What is the future of Learning & Development in a Collections Environment?

The Covid-19 crisis has turned everything on its head. And uncertainty, doubt, changed working conditions and job loss, coupled with the need to adapt quickly to changing situations, all elevates the importance of learning and development. From a nice-to-have to a crucial element of recovery, many companies are realising that upskilling and building capability in frontline and collections staff is the key to long term sustainability and growth. The companies that are investing in their staff now will be reaping the rewards for years to come.

But what are companies wanting to achieve in terms of learning and development in this ongoing pandemic environment?

Throughout the past year, at eMatrix we have trained over 2500 frontline and collections staff and Leaders from over 30 different organisations. Learning & Development teams are looking to collaborate and work closer with external training providers due to the increased demand for training and compliance.?There are 3 key areas of training focus that have emerged:

1. Building resilience and improving mental well-being of staff in increasingly challenging roles.
2. Improving customer engagement and support in a pandemic situation.
3. Upskilling Leaders to manage and coach within challenging environments.

Staff that are trained and upskilled in the above 3 areas are equipped with the skills, language, knowledge, and toolkits to perform their jobs much more effectively. They have a healthier mindset, are more motivated and provide a better customer experience. And with improved competency, comes increased productivity and commercials. This creates a win for the business, the customer, and the employee.

In fact, according to LinkedIn, 94 percent of employees would stay with a company longer if there was an investment in learning. And there is a clear benefit in retention. Lower attrition rates translate to higher cost savings in terms of less onboarding of new employees and in terms of increased productivity from more experienced staff. According to the Huffington Post profit margins can be as much as 24% higher for those companies who invest in training.

So how has the approach to L&D changed?

Prior to Covid, Learning & Development teams sometimes struggled to get a cohesive approach to training across the business with many training programs created for individual teams and no company wide buy in. Training could sometimes be sporadic and eMatrix conducted most training in person through face-to-face workshops. Whilst we are enjoying in person delivery now again wherever possible, there is a clear need for training delivery to be more flexible and sustainable for companies. We need to think about training differently, time for a new approach.......

Since Covid, collections and frontline teams are facing new challenges such as increased payment times, more customers facing hardship and vulnerability and burnout among staff. As a result, more and more organisations are now investing more in bespoke training solutions that can be adapted for different teams but that create a cohesive customer experience across different touch points, build staff resilience and improve customer engagement. That has led eMatrix to develop specialised learning content into over 60 bite-sized learning modules that can be licensed or bought outright and utilised across several departments within the same business.

This unique training solution:

Provides specialist content for frontline and collections staff in customer engagement, conflict resolution, effective collections, hardship, vulnerability, leadership and wellbeing

• Is designed to be leader-led with full instructor guides
• Provides internal Leaders/Trainers with expert content and the support to own their solution and roll out themselves
• Has the option for eMatrix facilitation of modules if required
• Is flexible and adaptable with ready-to-go specialised content that can be tailored and branded to individual company requirements.

Forward Thinking

Forward thinking organisations from top tier Banks, Energy, Water, Government, Insurance and Commercial are now choosing this type of solution wanting to leverage specialised content and put their own stamp on it to make it a unique and sustainable inhouse solution to get better outcomes for their business, their customer, and their staff.

A spokesperson of a South Australian government agency sums it up,

“our partnership with eMatrix has spanned eight years and their training solutions continue to evolve as our needs - and those of our customers - change. Their latest offering gives us continual access to over 60 expert modules and puts us in control of our own training solution internally. Our leadership group have now been upskilled and supported by e-Matrix to roll out this content and this has resulted in a robust coaching program, a sustainable training program, an improved employee experience who feel valued and recognised, and an improved customer experience. An increase in commercials has also proved the investment and partnering with e-Matrix has been a valuable and worthwhile collaboration”.

How is your Learning & Development evolving in these changing times? Are you getting the best out of your collections, hardship, and frontline teams?

Jodie Bedoya is Director of eMatrix Training, Collections & Vulnerability Training Specialists. She can be reached on 0438 391 500 or [email protected]