[Podcast]  Training: More Important Than You Realize

Season 2, Season Finale: The Evolution of LTL with Ryan Schreiber , VP of Industry and Growth at Metafora.

Have you been hearing us talk recently about… training, training, and more training? Did you hear our recent announcement about Sync Logistics Training? Well, the hype is still going in this episode of the Extra Mile Podcast by Metafora. Also, did we mention… it’s the season finale!!!! Don’t worry though, we’ll be back in 2023 with more great guests and conversations.

Our host Adam”P-Mutt” Perlmutter and guest host Teresa Ronquillo chat with the one and only Ryan Schreiber, VP of Industry and Growth at Metafora. They discussed a very interesting topic: training and training-as-a-service. 

Listen now:

What’s the moral of the story? There is a business cost to not doing training or to doing training poorly. Conversely, if you train your people the right way, it’s an investment rather than an expense. This way, your employees will be trained based on what you need for the company and, more importantly, what you need from them. 

“We all kinda forget how scary it was when we first started.” Ryan Schreiber

Training-as-a-Service: Sync Logistics Training

Ryan shares the origin story of the brand name for this new training-as-a-service solution.

Sync made sense for so many reasons, largely what it represents as the root word for many other words. To illustrate:

• Some of the training can be done synchronously.
• Some of the training can be done asynchronously.
• Sync is synchronizing the learning, as in standardizing it.

Issues with the Current State of Training

• We dump too much on people early on, and then they often remember a bunch of stuff they don’t need to remember yet, and they don’t remember a bunch of stuff they do need to know at that point in their training.
• Companies don’t do enough training early on and then don’t have an opportunity to come back to the basics for many employees. Setting this foundation is crucial.
• Companies don’t do a good job explaining the “why”. Without the why, you’re simply just training your people to become automatons. The training sticks and becomes true knowledge when people understand why they are learning it, why it’s important, why it is the way it is, why the knowledge will help them in their role, etc. 
• The focus tends to be on new hires only. There needs to be an equal focus on ongoing and developmental training. Consider: First time managers. How to have difficult conversations. Advanced capacity strategy concepts.    

What challenges does Sync Logistics Training tackle for transportation and logistics companies?

Challenge: It’s hard to avoid management burn-out on training

This is the thing that makes training the most expensive and the least effective. We need a way to facilitate training so that it does not require so much time, effort, and oversight from your management and key players.

Challenge: It’s difficult to make digital training engaging

Sync Logistics Training is designed to keep the content engaging while also maintaining the touch with the business. Sync Logistics Training features variety and flexibility - combining in person and digital experiences targeting different learning modalities through written content, videos, simulated calls, quizzes, activities, etc. 

Challenge: It’s hard to ensure that shadowing time for new hires is valuable, impactful, and not a waste of time for all employees involved

Shadowing needs to be structured and intentional. Sync Logistics Training includes shadowing guidance so sessions can stay on track, and people who likely do not have a background in training or teaching others can both reinforce their own skills while also successfully transferring knowledge to others.

Challenge: Improving a training program is costly

Yes, it can be, especially if you’re trying to create, develop, and implement it completely in house. You’re reinventing the wheel on many topics, and taking resources (namely: people’s time) away from your core business. Sync Logistics Training comes out of the box with courses developed by industry experts that cover a wide range of basics.

Challenge: It takes too long to get new hires to a place where they are valuable contributors. 

Ah yes, the ever challenging task to reduce new hire ramp time. Sync focuses on teaching new hires what they need to know first (core learning concepts) and then building on that on a reasonable timeline. Training new hires more effectively, more efficiently, so that they can be impactful to your business sooner. From there, they are better able to jump into more advanced tasks and skills.

Example? Yes, you want your employees to understand carrier strategy. It’s not just about sourcing a carrier, it’s about understanding how that carrier fits in the network. But, this can happen after the employee spends time straight up calling shippers and asking them what they’ve got.

“You can’t teach somebody the ‘why’ on their first day, you need to focus those on the ‘must know’ information.” - Ryan Schreiber

What’s the thesis of Sync Logistics Training?

The concept here is to take employees on a learning journey, beyond new hire training.

It starts on day one, yes, you need to build a better new hire training program, but equally important are ongoing and developmental training.

What type of companies would benefit the most from implementing a quality TaaS solution?

• Ones that want their employees to ramp faster
• Ones that want their customer and carrier experience to be better
• Ones that want to build a deeper bench

Want to check out more of the content references in this episode? Well, then, here you go:

• Official Sync Logistics Training Website
• Pain Points addressed by Sync Logistics Training
• Metafora Holiday Gift Guide
• More training content on the Metafora blog
  

Ryan Schreiber can be found on LinkedIn here. 

Interested in chatting with a SME from Metafora? Request a free discovery call here! 

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