Summary of Client’s Challenge
Leadership at a large farm insurance cooperative serving a number of western US states mandated that their head of workforce development find a different training model. Taking employees out of work for a week, two weeks, or more to get ‘trained up’ just wasn’t working to deliver consistent performance.
Helping Mitigate Risks Inherent To The Farming Industry
Farming is a risky enterprise, because of the various weather-related and pest-related damage that can be done to crops being grown and animals being raised and cared for. The U.S. government recognizes this risk to farmers across the country and has provided for crop and livestock insurance that is tailored to the needs of individual farmers. There are many insurance providers with varying policies available that meet farmer needs. Farm insurance cooperatives provide insurance, financing and related services to farmers, ranchers, agribusinesses, commercial fishermen, timber producers, rural homeowners and crop insurance customers. This nationwide Farm Credit System supports agriculture and rural communities with reliable, consistent credit and financial services, today and tomorrow.
Change by Design was hired to build out an extensive curriculum with the following types of products:
eLearning overviews
We developed eLearning overviews of each curriculum topic, developed in Articulate Rise, to set learners up for success as they dove into the details of the process.
Coaching and Learning Guides (CLGs)
We created numerous CLGs as 1-2 hour ‘bite-sized’ trainings on each topic or skill. These CLGS included the following information:
Expected learning outcome, which included all behaviors and knowledge the learner would have after going through a CLG. This is also called the terminal objective.
Learning objectives, which alternatively could be called the enabling objectives, that enabled the learning outcome.
Overview, which summarized in 1-3 sentences the content that the learner would be engaging with.
Learning experience, which included three sections:
Self-Directed Education: this included the eLearning, documentation from official government and other websites, job aids, process flowcharts, etc.
Coaching Connection: this provided key questions that the learner and their assigned coach would discuss together.
Self-Directed Application, which included activities like conducting a content scavenger hunt, completing a form that is then evaluated by the learner’s assigned coach, reviewing forms completed by others and identifying problems with how they were completed, among others.
Often a curriculum included five to eight CLGs, which were the equivalent of two days of instructor-led training. This approach was very effective at getting new hires up and going forward effectively far earlier than more traditional approaches.
Farm Insurance Curriculum Topics
The four major farm insurance curriculum topics we covered in the curriculum included:
Actual Production History (APH), which is way of enabling learners to access and use the government’s APH database, as well as understand terminology in order to build out the APH report. This enabled them to portray the legal description of their farmland in their insurance application documents.
Acreage Reporting, which focused on the use of government and insurance company tools to calculate the precise amount of acreage to be insured.
Sales Closing, which trained learners in the processes around closing a sale of insurance, what the roles of insurance agents and specialists were in the sales closing process, and how to work with new producers and beginning farmer ranchers.
Claims, where claims-related terms were discussed and applied, as well as ability to navigate insurance company websites for forms, claims and adjuster notes.
Other Aspects of This Project
The value of this approach is that new hire learners could access relevant content just before they were required to engage in the relevant tasks of the CLG. Their preassigned coaches had their own coaching curriculum in alignment with the CLG, with guidance on best preparing their mentees for success.
An additional element for this project was the development of an effective LMS structure designed to track learner engagement and completion. However, learners were always able to again access a specific CLG or eLearning as a refresher going forward.
Contact Change by Design today if you need new curriculum design and development, creation of coaching and learning guides, or elearning training courses built to increase employee performance.