Kim Tews, a senior learning consultant for Walgreens, consults with business and HR leaders to assess and identify training needs and develop learning strategies and solutions. She was previously instructional design team lead and a senior instructional designer with Walgreens, and she previously held sales, marketing, and training roles at CDW. She has also participated in various volunteer roles with organizations that focus on supporting messages of hope and faith to the less fortunate. Kim graduated with bachelor’s degree in business and marketing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She is a member of the International Society for Performance Improvement.
What are some specific training challenges in your industry?
Within the retail store environment, it can be challenging to balance the need for training with the need for the store team member to be available to customers. It’s a very fast-paced, customer-focused, fluid environment, which can make it challenging for a store team member to leave the sales floor and devote time to training. To address this challenge, we provide learning activities in multiple formats, with only a small portion of training occurring in the traditional format where they sit in a classroom or take an online course. Instead, we focus more on providing learning experiences and exposures through on-the-job activities, mentor programs, action learning, job rotations, etc. We also try to chunk learning so the team member doesn’t have to complete all the training at once. Finally, we make sure that all the training is customer-focused and supports our efforts to help customers be healthy and happy. If it’s not supporting our customer care framework, it’s not something we train on.
How do you determine which learning solution to recommend?
There are many facets that influence the learning solution, and sometimes there is more than one learning solution that meets the needs of the business. Some primary considerations include the audience, the timeframe, the technology available to the learner, the budget, the magnitude of the project, the impact on the customer, etc. One of the challenges in my role is to open the client’s eye to other possibilities. Often they have a specific, singular learning solution in mind that isn’t the best solution, and I get to explore other potential approaches with them. For example, I had a business partner ask me if the L&D team could create an instructor-led training. As we started to probe a bit, I realized that she defaulted to an ILT because that’s all she thought training could offer. The end solution was a combination of webinar, job aids, special support teams created specifically for this initiative, and involvement from field human resource partners.
Any tips when rolling out new learning intervention to make them sticky and successful?
I love The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning by Wick, Pollock, and Jefferson. I believe that if you follow the 6Ds approach, the learning will be “sticky” and impactful. With this approach, you start by thinking about the business outcomes and what the team members will do (or do differently), and you follow a process all the way through to learning results. Training is not effective unless you ensure it changes/improves team member performance in a way that positively impacts the business results. While it’s hard to quantify, training should have an ROI.
Tell us about a career highlight and why it was impactful.
One unexpected career highlight was when I moved from a role as an instructional designer to a learning consultant role. The two roles are very different, and I thought I would really struggle in the consultant role, in part because I love the design-and-develop piece of the instructional designer role. I found that the consultant role offered me development opportunities and strengthened my negotiation skills. With some coaching from my leadership, I was able to successfully transition into the role, and I am now closely aligned with specific business units. In this role, I can help influence the business and am considered a partner as we work to execute on a strategy.
What does success look like when building onboarding programs?
For day one of onboarding, it’s critical to have high-energy facilitators who have a sincere love for the company. First impressions are critical, and learning from someone who is enthusiastic about the future of the company provides confirmation to the new employees that they’ve made the right decision to join the company. Beyond day one, I’ve also seen great success when new employees are given an opportunity to participate in structured networking. It gives the employee a sense of belonging and helps them to feel supported. Additionally, providing a new team member with a peer mentor is helpful. A final thought is to remind new employees that it can take 6-plus months to truly onboard into a new job. Attending a one-day or one-week orientation isn’t going to do it; it’s not a single point in time, but a period of time.
What is the first thing you focus on in a new role?
Getting to know the internal business you’re supporting. Shadowing someone in the same or similar role and collecting best practices. Gaining alignment with your leadership so you are driving in the right direction. Seeking a mentor who has previous experience in the role or business unit.
What is your favorite go-to resource?
My dad runs his own business with multiple stores. While it’s much smaller than Walgreens, he still has similar work experiences. Sometimes I bounce ideas off him, and I really appreciate that someone in the family understands where I’m coming from.
Topics: Interviews with Learning Leaders