Posting for

Wednesday, June 10, 1998

by: Bert Rush

brush@firstam.com

NEW HIRES/TRAINING/CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Yesterday I was in Phoenix to take in a New Hire Workshop--a training meeting for new employees in our Arizona operation. They've been putting these on since February, and they schedule one for the second Tuesday of each month.

The creator and person in charge of all this is Dana Bos, Manager of Training, who some of you may remember meeting at out National Training Meeting here in May.

This is an extremely well-designed and executed workshop. It's conducted at a hotel near the AZ home office. The session starts at 9:00 A.M. with an "ice-breaker" exercise--corny, I know, but it worked great. Dana then starts with a brief description of what title insurance is--what's covered in very general terms. Next, with the help of experienced escrow officer Peggie Whately, Dana put on a PowerPoint-type presentation (using transparencies and an overhead projector) showing the handling of a typical order, step by step, through to close of escrow and issuance of the policy--including what the customer is going through at each juncture. By the time this is done everyone understands such terms as "lien," "deed of trust," "escrow," "mechanic's lien"....

After a break, everyone returns to play a board game called "Safari,"designed by the AZ office. The players are paired up, and play through a course that teaches them the functions of all major departments in the AZ operation--such as Builder Services and Lenders Advantage. The game reminded me of Risk, because at times the players must get up and go to other places in and outside the room (the "Cabana," the "Watering Hole") to get needed information. The game lasts about an hour, then there's a hosted lunch.

Before and during lunch some of the department heads show up to get acquainted. Them that want to are given a walking tour of the AZ home office, nearby.

After lunch, they present First American's video on ergonomics, followed by an entertaining video produced by our Texas operation called "The Title Zone." "The Title Zone" depicts a title order as handled by a First American office, compared to (the same order) being handled by one of our competitors --glitches and all.

I think it'd be worthwhile for all our training coordinators to visit Phoeniz and see this workshop--see what can be adapted for your region. The workshop promotes one of the basic goals discussed at our National Training Meeting: That is to have employees at all levels who are knowledgeable enough so that if they get a question about our business they are either able to answer it right away, or they know who to get the answer from. The workshop also promotes our goal of achieving customer satisfaction--the themes of our Customer First program being peppered throughout the workshop in lots of clever ways. I even learned how pipecleaners can be used to facilitate training.

If you want to pay a visit, the person to contact is Dana Bos at (602) 256-3700 or dbos@firstam.com.