Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Axiom Insights learning and development podcast. I'm Scott Rutherford. This podcast series is focused on driving organizational performance through learning. In this episode, we're bringing together learning leaders for a discussion about managing the L and D team, with a particular focus on staffing and making the composition of the learning team align with the workload of the function through specifically staff augmentation. And so I'm joined by three senior managers of learning. Jay Letourneau has led L and D teams for many years in businesses in healthcare, insurance and in the public sector. Pam Moyer also joins us with substantial team leadership experience in insurance and professional services business. And Jason Ruff, who's an expert on managing L and D staff augmentation and he's a partner with me at Axiom Learning Solutions. So thanks all three of you for being here.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Thanks Scott.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Glad to be here.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Today's topic is fundamentally a team resourcing discussion. We can't talk about staff augmentation without talking about how you guys as managers of the learning function, manage your teams and your resources. I wanted to start from that perspective maybe. Pam, I'm going to start with you.
From a manager, as a manager of L and D in an organization, from a planning perspective, how do you prefer to plan for projects and teams? How do you start understanding needs and getting internal? It's a big hairy question, I realize, but maybe let's start by setting some context to say, well, here's how it works in the macro.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Sure, absolutely. In my experience, most of the planning at least starts with business objectives at the top, right? And then learning things are aligning to that. So today at origami risk, what we do is we go through an annual planning process of what are the business objectives that we're focused on for the next year and then from that become where is learning and enablement engaged in that? So what we do when we do say, hey, you know what, this is either a big enough change or behavior change or something that's going to require a learning intervention. We will have our full time employees so our on FTE staff consult with because a lot of that is around relationships and just trying to get alignment on stakeholders of what is it that we're trying to accomplish before we just start building content. So I have my full time employees handle those relationships. They have more context into what we're doing within the organization and what is the efforts that we're trying to achieve business results and those sorts of things to kind of do that discovery upfront. So we have a Scope a very, very preliminary stab in the dark, at least as to what our scope of the effort might be. And then from there I can align a team that can help build the content and execute on the deliverables.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Jay, I see you nodding along. So it's about understanding what the target is and assembling resources to hopefully get you there. I guess the next logical step there is. Okay, well you understand the resources you have and maybe the bandwidth you have.
It really. Does it flow next into just a gap analysis? Is that the next logical step?
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I will take this, Pam, because you did an excellent job on prioritizing.
Absolutely, Scott. It really goes into looking at what the business needs are, who you have and what your capacity is. And that's really where prioritizing the work comes in. Having those relationships and being able to have those consultative conversations with your business partners. It really is about connecting with them, building those bridges so that they understand that when you say no or not right now, as I like to frame it, there's a reason behind it and it's usually because we need to look at the larger picture, look at the things that are being asked throughout the organization. And that's where it really does come into, like what are the priorities of the organization and then where do the asks fit in in those priorities and how do we make them work? That's really the next step is looking at how can I best fit the resources, the colleagues, the time and the capacity that I have into the needs of the business.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: How do you approach then?
Obviously understanding your team's skills and capabilities and workload.
This is really foundational management behavior.
How do you approach or what does it look like when you start to realize, well, I have a need here. Is it a conversation internally to say, well, do we have the appetite for a full time hire? Do we have the need for a full time. Talk me through that decision making process.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: For me, it really is around who do I have on my team who can achieve the outcome that we're looking for? Sometimes that's a capacity question. So maybe I'm augmenting who I have on my bench because I just don't have the bandwidth through the team. Other times it's do I have the skills to do this?
A perfect example was about a year ago I had a project where we were taking on a new lms.
I had LMS folks who were working on my team, but they were not technical project managers. So we were looking for someone who could manage the project from soup to nuts. This was going to be a long two year process and we were looking for a technical PM who could manage the entire process through all of the stakeholders within the business, with the folks that we had aligned to it in L and D with the vendor, and then also be able to do that in an agile environment. So I was looking for somebody who had a very specific resume and that was not someone I wanted to necessarily bring on board full time, but it was a short term need that I needed to fill and that's when I really look at like, do I have the skill on my team? And I didn't. So we reached out to Acxiom. Thank you, Jason.
And they found me a fantastic partner to work with on that project.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: So I think what I'll add to that, Jay, is just that luckily for us, the timing of when we're doing our planning is budget also. So we are planning our initiatives for the next year as well as budget, which allows me to have that of okay, if the business has this many high priorities for the next year and I have this many people. Right. So that conversation can happen at that point with again, to your point, Scott, of can we hire additional people? Are we interested in contingent workers? If you want to get all of this work done, that's again, that beginning part of what, what here's what we can do, really coming with solutions to our business partners to say, well, we could do these things, but we could do more if we invested a little bit more and had some more money to spend.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Right. So it's a matter of we do more work, we can do different work, we can maybe meet your deadline with a little additional resource where we wouldn't otherwise be able to get there.
[00:07:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: So Jason, let me pivot to you a little bit here because it's funny, given the business that we're in, we don't often talk about exactly how the back office works in terms of staff augmentation. So I'd like to just sort of, for lack of a better phrase, open the kimono a little bit and sort.
[00:08:20] Speaker D: Of show them how we make the sausage.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Exactly. Maybe I don't know if that's a better expression, but yeah, exactly. So in the back office of your world, Jason, because you're receiving the request to say, okay, we need someone like this sort of.
How do you approach finding the people and fulfilling a request for the right person?
[00:08:48] Speaker D: Well, it takes many years to build the right network. So we have a network of 10,000 resources and we like to say we keep organizations right size. So rarely the lines of business are always coming to learning with many, many needs. And unfortunately learning staff, no matter how large they are, typically tend to be understaff. So we like to say we keep them right sized. You heard a few different scenarios. Jay and Pam mentioned how contractors are utilized. It's when you don't have the particular skill set under your roof and you need it and you need it in short order. It's when you have a very aggressive deadline. So you might have the skills under your roof, but you need one or two or three extra resources to meet a very aggressive deadline that the business has set for you. And it's also about utilization. You may have very specific roles and they're important, but they would keep an FTE at maybe 30 or 40, maybe 60% capacity. So there's a lot of downtime for that person and it's very inefficient. So by outsourcing that role or multiple roles, it creates efficiencies and creates cost savings.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: So it can be a skills need, it can be a workload timing need.
Another scenario we've talked about sometimes is a backfill for leave if someone is on. If it's parental leave or long term disability or something else that takes someone away from the business.
[00:10:13] Speaker D: Yeah, that's a great point, Scott. Yeah, we've had assignments that are as short as a half a day for maybe a half a day workshop. And then there are assignments that are 18 to 24 plus months and everything in between.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: And we're talking about. And maybe Jay and Pam, you can talk us through some of the specific roles that you've hired for. But Jay, you mentioned an LMS administrator, technical skills. I know that Axiom as a business does a lot of work with instructional designers and learning strategists, but what sorts of roles have you had success with bringing in someone through the augmentation mechanism?
[00:10:54] Speaker C: Sure, Scarlet, that's okay. Joe? Yeah, for me I have a very specific way that I go about it and it's worked in a couple different industries, a couple different organizations, all with Axiom behind the scenes, of course. But what I try to do is if you think of a new project, it's that discovery and that alignment in the beginning of what is it that we need to build, what problem we trying to solve, what are our success measures? Making sure all of the stakeholders are in alignment and agreement. And yes, this is what we're going to do and now go off and build it. And Jason, you mentioned the efficiency part of it. That's where I feel like my contractors have always come in. I'll take an FTE who has those relationships within the business in the context of what we're trying to do, you know, tenure and that sort of stuff, they will do the analysis in that design phase where they're trying to figure out what is it that we're trying to do, what are the learning objectives, performance outcomes. They'll even suggest a proposal of, here's how we can accomplish this goal. Once stakeholder alignment happens, everybody's on board and we start to build. That's when I bring in Axiom consultants who can help me from a content development perspective. The lead designer, who is the fde will continue giving direction, managing those relationships, getting feedback, pushing things along, as Jay said, too, is kind of playing that project manager, which from an efficiency perspective helps the person who's developing the content just focus on developing the content, which helps us get past those aggressive timelines that we often have. So if I can have somebody who's just in the zone, if you will, in creating an E learning course, while the other person is going to have all of the conversations you need to have with all of the different stakeholders and making sure you're socializing, it just allows to have an extra hand, really, in trying to meet those deadlines.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: It's funny, I've always thought about one of the core skill sets of a manager is to clear obstacles and get distractions out of the way of the members of your team. As you're describing that scenario, it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing. You're just, I'm getting all of the unnecessary stuff off of your plate so you can do what you're really good at.
[00:12:54] Speaker C: And I have found, too, that when the contractors come in, then they're set up for success and they're not spinning and trying to, what are we doing and how are we doing it, and what are your standards? And it's that lead designer that did the analysis and has all of those conversations up front, who gives direction to the contingent worker to make sure that. And then they can just focus on doing and really not have to to be into that noise that can sometimes happen in a corporate world.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: So sort of building on that, I wanted to explore the team dynamics part of this, which is, I think, a natural.
We've all been employees within organizations, and I think we've all seen maybe ourselves, maybe other people, maybe uncertain or threatened by change, and bringing in contingent staff can be changed. So I'm curious to ask you, how do you manage those discussions internally with your permanent FTE resources to say, hey, we're going to bring people in and to make sure that they see it as a benefit and not a threat. Jayla, I'll let you take the first stab at that one.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So I think you're spot on. I think a lot of times when a team member is hearing that we're bringing in a contractor, I think there can be a little bit of that, oh no, is it because we're not doing the work? Are they trying to replace us?
How is the dynamic going to be? What I want to do when I approach it and I talk to my team is talk about it as a positive.
Like Pam said, this is someone who's coming in to support you and help you and take away some of that almost like grunt work of building and designing and creating something, but you still get to have the overall relationship building and the project management. And really like, I need you to be in that sweet spot because you're the face of our department. You're the face with the business. What we need is someone who can just do the work. And sometimes, sometimes it is somebody who is maybe a junior ID who comes in and as a consultant or contractor, they're learning from us, they're taking that knowledge base and they can move on and create development opportunities for themselves. Sometimes it's finding somebody who fits that niche. Like I was talking about the technical pm. Like, I don't think that would threaten a team member because they know they don't have that kind of skill. When I do bring in a contractor, I'm very much so of the mindset. Whether you're a full time employee or you're a contractor, you're part of the team. I try to support them and coach them and bring them through the process as I would an FTE that shows camaraderie and teamwork with the rest of the team and it helps them kind of bring that person into the fold and trust them and know that this isn't because we're not doing our work or we're going to be replaced. This is someone who's here to help. So now Maybe I'm an FTE whose plate was 100% full. Now my plate is 79% full. I'm still busy and I'm still working, but I have a little more flexibility in what it is that I do. The other nice thing about working with contractors is I get to test before I buy.
It's like going and test driving a car.
I get to see how they work. I Get to see how they interact with my team. I get to see their end product. I sometimes look at it as an extended interview process and if they are someone who I want to be a full time employee on my team, I go to bat for them. And there's been many times where Peter Ward and Jason have helped me to make that transition with folks and bring them full time onto my team. So it's a good way to see how someone works, how they're going to gel with the team, how they're going to gel with me as a manager and get to kick the tires before you buy the car.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Jason, let me bring you in here because I think that that's a good point to explore because sometimes in not every case, not every consultant wants to be embedded full time, permanent, but it does happen to me. I think that speaks to the matchmaking facet of Jason, your job in trying to really tee up, okay, what's the right resource to the right opportunity and then if, if the cards fall in a certain way to help make the permanent connection.
[00:17:58] Speaker D: That's right. We like to say it's a date, not a marriage. And so in Jay's instance, he's been looking for resources that potentially over time, it's that extended hiring process.
Try before you buy, like you mentioned. So we're not going to match up a resource that he or she is a tried and true contractor, that no matter how much they like the work, the organization, they're never going to accept a full time role. If we know that's not what Pam or Jay or the hiring manager is looking for. It is all about creating matches. Who in our pipeline, all the relationships we have, who's the right fit, not just the right skill set. And I think another point that was made earlier, I think maybe one of the most positive changes for contingent workforce staffing. I've been doing this for 25 years. It used to be the contract talent was very separate. It was, you came in the door, there was the coffee pot, there's the bathroom. Don't speak to unless spoken to. And they were very separate. So to kind of create that team environment where they're part of the team and the business side, the learning organization, the talent sees that, hey, they're going to come in and help us. It's the same on the contractor side. They need to come in, they need to be flexible, they need to have superior communication skills. But probably most important, they need to check their ego at the door. They've been on roles where they've been the Senior most top person. And then they've sometimes they're going to be in a role where they're maybe, you know, second or third or they're doing something a little less as the focal point and they've just got to be ready to wear multiple hats. They're not there to be a savior. They're there to help and make the business be successful.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Pam, you're sort of nodding. I wanted to ask you about your experience with that team integration. What's your experience been with managing expectations and egos within your team?
[00:19:37] Speaker C: Well, with Acxiom, it has been very, very easy because we do have Peter Ward, who, as Jason said, matches the right people.
They know how I work and what we're trying to accomplish and what where that it is a team. Right. It's not going to be something that you're doing at, you know, off hours. I do invite my contingent workers to all of my team meetings. Just as Jay said, they're part of it. And I'm also very transparent with my team as to why we're bringing in that person. So back to the planning. If I've decided it's a skill or capacity or bandwidth, they know why person X is coming in. And if in some instances, my most recent one was we really didn't have on staff the technical, articulate skills that we needed. So we brought in through Axiom, somebody, lots of skills who then taught us so shared that knowledge. So now my team learned from her and now she's, you know, so it just helps us develop and, you know, all of us learning. People like to work together and learn from each other continuously. So it really is a great opportunity to again, learn from each other and grow together.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: I'd just like to jump on something that both Pam and Jason said, and don't tell Peter I said this, but he is very good at his job.
He. He definitely.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: I'll make sure he doesn't watch this podcast.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yes, please make sure he's. He makes sure that he understands what your need is. He doesn't try to oversell. He doesn't try to undersell. He listens to exactly what it is that your need is and, and pulls through the proper person. I think 99.9% of the time that he has brought me some. Someone I've hired that person as a contractor, brought him on board and was happy with the decision. Peter and Jason worked very hard to understand, as Pam said, our personalities. Despite where I've worked, I've worked at several different organizations and I've continued My relationship with Axiom, because Jason and Peter know me. They know what I want, they know what I'm looking for. And in the different industries, different organizations I've worked with, the job descriptions may be different, what my needs may be different, what, you know, the little idiosyncrasies around what I'm looking for for an ID or for a PM or even a facilitator. I've gotten facilitators through through Axiom.
Peter has this underlying understanding of who I am and how I run my team and also looks at what I need in the moment and always pulls through.
[00:22:22] Speaker C: And I think I'll add to that again, just to say that that's one of the differentiators for me. I've used other agencies to get temporary, and it's not even comparable at all. They'll just. The next person on the list shows up. And as Jay said, everybody that I've interviewed, I've traditionally hired because again, Peter knows who in the type of work that we're doing and why we're doing it. And then the other contractors that we have, he stays in touch with them as well. As, you know, the whole Axiom team of just making sure that it's a right fit on both sides, it's not, you know, the contingent worker is not doing what they. Or they're frustrated and we're not communicating all sorts of things that can go on. And the other part, I would add is just that you can only find out so much in an interview right. When we're doing so. I completely agree. I do the same thing with. If I ever do have an FTE add to staff, it comes from my contingent workers who have already. And then they are even making an informed decision because they know the team, they know me, they know the work. Both sides get to kind of try it out and make sure that expectations are clear and we know what we're getting ourselves into.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Well, it's expectations and communication. That's what I'm sort of drawing as the through line here. It's really about, from the manager's perspective, you're managing your team and it all works better if you're clear with your vendor. With Jason, in this case, here's exactly what I want. Because Jason, wouldn't that helps you be a better matchmaker?
[00:23:54] Speaker D: Absolutely. Absolutely.
I've literally sat in on probably 5,000 interviews in my 25 years doing this. And more often than not, when the interview doesn't go well, again, I'm coming from the different side of the fence here. But it's usually the hiring manager, he or she is not asking the right question. So it's really understanding what the need is. And in the case of Pam and Jay, they're always asking the right questions. So it makes our job that much easier.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: I wanted to just spend a minute on the team dynamic again. This is circling back a little bit to integration. But I was assuming that we're talking about face to face, in person teams, but realizing that all teams are not face to face, they may be blended, multiple locations, virtual.
What's your experience been using a contingent team member maybe where they're not face to face with other members of your team?
How do you bridge that gulf? It could be. I mean there obviously there are challenges in managing multi location teams anyway on a permanent basis. Then you're adding another potential complexity in there.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: So I will say I like having someone who has the flexibility of either coming in person or being virtual. I'll tell you why I prefer virtual because it opens up the pool.
I'm not necessarily looking. Our offices are here in Canton. We're here once a week.
I don't necessarily need somebody who can be here once a week. What I need is somebody who can do the job. And if that person is sitting in South Carolina as opposed to Boston, Massachusetts, I want to make sure that I'm getting the right person and the right fit.
Because most of my team does have a hybrid work schedule. I don't find that there's a challenge with integrating the contractor into our daily existence.
It's still the teams meetings, it's still pinging each other on the team's chat, it's still responding to emails, it's still connecting with the business partners or with the other IDs that you're working with. As long as you are someone who can build that connection, it's through a screen or face to face. And you have the skill set I'm looking for.
That's what I really want is I want that connection and the skill base. I don't care where they sit.
Pam has heard me say this before because she was my manager.
I don't care where my employees work from. They can work from the beach as long as they're good employees who are dedicated to the work and get their job done, period. So honestly, I'm not necessarily looking for somebody to sit in a particular seat. I'm looking for somebody who has the skills and I don't care what they say.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I will completely agree with that. And I'll say, you know, based on what Jason was saying of how it used to be with contingent workers. So I've been doing this 20 plus years as well. So we used to have. They came into the office and they sat there. But the model that I use, if I really want you in the zone, just cranking out content, it's better if you're not in an office distracted by all of the things that are going on 100%. So if I can do that part of that relationship building, rubbing elbows and that's the FTE that helps. But. Right. That's an investment in both sides. And I just keep the contingent worker wherever. And I don't. They could be on the moon. I don't care where they are either, as long as they're getting their work done and participating and engaging. And because we bring them on as just a part of the team, there's the dialogue and the questions that can already happen versus you're this person over here on exile island creating content and you're kind of once removed. We integrate with the team with the idea of we're learning from each other, we're growing and we got some serious work we need to do and we're all in this together and accomplishing it.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: From my own perspective. I'll share that sometimes I've had good experience with teams who are physically not present at the same time. Just because you can sort of of play with the scheduling Venn diagram a little bit to say, okay, well, you're going to have the time of crossover where you're collaborating and working together. And then each team maybe has three hours or so. If you're talking about east coast to Pacific time where they're in their own bubble. And so after the east coast goes home to bed, the west coast is still working. And then the east coast picks it up early in the morning. So you have a little bit of a flow or a cycle you can build sometimes if you're thinking maybe less linear about your structure.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: So on the final thought, as we sort of wrap up this discussion, I wanted to. And Jason, you sort of alluded to this earlier in terms of maybe checking your ego out the door. But the traits and qualities for anyone listening who might be thinking about, well, maybe I'd like to move from being a permanent sort of person into a contingent role.
What's going to make a person success as a member of an augmented team.
[00:29:23] Speaker D: If you don't mind, I'll jump in. I think it's passion.
I think Pam touched on it a little earlier, learning people like to help you get all the right skills. But if you're not a people person and if you don't have a passion to help people get better, it's never really going to work for you. So I think it's passion. And then obviously I mentioned earlier flexibility and communication. But I think probably passion comes first.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: I would definitely agree with the flexibility.
I also think that there's a little bit of just the excitement of trying to do something new or being part of something different. And I've worked with different types of contractors. The folks who are career contractors who six months a year and then they want to move on to the next thing. And I've worked with the folks who are hoping to get in their in the door as a contractor so that they can be a full time employee and there's benefits to both. I think with the folks who are trying to become that permanent employee, like I said earlier, we both get to try before we buy. But with the career contractors, they kind of know what their role is and they kind of know what the expectation is of them. They know that they're short term, they know that they're pay for play. They know that they are bringing a certain skill set, a certain mindset and a certain ability that you're looking for in that, in that time. And they aim to please because they are career contractors. So they want to make sure that you're going to say to Jason, hey, this person was fantastic. So that either A, I'm going to use them again in the future or they know that Jason got a positive review and can pass that on to the next person that they work with.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: All right, Pam, what do you think.
[00:31:23] Speaker C: If I could go back in time in my career? I think the first opportunity I had I was with the organization for over 20 years. So that's where I got into learning and learned a lot. If I could go back in time, I think I would prefer to be a contingent worker because if you think of it it as the exposure that you get to all different industries, all different learning departments, I mean I have exposure since I've started moving around organizations and worked at different companies that it's just been eye opening and very much that experience of how different organizations operate and then you get to build your portfolio and you have a bunch of different examples and you're then able to decide what you want of the type of organization you want to work with, if that's what you want to do. Or maybe you just want to continue with the variety. Right. So sometimes I'm one of those people that I'm really good at starting, but I sometimes don't have the stamina to see it through. So I like to get it started, but then I'll move on to the next one and somebody else can see it through. But I think that really just gives the exposure and experience to a workforce of it's not, oh, you only know one way. And that was, you know, organization X.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: All right, well, Pam Moyer, Jay Letourneau, Jason Ruff, this is fun, but I'm going to have to leave it there. I appreciate your time anytime.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: This has been the Axiom Insights Learning and Development podcast. This podcast is a production of Acxiom Learning Solutions. Axiom is a learning and development services firm with a network of learning professionals in the US and worldwide, supporting L and D teams with learning staff augmentation and project support for instructional design, content management, content creation and more, including training, delivery and facilitation, both in person and virtually. To learn more about how Axiom can help you and your team achieve your learning goals, visit axiomlearningsolutions.com and thanks again for listening to the Axiom Insights podcast.
