AXIOM Insights Podcast Special Episode: Large Scale Instructor Delivery

Scott Rutherford

Hello and welcome to a special edition of the AXIOM Insights learning and development podcast. I’m Scott Rutherford. Today we’re doing something very different. We’re bringing you a conversation between two longtime business partners as produced for another podcast, the Minaya Learning Global Solutions podcast called the Five Minute University. And so without further delay, here’s our rebroadcast of the conversation between Dr. Guido Minaya, CEO and Chief Learning Officer of Minaya Learning Global Solutions, and AXIOM Learning Solutions President Herb Blanchard, with Five Minute University podcast host Dario Minaya.

Dario Minaya

Hello again and welcome. We are back today discussing instruction delivery services. Today we have Dr. Guido Minaya CEO and Chief Learning Officer from Minaya Learning Global Solutions as well as a new guest, Herb Blanchard, president of AXIOM Learning Solutions. This episode focuses on a large scale case study on instructor delivery. Stay tuned to learn more.

Hello, again, Dr. Minaya and welcome Herb Blanchard to Five Minute University. Gentlemen I will turn it over to you.

Guido Minaya

Thank you Dario. It is a pleasure to be back along with my great friend and colleague, Herb Blanchard. Herb is the president of AXIOM Learning Solutions. Herb, you’ve built an impressive learning services firm and it has been a pleasure to partner with you over the years. Tell us a little bit more about AXIOM.

Herb Blanchard

Thanks, Guido. Yes, we have known each other for quite some time, I believe now it goes back to 2004 in many, many projects over the years, so glad to be on with you. Thanks for the time.

Let me share a little bit more about AXIOM. AXIOM exists to help learning organizations succeed. [It’s] that simple. We do this by mobilizing the right learning experts to respond to our client’s needs.

So in many ways, AXIOM is the partner that the learners don’t see. They see the learning programs that we produce, they see the results of the work, but they don’t see us all the time doing it. And to be candid, that’s somewhat by design.

We support our clients learning programs in a few key ways. First, as a staff augmentation firm, we identify, we vet, we certify, and we place learning experts into client learning teams, where they will work alongside the clients own staff. It’s a seamless placement that allows our clients to seamlessly scale their capabilities and to add the specific capabilities and expertise they need for a particular learning project.

Secondly, we’re a provider of learning services on a project basis, which can mean anything from updating a client’s existing learning content to creating new learning from scratch, starting from identifying needs and scope all the way through delivery and assessment. Or supporting a company with a complete functional outsourcing of the learning project what’s called business process outsourcing or BPO. But however, we scope our support for [the] client. AXIOM supports our client’s organization and their brand. And that’s why learners usually don’t see us, they see our work.

Guido Minaya

That’s a great overview her you and your firm have helped, you know, so many large organizations over the years. If you think back, what was one of the larger projects that focused primarily on instructor delivery?

Herb Blanchard

That’s a great question, Guido, because as I’m going back there have been many, and many you know about.

But I think the client case that comes to mind, as a top client of ours in the financial services, the wealth management world, and I’m not going to name names, where we have relationships with our clients, we have NDAs with our clients. And as I mentioned, it’s that’s what we’re about being that part of they can rely on. It’s why we typically don’t announce who we’re working with our role is to support our clients and set them up for success.

So in this case, let’s just say we’re working with one of the world’s largest financial services companies. Fortune 100, operations in more than 40 countries. We were brought in to help with the training for their specialized field office staff and it was a BPO engagement.

They needed a partner with the ability to scale and reach their staff wherever they were located to provide learning around the company’s launch of a new and company proprietary software system. And that’s a common ask for us, Guido. AXIOM was one of several companies asked to provide a bid for the work and after a competitive selection process. We were selected, very proud to be selected in this mission critical initiative. We provided over 35 trainers, plus a dedicated project manager dedicated resource lead on boarded the training team through an intensive three week training the trainer program. Most of it was designed around aligning trainers to different geographies, to support specific geographies because this was an ILT (Instructor-Led Training) engagement. We worked in a floating bench to make sure if there were any issues or sicknesses that we had had people to call on so we could rapidly deploy to support variable needs or in response to, again, unexpected events.

Guido Minaya

Wow, that was a large initiative, what kind of training was involved?

Herb Blanchard

The trainers provided structured training and support to, as I mentioned, the field office staff, rotating from branch to provide the training. Multiple delivery modalities were employed on a number of topics. It was categorized as systems training, Guido, but the training also included a behavioral change so that the teams would improve data collection on client accounts, which was it’s really interesting, because a lot of times we do systems training, it’s just systems training. But by collaborating closely with the client’s internal training team, our resources and trainers will be able to deliver a program which develop proficiency among all field personnel in less than five months.

Guido Minaya

That is impressive. And I’m sure securing the right talent is always the real magic. So how did you go about securing the right talent for this client?

Herb Blanchard

Yeah, I think you know, Guido, as you know, we have a large network of instructors and a well-established recruiting and vetting and certification process. So the rigorous vetting process to get the right talent. It’s sort of a two-step process.

First, we’re building this network of entrepreneurs, right, who are independents that are going into each engagement, and performing. If they’re not performing there, that’s not good, right? So we were picking the best of the best. They’re entrepreneurs, they have 15 years of experience, usually at a minimum as contract trainers.

So they get into the pool, and then we’re matching from the pool to see who best suits the right engagement. So you’re now you’re matching the right talent with the right engagement. So much of the vetting is actually done in advance. And the real magic is the matching. And, fortunately, based on our pool, were able to pick a big team that had both the experience and financial service training systems as well as behavioral change for that new system.

Guido Minaya

Well, that sounds like a well thought out airtight process to find the right team members for the right client project. You know, usually, we always see some unforeseen challenges on any project. What kind of challenges did you recall facing? And how did you all solve for them?

Herb Blanchard

You know, I think the really only thing is the uniqueness of finding the right instructor who can also teach to the desired behavioral change, I would say that was the only minor challenge. A lot of times, it’s really about end user adoption. And that’s it, getting people to know how to use the new system. But this required – the new system gave them the ability to do their job differently. So we were able to bring in people who could help them change the way they did their job. But again, through our large network infrastructures, we’re able to solve for this.

Guido Minaya

And when you think back at the feedback you received after the project from the client, what kind of feedback did you get?

Herb Blanchard

Very positive feedback, very happy with our performance, the performance of the team, they saw improvement they received the results they were looking for, they use level three and up to four, level four [Kirkpatrick] evaluations to confirm these results.

Guido Minaya

Great, great, great work, you know, thank you for sharing your insights on a large scale initiative, Herb. One last question that comes to mind. That sounds like a large, as you mentioned, like a business process outsourcing opportunity. Do you see, from what you’re seeing in the marketplace, do you see that that kind of outsourcing his increased in the industry, decreased, or stayed about the same?

Herb Blanchard

I think while it’s still happening, there’s been a slight decrease. And I think a lot of organizations are out-tasking in sort of, you know, not the best terminology, but kind of “chunking it up” a little bit. And having instead of one large BPO approach, they’re out-tasking, you’d have it serve certain aspects of what they need go to certain specialists. That’s what I’ve been seeing for a while. So it’s still there. It’s not at the level it once was. And those are the reasons people have decided to look at it from a more of an out-tasking perspective. Does that align with what you’re seeing?

Guido Minaya

Yeah, and it requires — as you shared that explanation, right, that’s sort of how we met. We were in a very large outsourced scenario when our team moved over to Accenture. And then that’s where we met as we needed to find other ways to support clients within the Accenture structure. That’s how we met so glad to see that you’re not only continuing this for clients, but also very glad to be collaborating with you on some new clients.

Herb Blanchard

Yes, thanks for the opportunity, Guido. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. As I recall back to how we met Dario was a lot younger back then, wasn’t he? (Laughs)

Guido Minaya

(Laughs) Just a little bit, turning it back over to you Dario.

Dario Minaya

Well thank you both for joining the show and sharing about this case study for a large scale instructor delivery project. In our next episode we continue the conversation on instructor delivery services with another new guest focusing on leveraging an instructor Marketplace portal. Until next time.

Scott Rutherford 

Our thanks to Guido Minaya and Dario Minaya for sharing their podcast with us. If you’d like to learn more about the Five Minute University podcast, we’ll have a link on the AXIOM Insights podcast episode page at https://axiomlearningsolutions.com/podcast

Thanks for listening.