FLYING FISH CREATIVE SERVICES

All of a sudden, hundreds of employees need training, that training tracked, and performance evaluations conducted, across multiple time zones, and on multiple levels.

For Marcy Bienvenu, the Human Resources Manager at Edgen Corporation, a pipe and pipe-fitting distribution company, this was her reality. And it was far from a happy one.

“FedEx’ing performance evaluations to our offices became a nightmare,” she said. “We had massive lost productivity, with different departments constantly mailing different evaluations to other departments – no one office knew what any other office was doing. We didn’t know who was trained, who was evaluated, when the next deadline was – we needed a change.”

CITGO Petroleum Corporation was in a similar situation, but from a much bigger perspective. Dee Samudio, E-Learning and Technology Development Manager, was sure that the best way to implement an online Talent Management System was from a perspective that focused first and foremost on human capital. Much like Edgen, CITGO was trying to figure out how to manage their best resource – their employees – and make sure that across-the-board, the company was excelling at talent management which includes employee development planning, training, leadership development, resources, learning management, and succession planning.

Another organization, Synergy Healthcare Group, Inc., was faced with a learning problem. They were also dealing with rapid growth, plus new offices and employees that required frequent training. The system with which they were working was not able to keep up with the rate at which Synergy was growing. They were facing massive difficulties in e-Learning, as well as problems with training new employees and up-training current ones.

The solution, for all three of these major players in their respective spaces, was partnering with Baton Rouge-based Flying Fish Creative Services, Inc.

Founded in 1998, Flying Fish is a comprehensive provider of e-Learning training programs delivered via the Internet to corporate and government clients. Specializing in learning management and custom e-Learning development, they have implemented Internet-based learning systems successfully in a wide range of government, corporate, and technical environments. Over 100,000 personnel worldwide benefit from e-Learning solutions delivered by Flying Fish.

Flying Fish has gained a stellar reputation for consistently being able to deliver initiatives that support the strategic plan and goals of an organization. In a nutshell, Flying Fish helps organizations prepare their workforce for any initiatives that senior management plans to implement. Some recent examples include preparation for ERP software implementations, process improvements, quality initiatives, and training updates. For example, Flying Fish assisted the State of Louisiana, Office of Administration with preparing their staff for a SAP implementation. Flying Fish assisted Entergy Services (a public utility company) in preparing their staff for a PeopleSoft implementation. Again, Flying Fish assisted Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding Systems with an immediate need to rollout an organization-wide Quality Initiative training to 1,100 employees. All were done seamlessly, without disruption, and at dramatic cost savings.

“Our philosophy is that we don’t simply offer a product to a client, but rather, we partner with every individual client to find a true solution to their specific needs. No matter how big or small a company is, no two companies are exactly the same. We believe that our key differential is tailoring every project to the client’s needs, as opposed to tailoring a client to fit our technologies,” said Peter Ranzino, President and Founder of Flying Fish.

Putting it in the pipeline…

For Edgen Corporation, (remember the 18-office, overnight mail nightmare?) the key was simplicity.

“We were able to design a package that worked for Edgen, by focusing on what they needed, and eliminating the majority of “time-wasters” that came with paper and non-online information,” said Peter Ranzino.

Marcy Bienvenu agrees.

“Flying Fish came in and listened. That was key right there – they listened to what we needed.”

“Once we explained what we wanted, Flying Fish designed a complete online performance evaluation package for our managers. This immediately allowed every manager to go online, see their specific employee’s evaluations, and “one-click” everything,” said Edgen’s Bienvenu.

“Managers could get right to the heart of the review, and spend more time working with the employee on what needed work, and less time on filling out, printing, and mailing the evaluation to their superiors.”

“Right now, we have all the performance evaluations online. The senior manager could see the supervisor’s evaluations before they were even printed out, helping to save us just a ton of time.”

“We were so pleased with our online evaluations, we then partnered with Flying Fish to host our entire Employee training,” Bienvenu added.

This allows Edgen to focus on their company – and let their IT department handle the business of the company, while using Flying Fish’s hosting services.

For Bienvenu, the benefits are immediate.

“It’s been great. I can use CareerMap, Flying Fish’s Learning Management System, every month for so many different things. I log in, give an employee a deadline date, and I’m done. It’s very convenient, easy, and even managers who hate using the computer say it’s the easiest they’ve ever used. Every screen tells you what to do next.”

“Flying Fish has really delivered for us. It’s wonderful,” she added.

Synergy Health Care: Keeping Synergy in synergy:

Audrey Dugas, Vice President of Human Resources for Synergy Health Care Group, Inc, was finding that with massive growth, came much bigger needs?

The problem for Synergy was two-fold. On one hand, they have training that needs to occur annually. Fine, if you’re one office, but Synergy has grown, and is now spread out over 20 offices.

Second, Synergy has an online orientation system that while once great, is now not a cost-effective solution. For every new hire, Synergy was spending a minimum of $100 per hire simply on orientation training.

They needed an option to allow their training to be pushed out on the web, and most importantly, they needed a more cost effective training solution that would prevent Audrey and her staff from visiting twenty offices every three weeks.

“What we wound up looking for was a true learning management system. Flying Fish had the ability to be that and more. They could host for us, as an ASP Provider. This was perfect. We have a small IT department, and to have a service provider who could handle this for us was a dream come true,” said Dugas.

“With Flying Fish, we own the content, but they host it through CareerMap and manage our training data. Best of both worlds,” she added.

Flying Fish was able to seamlessly convert all of Synergy’s PowerPoint training to web-deliverable, audio-based training courses. This saved massive amounts of time for Synergy.

Synergy also had Flying Fish implement CareerMap, their learning management system.

This delivers not only a complete and robust full-scale learning management system, but also offers regulatory compliance courses, and allows Synergy to host third-party online sales training courses.

“The consolidated learning system has saved so much time for us,” said Dugas. “

“Previously, managers were going to several different applications to get training, complete surveys, or simply find information! We didn’t want our managers wasting that much time. Now, they simply go to CareerMap, and they’re done.”

Dugas also liked how Flying Fish worked.

“The Product was very, very sophisticated. Great reporting capabilities, plus the ability to do more. We’re considering using it for much more – satisfaction surveys, and the like.”

“As a business, I expect the vendors we choose to respond in a timely manner to any customer service-related issues that may come up. Flying Fish, again and again, continues to go above and beyond the call of duty. This is not as common as one might expect, especially for companies that are performing multiple tasks for us. However, Flying Fish has always been there whenever we’ve had a question or concern, and has always been professional, quick, and exceptionally responsive,” noted Dugas.

Flying Fish implemented a solution that worked specifically for Synergy. It’s for this that Flying Fish continues to earn their stellar reputation. It’s not simply about “a project for a client,” but rather, each client having specific needs, to which Flying Fish tailors each specific project. For Synergy, that’s what sold them.

CITGO: How do you manage Human Capital?

CITGO knew that the only thing that separates them from other companies is, in fact, their people.

Knowing that employees are the most valuable asset is only one half the battle. How do you use that knowledge to your advantage, and make it work for you?

Through the partnership developed with Flying Fish, CITGO was able to begin implementation of some of their ideas.

CITGO explained that they’ve been using other software to do things like track accounting, what employees do, job titles, and the like. But CITGO explained that they were looking for more than that – CITGO wanted to truly tap the power of their company – the human capital.

With 4,300 employees, that’s a lot of talent.

“We decided to design and build a custom Talent Management System to facilitate this process and relied on the technical expertise of Flying Fish to build this suite of systems.,” said Dee Samudio.

The first piece of the Talent Management System was to have Flying Fish build the Performance Management System which employees and managers use for goal setting, development planning, and completing their performance appraisal. The next major implementations to follow are the Learning Management System, and the Succession Management System. Flying Fish worked together with CITGO and decided on the best course of action and implementation. Once the project was agreed on, it was a simple question of putting the systems in place, without disrupting the day-to-day workflow.

• Performance Management: The manager and the employee set specific goals in January. Then, in the middle of the year, the manager and the employee reconnect to discuss the employee’s performance, progress toward the goals, and any adjustments that need to be made. Then finally, at the end of the year, a formal document is produced, allowing both the employee and the manager to look back over the year and analyze what took place, and what goals were obtained.

This is all completed online, and the manager and employee can refer to it at any time, without having to find paperwork, go into files, or waste time.

• A Learning Management System: The LMS tracks what every employee at CITGO has learned. What classes have they taken? Instructor led, or online? What safety and regulatory classes have they completed? Where are the employees with what certifications?

“Keep in mind, the LMS is critical on so many levels – Not only does every class taken by every employee need to be tracked and logged, but these records need to be available at any given time to show other managers, and in some cases, government bodies. So having this entire program online will make life much less complicated,” said Samudio.

• Finally, Flying Fish will implement a Succession Management System for CITGO. This important component will facilitate the process of strategically analyzing our talent and considering them for critical positions. The goal is to get the right person in the right job at the right time.

“This will be really helpful to us,” said Samudio. “The Succession Management System tracks all the nominations of any of our critical positions, and then also crosses that with specific people who should be considered for those positions, based on information in both the LMS and Performance Management System. It then helps develop career paths best suited for each individual on the succession plan for critical positions.”

Flying Fish knows that no matter how great the tool and how seamless the implementation, it doesn’t mean anything if the employees don’t want to use it. And when you have 4,300 employees, they need to not only use the tool, but embrace it. It needs to make their lives more productive.

“There’s a difference between a tool and something employees will actually use to manage their career. Flying Fish had an understanding of our business and our vision, and saw where we wanted to go. It’s a true partnership,” said Samudio.

Understanding – it’s what separates a partnership from a mere relationship – and for Edgen, Synergy, CITGO, and many other small and large companies across the street and around the world, it’s what separates Flying Fish Creative Services from any other vendor.