The Performance Problem

The client's primary issue is managing park guests and getting them to follow safe practices within the park, ensuring their own safety as well as the elephants' safety. The job of the mahouts is to take care of the elephants, and the job of the guides is to create an educational and fun experience for the guests. Having to expend extra effort to monitor and control uncooperative guests diminishes both groups' performance of their primary duties and causes unnecessary stress. Furthermore, uncooperative guests who ignore or don't understand safety protocol put themselves at risk, since the staff doesn't use billhooks to control the elephants. If a serious incident were to occur, it could bring legal trouble for the park.

​

Training Requirements Analysis

Our analysis revealed that some park guests purposefully disregard safety rules, often because they want to take photos for their social media during inappropriate and unsafe moments. In addition, guests often don't understand the park's safety rules due to communication issues, which include:

​

• Language differences (guests come from all over the world and the majority are Chinese and Russian; English is not the guides' first language)

• Guests not hearing the rules when the guides explain them (the visitation groups can be very large, and guides and mahouts can't use speakers because of the sensitivity of the elephants)

• The staff not directly confronting guests when they are doing something bad, as that is considered rude in Thai culture

​

Our initial training requirements analysis yielded two conclusions:

​

• Guests should follow safety protocol and understand the importance of it. Learning solutions should target their knowledge and attitudes.

• Guides and mahouts should perform best practices that make guests aware of safety protocols and its importance. Learning solutions should target their knowledge and skills.

​

Learner Analysis (Guests)

Park guests are interested in having close encounters with wildlife. Since the park advertises itself as a humane alternative to other parks, it tends to draw a more animal rights conscious crowd. However, some guests are unaware of the park's mission and expect to ride on or bathe with the elephants. Overall, guests generally do not understand how complex elephants are and what they like and dislike. Some guests expect that the elephants exist solely for their personal entertainment and they are surprised when some elephants might be feeling antisocial on the particular day the guests visit.

​

Learner Analysis (Staff)

English is not the guides' first language, so it can be difficult to communicate clearly at times, especially if the information is off-script. The guides shine most at their work when they are telling guests stories about the elephants' personalities and histories, not when they are trying to make uncooperative guests follow the safety guidelines. It is an extra burden for them.

​

Mahouts don't speak any English and, in fact, don't speak Thai very well either. However, there is a head mahout who speaks Thai and acts as a liaison between the mahouts and the guides and other park staff.

​

In Thai culture, direct confrontation is frowned upon. Because of that, the mahouts and guides do not often directly confront uncooperative guests and stop them from engaging in unsafe and disrespectful behaviors.

​

Environmental Analysis

There is a lobby where guests wait for the tour to start. Once the tour commences, there aren't any enclosed structures. Guests stop at "stations" to meet the elephants, and these stations have open air huts, which have an awning supported by wood posts. Any job aid posters must be strategically placed to capture the attention of the guests, and they would need to be small enough to place in limited space and light enough for guides and mahouts to comfortably carry if necessary.

​

Task Analysis

With our training requirements, learner, and environmental analyses completed, we were able to form two learning goals:

​

• Given that appropriate resources are accessible within the park, guests will follow all safety protocols at all times.

• Given access to easy to use resources, mahouts and guides will be able to effectively communicate to guests when they behave improperly. 

​

From that, we decided on the following performance improvement solutions:

​

• Self-paced training using video on the park’s website and structured onsite training

  • An animated video outlining and demonstrating proper and improper guest behaviors to be posted on the park's website and shown to guests when the tour commences and before they interact with the elephants

• Self-paced job aid

  • Posters with important safety information to be posted at each of the “stations” the guests visit

• Structured on-the-job training 

  • Job aids for mahouts in the form of color-coded cards (for example, red and green cards) that signify good and bad behaviors

    • When a mahout raises a red card toward a guest, the guest will know they are engaged in dangerous behavior. Written instructions on how to use these cards would be provided to Fern and the guides, who can provide on-the-job training to the mahouts.

  • A script for guides to help them better communicate with guests and simple English phrases to be given to mahouts for the same purpose

• Self-paced learning 

  • Pokemon-style card game based on the elephants

    • This teaches guests about the elephants’ personalities and dislikes. It helps guests know how to interact with each individual elephant.

​

Fern was very impressed with the video, the posters, and the Pokemon-style cards. However, she had reservations about the other ideas. First, she felt the color coded cards were still too direct and confrontational. She wanted to relieve the mahouts and guides of the burden of having to confront the guests over these matters. She was focused on prevention rather than intervention. She also felt that giving a script to the guides and phrases to the mahouts was giving them too much additional work and would be difficult for them to memorize. She wanted to keep the staff laser focused on their primary duties, i.e. taking care of the elephants and providing a wonderful experience for the guests. She hoped that the video would be effective enough to make guests understand and follow safety protocol without requiring staff intervention.

​

So in the end, the client asked us to develop the explainer video, the job aid style posters, and the Pokemon-style card game.