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Trainers Talk Notes - July 10th, 2019 - The Evolving Role of Trainers

By Monica Sandler posted 07-18-2019 10:13

  

Panel:
Greg Tomlinson
Asima Maci
Missy McDonough

Q1: What department do you belong to?

               GT is Training Dept Coordinator, part of Information Technology. AM is Manager of Training and Quality Assurance and belongs to IT but has been under HR is past positions. MM is Applications Manager now and has been a Training manager in the past; her team belongs to IT. Her team is responsible for the Desktop and FileSite for her firm.

               From Chat the majority of folks report being part of their respective IT departments. One was recently shifted from IT to Professional Development, one straddles between IT and Lit Support, two was also reporting to HR at previous firms.

Q2: What do you do as a trainer? How many hats do you wear?

               GT – Project Manager for Security Awareness program, chairs the Information Governance committee and recently formed the Employee Satisfaction Task Force as well as covers helpdesk.  Says if he tries to roll-out too much they get push-back.

               AM – Involved with training, testing and usability of products, and enhancement requests. She uses traditional model with competency-based training. Micro learning, 15 minute attorney targeted webinars, 1-on-1 coaching and has started dabbling in change management.

               MM – Just completed the training for her firm’s Windows 10/Office 2016 upgrade and used it as a means to gather data on core competencies. Focuses on quality assurance, has started doing classroom training and 15 minute “popcorn” sessions.

               From Chat – Some instructors are Change Management certified (Vorys), others have had to request to be included in QA projects. Discussion broke out about having too many not-totally-training-related-assignments and how to handle that. How to push questions to IT without completely upsetting the users – example: one trainer said people call her for GL codes on expense reports. Another trainer is frustrated because she has learning paths set up for all users but folks are not following them, so they learn nothing and simply call the helpdesk.

Q3:  How exactly are you involved with training?

               GT – Started bribing people to come to training with bagels and donuts. Started two months ago with regular monthly sessions.

               Nick Stanziani spoke up – He has shifted from IT to Professional Development recently. He gets sucked into projects, but PD is still “really” a training function.

Q4: How do you use SME at your firm?

               NS - He just finished training nine summer associates where he found that some users “just know” some of the tools and can be identified as Subject Matter Experts, while others should never be used as a SME.

               AM  - is using SME to create an Advisory Committee.

QfromChat: How do you identify your SME? How do you know who as the time to help?

               GT – I have the backing of CIO to use Carbon Black to monitor users keystrokes, web activity etc.

               MM – The catch 22 is that no one wants to admit that they have time to assist as a SME. She has highly utilized LAA, leverage based on subject needs anyway.

               GT asked “Do you ask for extra compensation for being asked to do extra non-training projects?

               MM – It’s very cultural.

Q5: How is it working for you?

               GT – Bring your background with you, have IT and HR backing. Monitor who is learning and becoming more efficient.

               AM asked Who does NOT report to IT?: NS and Monica Sandler responded. One person replied in chat that his trainer reports to HR. One training reported that she specifically trains Word Processing to become the SME and they report to HR. One trainer reports as the only Trainer in her firm and was recentgly moved from IT to HR as “Learning Manager”.

               From Chat – One trainer reports they use App Owners spread out amongst the helpdesk and that helps when vetting complaints/tickets. One user’s firm uses a task ticketing system where all attorneys add their tasks to that system and the secretaries accept them via the app. So those with the time accept more tasks automatically. Some trainers are finding they get assigned so many extra projects, like rollouts and such, that they have no time to create “training”. Another trainer shared her iManage Ambassador program, where they invite the secretaries to become SME, then take an exam. She reports it is doing very well and is considered a prestigious title. Other trainers report trying to get a SME program going somehow, others are looking for incentives outside of food or gift cards. Many participants report being the only trainer at their firm, or the only dedicated IT trainer. A few suggested scheduling time for getting your own training projects worked on to those who feel like they have no time to write courseware.


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