Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.
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Elearning! Jiffy Lube Employees Find Web-based Training a Hit sive, time-consuming, complicated process, and you were never sure how many stores had updated and how many were using the old CD." Last December, the company moved to Jiffy Lube University (J.L.U.) does more than train technicians. It has a vibrant training brand promoted across 2,000 locations, delivering 1 million training hours annually. Learning is collaborative among executive management, learning teams and franchisees. Jiffy Lube has more than 2,000 franchise stores in the U.S. and Canada, and each store has an average of 10 employees. That's 20,000 learners who service 24 mil- lion customers annually. "Formal J.L.U. training is a policy and procedure requirement for all franchisees and employees," says Ken Barber, Jiffy Lube's manager of Learning and Development. When J.L.U. was established, it included a color-coded (green, yellow, red) "dash- board" that allows franchise owners to see their entire group of stores at one time in a consolidated report or broken down by store. Each of 10 different certification categories is scored, and the dashboard report is the composite of them all. "One of the neatest things is seeing how the awareness of that simple dashboard report has impacted the overall training status of our system," Barber observes. "Everybody wants to look good; nobody wants to look bad. We've seen tremendous improvement in that scorecard since we first rolled it out." Jiffy Lube (a Shell Oil Company) has not always had a Web-based learning sys- tem in place. "Because of technology limitations at the store, we were unable to launch a Web-based program back in 2004 when we first started using computer-based training," notes Barber. "We had to load the sytem on a store computer with a CD, track the results there, then load them each night into the LMS. It was an expen- the Web-based deployment to the majori- ty of its stores that were on a DSL net- work. The remaining 25 percent of its stores should all be converted to Web learning by the end of the year. The majority of Jiffy Lube's training is in conjunction with the J.L.U. certification program. Employees must first complete the courses and pass a final exam. They off. At that point, the individual earns his or her certification." Certification qualifications have been established for all five common positions plus for service specialist, senior service specialist, management training (which consists of nine computer-based training courses) and advanced management train- ing certification (which includes a three- day instructor-led training course). "Today, we have 66 computer-based training courses and 11 ILT courses in the curriculum," says Barber. "Before we roll out a new service, we roll out training to support that service. We can always be con- fident that no one is performing a service who has not been properly trained. So we're continually adding new courses to cover new services and new corporate initiatives." Jiffy Lube has had a long history of a high commitment to training dating back to when it was owned by Pennzoil prior to 2002. Shell purchased Jiffy Lube in 2002. "Training and learning have been a part Kenneth Barber of Jiffy Lube and Catherine Upton of then access D.E.T.O.G. (Daily Training Observation Guide), a form that has the step-by-step procedure for performing a job. Every job and every service has this daily guide, which is used for on-the-job training. After completing computer training, store employees go on the floor under the watchful eye of a supervisor and practice what they saw on the e-learning. Then, that same D.E.T.O.G. form is used as a proficiency exam. "If they do not score 100 percent, they are required to continue to practice," says Barber. "Once they've completed the test, the manager will go into J.L.U. and sign of the Jiffy Lube culture for a long time," Barber notes. "Prior to 2004, it was all manuals and videotapes. But we've always had a wonderful alignment between the business — Jiffy Lube International — and our franchisees. "One of the neatest parts of this journey is the Jiffy Lube Association of Franchisees (J.L.A.F.) training committee, made up of eight franchisees and four from the learning team. Together we have collaborated throughout the process deciding on priori- ties, evaluating material, and refining and supporting the courseware. It has been just a beautiful story of cooperation and support. Last year in the annual franchise survey, the learning team received the highest marks of any department within Jiffy Lube, which speaks highly to the value that it has provided. "We've been very pleased at how smooth- ly we've worked through everything," Barber concludes. "People are enjoying what they see and finding it nice to have access through the Internet." May / June 2011 25 Elearning!