If you're into Logistics you might find some good stuff presented by Malysa O'Connor from Kronos in this live webinar Wednesday Sept 22 at 2pm EDT on this topic. Looks pretty good. Check out the announcement I found and sign up.
How many times have you heard it? “That person is probably a little too old to really do well with the new technology.” Or maybe it comes from one of the 50-somethings or 60-somethings in your office, sounding something like “That’s easy for the young people to learn, but not me.” Or maybe it’s “We should modify our training program for that group – they’re mostly older, and it’s harder for them to catch on.”
Kronos Workforce Central applications touch everyone, every pay period. It’s the only corporate system that can make that claim, and so those of us who train on it have heard all the excuses.
This is not an article decrying the reality of ageism, that insidious value that says that the older you get, the less you know. This is an article for you (correction: ‘us’) older people, and I’m going to take you to task for allowing the stereotype to ever get its ugly foothold in our culture.
First, let me make the decidedly politically uncorrect (or is it ‘incorrect’ – us old folks sometimes have problems picking the right word, you know) observation that many stereotypes contain a kernel of truth. And no, I’m not going to give you any examples, lest I gore the particular stereotypical cow on which you ride. You can no doubt fill in that blank. Well, maybe I’ll do a couple. Men can’t commit, women can’t decide… there, is there anyone who’s not insulted yet?
And yes, we older folks often deserve the patronizing attitude
that we get from our younger counterparts that we cannot learn the new technology, be it timekeeping, online bill pay, or pivot tables. It’s a convenient shield to hide behind, gets us lots of pity, and in the end, our laziness is rewarded by lowered expectations and slack being cut on our behalf.
My message in all this – GET OVER IT, OLD PEOPLE! And quickly, lest you mess it up for the rest of us. Here are three reasons why older folks should be leading the way in new technology adoption:
- We have the work ethic
My first job was as a ranch worker, making $1.45/hour, mending fences and trapping gophers on a 4,000 acre ranch in Vista, CA. I was a Fuller Brush Man my first year of college, spent three years in the Army during the Viet Nam era, got married, worked my way through UCLA, and started a job as a COBOL programmer two days after graduation. No one outworks this generation. Very few of today’s kids have stories like that. Consequently…
- We have the experience
We’ve been around the block a few times, and not always riding on the same horse-and-buggy. We know what works and what doesn’t. We can tell the difference between flavor-of-the-month stuff and something that will last. NOTHING should faze us. NOTHING! We’ve seen it all. And we should be leading the way in technology adoption, because…..
- We invented this stuff
The
iPhone is really cool. Who invented it? Steve Jobs. Know how old he is? 55. “Really???? That’s not much younger than me!” Damn right it’s not. Our generation comes up with this new technology. Our generation funds this stuff. And you’re trying to tell me we can’t learn to use it? Get with the program, or get yourself to the rest home. You’re giving the rest of us a bad name.
So that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. And no, I won’t be taking any questions. I’ve got a marathon to train for. I’ve done 30 of them, and it’s getting harder and harder to get the body going in the morning. But the mind? Best as I can tell, it’s as sharp as ever.
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Myron Oakes has been innovating in the HR/Payroll/Timekeeping/Benefits systems space for about 25 years, and he’s getting pretty good at it. If all you really want is a buzzword-compliant presentation, you may want to talk to someone else. If you want someone who knows their stuff and knows how to deliver excellence, he and the rest of the Improv team are here to help.
‘Show me a modest person, and I’ll show you someone who has nothing to brag about.’
Ah, class is going smoothly, almost too smoothly. Then, suddenly, something goes wrong with a training computer. What do you do??? WHAT DO YOU DO!?!?!
Anyone that has been training for more than a day or two knows that it's not a Kronos training class until something goes wrong. It can be anything, the Air Conditioning goes out. The projector bulb pops. There is an accident on the freeway and all of your participants are going to be late. Whatever it may be, things just happen. The most common issue is a problem with a computer. Now one dirty little secret among trainers is this, we aren't necessarily the most technical people out there. Sometimes it can be intimidating to try to fix a computer on the fly. 
Be it yours, or a learners, there is nothing more frustrating that when a PC goes down. Here is a short list of things you can do to attempt to rectify the situation while in the class. Some of these you have heard of, but some may be new to you. Some of these items can be done in class, while others can't be completed until later.
1) Diagnose the Problem - Are you getting an error message? Are you getting power to the machine? What type of problem are you having. It is important to get a good, clear understanding of the computer issue before you move forward. Remember that you want to try to understand the problem and note the course of action as you take it.
2) Employ Some Basic Troubleshooting - Go through a basic list of conditions. Are all of the physical connections made (PC plugged in to the wall; monitor, mouse and keyboard plugged into CPU)? If 
everything is plugged in, you may need to replace a mouse or a keyboard. No problem to fix as long as you have a few stached away. If the room lights are on, but the CPU isn't, don't automatically assume the CPU is bad. It is possible that the power strip the CPU is plugged into is bad, or has a bad outlet. Finally, it is possible the wall plug is bad. Unlikely, but possible. Just remember that you don't want to go cracking open the CPU before making sure all the plugs and external wires are good, and attached!
3) Interview the Learner - Work with the learner to find out what he or she did when they experienced the problem; if you can, reinact it. That is a good way to find out what the issue is. Usually, the learner won't remember, so you should ask a few open ended questions. "What user name and password did you use to log in to the network (or the Kronos Workforce Central application?" "What did you select when you were sent to the screen?" "Where were you when this happened?" If you can get the learner talking about the problem, that will go a long way toward solving it.
OK, so you have done everything you can, and you still have no luck. Here are some things to verify.
Drivers and Other Software - If the user can't view their screen properly, verify that the driver is loaded. If the sound isn't right, check that driver. Often, error message come up that are Java related. These are usually caused when the wrong version of Java is installed. Check with a technical resource to verify that the right version is loaded. These types of issues are prevalent when using imaging software to reload your Workforce Central installation, or if the computers in question have recently been wiped and the OS reloaded.
Restart Workforce Timekeeper - In some cases, based on the error messages received, it may be necessary to log off of Kronos Timekeeper. For example, if the learner has entered their log in credentials incorrectly on several occasions, you will need to log on as an administrator or super user and remove the lock. On other occasions, you will get an error message within Workforce Central. The information box will be labeled with Kronos Workforce Timekeeper and the specific screen you are trying to access is frozen. Log off and log back in before you do anything else.
Reboot - Sometimes, just a reboot will fix the problem. Have the learner log off and shut down, then restart. Sometimes the PC
just needs a break <g>. Often this can work magic and rectify the issue. Really, rebooting is the last line of defense in a live training environment. Once this fails, it is time to do one of two things, move the learner to an unused computer, or have them buddy up with another learner. Obviously that is the least desireable option, but if you have to, you have to.
Finally... - There are few overriding things to remember when this happens. First, stay calm and follow a process. Remember what you did, and what the learner tells you. Make sure you can clearly explain what happened to someone later. Secondly, try to have an additional computer for use in these types of situations. Set your classroom with a maximum of 12 participants, but keep a 13th PC set up and ready for use, a security blanket if you will. When worse comes to worst, it's always nice to have that backup. Also, remember to document. At the end of the class, contact IT, other trainers, your boss, anyone who might be able to help with this issue. If you are experiencing the problem, another trainer may be as well. Get the word out, both with the problem, and with the solution. Everyone involved will appreciate it. Remember, it is not the situation, but how you handle it that learners will remember.
Good luck with your Kronos training implementation.
Well we originally planned just one date for the webinar but ended up with three! For those of you that didn't make it here is a recorded version. I'm testing a video service blip.tv for this. Let me know how it works for you. It's pretty large so it might take a few to load. Alternatively you can view it right on the site.
How a CIO can enhance their leadership qualities by
making the right calls when it comes to interface design
How many times have you heard from your DBA that your Kronos interfaces are too complex and that any changes would have to be performed by Kronos? How many times have you sent your most promising resource to a Kronos Connect class only to find they continue to struggle with Connect interfaces? If you are like many Kronos customers your answer is one of frustration and seemingly without a solution. Many DBAs avoid Connect like the plague due to the complexities of Links, Lookup tables and Calculations. We call this a "Kronos Centric Interface Design".
A Kronos Centric Design paints the CIO into a corner because the CIO is forced to staff Kronos Connect talent or keep going back to the vendor. "What can I do? We chose Connect to interface with Kronos and this is how Connect works. To modify our interfaces we must have a Connect expert and they reside at the very expensive Kronos KGS. Right?"
Wrong. Please read on...
First a little about Kronos interfaces and maintaining staff morale. The CIO must keep in mind that the typical Connect experience is not only frustrating at the senior management level but also down through the ranks of the technical support team. Nobody wants to be able support the Connect interfaces internally more that the CIO's technical team. That sounds great but how do we do it? How do we interface with Kronos in such a way that our DBA can say with pride that any changes to interfaces are well within the skill sets of the internal technical support staff?
Simple, design the interfaces using the skill sets the support staff bring to the table and minimize the use of Kronos Connect to only accessing the APIs. 
The CIO has to make his/her staff want to support the interfaces. The CIO will have to show some leadership and express confidence in the support staff in allowing them to design and build the interfaces. We call this approach a "Customer Centric Interface Design".
But how can that be? Surely if there was an easier way to develop Kronos interfaces everyone would be doing it. Right? Wrong. The customer's PM will have to make a gutsy call against the advice of the Kronos PM. He/she will need the support of the CIO. How gutsy is your PM?
With a Customer Centric Interface Design your DBA will be very confident in his/her ability to support your interfaces. More importantly the technical support will eagerly want to take ownership of the interfaces. The CIO will emerge a true leader because he/she displayed confidence in his/her staff in deciding to use internal skill sets to develop the interfaces rather that outsource the task to Kronos.
The Kronos interfaces do not have to be the headache that must be outsourced to Kronos. They and actually be a very good team building experience. It just takes a little leadership from the CIO.
"Arouse in other people an eager want." Dale Carnegie.
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Integration Guru and Oracle DBA Eugene Harrison, SAP FICO, HCM, PP-APO, ABAP, has opinions about the best way to do stuff. This blog and his white paper are examples of these opinions. We welcome your comments and discussion.
If you were to ask most trainers, I bet the vast majority would tell you they were very happy with their chosen line of work. Why? The opportunity to teach adults. As any grade school or high school teacher will tell you, teaching children provides it's own set of challenges. You are also working in a professional environment, where you are a respected part of the team with a unique set of skills that can benefit the organization. The classes taught are usually filled with participants who are looking forward to attending your class so they can further their careers.
Still, there are challenges. As any professional trainer will tell you, there is rarely a training class that goes by without some form of problem. That is what these next few blogs are about. Problems come, but how do you face them? In this entry we will discuss the 
idea of respect in the classroom. Respect for you as a trainer, but also respect for the people attending your class.
Some Kronos trainers feel they aren't getting the respect they deserve in a classroom. Learners aren't showing up on time from breaks, speaking out of turn and interrupting others. Some participants are constantly talking to other learners, usually distracting them. There are so many other ways that learners are disrespectful, so let's start by looking at yourself, as a trainer, and asking a pretty tough question...
Are you showing respect to the learners in your class?
Really, think about it. Are you? Ask yourself some honest questions.
Do you start your class on time? I used to have a "50/5" policy at the start of a class. If 50% of the participants weren't in the room at the start, I would give them five minutes before I started the class. I would probably wait 15 minutes before starting the class. I thought it would help with the interruptions caused by participants showing up late.
I have since changed my view. It was terribly unfair of me to hold this policy. I believe I show MORE respect for the participants who show up on time by starting the class on time. It is not fair to make them wait because of the behavior of the participants who didn't show up on time.
As an extention of this, are you clear about when you expect your learners to return from lunch and breaks? I have gone to the extent of writing the time down on the whiteboard so it is clear when they are expected back. Are you on time as well? There is no faster way to lose the respect of a class then to be back late from your own meal or break.
Do you have a clearly communicated classroom policy statement? I hate to call these "classroom rules" because it sounds like something you would get in third grade. I would suggest this policy stating what you would request from your learners, and agree to as an instructor. Be clear, and include why the policies are what they are. Your learners will understand and appreciate the goal, to create a professional and respectful environment in which learning can take place. That is key to our training classes.
Good luck with your Kronos training implementation.
Chapter One
In the outer edges of the Milky Way is a planet. A fairly non-descript planet with many life forms on it exists. In the middle of what the inhabitants call North America, there is a busy airport, filled with people about to travel to other parts of the planet. In a fairly non-descript gate, a middle-aged man sits busily typing into his laptop computer, reviewing charts and budgets. The man is dressed in business casual clothes, a nebulous term that basically allows men to no longer wear these odd strangulation devices around their neck. Seated next to him is a young man, fresh out of college in a starched suit. The two men struck up a conversation. The young man was going on his first job interview as a consultant. The older man, a seasoned consultant was asked for advice.
The older man shared his wisdom with the younger man. “So you want to be a consultant”, the older man asked. “Well, it is a rewarding job where you do no actual work and tell everyone else how to do their job”. He started talking about all of his tricks of the trade, to the eager young man.
The first thing you need to know about consulting is sound important and to learn the all important language of “consultese”. You need to be able to speak to people about leveraging their synergies and shifting their paradigm. Consultese is very easy to learn and can be learned by buying any business self-help book on the market. The main thing you need to know about consultese is not what the words mean but how you say them. You need to sound like you know what you are talking about.
The second thing you need to know is that you need to have a lot of letters on your business card to sound important. PMP, CPP, CPA, FACS, MCSE are just some of the letters that make you sound important. The three most important ones though are MBA. What is an MBA? The MBA shows you value yourself so much you went and spent $25,000 on your education. Truth is there are only a handful of true MBA’s. They each wrote books to other people that also now call themselves MBA, who write books to others and so on and so on. The MBA means you are using the same knowledge by the all –knowing all-powerful king of MBA’s.
The third thing you need to know as a consultant is the most important job function is knowledge transfer. It’s your job to pass on to your client all of the accumulated knowledge of MBA’s that you have as it relates to them. You don’t want to pass it all on though. You want to hold back a little of it so that the client will have to extend you out further to gain further information. Why would you want to keep a poor, highly-paid consultant out of work by sharing all of your knowledge?
Consultants fly to exotic cities for work. Some of them are Chicago, London, Paris, New York, Cincinnati, Atlanta and Zanesville. What? You’ve never heard of Zanesville? Zanesville is the home of the famous Y-bridge and the best Jack Daniels burger on the planet. Consultants also earn frequent flyer miles, an underground economy. You get many cheap vacations out of frequent flyer miles and get to stay at fancy hotels. Some of them have TV’s in the bathrooms, special lounges for frequent guests and bedbugs. Now, don’t be too grossed out about the bedbugs – they are only in bedspreads.
Consultant life means spending a lot of time in restaurants. One of the problems with restaurants is that you need a new wardrobe for your expanding waistline. The average consultant gains 15 pounds their first year of consulting until they learn to skip the pizza and beer and focus on chicken and wine or whiskey. Typically the wine or whiskey is the dinner. The alcohol makes the pain go away from dealing with clients. Clients are those strange animals that think they can control you. They require these things called “deliverables” and everyone keeps talking about one. What is a deliverable? Well that depends on the project. It can be a spreadsheet, a project plan, a charter, a test plan – it totally depends. You just have to remember it always looks more important when you keep adding pages. That reminds me of a deliverable of an estimate of what needed to be done for a specific project. The estimate was about five pages. When completed, the deliverable had 10 pages of how wonderful the relationship was between the client and the consulting company, my five pages of estimate, 20 pages of testimonials, 10 pages of resumes and 10 pages of marketing fluff. It is rumored that 25% of the rain forest was used for all of the copies of that deliverable. It is then stamped as completed by the client, in triplicate to keep auditors happy.
The younger man asked the older man, “You have a lot of experience. Do you have any travel war stories?” Well, that is another story for another day. I left him with a small piece of advice – never forget a towel or a bowling ball. More to come…
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Jeff Hill PMP, MBA, CNC, PRA, JMB, ADP, PAA, etc. wrote this and I was laughing so hard I pressed "publish" instead of "delete". I hope there is more to come and that he doesn't drink too many Intergalactic Gargle Blasters before the next one!
The last of a series of blogs on presenting an effective Train-the-Trainer course. In this entry we discuss the importance of having participants do what they do best, TRAIN!
The last, and arguably most important part of a well thought out Kronos Train-the-Trainer course is the participant presentation.
I know, "How can you possibly have someone get up and train something they just learned a few hours ago!?!"
"You will shell shock them!"
"You will ruin their self esteem!"
"They will revolt against you, setting fire to the computers and tearing apart the furniture!"
OK, maybe participants won't react that poorly. But the the idea of having trainers train in this type of setting is nothing new. In fact, it is a well accepted practice. Even after spending half or most of the day learning their Kronos training material, the participants may not know what they don't know. More importantly, they may not know what they need to train.
"But Dwain," you reply, "just a few blogs ago you wrote about the importance of using actual employees as trainers. They aren't experienced trainers. How can someone like that be expected to do this?"
Good question. I would expect any trainer to be ready, willing and able to get in front of a group and train, but the same can't be expected of a manager or employee. That is a challenge. Here is a solution.
First, create ground rules that will provide an environment of trust. Here are some rules I have used in the past:
- Limit class questions for each presentation - Remind participants that they should not ask challenging questions, or put the presenter in a difficult spot. Questions are fine, but don't over do it with the number or complexity of the questions you ask.
- Remind presenters that this is a learning exercise, not a graded test - Take away some of the anxiety by letting them know that this is an exercise, not a test. There are no grades here, only an opportunity to practice. When will they every have a live audience to practice with again?
- Provide at least 30 minutes for participants to prepare for their presentations - Create topics that are small enough to handle in a five to 10 minute period of time. Remind participants that they should only take 10 minutes, then give them no less than 30 minutes to prepare. That should be more than enough time to prep for their topic. If that's not enough time, your topic is too broad or too complex and it should be adjusted.
- Let presenters know it's OK to ask for your help - Again, this is an exercise. If the presenter needs you to drive the PC while they are presenting, drive. If they need an answer to a questions, answer it. If they need a Diet Coke with a twist of lime, head to the vending machine. You want to make the presenter as comfortable as possible. Remember, you are grading them of presentation style more than Workforce Central knowledge, and if they are stressed out over some issue, you won't see their real presentation style.
Remember, the purpose of this whole exercise is not to test what participants learned about Kronos Timekeeper during the class; that will come with practice and study. You don't want to focus on their level of knowledge. You want to focus on how they present. Things they do well and things that need work. You want to look at them as trainers, not Kronos Workforce Central trainers.
Secondarily, you want the participants to get a feel for what they need to know to train. Ask them how they felt. I can guarantee one response will be something like "I didn't think I needed to know that much!" or "I really need to prepare better!" That is good. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; well, experience is worth a thousand warnings. They won't truly understand what you are saying until they are up in front of the group, even if only for 10 minutes.
Finally, provide them with a list of points to ponder after their presentation. Note the things they did well, and the things they need to work on. Write down what their "crutch" word is, (the word they use rather than saying nothing...uhh, umm, well...are all examples of this). Be honest, be positive, and be thorough. They will value your opinion and want to improve. Give them the tools to do it.
Good luck with your Kronos training implementation.
“So Jeff…the real question is…how soon do you want to start saving money?” the salesman asked across my kitchen table. I looked up at him, then back down at the quote for the new household de-ionized soft water system, and then back at him. I hadn’t yet developed my professorial; is-that-really-all-you-got-glance-over-my-glasses-look yet but this was one of the moments that led to its development.
“So…Stan, after my $200 installation cost and $75 a month thereafter my net savings will still be…lemme see here….back page….the one with all the footnotes and fine print…”
“Ninety-two-fifty-six” Stan said as he pointed to the number on the quote.
“Because of the pipes” my voice bearing a nascent prodding tone.
“Yes! The pipes. They are corroding in the walls as we speak. And all the detergents and soaps you won’t have to buy, the finish on your cars you won’t have to replace…it all adds up over time!” Stan’s accountant-look was highly developed.
Fast forward 10 years and $11,107.20 in unrealized savings (I also didn’t buy Microsoft at $30 a share) I heard these words “really…I don’t know why they want to put off saving money”. Stan?!? No, these words were spewing from my mouth in talking to a colleague about a client hesitating putting in a modern WFM system.
“But look what they are spending, no!…WASTING now on their manual process” Bryan said “all that money down the drain each month!”
“You ever sell soft water systems, Bryan?” I asked.
“What?” Bryan said
“Never mind”, I said.
The fact is, it’s hard not to sound like a door-to-door salesman sometimes when talking about the ROI for workforce management and time & attendance systems like Kronos Workforce Central and ADP eTime (and related products) – even though we aren’t even in the business of selling them. I would argue that this is probably because it is one of the few IT automation projects that really does have reasonable and measurable returns on investment if not stone-cold payback in less than a year in many cases. I believe this aversion to large capitalization of PR/TK/WFM projects is due to two interrelated perceptions.
The first is that payroll, and thus payroll processing, is one of those inescapable ‘gotta do it no matter what’ things in business. Like death and taxes the rate will never drop to zero so why spend good money after bad trying.
The second perception is that if payroll is basically getting done now, how bad could it be? Or from an ROI perspective, we couldn’t possibly be wasting THAT much money so there surely couldn’t be THAT much money to save. This idea is fostered in looking at partial-picture benchmarks like burden rate and direct paycheck processing costs or comparing one company’s Timekeeping/PR contract with another.
Now this is a blog, not to mention one with ‘101’ in the title, so you must forgive the short treatment I am about to give this subject. I believe, however, we need to get back to some fundamentals in how we go about the business of paying people and measuring the true cost of doing it. So here we go:
#1: Get it RIGHT first. Error rates much past 3% and you are inviting EXPENSIVE trouble from the Department of Labor and Unions. (Note: If you are getting away with more than 3% it is like borrowing from the Mob..don’t do it)
#2: Emps and Sups tracking time. If it weren’t for the outrageous penalties for the above this would easily be the #1 area of return in most Time Keeping and WFM automation projects. Paying producers to manage the time accounting of yet other producers is a huge waste of direct productivity.
#3: Payroll people processing payroll. Having half an army of people to pay your army of people is a waste of money.
That’s it. Check this plumbing first and see how an improved TimeKeeping/WFM solution could improve these numbers. These are really what WFM/TimeKeeping systems are all about. Oh sure, you can make a lot of suds by tossing words like ‘Human Capital Management’ and ‘Metro Workforce Model’ into the mix but that will only add a fresh lemon scent to all the big dollars going down the drain. Hmmm... Maybe Stan had a point?!?
This is the second entry on some commonalities to all successful Train-the-Trainer courses. We now will spend some time on two of the last three areas of focus for a good Train-the-Trainer course; Reviewing Challenging Areas of the Curriculum, Classroom and Participant Management, and Participant Presentations.
Reviewing Challenging Areas of the Curriculum - In any type of training, technology or not, there are areas that are more challenging to understand than others. Any Workforce Central trainer worth their salt knows the five to seven different areas that are harder to present than the others. Your job in the Train-the-Trainer course is to provide any and all strategies to successfully present these different areas. If you have any tips or tricks, share them here. Don't worry about giving up some closely held secret. That isn't the point. Give up what you know to make your trainers better. It will improve the course, and therefore, the entire training implementation; that makes it worth sharing.
Classroom and Participant Management - When dealing with classroom management, there are three areas of focus; network issues, computer issues and environmental issues. Network issues present the area over which you have the least amount of control. Unless you happen to be a network administrator, your primary task will be to contact a network administrator. Discuss who to contact if there are issues with the network. Make sure you have cell phone numbers! When the network goes sideways, you need to call a real person, not a voicemail recording.
Computer issues are pretty similar. Talk about who to contact if there are issues, and be patient enough to go through some basic troubleshooting tips (Are the computer and monitor plugged in?) Just the basic stuff here.
Environmental issues are often what isn't considered. What if a chair breaks? (no laughing here, it happens) Too cold? Too hot? You need to know who to call, or how to fix it. I have personal experience on this, training in a basement training room, it was consistantly too hot. It is tough to teach at 85 degrees, for four hours! Know who to contact when there are issues with the classroom.
A blog entry was written dealing with participant management (Your Moment of (Kronos Training) Zen - Participant Management) so go back and re-read. The key to properly manage your participants is to remember that you are managing personalities. Be patient, be professional and don't take anything personally.
In the next installment, we will discuss the final area of focus for your Train-the-Trainer course, participant presentations.
Good luck with your training implementation.