“In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin
As training professionals, we’ve all been involved in change. Whether on an organizational or an individual level, managing change is a large part of the responsibilities for the training function. I don’t have to tell you it can be a time-consuming – even all-consuming – process.
Now imagine that change is more than the occasional duty. Imagine laboring every day in an environment of constant change, mission-critical change, government-mandated change. Change in personnel, change in certification, change in codes, policies and procedures.
Mr. Franklin could easily have said nothing is certain but death, taxes and change. But then Mr. Franklin wasn’t familiar with the tax-preparation industry, or the work being done at the approximately 6,400 offices of Jackson Hewitt Tax Service around the United States.
Once upon a time, there was tax season and the rest of the year. While that’s technically still true, the concept of “off season” is fading, as associates spend their summers, falls and winters on projects that aren’t focused around April 15. Projects like training, for instance.
“As you can imagine, with a seasonal business, there’s not a lot of time,” said Barbara Jordan, Vice President of Learning for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. “Everything’s happening at the same time, so we want to get the biggest bang for the buck, where they can get the most training, the most key tasks, the key information to the most employees in the shortest amount of time. That’s the challenge that we deal with in this business every year.
“The beauty of this business is every year you get a do-over,” she added. “You get to look at what works. We go into heavy evaluation. We have tons and tons of data that’s available to us. We spend a lot of time in the post-season evaluating the learning, what went well, what didn’t go so well, what course got the most usage and why and did it measure out. We try to determine ROI on certain courses and we make our plans on what we can do better, how we can streamline, how we can help.”
Jordan and her team are responsible for educating approximately 36,000 tax office staff members working in those 6,400 or so offices in the past tax season. Jackson Hewitt achieves more than one million course completions each year, with much of that training taking place via three modalities – traditional classroom, online training and online instructor-led training – but new this year is a fourth learning option. In what may be the best example of blending learning technologies, Jackson Hewitt will be offering training via recorded classroom sessions played back in proctored environments.
That training, of course, doesn’t create itself. In Jackson Hewitt’s case, the training needs are determined largely through the work of a Focus Group, including franchisee representatives, members from company owned-and-operated sites, and Jordan’s entire Learning department. The Focus Group meets monthly, except during the heaviest part of tax season, and tries to ensure needs of all associates and offices are met.
“It’s great. They’re just fabulous. They give us the real-world perspective,” Jordan said. “We may think it’s great, but sometime you don’t think like your users. It really keeps things focused, keeps things real, keeps things field-facing. They’re invaluable to us. They’re on the Focus Group because they want to be. They want to be helpful.”
Having those built-in advisors is a definite benefit from Jordan’s viewpoint.
“It’s kind of a luxury,” she said. “The luxury of working here is we’re very close to our users and we get a lot of feedback. I know quite a few of my franchisees and even some of their staff and the ability to get feedback on your programs is really great.”
That feedback is even more important when you consider the special challenges of tax-prep companies. There’s the seasonal rush, of course, and add to that the pressures of managing extremely complex information and a workforce with a very high turnover rate.
Training helps there, of course, with continuing education used as a three-pronged tool: It educates the staff, it keeps learners engaged and it helps to retain the talent.
“You have to meet that challenge and you have to really be committed to training people,” Jordan said. “It’s difficult information and you have to hire the right people. You have to hire people who have the capacity to understand taxes, which not everyone does. On top of that, you need people who are engaging and who appreciate the client experience and can add to the client experience. You want your clients to walk away happy, confident and with an accurately prepared tax return. That’s a big challenge.”
The integration of online learning into Jackson Hewitt’s training portfolio has provided Jordan and her team with training that’s more easily tracked. That’s an important consideration, given that much of what they roll out is mandated compliance training in a highly regulated industry.
Currently Jackson Hewitt associates must complete training and pass a rigorous five module assessment before they get anywhere near a tax return. In addition, the tax education team will also be providing training in response to the new IRS certification for tax preparers that will be coming soon. With recertification required via an annual test, the certification – and the training behind it – will ensure a baseline of experience and exposure for tax preparers.
That’s all just a part of what Jackson Hewitt training offerings, which includes summertime tax camps and both advanced and basic courses, meeting the needs of veteran and new associates. They’re also working on building competency models for different organizational roles, and matching those to course offerings to ensure role-based training is available throughout the organization.
Jackson Hewitt’s collaborative environment definitely makes training more available, effective and targeted.
“Learning is taken very seriously,” Jordan said. “It’s one of the key drivers to get anything out there: Communications, learning and marketing. We’re all tied very, very closely together, which is good. It makes better training programs. If you understand how it all ties together, I think you can communicate that better and be more effective.”
