eMentor blends: eMentor, structured training, and blended learning solutions

RMA Journal, The, July-August, 2006 by Dominic DiBernardi

eMentor[R] debuted as an online credit and lending resource in January 2001. At that time, RMA anticipated that the Web-based eMentor would serve mostly as an on-the-job performance aid, offering an Industry Resources component for underwriting and client prospecting. Meanwhile, as a knowledge component, eMentor offered Business Processes, nine credit and lending lessons presented in textbook format, including review questions, that followed the loan cycle. eMentor integrated knowledge with job tasks to give employees easy, on-the-job access to best practices.

Toward the end of the first year, RMA noticed that Industry Resources generally served as eMentor's subscriber benchmark. In other words, nearly all subscribers used RMA's credit underwriting research capabilities, while use of the training digest (knowledge side) was spotty. However, a good many banks did in fact show a great number of hits in Business Processes, sometimes equaling their usage in Industry Resources. What was going on?

How could RMA account for this wide range of usage on the training side? Interviews with a representative cross-section of subscribers (community banks, larger-asset banks, regulators) revealed that in all cases where eMentor was used heavily in Business Processes, that usage was not individually motivated alone. Rather, it was the result of structured training initiatives in a blended learning environment. Blended learning combines multiple methods (e.g., classroom, online, self-study, and instructor led) to deliver training solutions.

Structured Training.

Three equally important conditions must be met to result in structured training:

1. An institution must furnish a fully articulated and accessible body of expertise pertinent to the job tasks to be performed. Generally, a trainer seeks such knowledge from an internal subject-matter expert, namely an employee on the job like you and me, who displays the relevant skill. However, this straightforward step often presents the biggest obstacle. Workload and on-the-job pressures combine to limit the time available for a chosen expert to stop working and start talking about what it takes to work effectively. Here is where eMentor comes in. The knowledge archive of best practices in commercial lending plays the role of an instant subject-matter expert. It jumpstarts any training initiative with a ready-to-go breakdown of credit risk functions. Likewise, it readily supplements any existing curriculum with its easy-to-integrate topics.

2. Management buy-in is essential. Simply put, structured training is management driven. However, a wide variety of support is available. RMA has found examples that run the gamut from an individual supervisor assigning training goals and the means to achieve them, to enterprise-wide training programs defined by organizational needs. Whatever the case, the importance that management buy-in and leadership lend to the training goal is clear to all.

3. Finally, and perhaps most critically, there must be accountability. The trainee must know from the start that he or she will be required to demonstrate mastery.

While all three conditions must be met for a structured training program, there's a broad diversity of methods when requiring accountability. Figure 1 shows that based on responses from 95 subscribers to RMA's 2005 annual eMentor survey, 70% implement a structured training program.

While a significant percentage of those who implement structured training use assigned reading alone (32%), an almost equal percentage resorts to formal testing (30%)--either self-created tests or an available "diagnostic" test, including RMA's Diagnostic Assessment. A test may either precede or follow a self-directed reading assignment. By contrast, the assignment may be followed by classroom discussion to ensure mastery. In the latter case, one training supervisor selected "Closing the Deal" (historically, an unused section) to supplement an ongoing training program for junior lenders. In the classroom, she followed review and discussion with a series of word games to ensure that new lending associates stayed on the same page, quite literally, by sharing the same terminology. In a pinched-margin, high-volume market, this alignment between training and business goals often provides the competitive edge.

The most fully realized structured training exploits every possibility of the blended learning environment. First of all, the nine eMentor best practices in commercial lending furnish the curriculum. eMentor readings are assigned along with specific written assignments (we used to call this homework). In this on-the-job training environment, the homework displays immediate application of best practices to real-life bank customers and accounts. Classroom discussion follows, and the lesson is completed with the module review questions. [Another article in this issue, by David Vallina, includes a case study detailing one institution's optimal training use of eMentor.]