Making a better Reference Guide - Like reference aids, a reference guide is a very important deliverable in a Kronos training program; one with unique characteristics that separate it from the reference aid and the training manual. A reference guide is designed to be flexible. Originally, a reference guide was intended as a post training event tool for learners that didn't want to invest time searching through a large and detailed training manual for answers to their specific questions.
Like the reference aid, the Kronos Training Reference Guide is focused on steps and expected results to complete a task. Whereas a reference aid may contain five to ten tasks, on one double-sided page, a reference guide will contain significantly more, often as many as 40 or 50 tasks. One to two pages are dedicated to each task. There are no chapter, modules or objects in a reference guide, as with a training manual.
A reference guide is a list of tasks, ordered in different sections; for example, a Timekeeping section would have the "Adding Punch," "Changing a Labor Account for a Worked Shift," and "Adding a Comment" tasks. Common sections are Timekeeping, Scheduling, Navigation, and Using Workforce Genies. The reference guide will also incorporate a short one or two sentence purpose for the task, answering the question: "Why am I doing this?" followed by a real-world example, to give learners the opportunity to relate this task to their job. Both are required as tenets in the Kronos Training Zen philosophy.
Within each section the tasks are ordered in the intended order of use. For example, a Getting Started section would being with the a Logging On task, then possibly another task on the default genie. This is an important aspect of Training Zen. By providing tasks in the order they should be completed, learners will have a better grasp on their overall responsibilities in Kronos Workforce Central.
Today's economy requires all of us to do more with less. Ingenuity and efficiency are valued more than ever. With this in mind, the reference guide is getting more and more use in different ways. The efficient organization has been building the reference guide into a course manual, used not only after a training event, but as the primary deliverable of the Kronos Training plan.
Organizations have incorporated the use of a reference guide with their customized training environment to make that guide the primary deliverable in their training events. When building the employees and situations in the training environment, developers can create instructor notes within the reference guide that direct the instructor where to go in the application, and which employees and time periods to select to ensure examples are used that work properly. During development, these examples are used for the screen shots within the reference guide itself. Learners are more confident when the application they are seeing in class mirrors what is seen in their manual. Also, independent and practice exercises can be added at the end of each section.
There are challenges to the use of a reference guide in a training class. First, important ideas such as motivation and repetition are given very little to no practice in the reference guide. The focus is on the tasks, and how they are completed. This type of deliverable required an added effort from instructors using it in class. They need to "fill in the gap" for what is not written, and often there are more questions from learners revolving around why tasks are done, and how they affect your current job. Generally, a class taught using a reference guide is shorter than a class taught using a training manual, often by as much as 25%.
Though not a perfect solution, it is a very good one for organizations striving to get the most from their budget. Both during the training event and post training, a reference guide is an effective tool in your training program.
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