Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Learning Insights. Brought to you by TrainingPros. When you have more projects than people, TrainingPros can provide you with the right L&D consultant to start your project with confidence. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Learning Insights Radio. And we couldn’t be doing this without our friends are TrainingPros. So, please support them so we can continue to share these stories. Today on Learning Insights, we have Emily Thompson with CoverMyMeds. Welcome, Emily.

Emily Thompson: [00:00:43] Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:45] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about CoverMyMeds. How are you serving folks?

Emily Thompson: [00:00:49] Yeah, I’d be happy to. So, CoverMyMeds is a health care company in Columbus, Ohio. And we help patients get the medications they need to live healthy lives. We’re working hard to solve some of the most common medication access challenges. For some of our solutions, that include electronic pre-authorization, prescription, decision support and specialty patient support services.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:12] And then, what’s your role in the organization?

Emily Thompson: [00:01:15] Yeah, I am the learning and development manager for our patient services team at CoverMyMeds. My team, specifically, supports training and knowledge management and for two patient-centered programs. And our team serves new hires to the business, but also supports continued education and up training for our tenured members.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:35] Now, how did you get into this line of work?

Emily Thompson: [00:01:38] Yeah, good question. So, I kind of stumbled upon CoverMyMeds over five years ago. Joined our, then, very small support team, wasn’t planning to stay long, but quickly fell in love with the people, the opportunities and the real mission behind the work that we did every day. I joined the training team as our second ever trainer in 2016. And previously to CoverMyMeds, I was an adjunct professor. So, I loved education, and training and leading. Fast forward to today, I am leading our learning and development team.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:11] So, now, talk about the initiative about the onboarding plan for customer service that supports two different applications that you guys have.

Emily Thompson: [00:02:22] Yeah. So, as I mentioned, my team supports the training and knowledge management for team members for our two programs. Each program really follows a similar training structure where we take a blended learning approach anywhere from four to seven weeks, our training programs will run. Now, prior to COVID, we were pretty heavy in the classroom, spending anywhere from 13 to 20 sessions in the classroom, heavy on the lecture style. However, we’d always try to find unique ways to stay engaged through different learning games or whiteboarding sessions.

Emily Thompson: [00:02:56] Along with those classroom trainings, we also hold live shadowing sessions. So, we’d set up a new hire with a veteran team member in a side by side. A trainer would come in and shadow the new hire too side by side in office. And we’d always offer an element of feedback too. So, one-on-one feedback discussions with that new hire to discuss areas of strength and growth. The best part about being in office and the most fun part about our training program was our graduation ceremony. So, towards the end of those seven weeks, a new hire would complete their graduation exam. And then, we hold off on in-person ceremony for them with certificates, mimosas, and tend to send them on their way.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:36] So, the purpose of that, not only was to educate, but you were also kind of indoctrinating them in the corporate culture, and personal care and things like that. That was an important component of that when you were doing a face to face?

Emily Thompson: [00:03:49] Absolutely. Our trainers strive to not only educate but really lead team members to achieve such great successes at CoverMyMeds.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:57] So, now, when you had to go virtual, how did you kind of implement, at least, the spirit of some of that face-to-face interaction that was happening?

Emily Thompson: [00:04:08] Yeah, it’s been a challenge for sure. And if I think back to March, I think, overnight, we were told the company was moving to a fully virtual platform over the next following days. So, really, it was an all-hands-on-deck pivotal moment. My whole training team got on a call, and we had to decide how are we going to shift this in-person, seven-week program to fully virtual.

Emily Thompson: [00:04:32] We not only needed to quickly assess the need of the team members from the virtual standpoint, thinking about tech training, what do they need to thrive from home? But also our training programming. So, figuring out, one, how do we be as interactive virtually as we can be in a classroom? And then, what supplemental trainings or activities would we need to quickly create to ensure there’s that same knowledge retention from home? The biggest thing is we know the importance of social connection, especially in training, but as a new hire to the company. So, from the start, we’ve required that all team members, whether it’s in a meeting or a training, have their video on, so that we can get face time with each other.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:13] So, that was one step of it. Like part of it was shadowing and part of it was trainer shadowing the people learning. So, you were getting a lot of kind of human-to-human interaction, kind of looking over each other’s shoulders and being there physically. How do you kind of capture some of that serendipity in those accidental collisions and those kind of improvised moments that happened when you are in close contact. How does that translate to a screen?

Emily Thompson: [00:05:48] Yeah. No, really good question. So, our goal from the beginning with virtual training was to ensure our team members, regardless of tenure, felt supported. We knew that team members could no longer stop by our training space in the office to ask the question or seek advice. So, we’ve gotten feedback along the way through the past eight months of virtual training and working that some team members, especially the newer folks who have graduated, are really feeling a decrease in their confidence with the verbiage on their live calls. They can’t sit next to tenure team members anymore to kind of socially learn and observe other tenured folks’ phone skills.

Emily Thompson: [00:06:28] So, one thing that we’ve added to our training program is something called a simulation team. So, we’ve created this internal simulation team, which is comprised of veteran team members. We set up a new hire and a veteran team member through BlueJeans. It’s the application that we’re using to connect. And they practice calls. So, mock call scenarios, inbound and outbound with a tenured team member, and then seek feedback right away on, “Okay,” and seeing, “How did I do? What feedback can you give me? Do you have any tips and tricks for a future live call?” So, that’s one way we’ve been able to to still offer shadowing, we’re just doing it now through a screen.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:07] And that’s important for the listeners to really understand that you couldn’t just say, “Okay, this is how we were doing it live and in person,” and just cut and paste it into, “Now, this is how we do a virtual.” You have to almost rethink the spirit of what you were trying to accomplish, and then work with the strengths of a virtual in order to deliver those outcomes rather than just, like I said, cut and paste the activity you were doing.

Emily Thompson: [00:07:33] Yeah, absolutely. And another thing we really learned too is just the importance of social learning, especially in this virtual environment. So, before, in office, we’d get in a huddle room with a new hire and give them one-on-one feedback on strengths and areas of growth. Now, we’ve transitioned to doing group feedback sessions. So, we’ll have small groups of new hires jump on a call, turn their video on with a trainer, and listen to each other’s calls together. So, this really allows them to socially learn from each other, and together, take away key improvement areas or strengths as a group.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:09] Now, have you opened up things like Slack channels or kind of other means of communications?

Emily Thompson: [00:08:15] Absolutely. So, we definitely utilize Slack, whether we’re Slack messaging or Slack calling. I think for our training team, in particular, we’ve realized just how socially connected we are and how much we thrive off each other’s energy. So, we work really hard to stay connected via video call, whether it’s Slack or BlueJeans weekly. If not, sometimes, daily.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:36] So, now, I can understand how you’re getting that feedback, and they’re learning together kind of in a group setting, which might be a little different than how they were learning previously. Are you able to capture any of that learning, and then share those learnings with other people in the organization that weren’t part of that many group, and then anonymous way, at least, the key learnings, and the high points and low points?

Emily Thompson: [00:09:00] Yeah, definitely. So, CoverMyMeds as a company does a really great job of instilling a culture of feedback. And we take that to heart too on the training team. We’re always working to find ways to iterate and improve for our next class coming in. So, we capture feedback in a few ways around training. One is we hold skip level feedback sessions. These are small feedback meetings with graduated team members and either myself or a senior trainer, and really just pick their brain and ask them, “What did you love about training? What would you do differently next time? Do you have any creative ideas for us?” We were able to do those in office. And now, we’re doing them virtually the BlueJeans.

Emily Thompson: [00:09:40] We also, since working remotely, have incorporated weekly debriefs with the new hire classes. So, a trainer will get on a weekly call with that new hire class and kind of use it as an open forum. We’ll answer any outstanding questions they may have. We’ll seek feedback directly. We’ll ask them for it. We’ll hold knowledge check activities and really just work to open up space to engage with them virtually.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:03] Now, have you had any way to capture? Like, can you sense almost like if there’s kind of Zoom fatigue where. “Hey, we’re online a lot,” or “This is all I’m doing is online with somebody and I’m getting kind of burned out”?

Emily Thompson: [00:10:20] Yeah, definitely. And CoverMyMeds, as a whole, has worked really hard to preserve our culture even through the screen. To your point, there is a lot of screen fatigue. So, we encourage our new hires and team members across the board to really shut the laptop at lunch, take your break, close the laptop, go get a walk in. But we’re also trying to be creative in holding digital scavenger hunts. We’ve had cooking demonstrations with our culinary staff and random photo challenges, anything to really break up the day. I think our training team even has used some Jackbox Games to play too to just break up heavy training weeks.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:00] So, now, is there anything that’s happening now in this kind of new normal that you think will transfer and maybe just become a part of the new new normal maybe next year?

Emily Thompson: [00:11:12] Yeah, definitely. I am very excited for 2021. And I know the whole company is really excited too for our new campus. We’re hopeful to still offer virtual training. Some team members may not feel comfortable coming into office right away, and we’ll be able to offer them a virtual platform. Also, really exciting is, historically, before we were work-from-home, if you had an appointment or maybe you got a flat tire, you’d have to take a day of PTO because you couldn’t get into the office. Now, we’ll be able to offer that virtual aspect to join a classroom if you’re unable to come into the office.

Emily Thompson: [00:11:47] We’re also definitely going to continue with our simulation team. This is a great way for team members to get exercise reps in before they go live and really sharpen their skills and boost their confidence to get on a live call. And really, we’ll continue our feedback mechanisms. I mean, growth and iteration are integral to the success of our training programs. And we are always searching for new ways to offer an award-winning and creative training experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:13] Now, do you find that just going through this kind of a crisis and forcing your hand to make do with whatever you had, whatever resources you had to kind of improvise on the fly, do you think that when you’re planning for next year and the year after that, you’re going to take some of this and say, “You know what, this is how we’ve been doing things. We thought we were thinking outside the box before, but this really forced us into different boxes that, maybe, we didn’t even know existed,” or are you finding that your mind is now more open to more things that could possibly work and you could leverage to your advantage?

Emily Thompson: [00:12:47] Yes, absolutely. Like I mentioned, we get a lot of feedback from the new hires, and our people on the ground are the ones with the awesome ideas, and we are always open to trying things out. Each class, like I said, we’re trying to figure out, “How do we be more engaged? Sure, we can stand in front of a classroom and lecture all day, but how much retention is really had in those types of settings?” So, we’ve been experimenting currently with different online methods of presentation. So, Mentee is one example that we’re able to leverage. It’s kind of an interactive presentation tool. We’ve all bought personal whiteboards, and we’re using those on the screen through virtual training, and we’re always looking for new icebreaker games to include whether we’re in person or through the screen.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:35] Now, any advice for those companies out there that are struggling with it? And maybe let’s just talk about onboarding a new employee. Anything that you’ve learned that say, “You know what? Definitely do this. You may not want to do as much of this as you used to”? Any advice for those folks that might be struggling with this kind of virtual onboarding?

Emily Thompson: [00:13:55] Yeah. I mean, one thing that we have learned is that the video connection is super important. We’re seeing faces through the screen. We love to see them in person, but I think that that social connection through the video is huge. So, if you’re out there, and you have a platform that allows you to turn your video camera on, I definitely recommend that. It may be weird, you may be concerned you can shower, or your dogs in the background, but it’s really fun to still connect and see people’s faces. And that’s a really important part of learning as well. And just from the training perspective, we’re able to still watch facial expressions or body language, and tell, “Does someone have a question? Is someone furrowing their brow and maybe aren’t getting the concept or are concerned?” And really, that video aspect has been integral to us educating through a camera.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:57] Now, for you personally of having gone through this and it sounds like thriving in this kind of new world that we’re in, can you share a rewarding or surprising part of the year for you that that maybe your team, kind of their resilience or their ability to kind of just power through this was meaningful?

Emily Thompson: [00:15:22] Yeah. I think the most rewarding part for me is that I have brought in four new trainers over the past several months of working remotely. So, we’ve never, as a team, gotten to get together with these four new people and welcome them with real open arms and real hugs. So, that’s been really amazing to see four new team members integrating into our team and fitting in perfectly. We’ve also, within these two programs, been able to train over 400 team members in 2020. And I don’t know the math, but I would say the majority have been virtual. We have a 100% graduation rate and we have had that over the past three years, which is amazing that we still are able to successfully onboard, train, educate, lead people to success even through today’s environment.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:20] And then, as you move into 2021, how do you even go about kind of forecasting this because who knows what the world’s going to be like? Are you just doing things like at a quarter at the time? Like how do you kind of plan the year?

Emily Thompson: [00:16:35] Yeah, I mean, as far as going back into the office and what that looks like, I’m not sure of timing. I do know that CoverMyMeds is putting the health and well-being of our employees as first priority. So, we’ll continue with our virtual platform as is. Of course, still seeking feedback along the way. We hold multiple retro conversations as a training team. After a class graduates, we’ll get together, “What worked? What didn’t? What should we change?” And that’s the beauty of CoverMyMeds is we’re constantly pivoting. I think we joke that the training team is full of professional pivoters and we really look to lean into to the productive discomfort that we’ve seen this year.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:15] So, now, what do you need more of? How can we help you? Are you looking for more talent? What’s on the horizon?

Emily Thompson: [00:17:23] Yeah, great question. I mean, CoverMyMeds is always growing. And for those out there interested in learning more, you can look more into our culture at experience.covermymeds.com. As far as me, I mean, this interview has been an awesome experience, and I love being able to rave about my trainers and my knowledge management team. I heard a quote recently and it’s, “Exceptional leaders solve problems with people, not for them.” So, I’m really eager to connect and learn alongside other thought leaders in the industry. And this has been a good experience. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:56] And then, for you, if somebody wants to connect with you, is the best way on LinkedIn?

Emily Thompson: [00:18:00] LinkedIn would be great. Yes.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:01] And that’s just Emily Thompson on LinkedIn?

Emily Thompson: [00:18:05] You got it at CoverMyMeds.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:07] And then, the website for CoverMyMeds is covermymeds.com if somebody wants to learn more?

Emily Thompson: [00:18:13] Correct. You got it.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:14] Well, Emily, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Emily Thompson: [00:18:19] Thanks, Lee.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:20] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Learning Insights. And remember, this work would not be possible without our sponsor, TrainingPros. Please support them, so we can continue to share these important stories.

Outro: [00:18:34] Thank you for listening. For more information about TrainingPros, visit their website at training-pros.com.