The Problem: Imagine being the top information technology company in the world with hundreds of companies trying to beat you in selling products and services. Imagine needing to train 10,000+ salespeople world-wide from diverse geographies and cultures to maintain competitive advantage in hundreds of markets. How do you engage them in a way that will keep their attention throughout the year? How do you provide maximum sales power around the world with a company portfolio of thousands of products and services? How do you allow management to gauge the knowledge of their people, help them improve performance and to meet sales goals?
The Solution: The ESSN/TS L2E game is an optimized, long-term training experience that creates real business benefits that translate into enhanced revenue and productivity. It guides learners to exactly what training they need, when they need it, where they need it. This could be at their desktop in their office or on their hand-held device on the road.
Learning is set in the context of competition. The “Challenge” of the game is for a sales team to score the closest to their organizational/role training “time-away from selling” goal. The sales team scoring closest to their organizational/role training time out goal wins the game and is recognized as the Best Trained Sales Team. Not too little training, not too much training, just the right amount.
As learners complete training, they are awarded points toward the “Challenge” of meeting the organizational/role goals for time selling versus time training. These points are credited toward their team’s score.
You might ask: what were some of the key insights and challenges in putting this program together…
INSIGHTS (4 key insights)
After analysis, the problem of convincing people to consume training was not so much that the available training was poor, but that:
learners had either no real way to gauge what training was important for their and the company’s success, and/or
learners could not spend the time searching for appropriate training. By providing guidance as to what training should be consumed, as well as easy access to it through mobile devices, those problems were resolved.
User experience is critical to drawing and keeping the attention of salespeople.
Tying learning via a game to to the real-world goals makes the game come alive for the users.
Tying learning via a game also makes personal and group goals more tangible.
CHALLENGE
The business wanted to focus on selling, not training. They had to be convinced that they needed to make training a priority if this was going to succeed.
Developing a game that will keep the attention of salespeople is a major challenge. A “flashy” user interface that would keep their attention was needed.
Keeping the metadata about the 600+ training activities up to date (managed by 10+ Learning Program Managers) is a challenge.
So, what does this look like…
Screenshots from The Game
Home page
Game challenge statement
Search simple yet sophisticated search mechanism
MyTasks Assignments tracking
Progress bar: provides snapshot view toward personal goal
Achievements page
Tokens: one per training activity completed – provide visual and reinforce learning areas
Game Board: provides visual of progress toward goal (12 for sales, 20 for presales)
Badges: visible reward for significant achievement
Mangers Dashboard
Shows team progress
Shows team scoring positions relative to organizational goal.
What results have we seen…
Results we observed/achieved
Increases in training consumption in specific focus areas i.e. products, solutions, sales skills, and HP sales methodologies
Allowed students to more quickly locate and consume training designed to support sales initiatives
Allowed students to track training time against their training time goals when they were not able to do so previously
Allowed managers to assign appropriate training to meet sales goals
Generated interest and support from the highest levels and business groups of HP senior and executive management.
Measureable benefits seen as a result of the practice include:
Increased utilization of training because of game-directed, prescribed training:
self-initiated hours/learner for FY11 (11/1/10- 10/31/11)=30 hours
self-initiated projected hours/learner for FY12 (to date) = 40 hours.
% learning via mobile devices is now 20% as compared with 0% before the game existed, as mobile learning was not an option before the game existed. Thus, the game has encouraged mobile learning.
70% drop in student queries about where to find training.
Improved time to productivity. Time to complete required training has been reduced by approximately 50% (8 – 10 weeks in FY11, 4-6 weeks in FY12). From this fact, we know that 100% of the sales force was prepared for each quarterly product launch and thus able to provide maximum selling performance.
Increased use of the practice, particularly at times of sales initiatives or strikes as shown in February 2012 and May 2012 in the figure on the page.
So, how did we do it…
