Kinko's: Documenting Success

Emily Hollis - 10/1/03

With 20,000 team members working in more than 1,100 different locations, Kinko’s understands the value of training that can be delivered anytime, anywhere. To help reduce costs associated with instructor-led training and to enable a blended learning solut

According to Kelly Conte, senior manager of learning and development at Kinko’s, depending on what learning programs are being rolled out, all 20,000 Kinko’s team members could receive training within a given year. “Our overriding goal is to roll out the training offerings that are key to our business in a timely fashion and to the appropriate people as quickly as we can,” Conte said.

Conte explained that training at Kinko’s is structurally organized into four different components. These include technology training, organizational development and professional development, operations training and sales training.

Regardless of which component it falls into, training is delivered at Kinko’s in a blended format. “Our overall learning strategy is a blended learning strategy,” said Conte, “so we use multiple media to get that out. It could be a Web-based module. It could be a job aid. It could be a virtual classroom-type course.”

Conte said that offering a blended learning strategy provides numerous benefits for the organizations. First of all, it adheres to the theories of what works best for adult learning by allowing them to learn in the ways that best suit their needs, whether it’s online or instructor-led. “We offer multiple opportunities for them to learn the way it’s comfortable for them,” Conte said. She added that the ability to deliver learning to a large group of widely dispersed team members with no time to market or very little time to market and no travel costs or costs around ramp-up is another major benefit of using blended learning to train the Kinko’s workforce.

Conte explained that most classroom training for Kinko’s is actually done via a virtual classroom. Team members sit at their desks or in front of the PC at their branch and have headsets so they can hear the instructor. The course is live, so all students show up at the same time. “We have a full range of functionality,” Conte explained. “We have voice over IP so you don’t have to dial in from the conference rooms. You have breakout rooms. You have application sharing. You have chat. You have all of the features that allow you to be interactive and communicate.”