WM

Phil Rhodes

As teams and departments embark on their journey toward optimization, developing a positive mindset becomes the crucial first step in preparing employees for technology adoption and fostering continuous learning, curiosity, and adaptability.

At WM, we recognize the importance of mindset in embracing change and overcoming the challenges that come with new technologies. To cultivate a confident mindset, we prioritize creating a growth culture and helping employees recognize the value they bring to the company’s overarching goals. Just as mindset matters in fitness training, playing an instrument, or learning any skill, the learning initiatives at WM emphasize the significance of mindset training.

We offer a curated marketplace of learning programs, dedicated career coaches, and tools to explore career pathways, providing opportunities for employees to acquire new skills and knowledge. Additionally, we incorporate self-reflection activities, mentor coaching, peer-to-peer collaboration, and knowledge-sharing platforms to support employees in developing the right mindset.

By blending various methodologies such as workshops, seminars, online courses, and mentorship programs, we ensure that our learners stay motivated even when faced with difficulties. For example, they can reach out to their mentors or utilize social learning platforms to maintain high spirits, enhance engagement, and stay focused when challenges inevitably arise.

"At WM, we are rethinking training, recognizing that the mindset, skillset, and toolset can make a difference between an average learning experience and a stellar one"

While mindset refers to the way one thinks, skillset represents the actions one takes, and toolset encompasses the systems and tools used (see illustration as an example). Keeping these three in perspective at WM, we follow agile methods and minimal viable product (MVP) approaches in preparing employees for technology adoption. These methodologies focus on rapid prototyping, iterative development, and user-centered design, enabling the technology and business teams to identify and address potential challenges early in the adoption process. For instance, when teams need to adopt a new tool or process, we collaborate with the end users and start by developing a simplified version of a product or service with just enough features to satisfy early adopters. This approach allows us to test the viability of a technology before investing significant resources in its development and implementation. By doing so, we can identify potential challenges, gather user feedback, document lessons learned, and address them early in the adoption process, ensuring a smoother transition for a broader set of employees.

In the realm of technology enablement, less is often more! For example, our customer experience teams benefit from standardized customer processes, self-serve website features, and chatbot capabilities, while our post-collection teams are enabled by automating surface emissions and daily heavy equipment inspections. These initiatives not only automate most tasks but also upskill and future-skill these roles. We create and build blended programs and on-demand training options, such as short video snippets and online modules accessible via any device, anytime, anywhere. We also incorporate tools to reinforce learning in the flow of work, empowering teams. Following the 70- 20-10 model, our learning interventions provide learners with the opportunity to gain 70 percent of their knowledge from job-related experiences, including on[1]the-job learning activities, demos, and scenario-based approaches to discover and refine their job-related skills, make decisions, and address challenges. They gain 20 percent of their knowledge from interactions with others and 10 percent from formal educational events. At WM, we are rethinking training, recognizing that the mindset, skillset, and toolset can make a difference between an average learning experience and a stellar one.