Instructional Design: OPWL 537

Background

As a current student in the Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning program at Boise State University, my team had an opportunity to enhance the workplace performance for a real-world client, Revolution Rail Company. After having an initaial client meeting, the development of instructional materials to promote a sucessful seasonal employee orientation meeting was the main focus for our team.

Revolution Rail Company, or RevRail, is a tourism buisness were customers have the opportuity to experience the beautiful scenery across five different states while enjoying a railbike ride. Not only is the railbike tour innovative, but it repurposes established, unused railways. During the tour, guides engage with customers by informing them about local history and sites, while customers interact with the surrouning environment. Each season, RevRail hires and supports around 100 seasonal employees across their eight locations.

Image by RevRail, 2021

Visit https://www.revrail.com/about-us to learn more about the company's origin.

Performance Problem

The client's primary desire was to create a training to improve the orientation process for seasonal employees, allowing all locations to receive a standard employee orientation program. As the company grows, the need for new employees increases. The orietnation would encompass company expectations, necessary team needs, and common knowledge for employment positions. Currently the employees can be catagoized into three employment categories: site supervisor/manager, assistant site supervisor/station agent, and railbike guides/assistant guides. Overall, the training would not include position specific criteria, but basic information onboarding employees need to know to be successful.

Goal to Achieve

Standardize and improve RevRail’s hiring practices by providing an orientation program for all employees at the beginning of the season. Overall, the goal will help establish baseline knowledge and expectations for new employees across all eight locations nationwide.

Need Analysis

Based on information gathered from the initial client meeting, our team began our project in the phase 3 of the LeaPs model. In order to start preparing the seasonal employment training, we had to determine the necessary information needed to ensure the goal was met for the employees. As a team, we conducted a training requirements analysis (TRA), learner environmental analysis (LEA), and task analysis (TA) based on the workplace performance improvement opportunity.

Model provided in Instructional Design Course Handbook

Training Requirements Analysis (TRA):

As a team, we discussed the goal, desired outcome, and for the client to pinpoint the performance improvement opportunity. Based on the discussion, it was evident many seasonal employees had the potential to be unfamiliar with information necessary to be successful in the raibiking industry. To ensure all seasonal employees, regardless of their work history or experience, were preemptively prepared an employee orientation program needed to be created. To ensure all locations were informed, the training was determined best to be delivered in a hybrid virtual environment by site supervisors. Upon the conclusion of training, employees will understand the basics of what is expected of them and will be provided with a job aid, Do's and Dont's quick reference guide, and an informational video to promote employee success.

Learner Environmental Analysis (LEA):

The LEA identified the learners:

interests
motivation
demographic (age, race, background, work history)
attitude toward subject matter
cognitive abilities
socio-culturual characteristic (anxiety, beliefs, ‘locus of control’)

RevRail provided analytical data, such as former employee demographics and resume samples, to help determine the direction of the training. As a whole, the employees' ages range from 14 to 74 years old and had varying degrees of workforce experience. With such a large gap in age, the team could deduce some employees would be highly educated while others are currently in high school. The gender distribution is about 50/50 male and female, and the employees are of diverse backgrounds. After compiling the LEA data, it was decided the training should not be overly complex, be differentiated for a large array of learners, and be accessable to all locations.

Task Analysis (TA):

After interviewing RevRail's company managers and leaders, reviewing the employee handbook, and evaluating the Do's and Dont's List, our team established a Task Analysis learning goal:

Given a set of employee standards and expectations, company employees will be able to recognize the company’s policies and goals and demonstrate the knowledge required to interact with railbike guests and their peers professionally and effectively throughout all processes of the workday.

Utilizing the TA information, the team created four main objectives for the orientation program:

Given the employee handbook (con), the employee will follow electronic device rules, be proactive, professional, and engaging with guests (beh) consistently throughout the work day (cri.).
Given orientation guidelines and bike-prep checklists (con), the employee will prepare the bikes, understand how to use the guide kits, interact with and check-in riders (beh), ahead of time so the trip leaves no later than 10 minutes after scheduled time (cri).
Given a railbike trip at a specific location (con), the employee will conduct the trip safely, engage, educate, and help guests, and understand the timing/procedures of the trip for that location (beh), every trip they go on throughout the day (cri).
Given the conclusion of a trip and/or end of the work day (con), the employee will follow breakdown checklists, check for and report damage, and professionally interact with guests (beh), so the next trip is not delayed and guests leave with a positive experience (cri).

Image by RevRail, 2021

Design and Develop

Lesson Plan

In order to organize the collected information from the analysis, the project team developed a lesson plan using the LeaPS Instructional Model, Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction, Wlodkowski’s Summary of Motivational Strategies, and Katzell/Kirkpatrick/Phillips training evaluation models. Through using the instructional models and strategies, the lesson plan was able to hone in on the identified learning goals and instructional objectives organized into four categories of instruction. To engage the employees during the training, the project team created role playing senerios, wrote group discussion points, and developed a PowerPoint presentation to view. With the main goal being to prepare seasonal employees, the lesson plan distinguished a time for employees to participate in classifying tools, learning protocols, and reinforcing proper procedures necessary to ensure safety precautions are followed for both employee and customer. Once the training concluded, seasonal employees will be asked to complete a survey to provide feedback necessary information and materials for the employees.

Instructional Materials

To support the lesson plan, the project team developed visual, kinetic, and auditory instructional materials for inclusivity and learner differentiation. A PowerPoint presentation was developed to help guide the virtual presenter through the most important information, as well as talking points to refer when necessary. To keep employees engaged, the PowerPoint slide deck notes were created, as well as an updated Do's and Dont's list, safety talking points, and on-the-job checklists for employees. For more visual learners, a video was embedded into the PowerPoint to play and review for clarity on railbike parts and safety features. If necessary, closed captioning can be applied.

4368215C-E085-4A96-897D-267E88E02758.mov

Instructional Video

Talking Points

RevRail Talking Points.docx

dos and donts.docx

Do's and Dont's

RevRail Employee Orientation.pptx

PowerPoint Presentation

Reflections

Not only did this group project allow me to work with a real-life client, but I was able to continue developing as an OPWL student. Coming into this project, my goal was to understand content driven theories and navigate a new team-partnership. Now that the training has been created, I feel confident in actually applying my understanding to help assist an organization develop a training to better serve their employees' needs. Taking a systematic analysis approach helped allow provided information to grow into key deliverables and an interactive presentation, better serving the employees and client all around.

As a team, I believe we both worked well and balanced each other out to do what was best for the client.

References

Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning Department (2021). Instructional Design Course Handbook (4th ed.). Boise, ID: Boise State University.

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