ELW2007: Reflection

This was PLCMC’s first year participating in Employee Learning Week. Since I only learned about it a week before there was not much time to plan ahead. As soon as the dates for next year are announced I’ll have to mark my calendar. There’s a training group that I belong to that always concludes a presentation with two questions. What did you do right, and what would you do differently next time. So here goes.

What went right?

The timing was perfect, even with the short notice. Since I just returned from an almost year-long maternity/medical leave and our other trainer has been temporarily reassigned, not much training has been done this year. My only goal was to generate some excitement about learning and to inform staff of the opportunities available to them. I think I succeeded in that as long as they read their email.

What would I do differently?

Plan ahead! It seems like a small task to send out six emails in six days. But it’s funny how something so small can snowball into something bigger. It reminds me of the school house rock video about the bill. There is a chain of events that needs to take place. So to send an email out about a benefit the following has to be done first:

• Find the information about the benefit…in our case it is all on our Intranet
• Check with HR to make sure the information is correct
• Draft the email
• Revise the email
• Have someone else review the email (thanks Sarah Poole!)
• Revise again
• If needed, send to HR for review or approval

So in other words it’s more than just typing an email.