Retail Data Mart Online Course: The First-Best Online Training Experience

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1 Retail Data Mart Online Course: The First-Best Online Training Experience Nancy Laich, USPS Executive Program Director, HR/Payroll Enterprise Gail Breed Operations Specialist USPS Field Operations Standardization Implementation Background For more resources click here -> With the introduction of the Retail Data Mart (RDM), the Postal Service can use Point-of-Service One data to track and analyze customer preferences and purchasing trends. Data transfers on a daily basis from the terminals at the post offices to the Retail Data Mart where reports are available for access by managers in these offices. Prior to November 21, 2001 training on the Retail Data Mart (RDM) was conducted in a classroom setting using contracted instructors. About 30% of those trained in this traditional method used the available reports. Retail Workforce Strategies (RWS) led by Nancy Laich, was tasked to produce an online self-study course so that the costs associated with travel and replacement hours could be saved. The benefits of online training include: Elimination of travel and employee replacement costs Immediate testing of knowledge Working at one s own pace within a reasonable timeframe Voice Of the Employee (VOE) training hours credit The Pilot and Goal Pilot Results The RDM Online Course was piloted beginning November 21,2001 with 263 registrants from six different geographical areas. They were ready to test the effectiveness of the end-to-end development and implementation of online training for the Retail Data Mart (RDM). They were accessing a completely new system for automated registration with course access 24 hours a day-7 days per week that included an automated course scoring and certification. This is a first for USPS. Eight different groups of people coordinated in this work to go from concept to implementation. These included 4 postal groups (RDM Program Office, Retail Workforce Strategies, and Information Technology) and 4 contractor groups (NCR, MicroStrategy, Zerone and Northrop Grumman Information Technology). The goal of the training was to enable each participant to be ready to generate and use RDM reports in the workplace to address one or more of the following strategic retail goals: Remove low-value transactions from the window (stamps only) Identify revenue opportunities such as value-added sales the manager can influence and Identify how the work budget can be more effectively manipulated against actual workload. 1

2 For more resources click here -> The Results Delivering this training via the web, as opposed to the classroom has resulted in cost savings estimated at $1.5 million. Reduction over classroom costs exceeded 85%. The online course templates are re-usable for other Postal courses at less cost than a completely new development The current 103 graduates of the course have tested successful in the techniques and business-related problem solving with an average score of 94%. 70% of the graduates are accessing the RDM. This first best experience with online learning is an enterprise wide change management application for postal operations Who s Who: The Population Demographics One hundred seventy people registered to take the course with 103 completing the course. Of those who completed the course and accessed the RDM, 72% accessed it on the same day they graduated from the course. While the course was designed with business scenarios for Postmasters and Supervisors, a wide variety of USPS employees took the course to learn the techniques required to access reports from the Retail Data Mart. For example, employees from the Inspection Service, and various groups within Retail and Customer Services requested to participate. Several other groups had a single student, as in the case of an Information Specialist Technician, Manager of Operations Support, secretary and a letter carrier. 2 Test Scoring

3 For more resources click here -> In addition to the lessons, the activities were designed to include a business-related scenario using a particular report. For example, lesson three teaches to the Stamps Only Report and controlling inventory. The corresponding activity tests the user knowledge and skills in the techniques as well as the business application of the reports found in the Retail Data Mart. Average Score by Activity 100% 90% 94% 97% 90% 92% 95% 80% Useful Reports Influence Revenue Stamp Only Sales Manage Sales Special Services These successful scores by the graduates demonstrate a high level of understanding of the use of the reports available within the RDM. No longer is there training for its own sake, but measurable data related to the training can be tracked between on the job performance and the teachings from the course. You may now be asking if there was any real deviation, the average participants completed well above the passing rate of 75%, as a matter of fact the average score for all activities was 94%. The standard deviation is.035. Days to Completion Now that we know who s who and how well they scored, the next question was how quickly they completed the course. The postal inspectors were treated as a group while everyone else was grouped by area location. This distinction was made because the postal inspectors are currently the single greatest users of the Retail Data Mart. On average, a participant registered and then completed the course over 18 days. However, 19% of the time, these graduates registered and completed the course within one day. When the data was charted, the trend lines are identical, indicating no difference in the number of days each group spent in the training. Communications and Registration Interest in registration was driven by several variables: 1. Timely and regular messaging to each area about status of enrollment 2. Providing certificates of completion to graduates 3. Establishing an end date to registration and completion Below you will see the big picture of total registration for the pilot. 3

4 For more resources click here -> Total Population of 170 Registered Number of People Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Several key messages occurred over the course of the pilot. The first was the Go Message sent 11/21/01 to the area coordinators notifying them about the process to register via the web site for e1357. The next key message occurred on 12/10 announcing the first three graduates of the RDM Online Course. Biweekly status reports began in 1/14/02 and provided details on which people for a given area had registered and completed the course. Certificates of completion were also sent for the remainder of the pilot, until its conclusion. The final message on 3/19/02 included the announcement about ending the pilot on 3/22/02 along with the status update. Testimonials These are the testimonials from the graduates of the online learning regarding to how this online course positively affected job performance. 4 Like, Ed, I think the data is excellent to be used by each PM nearly weekly or at a minimum each AP. For us it is a mother lode vein for finding out days, times and volumes of products sold such as Express Mail if I am correct we could even find out the destinations of the pieces. The training on-line is very effective much more so than in a classroom without hands-on training. Because it is self-paced and can be done in your office you learn more. Also, the on-line training is available always so if you need a refresher you can retake a short module to find the reports you need. Susan took the first training without the on-line course and said she learned more through the on-line course. The course was created with Postmaster input throughout to make it easy to use, quick and continuously available. They even made it easy to figure out which reports would be of more value for Postmasters and be able to store their own canned reports so they can just pull them without setting it up again. The course is very practical. It allows the trainee to learn at his/her pace. I appreciate the consideration built into the program that makes a reasonable allowance for those who have difficulty taking tests. More training and certification should be offered in this web-based format. The program allows the user to open the course at any time that is most convenient. The RDM format allows users to learn how to manage and set up strategies to get the best results out of existing data. No data outlet that I am aware of allows the user this benefit. The RDM course format should be the standard by which all other data outlets are designed, and all should be accessible from one Web location.

5 I am a secretary just pulling reports for the Postmaster, so it hasn t affected me, but I can certainly see how the reports could help managers & supervisors, particularly in defining which sales associates are selling which products better and in seeing how many transactions an SSA handles compared to their peers. I really haven t had a lot of time to search around on the RDM to see how it has helped. I think that it will be good for me to spend some time and play around with it a bit to see exactly what useful information there is. The CBT RDM course was excellent. I really liked the on line cheat sheet. This simple handout gives a good definition of the reports and a drill path. The basic reports are an excellent starting point for field users. Thank you for letting me take this course. I would encourage others to do so. Though I haven t had a lot of time to take advantage of this new (to me anyway) source for useful information, I can see it being a helpful tool to research many different types of retail data. The Online Course provided a refresher on the various reports available in RDM. I believe this is an excellent way to update the field as enhancements are made to RDM. Additionally, when HQs identifies certain reports everyone should be using, they could provide CBT explaining the report and how to access it, the path to use. This is a great tool to use in support of the RDM. There is so much information to be obtained from the Retail Data Mart. I know that this will be an invaluable asset to future retail planning in our office. Biographical Sketches Nancy Laich is an executive program director with the United States Postal Service in Employee Resource Management. In her current position she is responsible for the implementation of process redesign and system configuration of and Enterprise Resource Planning system for all human resource functions. This effort will impact almost 1 million career and temporary postal employees. In her former position as Manager, Retail Workforce Strategies, Nancy worked with a team to design a process using distance learning that is covered in this workshop. Address: 475 L Enfant Plaza SW Room 5437 Washington DC nlaich@ .usps.gov Phone: Fax: Gail Breed is an operations specialist with the United States Postal Service in Field Operations Standardization Implementation. Ms. Breed is responsible for the design, development and implementation of an online course for processing operations. Ms. Breed has an undergraduate degree from James Madison University and began working in the USPS in She has demonstrated exceptional organizational and managerial skills which have resulted in increasing levels of responsibility with projects of nationwide scope. Address: 475 L Enfant Plaza SW Room 7431 Washington DC breed@ .usps.gov Phone: Fax: For more resources click here -> 5