Are you monitoring employee performance and professional development in your team?

Keeping a close eye on the performance and progress of your team members is as much for their benefit as it is for yours. Because when we talk about monitoring performance, we're not talking about micromanaging people, or watching each individual staff member like a hawk – it’s about taking the time to help employees develop.

Many employees become unhappy in their jobs after some time, especially if they no longer find their work exciting or challenging. Professional development is the best way to help staff feel continually challenged, rewarded and energised by their work.

How Professional Development Programs Help Staff

If you’re an employer or manager, you should be taking the time to sit down with each team member, to devise a personalised action plan that will help them plan for their career.

Having a professional development program in place will help employees identify the skills they want to refresh or develop. These can be role-specific skills, for example graphic design, or skills that are focused more on personal development, such as becoming more resilient to change, responding well to feedback or dealing with challenging situations or people.

This also helps staff to identify goals, while coming up with realistic pathways, strategies and timeframes to achieve those goals.

Outside of the office or away from the job site, learning also helps to keep our minds sharp and active, providing further long-term benefits for your personal life and wellbeing.

How Professional Develop Programs Help Organisations

As well as helping staff to take charge and direction of their career, there are obvious benefits for your organisation.

When you invest time and energy into your employees, they’re far more likely to be productive and high performing. This certainly makes for a better workplace culture, which in turn has a positive impact on your company’s reputation, results, and profits.

Fast-paced advancements in technology mean learning and development tools are always changing, offering us more options and more solutions all the time. But you can rest assured that your business won’t be left behind, as your employees will have the skill sets to keep up-to-date with industry advancements.

Professional development also assists knowledge sharing, as managers reclaim more of a mentoring role, passing on skills and knowledge to their teams, and in turn, the greater organization.

Monitoring Employee Performance through Training

So you’ve invested in professional development for your staff, through increased employee training. How do you know if you’re getting a good return on this investment?

That’s where performance monitoring comes in – you need to think about how you’re going to track employee performance.

Consider how you can measure improvements in staff skill levels. Technical skills can often be measured quite easily, in tangible figures and numbers. Productivity itself is a very good indicator of the success of your company’s training methods, allowing you to see if your training program has been effective.

In this way, professional development programs should aim to improve staff competencies and increase productivity, while helping employees set goals for their career.

You also want corporate training programs to help bridge any skills gap present in your organisation, helping to improve the gap between the skills your business wants and needs, and the skills your employees currently have.

Learn More About Monitoring Employee Professional Development

Need a little more help getting started with employee professional development programs?

The Monitoring Performance and Professional Development course looks at the process of assessing and improving work quality, through the creation of employee development programs.

This online course will help employers and managers understand the importance of planning professional development. You’ll learn how to analyse each team member’s past performance, to identify strengths and challenges before setting goals and plans for personal improvement.

You might also like to check out our tips for creating effective professional development programs. This article is full of helpful advice, to help make your learning and development programs even more effective for your staff.


Kickstart your Professional Development program with Go1 Premium

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Why you need to be monitoring employee professional development

After spending some time to walk you through the Go1 Content that is available to Totara Partners in our webinar last month, this month Jamie was back to take a more detailed look at the  Return on Investment for Totara Partners using Go1 Content, and how you can start generating additional Annual Recurring Revenue from being involved.

In this webinar for Totara Partners, we do a step by step walkthrough of the entire process of using Go1 Content from signing up to generating revenue, including working examples based on current average contracts so you can see exactly how the program works.

We did run 2 seperate webinars so we could cover specific details relating to each region, and we have got the recording of both of them available for you below - so please make sure you watch the recap that is most relevant to your business.

If you are based in the United States or Oceania, here is your recap:

If you are based in the United Kingdom or Europe, here is your recap:

If you have any questions about what was covered you can reach one of our team members at totara@go1.com.

If you are a Totara Partner and want to get started with Go1 content, learn more and get started here

Webinar catchup: ROI on Go1 content for Totara partners

It’s nice to have the most up-to-date tech gear, a fancy coffee machine, and a cool open-plan office. However, if your business doesn’t deliver high-quality customer service consistently, it’s almost impossible to stay ahead of the competition. 

Think of your business like a pyramid. Without a solid, dependable foundation — in this case, excellent customer service — the rest of the bricks will inevitably crumble. Only once that is reliably in place can you move on to flashier things, like the most up-to-date gadgets. 

As such, providing consistently excellent customer service is non-negotiable. And one of the most important aspects of good customer service is knowing how to build rapport with your customers. 

Rapport is that feeling when two or more people are on the same wavelength. Sometimes, it can be hard to quantify, but you always know it when you feel it. When you’re building a rapport with customers, you feel ‘in sync’ with each other and are likely to have a good understanding of where the other person is coming from.

When people have a solid rapport, communication and ideas flow easily, leading to high-quality customer service. You might even feel like you’re two steps ahead of your customers, predicting their needs before they even know them! 

With this in mind, we’ll take you through how to establish your foundation by building rapport with customers to improve your team's customer service. We’ll start by analysing the benefits of building rapport with customers, before outlining practical tips for building rapport with customers, and finally detailing online customer service training courses to help you get started. 

The benefits of building rapport with customers

The benefits of building a strong rapport with customers are manifold. Think back to a time when you had a strong rapport with someone else. It could have been a teacher, a manager, or your best friend. How did that feel? In all likelihood, you felt heard, trusted, and like your needs were being met. Customer service is no different. For starters, by developing a good rapport with your customers, they’re more likely to:

Feel confident in your abilities and product knowledge

According to professional speaker and consultant Michele Payn-Knoper, building rapport with customers is critical to show them “you're sincerely interested in a mutually beneficial relationship, critical to selling solutions.”

Or, as ZenDesk explains, “developing rapport with clients can go a long way toward building customer trust and improving satisfaction rates. But you have to show genuine interest in your buyers. Otherwise, your attempts might come off as insincere. And with 90 percent of consumers saying authenticity determines who they buy from, insincerity is a big no-no.” 

In other words, by putting in the effort to build rapport, you’re showing customers that you’re interested in finding the best solution for them and meeting their individual needs. Not only that, but you’re also showing that their needs sincerely matter to you, thereby building trust. 

And this is only the tip of the iceberg, with research showing how critical building rapport can be. For example, Salesforce finds that 80% of customers believe the experience a company provides is as important as their product or service. Unsurprisingly, this means that 90% of consumers believe that customer service is either somewhat or very important when choosing a company to purchase from. 

Additionally, 67% of customers would be willing to pay more to receive a great customer service experience, while 73% of customers will remain loyal to a company with friendly customer service reps. 

Ultimately, these statistics mean that building rapport can benefit your bottom line. In fact, 84% of businesses that prioritise improving the customer experience enjoyed increased profits. 

So, what happens when your customer service isn’t up to standard? Globally, companies lose $1.6 trillion per year due to poor customer service. That’s right, trillion. With a T. 

Further, 62% of customers say they share their bad experiences with others, while angry customers share their bad experiences with 15 people on average. Given this, you're not just losing their business by failing to build rapport, but potentially losing many other people’s business too. 

Finally, 78% of customers have backed out of a purchase due to poor customer service. The bottom line? It’s worth taking the time to build rapport with your customers. Failing to do so could cost you significantly in the long run. 

There’s an old saying that customers first buy into the person and then into the product. That is, they need to feel like they can trust you and like you if they’re going to build a good rapport with you. So, how do you make sure that you’re able to build rapport with each customer?

At its core, rapport is all about establishing a mutual feeling of friendliness and trust. One of the best ways to do this is to highlight things you have in common. Pay close attention to how each customer prefers to communicate and do business. Do they prefer a quick phone call to an email? Would they appreciate a casual, friendly approach or respond better to a more formal communication style?

Some people like to chat before getting down to business, while others respond negatively to any attempts at small talk. Good customer service or sales reps will know how to adapt to different customers to develop a unique and positive business relationship with each individual.

Most importantly, make sure you’re always practising active listening with customers. You need to focus 100% on what they’re saying to be able to meet their needs, wants, and preferences. Active listening is also a sign of respect, meaning customers will feel far more comfortable with you than with other customer service professionals.

Other tips for building rapport with customers include:

Learn their name and make sure you’re pronouncing it correctly — while this may sound basic, nothing breaks rapport quite like someone calling you Julia when your name is actually Julie. 

Be mindful of your customer’s preferred pronouns.

Don’t be afraid to go ‘off-script’ when appropriate.

Restate their problem in your own words to show that you’re listening. 

Establish trust by mirroring the customer. As ZenDesk explains, “sales teams use mirroring—the act of imitating the actions or words of others—to build affinity with prospects. Your support team can leverage this same tactic to develop rapport with consumers. By mirroring a customer’s tone, language, or volume level (within reason), agents can communicate they’re on the same page with them.” 

Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you don’t know the answer to something. 

Try to find common ground and look for relatable, shared experiences. 

Aim for a personalised outcome, not a generic solution. 

Above all, the most vital factor in building rapport is to deliver what you promise. Always. While this should go without saying, customer service people often promise you the world but fail to deliver. Therefore, delivering exactly what you say —  every time —  is the most simple and effective way to create trust and build rapport with your customers. 

If you say you’ll give someone a call, send a follow-up email, or send them a sample product, make sure you do. It’s as simple as that! Not keeping your promises or falling back on your word will quickly undo all your hard work and break your customer’s trust. 

Ready to improve the way you build rapport with customers?

Online learning is a fantastic way to improve your customer service skills, as you can learn aspects of customer service training through short, engaging eLearning courses.

For example, with the Building Rapport: Building Positive Relationships course, you'll learn all about developing rapport with your customers, as well as the four different relationship styles and how to manage them.

Or, you could check out these courses on How to Build Rapport and Building Rapport in Customer Service. 

Remember: taking an online course in customer service isn’t just beneficial for people working in a customer-facing role. Improving your customer service skills will help your professional development — no matter your job. Building rapport is a highly transferable skill whether you’re looking to impress a first date, ace a job interview, or simply build rapport with your boss and teammates.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

One of the most important aspects of good customer service is building rapport with customers. Here we take a look at essential strategies for doing so.

Building rapport with customers through customer service

One of the most important aspects of good customer service is building rapport with customers. So, we'll take a look at essential strategies for building rapport. 

So, you’ve heard about the Six Sigma certification – but what exactly is it and what can it do for your team?

Well, to answer this question let’s start from the very beginning…

Six Sigma was first created in 1986 and since then it has become a popular and successful way to improve businesses and organizations around the world.

Six Sigma is a set of methods that you can use to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your business.

How does it do this? Well,  Six Sigma provides you with a methodology that you can follow to eliminate any errors or problems that are currently hindering your business.

These methods can be applied to anything and any situation and can be used across a variety of industries. It’s not a set of rules that you have to strictly follow - it’s a new way of thinking, identifying and optimizing the processes in your business.

Now that you know Six Sigma can improve businesses processes, how exactly does it do this? Let’s have a look and break down the methods so you can see how it works and how you can use it.

First, it starts with defining the process and what the problem is. After all, you can’t solve the problem if you don’t know what it is or what is causing it.

Once you’ve identified what your error or problem is you can move on to the measuring part of Six Sigma. This involves evaluating your current performance and what’s really happening within your business.

The third step is analyzation. This is where you break down your process and the problems you’ve got and find out what is causing the issues you’re experiencing.

Next, this is your opportunity to think of ways to improve your process and how you can implement those actions into the day-to-day runnings of your business.

Once everything is in place and you’ve figured out what’s needed, it’s all about control to maintain those new actions and sustain a successful process.

There are three levels of certification you can offer your employees – the yellow belt, green belt and black belt. They all offer different rewards for your team and it’s worth look at your options to see which level of mastery you should be shooting for and in what sort of time frame.

So what benefits will it offer your workforce? Quite a few, it would seem:

When you’ve got lots of problems that are holding back your business, this affects your productivity and wastes precious time.

But, by utilizing what you learn through Six Sigma, employees can reduce any errors or problems that are putting a strain on your organization. By identifying the problem and solving it, your team can be more productive and increase revenue.

After all, inefficient processes are costing your business money, so you’ve got to find ways to break the barriers that are hindering your employee productivity.

(Once you’ve eliminated these problems, this also lowers the risk of non-compliance).

With increased productivity comes better time management and these both equal more success for your business!

With Six Sigma, your employees are learning new skills that they can use every day.

The methodology allows your team to practice analyzation skills and problem-solving, as they dive into business processes and figure out what’s wrong and what needs to be improved.

Plus, employees not only find solutions, but they make sure that they’re carried forward to make your business successful.

In addition, Six Sigma is a great way to prepare employees for leadership roles and future promotions within your company and will let you improve your business from the ground up.

When you introduce better processes within your company, this is going to lead to customer satisfaction as the end product. With your business running more efficiently, customers will value the products or services you’re offering them and this leads to customer loyalty and them supporting your business.

What’s more, when your customers are loyal to your business, this means that they can spread  the word about your services or products to people they know. This, in turn, brings around more business for your company.

We all know how important your relationship with your customers is and by minimizing the risk of their dissatisfaction through improving processes, you can retain your customers and they won’t go to your competitors.

When everyone knows how to deal with a problem and has the methodology they need to solve them, your whole business runs smoothly. This means that team members can communicate properly and work together and this leads to higher morale and better team cohesion.

With Six Sigma, you can get everyone working and moving forward together.

All of these benefits of Six Sigma mean that you can improve and make your company more successful. And that’s something we all want, right?

When your team is trained in Six Sigma, you can make sure that any errors in process or problems you’re experiencing are solved. Following the methods of Six Sigma will get you there and allow you to run a business that can handle anything!

We’re always looking for ways to improve our business. So, now with Six Sigma, there’s a tool your team can use to actually do it.


Get Six Sigma Training included with Go1 Premium

How Six Sigma training can help your team

Using positive feedback to fix a problem.

Employee performance feedback - Who wants it?

Let’s face it: Giving your staff negative feedback sucks for you and your employee. You can bet your employees don’t like being told what they’re doing wrong.  So do you sit back and tolerate poor performance or do you bite the bullet and give negative feedback? The thing is, when your employees do something wrong it’s your job as a boss to fix it. So what if there’s a better way?

It’s a small issue, I’ll wait to see if it becomes something worth fixing,

I don’t want to seem petty and risk my staff hating me,

I don’t have the time this. I’ll save it for the performance review, and

Carol always get’s defensive and has an excuse for everything.

Start With Awareness of Where Your Excuses are Self-Limiting Beliefs:

Bad performance affects everyone on your team,

Your inaction sends the message that you condone this behaviour

When employees don’t perform you have to work extra hard as a boss.

Realise the Cause of Your Self Limiting Beliefs

“Good morning Carol. I like seeing you at the desk when I arrive because I know there is someone here to greet our customers.”

“Good morning Carol, I’m glad to see you on the desk. When you’re there I know that everyone else can get on with their jobs without having to worry about covering reception. I appreciate that. Can you please keep that up?”

“Good morning Carol. I’m glad to see you here before start time – now I know I don’t have to worry about covering reception. Can you please continue with that?”

There’s no unpleasantness, confrontations, disagreements or delays and

Take the Positive Performance Feedback Challenge:

Think of the things that your employees are doing wrong. Can you find 5 examples to write down? (This is the easy part!)

For each of these: write down:

 	How much time this costs you and the company
 	How much money this costs in terms of lost sales, extra costs etc.
 	How this makes you feel



These are the problems that you have to fix and how much they are worth to you in terms of time, money and your personal wellbeing.

Use positive feedback to change these behaviours

How much time this costs you and the company

How much money this costs in terms of lost sales, extra costs etc.

Management Skills Tip: When you’re practicing your employee performance feedback, a safe place to practice is in your one on one meetings with employees. My tip is to download this one on one meeting form, where you can make a note of the employee feedback that you want to give and practice it before the meeting.

This isn’t just feedback, this is Effective Feedback which uses specific motivational words tested to be effective. Effective Feedback is a Communication Skill. You can’t increase your IQ but you can increase your EQ (Emotional Intelligence) by improving your communication skills.

Improve your management skills with the online management course “The Power of Positive Communication”. This shows you how to improve employee performance quickly and effectively and without confrontation. Improving your management skills will not only accelerate your own promotions, bonuses and increase but also give you the confidence that you can deal with any employee problem.

Get The Power of Communication in Go1 Premium

Is your onboarding program giving your new hires the best start in your company?

It can take a lot of time and effort to find the right candidate for the job and there’s nothing worse than watching them leave within the first year of joining your company.

Yet, this is a regular occurrence for businesses that don’t also invest their time and effort into their onboarding program.

Having a great onboarding program is the key to success and will make sure that your new employee gets the best impression of your company.

This first real interaction they have with you will be make or break for your business. Employees will judge your company based on this first experience with you, so make it great!

With an onboarding program that eases them into day-to-day life at your company, this will start off on the right foot and make sure they become a valued member of your team.

It should be focused on integration and education – it’s all about building a future with your new hire.

When a new employee has a good onboarding experience, this can fuel commitment to your business, as well as increase employee satisfaction and future performance. This all leads to a low employee turnover, which is exactly what everyone wants!

This is why you should always make your onboarding program a priority in your business. But, a common question is – how can I structure a successful onboarding program for new hires?

After the recruitment process, it’s important to start your onboarding program as soon as possible. After all, your new hire will be excited and will have a lot of energy they want to put into your company. So, strike the iron while it’s hot!

While your new hire might be leaving a previous employer, this doesn’t stop you making the arrangements for their introduction in advance.

It’s all about getting the ball rolling as soon as possible and building on the enthusiasm that your new hire will have after accepting the job. Once all of the formalities are out the way, you can get down to business.

A lot of employers focus on getting a new employee used to the computers and software they will be working on to start with. But, it’s more important that a new hire is introduced properly to the team they’ll be working in.

Getting on and being friends with your colleagues is a bit part of being happy with your workplace. By providing your new hire with time to get to know everyone, you can give them a good start in your company.

So, it’s important to allow your new hire time to connect before the work really begins. That way they can feel comfortable and if they need help, they know who they can go to.

These little actions make a huge difference to new hires and make them feel welcome and free to integrate with the team without there being any barriers.

Now it’s time to introduce training your employee will need for their new role. Sure, you want to get your new hires up to speed with your business as soon as possible so they can get started, but you’ve got to provide them with training to build the skills that they need first.

Otherwise, they aren’t going to contribute as much as you’d like them to and your new employee will feel overwhelmed and out of their depth.

Online e-learning courses are going to make your onboarding program simple yet effective and since there’s hundreds you can choose from, there’s courses for every sector and industry.

It’s easy to get started and you can leave employees to work through the content at their own pace. With engaging videos and colorful presentations, your new hire can remain focused on their training and learn everything they need to know for their new role.

An onboarding program shouldn’t stop after a few weeks into the job. You should make sure that your onboarding program lasts for at least a few months to make sure that your new hire is a fully integrated member of your team and they are happy with their progress.

Meetings should be arranged to review a new employee’s performance. This gives you a chance to review how they’re doing and identify any areas that will need more work moving forward.

Plus, it gives the employees the chance to raise any of their concerns and you can address them to make sure they are happy in their new role.

The great thing about e-learning courses is that you can monitor your new employee’s performance. You can track their scores and progress, which means you can review it together.

This system also means you can set them new tasks and milestones they can reach before their new performance review.

So, now that you know how to structure your new onboarding program, you can make sure you get the most out of your new hires and make sure they stay for the long term.

Employees want to feel valued and invested in. If you put the time and effort into making sure they feel welcome and have access to training to build their skills, they will reward you with good work to make your business successful.


Kickstart your onboarding program with Go1 Premium today

How to structure your onboarding program to get the most out of your new hires

For lawyers and legal professionals, the CPD deadline is fast approaching. Have you made sure you’re meeting your legal CPD requirements?

CPD, or Continuing Professional Development, is an important aspect of working in the legal industry. Developing your skills, and keeping your knowledge relevant and up-to-date, is vital for your clients, as well as your career.

For lawyers, this means making a commitment to continual learning and development within their field.

As you’re most likely aware, the legal CPD year runs from 1 April to 31 March. So now is the time to check that you’ve completed your 10 required units this year!

We’ve put together some information to help you understand more about legal CPD and how Go1 can help you meet your learning requirements.

CPD is compulsory for all employees of legal and professional service firms in Australia.

Regardless of whether you’re just starting out in the industry or are an established partner or owner of a firm, all members must complete the mandatory minimum of CPD hours. This also applies to individuals working on a part-time basis.

By meeting your CPD requirements, you’re showing your clients, employer and colleagues that you’re committed to continual professional development. You’ll be proving that you’re up-to-date with legislative changes and practices within the industry, which is essential to your career.

There are multiple ways you can meet your CPD requirements.

The rules around continuing professional development vary from state to state in Australia, so we do advise you to check the detailed rules for your state or territory.

However, all jurisdictions have in common that 10 units per year is the minimum compulsory requirement, with additional units required in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland for Accredited Specialists.

In general, a unit will generally equate to one hour of live or on-demand activity, in the way of seminars, conferences, webinars, webcasts, or podcasts.

Within your ten units at least one unit from each of the following compulsory fields must be included:

These days, we’re lucky to have the convenience of online learning, which offers legal professionals a far more convenient way to carry out their mandatory CPD training.

With the right eLearning courses, lawyers and legal professionals can achieve their Australian CPD requirements, while also keeping up-to-date with the latest legal updates and market shifts.

To show you what’s out there in the way of online learning, we’ve compiled 5 of the best CPD eLearning courses for the legal industry – take a look and see!

There’s no need to worry about these online courses containing old or outdated information. One of the best things about eLearning courses is that they are easy to edit and refresh – so you’ll always be getting only the most factual and up-to-date information.

Why Choose Go1 for Your Legal CPD Training?

Go1 has your CPD needs covered, with a diverse range of continued learning education and development options at affordable prices.

With our online training platform, you can reduce the hassles associated with finding and registering for 10 CPD units before 31 March.

Through online courses supplied by our trusted providers, you can quickly and easily find and book the units that best suit your requirements. Our providers offer a variety of new activities and areas of law, plus the conferences and seminars you’ve come to expect.

The units are developed and produced by legal education experts, providing you with extensive education and insights into the future of the legal profession.

Go1’s range of CPD options provides you with a simple, one-stop shop, for all your CPD requirements. Take a look through the units available and register today to complete your remaining legal CPD requirements.


Are you meeting your legal CPD requirements?

Today, Friday 16 March, Australian schools will stand united to celebrate the eighth National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence.

While the day aims to address bullying in Australian schools, it’s also a good reminder of the importance of preventing bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Bullying and harassment in the workplace is a serious issue for many Australian workers.

The Impact of Bullying and Harassment at Work

it involves a misuse of power in a relationship

it involves behaviours that can cause harm.

When an employee is suffering bullying or harassment, they are very likely to start displaying unhappy, unmotivated, distracted and unproductive behaviour. Employers can then expect to see a rise in levels of absenteeism, sick leave and staff turnover for their company.

In this way, when bullying becomes a problem in the workplace, it doesn’t just affect the person or people being harassed and targeted. It can very quickly become a problem for the whole company, with poor performance rates, reduced productivity, and low morale across the organisation.

It’s really important that you have a very clear idea of what behaviour is unacceptable in the workplace, to help prevent bullying from occurring.

People who bully or harass others can be very good at using non-verbal tactics or subtle humiliation, instead of direct threats. They often know just how far to push their behaviour, without crossing the line into physical violence or sexual harassment.

Bullying may take the form of continual snide comments about a colleague, putting someone down whenever they pitch ideas to the team, or outright hostility towards another team member. Bullies might also make a point of excluding certain people from team conversations, meetings or project work.

Bullying and harassment in the workplace is a serious issue for many Australian workers, this article sheds light on this important topic.