as a whole.
So depending upon your library's culture and size, pick things that are do believe, have a potluck party, do small gifts.
What about a month after the training ends to have a sharing session to review successes and challenges as you look to moving it forward?
So in general, PR out to everybody all the accomplishments achieved and the results gained.
It adds importance to what you've done and it makes it a part of your library's practices and culture.
So let's wrap up on what we've talked about today before we go to some questions.
We've talked about the strategic connection, how do you successfully position your program?
The marketing connection, how do you get buy-in from your various stakeholders?
And the sustainable connection, how do you keep it going?
We hope that today's session and the entire symposium has been really valuable to you and we want to thank you.
We want to thank you for today.
So Angela do you want to say any final words?
>> Yeah.
I would just like to say thank you to everyone for participating in the session, Sandra and I really appreciate your interest in supervisory training.
If you're interested in some follow-up information to the symposium, go ahead and click on the link that will be provided over in the chat box and you can take that short survey.
We really appreciate your feedback because that helps us determine what do we offer in the future.
Jennifer, do we have any time to look at some of the questions that have been posed in the chat box or flesh out some of the content that people have added in there?
>> Yeah, we have actually plenty of time.
So I know that those of you who have been here for a while maybe have stuff to do but this is a great opportunity to chime in with additional thoughts, questions, ideas that you want to touch on with this cohort.
I didn't see any specific questions come through.
You guys did cover a lot so we'll let folks process what they might want to talk about here.
I did want to put a plug out.
I loved how you talked about that it's important just to get started and perhaps for those that are looking for something fresh and looking for something that others have done before them, I just want to give a plug for the self-directed achievement model.
This was something that came about from Jamie carter who works at the library in Utah, and she's created an awesome -- it's called self-directed achievement and she created it with her team, it's a very small library, that provides some excellent structure for ways throughout this whole journey from creating to creating enthusiasm to sustaining a culture of learning together and I know we're going to be sharing a case study next week that tells a little bit more about how other libraries have replicated this model.
So know that there are certainly lots of great examples out there.
And if you all have examples to share, please don't hesitate.
We would love to be able to showcase those examples.
I know the trick with staff development is a lot of that work sometimes is behind the scenes in an intranet so if we can figure out ways to help you share that, as well.
And another plug for this idea of follow-up work, if you have specific plans that you want to flesh out with a cohort, this is something that the learning round-table team is looking at as an opportunity for us to continue to learn together in these areas.
So I want to thank all of the presenters, it was really, really exciting to have all of you bring your expertise and for all the work you did to tap those experts.
We want to give a special thank-you to all those experts who responded to your call for input.
That's a huge task in and of itself to gather that together and put it in the nice, concise collection that you did and certainly reach out to those folks, if you have additional questions and needs for them.
There was a question that came through, Sandra in the very first section, she was an excellent modeler of contributing to chat, talked about five-minute nuggets for supervisory learning.
Do you track the use of those or the other small bites of learning in terms of maybe pre, post, and ongoing evaluation of these supervisors?
>> It's a really good question.
The five-minute nuggets that we do are little e-learnings that we have.
And in the past, I've tracked them with like a google sheet where people can go in and say I've done this one, this one, this one and this one.
And so you can do it that way.
That's a Google or even sort of documentary on your intranet is a really great way that you can use to have people self-track what they do or of course, you can put some things out for supervisors and make it a checklist -- I'm sorry, for managers, so that your managers can have a checklist of some of these for their supervisors to work through, and then your managers can select which of the ones they think a particular supervisor needs to do.
That way maybe one supervisor needs to do one through five, another supervisor comes in with a lot of experience, they only need to do these three little nuggets of information.
We also now -- I'm very fortunate to have a learning management system, which electronically tracks all of the e-learning that everybody does.
So our five-minute nuggets are loaded onto our learning management system and people go in and play and do them through the learning management system, and then the system does record who has done what things and it shows up on an employee's transcript, and it's something that I can go in or that the supervisors' managers can go in and find out which learnings their employees have done.
Does that kind of make sense?
>> Yes, it does, and I think, you know obviously those kinds of systems or tools can help track that.
I also -- you know, I think the nature -- I know some of you spoke to how much our work changes constantly.
And I think that's another reason to really explore kind of the full story of building this kind of training that will circle back, you know.
It's iterative.
It's going to come back and, you know, we'll evaluate are there new competencies that have come about because of the way our communities have changed or because of the tools that are available to us?
So I think -- I'm curious to hear in terms of your own process how do you circle back and at what point do you decide to initiate a fresh engagement opportunity for those supervisors?
Because it seems like a lot of you are talking about initiating cohorts through a specific time frame.
So how long do you wait or -- what are the indicators that it's time to start something new?
>> I was hoping somebody would throw some things into the chat box here.
Angela, do you want to tackle that since I've been talking?
Or I can -- I have a leadership cohort, too.
But go ahead first, Angela.
>> I think that sometimes, when it comes to trying to figure out you know, where do I get started and how do I know what -- when do -- there might be a need, I think you just start listening to your people and you start hearing some -- I would call them --
>> Complaints.
Water cooler talk.
[ Laughs ]
>> Yes, about some of the issues that they're facing, maybe some of the challenges and you're starting to see some of the like a lot of similarities come out within the discussions that you have and that speaks to the needs of maybe what are some trains that need to be offered?
I do know that oftentimes, training might not be the solution.
Sometimes, it really is going to be, you know, a discussion that you would have with the person as opposed to a training.
I think sometimes, we as trainers might make the mistake of developing a training around something for one person versus the entire team when the team says hey, it's not really -- this isn't really an issue that we need to train for the team.
It's more of like the one person needs to be coached.
So --
>> The problem child.
>> Right.
So I think sometimes that will even inform where do you get started in their training?
Maybe it's training the supervisors on when to know when to coach and when not to coach and when to bring the entire team involved versus the one person that might be having some issues.
>> Right.
>> One of the things that -- I'm sorry Jennifer, go ahead.
>> That's fine, go ahead.
>> I was going to say a really free and easy thing that you can do is use a survey tool like survey monkey.
We use survey monkey all the time here at Denver public to gauge needs around everything from our customers to our staff needs.
And so if you're feeling that there might be a need for something out there, put together a simple -- and it's free, a simple survey through survey monkey and send it to whomever.
You don't have to send it to your whole organization, you may send it to a few key people or you may send it out to all your supervisors and have them give you the feedback on what is their reality?
What do they need or what are they telling you no, no, no, that's not a big deal for me, this over here is a big deal for me!
And then you can structure your training accordingly.
>> Excellent.
Well, there is one more question that came through and this is another doozy and I appreciate hearing it.
What do you do if you're entering an organization where the average quality of staff is low and they believe they are doing a great job?
So this gets back to that culture issue and I don't know if either of you -- Sandra or Angela, want to speak to how that might be?
How someone might change that culture.
>> Well, first, I would say because I spend a huge amount of time dealing with performance issues.
And the first question I would ask is what would be very high?
So define what your quality needs to look like so when you say the quality of staff is very low, what does that look like?
And what do you want it to look like?
And once you define that, and that may be something that if you are the head of the food chain, if you're the director, you might want to say this is what a high quality staff looks like to me and then you need to go about communicating that out and providing the resources and the way for people to get to be at that level, to where you have to meet people where they are, even if you don't like where they are.
You have to meet them where they are, reset what the expectations are and give them a path for achieving it.
Does that give a start to that?
>> Earlier, we discussed that that was actually called what we refer to as the gap analysis.
It shows where are you right now and where do you want to go?
There's a gap in between and how do we get there?
How do we bridge that gap?
So you start developing tools that you can see that might be baby steps in getting up to where you want that gap analysis closed.
I really want to see you guys right here but we're way down here so these are some tools I'm going to give you and you do it in lots of different formats.
>> Yeah, that sounds like a good approach and even inviting individual reflection on that gap, their own individual gap analysis can be shared maybe, you know, privately, you can gather it as the leader of that effort, and then use that in the identifying where maybe you do need to be.
And ask them, maybe presenting that, where do they need to be?
Sometimes, it's making sure that they understand what's happening in other libraries, for instance.
So providing some of those examples is helpful.
>> That was what I was going to say also, Jennifer, is start giving them a picture of what it looks like that you want to see, that may be sharing things from others, that may be opening up more conversations, that may be just broadening the lens of their view, and then figuring out a way that you all together can work on how to get there.
>> Excellent and there was a request for gap analysis templates and so we'll do some brainstorming and certainly if anyone here knows of any, post those to chat but that's an excellent way to remind folks that we will continue to collect your input and the conversation will be captured and posted to the archives pages.
I'll be working on converting those and getting them posted within the next 24 hours and I'll send you an e-mail once those are available.
We'll also be sending you a link in that e-mail to a survey that you can provide feedback to all of our panelists and our event today and we'll use that, as well.
We'll also send a certificate of attendance to all who logged in.
And if you're interested in following up on additional learning in this area, again, please complete the survey, the learning round table folks have provided and I'll put that again into chat.
A quick survey to understand perhaps where your interests might be in those efforts.
All right.
We've made it.
What an awesome day.
I'm so glad that you all were here with us and thank you again to all of our panelists and all of the great work that they're doing in their library communities.
Thank you all!