Veterans Employment Training Coursedevelopment Services for OPM S Veterans Services (VS) Office

PowerTrain, Inc. | Blueprint Document

Course Development Services for OPM’s Veteran Services (VS) Office 1 November 2016

Veterans Employment Training CourseDevelopment Services for OPM’s Veterans Services (VS) Office

Blueprint Document for Course Development
1 November 2016
PowerTrain, Inc. / www.powertrain.com

Background

The Veterans Services Office in the Employee Services Division of OPM provides Government-wide leadership and direction to improve the Federal employment opportunities for veterans, transitioning military service members, military spouses, and their families. The purpose of this project is to develop a new course that merges and overhauls the separate existing trainings for HR professionals and hiring managers; it will provide information each need to do their individual jobs well and will also guide them in how best to work together.

The new merged course will reflect legislative, policy, and practice changes while providing a redesign using instructional design principles to maximize audience engagement. In support of these efforts, PowerTrain will design the new course with a more contemporary interface, increased interactivity, and use of multi-media approaches, gamification, and animation.

NOTE: The two existing courses can be found at the following links:

· Veterans Employment Training for Federal Hiring Managers: http://hru.gov/Course_Catalog.aspx?cid=42&mgr=false

· Veterans Employment Training for Federal Human Resource Professionals: http://hru.gov/Course_Catalog.aspx?cid=43&mgr=false

Course Goals

What follows is a list of objectives for learners, to be stated at the beginning of the course and to be satisfied upon course completion. This is a merged list based on the two separate lists from the existing courses for hiring managers and HR professionals. This merged list of objectives still needs approval from the VS team.

· Describe the benefits of hiring veterans.

· Define Veterans’ Preference and describe why veterans receive preference.

· Identify the key points of the Veterans Employment Initiative.

· Explain how special appointing authorities can be useful in recruiting veterans, and describe the uses of each special appointing authority.

· List methods for working with the hiring manager and VEPO to cultivate a ready recruitment source of veterans.

· List recruitment strategies that will increase veteran hiring.

The new course will also cover crucial gaps in the old training:

· Roles need to be clearly identified in the new course.

o The hiring managers don’t need to know a lot of detail, whereas the HR specialists need to know specific policies and processes.

o The HR specialists need to really “know their stuff” so they can assist the hiring managers well and communicate well with them.

o Emphasize the importance of partnerships more generally.

· The current training does not provide any “how-to” information.

o These will be the more interactive and/or scenario-driven pieces, possibly using a YouTube-type frame to feature webcam videos by real people, explaining a particular process.

· Include the Gold Star Act and other VS-provided materials posted on online review site <http://www.powertrain.com/Review/VS/menu.htm> that have come out since old training was created.

The goal of PowerTrain’s design work in this project is to enhance the current content so that it is fresh, up-to-date, and more engaging to course users. To meet this goal, PowerTrain will create a new interface and add interactions, videos, and animations to the existing course content to bring the basic content to life.

Target Audience for New Training

The primary audiences for the new course is the same as the audiences for the existing courses, except now there will be a single merged course for both:

· HR Professionals

· Hiring Managers

However, there are other stakeholders who will possibly take the course as well. They include:

· Council on Veterans Employment

· Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs)

· Deputy Human Capital Officers

· Program Managers

· HR Directors

Other agencies are able to develop their own trainings on hiring veterans, but this training is provided by OPM as a service to all agencies. It provides a broad overview.

Prerequisites

None.

Design Meeting Overview

Introduction & Purpose

In the design meeting on 20 October 2016, we first introduced the PowerTrain and OPM/VS personnel who will be involved with this project. Although a full list of involved personnel and their contact information is available in the appendix, attendees included: Cathy Frederick-Bittner (PowerTrain), Jessica Garratt (PowerTrain), Thom Bittner (PowerTrain), Elizabeth Finley (PowerTrain), Priscilla O’Donnell (PowerTrain), Kelly Woodall (OPM VS), Hakeem Basheerud-Deen (Director of Veterans Services), Linda Cliett (GSA), Joycelyn Jones (VA), Shannon Carroll (VA), Cindee Smith (USCIS SME), Shirley Robinson (ED), Faith Washington (HUD), Rebecca Huey (OPM/MSAC HR Evaluator), and Eric Brown (OPM/VS team member).

The purposes of this meeting were to brainstorm ways to:

· Improve the Veterans Employment Training courses and merge them into a single course for both hiring managers and HR professionals.

· Gain clarity on any initial questions.

· Confirm aspects of the project’s original proposal.

· Agree upon some basic assumptions.

· Brainstorm and make design decisions (interface, interactions, videos/animations, etc.) that will guide the rest of course development.

Background, Primary Messages, WBT Likes & Dislikes

At the beginning of the meeting, VS team members provided valuable context for the course and its uses, the ways it needs to be improved, and design choices they do and don’t want for the new course. For example, the course should aim to remedy a lack of understanding regarding hiring veterans and should also make the process less daunting for hiring managers and HR professionals. To this end, the course should emphasize the following:

· Veterans’ Preference is law.

· There’s no need to be afraid of Veterans’ Preference.

· There are numerous options available to make their jobs easier, including using special hiring authorities and learning to write better job announcements

· The course Toolkit feature will help student know exactly where to get the information they need to make their jobs easier when it comes to hiring vets.

· “What’s in it for me?” (There will be a marketing element to this course.)

Furthermore, this will be a mandatory course taken every year, and will act as a broad overview designed to keep the topic of hiring veterans fresh in the minds of Federal hiring managers and HR professionals. Because of this, the course should not feel like a “burden” or be longer or more complicated than is needed to effectively communicate the content. PowerTrain will also make ample use of humor, animation, webcam videos, and a social media theme in order to engage the audience and help them connect to the content in a livelier way.

The new merged course will stress the partnership between those in each role, and how they work together for the best results; in other words, the course should not just help the audience help veterans, but should help them help each other in their jobs. This course should make their jobs easier, maximizing the “What’s in it for me?” element. (In this way, the course serves a marketing purpose as well.)

We also discussed priority course content, including answering the question: “What are the top 5 messages you’d like your audience to take away from the course?” Everyone on the VS team wrote two or three messages down on sticky notes, and put them on the whiteboard. Then the team members worked together to group like messages into categories.

The results of this activity are reflected here:

Process Knowledge

· We need to address confusion on where to start and how to hire a veteran.

· Knowledge of the hiring flexibilities, authorities, and benefits for veterans. Many exist but they are not required training, so they are largely unknown to managers and HR professionals.

· HR professionals should be confident in the veteran’s hiring process and the regulations.

· Importance of applying Veterans’ Preference.

Myth-busters and Core Messages to Convey (Marketing)

· We need to emphasize that only 1/3 of new hires are veterans.

· Myth: Non-vets may as well not apply for Federal jobs.

· Veterans’ employment can help both vets and agencies achieve mutual goals.

· The importance of vets in the Federal Government.

· Myth: Vet blocking cert – “Qualifications Based”

· Myth: You have to hire unqualified veterans.

· “I didn’t know I could hire a veteran at such a fast pace!”

· Many hiring managers have biases against hiring vets based on past experiences.

· For hiring managers: veterans hiring authorities are a quick way to fill positions.

· Why is veterans’ employment important and what are the benefits?

· Myth: Only 10-point vets get referred.

Hiring Process

· Why hire veterans?

· How to recruit veterans.

· JOA must be specific with qualifications.

· A well-written job announcement can help you hire the best person, vet or non-vet.

· How can hiring officials and HR professionals partner with each other to hire veterans?

· Better knowledge of the veteran hiring process.

· How do I non-competitively select a vet?

Policy and Preference

· There are many hiring authorities to choose from, based on an agency’s needs.

· What is Vet’s Preference and why do I have to give someone preference?

· Knowledge, importance, and application of EO 13518 (which is the driving force behind this course)

Resources and Toolkit

· Gold star act (gap in the current course).

· Point to other resources. Where do I go to get more help/information?

· What tools and resources are available to assist the stakeholders?

Over the course of our conversation, the VS team expressed several likes and dislikes when it comes to the current trainings and WBTs in general.

VS’s LIKES include:

· Use of humor (for example, a “womp-womp” sound when you get a KC wrong)

· KC feedback that is descriptive

· Less text on the screen

· Scenarios to get across information in a more applicable way

· Videos and animations to get across some of the information that’s simply stated as text on the screen in the current training

· A clean-looking interface

· A way to take notes or be provided with summary take-away notes at the end

· Myth-busters

VS’s DISLIKES (in current course or other courses) include:

· Text-heavy and information-heavy screens

· Lots of patriotic use of design or picturing of people in military garb (This course is about what comes after service in the military.)

· The dated look and feel of the interface

· KCs that ask the student to type into a text box, but don’t make subsequent use of it or provide individualized feedback to the learner responses

Design Ideas & Discussion

In the next phase of the meeting, PowerTrain reviewed the sample courses provided by the VS team before the meeting, demo’d some sample interactions and animations created by our Graphics team, and explained possible interaction and design ideas (including a social media theme) for the new course to make it more engaging to the learner. A brief list is included in the design meeting agenda (Appendix 2 at the end of this document). More detailed decisions and conclusions of the PowerTrain/OPM/VS design meeting are outlined in the section of this Blueprint document called “Major Design Decisions.”

Meeting Conclusion: Schedule & Review Process and To-Dos

At the conclusion of the meeting, PowerTrain and VS discussed review schedules and timelines for the development of this project. The full schedule can be found on the online review site (http://www.powertrain.com/Review/VS/menu.htm ) as an Excel file. OPM VS will have a 5-day review cycle for smaller deliverables and a 10-day review cycle for the Alpha and Beta. Smaller review cycles include, for example, the 6- to 8-screen Prototype (illustrating the interface, programmed functionality, and major screen types and interactions in the course redesign). For each review cycle, PowerTrain will provide a Word doc where OPM VS may record a consolidated list of edits for that deliverable. [Note: The use of Google Docs was discussed as a live and efficient tool, but noted that it is blocked at OPM. Kelly is looking into other options for more efficient consolidation of feedback.] The list should be as specific as possible and should not contain internal VS notes, but rather should reflect final decisions made by the VS team.

We also discussed specific action items and next steps for both OPM and PowerTrain.

PowerTrain To-Dos

· Blueprint document reflecting design meeting decisions and discussions

· Meeting notes—generate and post on review site

VS To-Dos

· Kelly will finish collecting stories/case studies to be used for scenarios. (These will focus on myths and marketing.)

· Coordinate with HRU so that the prototype may be loaded there to be tested.

· Check on the OPM seal question (which one should be used).

Major Design Decisions

Summary

· See “Animation & Video Summary” in the next section below for decisions on use of video & animation throughout the course, including use of CrazyTalk, webcam videos, etc.

· Social Media Theme: This will be woven throughout the course as an engaging, contemporary way of conveying content. We will focus on the following platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. [A fake version of each will be used.]

· Webex/Teleconference Frame: This will be used to feature HR professionals and hiring managers in conversation with each other. Strong communication between people in these two roles should be a key point/idea dramatized by the course.

o An idea was offered during the design meeting to have a pre- and post-story that consists of conversations between an HR professional and a hiring manager, showing how they’ve learned something important about a particular subject. The teleconference frame could work well for this.

· New course title: “Veterans Employment Training”

· Marketing element of the course will be highlighted in the beginning of the course and via characters in scenarios.

· Printable PDF of course: It was decided that this will NOT be included in the course.

· Do NOT play up the patriotic military theme or feature lots of graphics of people in uniforms. Agencies are hiring a person with qualified job skills, not just someone in the military.

· Some good fields to highlight, if we represent particular occupations in graphics, are: cyber and medical.

· Assessment/Knowledge Checks:

o This course will only have ungraded Knowledge Checks (KCs), no formal assessment.

o The course certificate will be earned based solely on course completion.

o VS expressed the following desires for all KCs in the course:

§ Provide descriptive, substantive feedback. (Feedback should specify why an answer is wrong or right.)

§ Disable Next.

§ Use plenty of scenarios as fodder for KCs.

§ Err toward not using fill-in-the-text-box questions unless there is tailored feedback or a helpful take-away (such as generated notes or an action plan generated at the end of the course based on the learner’s responses).