Human Dynamics and Employers Reinsurance Corporation
EPSS for Global Processes and Enterprise Software

This Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS) guides 4,000 employees through new global processes and new enterprise-wide software. This performance tool coaches decentralized learners of varying levels of competency. Updates are continuously delivered worldwide, literally overnight [living information]. The net result (Figure 1) is a dynamic online support system [Assistware®], married to the new enterprise-wide software [SICS/nt®] without touching the SICS/nt® source code.

"An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage."

Jack Welch, Chairman of General Electric

Employers Reinsurance Corporation (ERC), a part of the General Electric family, is the second largest reinsurance company [insuring the insurer] in the U.S. and the third largest in the world. Approximately 4,000 employees operate 30 offices around the globe. Operating more like a consortium, rather than one corporation with consistent business practices, ERC committed to consolidating numerous satellite software systems into one centralized Y2K compliant software system, SICS/nt®.

This new vision mandated new global reinsurance processes, integrating the best practices of the past with the new demands of their growing markets. Computer Sciences International (CSI) was tasked with building the SICS/nt® software. Human Dynamics (HDI) was tasked with creating a performance solution.

The goal for the EPSS is to provide an enterprise-wide performance solution that explains the interface, functions, and the sequence of entering data into the system [a train]. However, the user must be oriented while the system is still being developed [a moving train].

All ERC employees must learn to operate the new SICS/nt® system. The EPSS generates learning and best practice performance at the moment of need.

But, how does one bridge the gaps of change [new vocabulary, processes, culture, etc.] and converge on an EPSS? Answer: a rainbow of performance support tools developed with Quest® and Assistware®. This strategy is trademarked by HDI as ‘Integrated Performance Support Solutions’ (IPSS). Facilitator-Led Training (FLT) guides the performer through an integrated series of Technology Assisted Learning (TAL) and EPSS tools to the ‘pot of gold’ [system competence].

This IPSS models three components (Figure 2):

1. Business goals and strategies: the target of any performance solution.
2. Performance: the vehicle of business existence and sustainability.
3. The Rainbow: a spectrum of tools facilitating performance (FLT, TAL, and EPSS).

This model translates into project deliverables and specific tools included in the ‘Starter Kit’ (Figure 3). The first deliverable explains the corporate change and its rationale. This part of the change management strategy is a 3D-animated presentation: A New Day Is Dawning On ERC.

The second deliverable, Getting Started, is a risk-free simulation designed to introduce the new SICS/nt® environment.

The third deliverable, Process Movies, teaches discipline specific tasks (Figure 4). Learners follow along as subject matter experts illustrate the integrated use of EPSS and SICS/nt® to record business. These movie clips [periodically updated] are grouped into subsets of a process. Each set of Process Movies will vary by line of business, locale, or language. The menu, from which the user selects a specific Process Movie, is the new global process

  flowchart.

The fourth deliverable is the EPSS - Assistware Viewer®. The EPSS viewer communicates processes and associated topics. The continuously updated viewer currently has the following types and numbers of support documents.

Finally, Facilitator-Led Training (FLT) introduces the tools and encourages discovery learning. The Super-users Workshop introduces super-users, who in turn introduce front-line performers to the rainbow in a box, the Starter Kit (Figure 3).

The Assistware® bubble appears when the user launches SICS/nt®. The user views the EPSS by dragging the bubble to an image [window, field, button, etc.] requiring further explanation. This linkage is accomplished through screen recognition as opposed to direct source code embedding. Each time the bubble is dragged to a new image, the Assistware Viewer® refreshes and displays a new topic. Navigation can be augmented by manually piloting through the viewer topics using the Contents, History, or Back control buttons, hyper-jumping through hot text, and/or clicking linked subprocess tabs.

The EPSS allows users to quickly drill as deep into the content as dictated by: the task, their competency, and/or the question at hand [just-enough, just-in-time]. Furthermore, with the various forms of navigation, the user’s quest is facilitated by a method best suited to their learning style [situational access]. The viewer has control buttons that provide several quick-function features [Print, Find, Glossary].

Development is an ongoing process with each part [business, SICS/nt®, EPSS] imparting improvements and updates to the other [synchronous performance support]. Updating content is a perpetual affair. A regenerated [updated] EPSS can be redistributed to global users within two hours, as needed.

Prior to the worldwide processes, SICS/nt®, and EPSS systems, ERC relied upon collateral office knowledge and various informal processes to gather and manage decentralized data. ERC was operating more like a consortium, rather than one global business.

Software systems were on different platforms without consistent procedures. Previous software systems did not cater to the ‘novice computer user’. Processes were often based on hand-written notes and typed documents [how to use an old code-based system]. Individuals often developed and maintained personal procedures [unshared corporate knowledge].

Teams were forced to rely on a precious few that knew how to integrate the data from multiple systems. Cross-functional tasks lacked a coordinated flow. Often, employees did not understand why they were collecting data unrelated to the task at hand; thus a great deal of data went uncollected. Sales, marketing, and customer service did not have timely enterprise-wide data at their fingertips to meet customer and prospect needs.

1. The EPSS saved all the time and money associated with traditional rollout classroom training for 4,000 employees. The scope of traditional classroom training was projected to be a minimum of two weeks [three days of basics, one week of discipline specific, and two days of annual refresher/update training].
2. The total cost to develop the entire Integrated Performance Support Solution is less than the direct cost that would have been incurred for rollout classroom training. In addition, ERC now has an ongoing performance support solution that produces additional savings as new people start and veterans need to learn new subjects.
3. Facilitator-Led Training and discovery learning takes less than five hours start to finish, for any discipline.
4. Using step-by-step, context sensitive procedures, a new hire can perform duties quicker and with less supervision.
5. A typical employee from Department X can complete tasks of Department Y, thus allowing faster and more effective cross training.
6. ERC now has a vehicle for disseminating a global vocabulary; business processes are standardized and institutionalized.
7. The business processes are positioned for continuous process improvement; best practices evolve with technology.
8. The new employee orientation program includes A New Day Is Dawning On ERC.
9. Flowcharts have been created to integrate software functionality and business operations.

In short, ERC now has a dynamic, enterprise-wide, global solution providing just-enough, just-in-time performance support.

"Through opportune acquisitions, we’ve been forced to bring together people from various cultures who worked for non-ERC companies with non-ERC systems. The EPSS tools have/will make a significant difference in getting this integration fully accomplished with the cost efficiencies used to make the deals work.

It is also worth noting that our previous culture was such that people could work on the administration system without understanding the business. SICS/nt® with the EPSS has not only informed our staff about the system, but also about the business."

"The bad news is -- it’s [EPSS] not done. But the good news is -- it’ll never be done, it’ll just get better. What you see today is the worst it will ever be."