When to call in the EPSS

Electronic Performance Support has the potential to be a useful tool in enhancing workplace performance, but not in every situation. First of all, as I’ve already stated, the employees in question must have immediate access to a PC or another suitable network device. Even a short walk to another room may be enough to discourage someone from using the system.

Secondly, the work must be of a nature that demands performance support. If the task is simple, who needs a support system? If the way that a task is to be performed stays constant over a long period, it might be easier to train it properly right up front. If the task is performed extremely regularly, the same applies. An EPSS is worth considering when tasks are complex, constantly changing or infrequently undertaken.

Case study: Canadian Department of National Defence

In 1997, the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) began one of North America’s largest rollouts of PeopleSoft HRMS. Enterprise was the name DND gave to its own version of PeopleSoft HRMS. Enterprise replaced six existing human resource management systems and was to become DND’s system for managing 80,000 military and civilian personnel.

Because the user population was large and geographically dispersed, developing an affordable, yet highly effective training and support plan was a significant challenge. The DND selected CoachWare for the development of Enterprise Coach, an online coaching system for the support and training of Enterprise users. Enterprise Coach was available on each desktop when Enterprise was rolled out to provide step-by-step instructions for performing tasks within the new system.

By including Enterprise Coach, the final training plan called for 2 days of classroom training for each user, utilising a 250 page training manual and Enterprise Coach. This represented a saving in reproduction and mail costs alone of over US$200,000. Even more impressive, the department saved over US$1,000,000 (US) in employee productivity from the reduction in time employees would have to be in the classroom instead of on the job.

Perhaps most striking to the DND Enterprise project team were the results of the system acceptance survey. The user audience had been subjected to a multitude of systems conversions over the previous decade and the idea that "another new system was on the way" was generating considerable anxiety. Prior to rollout, the project team felt that if, during post-rollout survey, 80% of users felt the system rollout had been well supported, the team would indeed have been successful. Post-rollout surveys indicated that over 90% of users felt that the rollout had been successful and had been well supported. Over 90% attributed this to the new training approach and the use of the online coaching system, Enterprise Coach.

Thirdly, the characteristics of your audience are also important. The higher the turnover, the less time you can spend on formal training and the greater the need for performance support. Also, when employees are widely distributed geographically, they are likely to find it difficult to get a quick response locally to a query, so performance support helps here.

Lastly, an EPSS must be the most appropriate form of on-job support. It must be the easiest to access, the most accurate and the most cost-efficient. In some jobs, employees require extremely fast response to a query. If cue cards, reference manuals or human support (ask your colleague or supervisor) will be easier and faster, then why not use them?

Some hard thinking had to be done by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) when they undertook a project to assist a major financial services company in retraining its 600 call centre staff in the UK. Not only was a new system being introduced, but all staff had to be able to respond to all forms of customer query – a task that had previously been split over a number of specialist teams.

The sheer volume of new knowledge required would have necessitated an 18-day course, with the risk of low retention. Instead, PwC adopted a blended approach, including a 3-day course to put across the major concepts and principles of the new system - supported by a specially-developed system simulation – alongside an EPSS, to deliver the body of procedural knowledge.

The idea was that the EPSS would provide just-in-time support, particularly for exceptional and complex queries, while a call was in progress. This required the EPSS to be both easy-to-use and extremely responsive. Simon Brown, who worked on the project for PwC, describes the pressures that put on the design of the system: “We decided that the user must be able to reach any information in just three clicks. And we inserted links into the system itself, so that, in many cases, the user would get to the support they required with just one click. We also kept the size of data files to an absolute minimum to speed up retrieval, and used a structured format for information design to ensure total clarity. The EPSS is a great step on from the paper-based procedures that preceded it, and made a near-impossible training task achievable.”