Big bang vs bitesize training – find out more with Jayva Global
Training = PMS roll out success
When law firms roll out new practice management software (PMS), a training programme is an integral part of the implementation process. Even practices who are initially reticent about training soon come to realise its pivotal role in empowering them to use their software to best effect.
How one software provider delivers training is not the same as another. To help you get the best out of the training experience – and, therefore, your software – we’ve compared and contrasted two methodologies so you can secure the programme that’s ideally suited to your unique business.
Option #1: Big bang training
Historically, end user training was performed face to face, to large groups of people, on site at clients’ premises, with each individual sitting in front of a PC around a boardroom table. There were myriad issues with this approach, not least:
Logistics – Coordinating the busy-and-clashing diaries for the majority of a law firm’s employees was an organisational ordeal. With legal accounting deadlines to meet, case milestones to achieve and other calendar commitments to fulfil, finding a training date that’s convenient for everyone is impracticable and impossible.
Income – Regardless of training obligations, there are still fee earning targets to attain. Just imagine the financial impact of entire fee earning teams stopping client-facing work for an entire day. It’s not an efficient use of everyone’s time and it’s disruptive to your in-progress matters. Bottom line – it’s extremely costly in terms of lost revenue.
Cost – On the theme of financial consequences, there’s the cost associated with paying for a day or more of your trainer’s time, and covering his/her travel and subsistence expenses. If you’re a multi-site business, multiply this cost by the number of offices. Then, factor in staff absences on the allotted training dates. Pre-booked holidays, unexpected sickness and long-term leave such as maternity mean there will inevitably be a contingent of your employees who miss out on training. A second round of training to mop up these staff comes at additional cost. Suddenly, your outgoings really begin to stack up.
Generic – In our experience, there could be around forty to fifty items on a standard PMS training checklist. The chances are that each individual in the sea of people sitting in a training room will not use fifteen of these features. Not everyone creates completion statements. Not everyone time records. Not everyone runs reports. Not everyone emails, even, as some solicitors have personal assistants to administrate on their behalf. By catering for the masses, employees are wasting their valuable time learning about functionality they’ll never use as it’s not relevant to their position in business.
Robotic – If training’s focused simply on which buttons to press to undertake a certain task, you’re not going to get very far. While understanding the series of buttons required for a specific aspect of your job does have its advantages, it’s not going to teach you about best practice usage of your PMS.
Helpdesk heavy – With training happening over the course of one long day, there’s information overload at an already stressful time. Your employees won’t retain everything they were taught in six hours. Plus, there are absentees to consider. The volume of support calls increases in these scenarios, but helpdesk requests are reactive and relevant to that moment in time alone. Although the caller is free, the called may not be free, leading to a disgruntled feeling of not being serviced correctly, and causing a temporary pause to the day’s work.
Covid effect – It took a pandemic on a global scale to make the world rethink how training is delivered. The Covid outbreak introduced online solutions to training overnight, with Zoom and Teams being popular choices. The post-Covid outlook is hybrid operations, comprising home and office working, so in-person training is not always practical anymore.
Option #2: Bitesize training
The modern training archetype necessarily looks very different to this now-outdated model and for good reason. This option is characterised by:
Manageable chunks – As an entire day’s training is not conducive to effective learning and retention, breaking content down into 90-minute or, even, 30-minute sessions aids learning and retention massively. These bespoke sessions covering role-specific duties – opening a new case or running an anti-money laundering check, for instance – are easy to slot into a hectic diary, easy to take on board and easy to remember for the long term. Virtual training typically has recording capabilities, so employees can watch again and anyone absent can catch up in their own time. From a business continuity perspective, shorter training sessions ensure there are no repercussions productivity wise.
Consultative – There’s no one-size-fits-all for training. Instead, putting together a training plan should be a consultative procedure, between training provider and client, so it’s totally tailored to each law firm’s requirements, structure, size and set up. Even more than that, it’s personalised to the exacting needs of types of end users. The resulting training makes a significant difference to the PMS being utilised optimally company wide. It begins with interactive dialogue between all parties prior to training kick off in order to inform programme content and schedule.
Affordable – Needless to say, there are substantial cost savings by avoiding all staff-all day, person-to-person training delivered by a trainer who’s spent a day travelling from one end of the country to the other and having to stay overnight for a couple of days with another day travelling home afterwards. Plus, you won’t be bleeding money by capping your fee earning opportunities as per option #1.
Rolling cycle – Switching from once-only at installation stage to ongoing training on, say, a quarterly basis permits learning the essentials alone to avoid overwhelm at the outset with the ability to build upon these basics gradually. Repeating the earlier point about consultation, you and your training partner can identify key initiatives to monitor how the system’s being used – for example, management information will show how accurately matters are being completed – to identify gaps in knowledge which will form your future training development plan. This continual training format is how super users are made.
Autonomous – By reducing your reliance upon helpdesks and giving your employees the skills to self serve, you’re taking control into your own hands, and allowing staff to complete tasks and meet deadlines independently. This is a much healthier environment for your business. Happiness, job satisfaction and wellbeing will soar.
SME friendly – All the downsides of big bang training are a problem especially for small-to-medium sized law firms with littler teams, lower budgets, limited (or no!) back-office administration resources and flexible way of working. Conversely, all the upsides of bitesize training make it a match made in heaven. That’s not to say option #2 isn’t equally beneficial for their larger counterparts. There’s ample and unequivocal evidence to prove it’s preferable to all – SMEs, High Street, Magic Circle and training suppliers alike.
Covid compliant – With virtual delivery now the new normal, training can continue uninterruptedly, irrespective of the usual (and unusual!) business disruptions. At Jayva, we’ve moved the bulk of our training online over the past three years and we’ve become more sustainable as a company. This means we’re able to pass substantial cost savings onto our clients as well as support their sustainability and business continuity efforts too.
Final thoughts
A perfect fit for one firm will not be perfect for another. Sometimes a blended approach to learning via multiple mediums is absolutely the way to go. As humans, we learn differently, so a one-size-fits-all is rarely going to deliver the best outcomes.
If we’ve whetted your appetite for further PMS training insights, access our ‘Why investing in software training is good for business’ blog and check out our full range of training services. Email info@jayvaglobal.com to learn more, and ask about pricing and availability.
