At Combined Insurance our Learning Center for Excellence was faced with the challenge to transform our facilitation team from a “traveling trainer” model to a “local trainer” model. This required us to release 13 highly skilled seasoned trainers and hire a replacement team in less than a year. We needed to hire, train, and meld a new team without cancelling or reducing our class schedule. Transformation took us through Bruce Tuckman’s four phases of team dynamics, Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing.

To begin, we revisited our Learning Center vision. We defined where we needed to be in the short term and where we wanted to be in the future. We defined skill sets and competencies, and developed Behavioral Interviewing Guides to align with these skills and competencies. We interviewed over a hundred candidates. We created a “teachback” process that enabled us to evaluate trainers in a “real life” situation, and we collaboratively made a decision on each candidate. Once the candidate was hired, we put them through a 10 week onboarding process to ensure their readiness. As we transitioned trainers off and continued to hire, we focused on creating a collaborative team environment. Weekly team meetings, monthly communication meetings, and fun team-building activities helped to foster team spirit.