Structuring Learning and Development for the Future

 

Training as a Communication Strategy

Learning Objectives

 

Build Staff Competence

Developing staff skills, knowledge, and ability does not happen overnight. As a training manager, you need to know the current skills, knowledge, and abilities of your staff. You also must know how they can develop in the future. This knowledge allows you to more easily match them with line organization beneficiaries, programs, and projects.  Appropriately assigned, they can be successful, which will increase your beneficiary’s trust in you and your staff, especially when the “beneficiary” is internal to your own organization.

Each time you recruit, you should bring in a higher level of skills in the field of Learning and Development, Organizational Development (OD), Instructional Design, Consulting, and Education.    This way, the new hires can help train or re-train the current employees, and the current employees can show the new employees the ropes.

You should have relevant internal processes and standardized procedures by maintaining your standards and procedures.   Staff members need to work in a professional environment that allows for diversity of individuals and perspective. Roles and expectations must be clearly communicated. Individuals should receive coaching and reinforcement from the management team and by partnering on projects with more experienced staff. In addition, feedback should be continual.

Beginning with the organizational performance management process of setting specific, measurable goals and objectives, each staff member should know what needs to be accomplished in both the short and long term. There are many ways to reward performance, both of monetary and nonmonetary, for individuals, groups, departments, and divisions, including such examples as a President’s Quality Award, Employee Recognition Awards, team celebrations, Peer Awards, and Spot Awards.

 

Linking to organizational or Line Organizational Mission, Goals and Objectives.

Your action sponsors/beneficiaries, whether line or staff, must see the products of the Training department, both training and non- training, such as courses and service, as integral to their success.

Initially, you need to identify key programs and projects that you feel are going to be important in the future of your organization and that will be connected to key areas of your organization’s work. If these programs involve an external action sponsor/beneficiary, you should get their buy-in as well.   If you already have a trusting relationship with key members of the beneficiary organization, so much the better. These programs may require the application of all aspects of Training and Development and solid instructional design and development techniques in order to ensure a successful outcome. If you decide to become involved with your beneficiary (or vendor) in this manner, you should assign your most skilled staff.

Assuming that the program is completed successfully as defined by both you and the beneficiary, you should publicize the information and results internally (and consider publicizing them externally as well, as long as the beneficiary/vendor doesn’t mind) at every opportunity. If the beneficiaries were pleased with the staff that worked with them, as well as the products of their efforts, see if the external organizations will also publicize the cooperation, and provide awards for the project team.

Communication is critical.   By defining and communicating strategic programs for the beneficiary and training organization, and aligning people, processes and systems around each program, the organization signals to its membership, stakeholders, and competitors that it is a forward-looking, proactive organization. This ensures that the outcomes of the programs are valuable to the organizations involved, and when the success is publicized, other organizations will want to become beneficiaries.

 

Aligning Funding with Staff and Projects

action sponsors/beneficiaries who fund the project feel a stronger sense of allegiance and buy-in.  In addition, funding responsibility ensures that the staff is clear about who the beneficiary is, especially when internal, and what the program must produce.

You can initiate a charge-back system and budget process. This is where the requesting departments have to authorize the funding to do the necessary work. Obviously, if they think they can meet the goal without the Training department’s assistance, they could use the money for other needs. However, if they felt that way, they most likely would not have contacted Training.

Training’s challenge is to align the right action sponsor/beneficiary and the right program with the right staff member, because the line beneficiary provides funding for the training staff.  Funding and concrete goals and objectives related to project outcomes keep the beneficiary and the staff aligned around project results.  Again, communicating the specifics of the goals and objectives keep the program on track.  It also helps in developing credibility with the line organization beneficiaries.

Having credibility means that you have met your internal action sponsors/beneficiaries’ needs and the project requirements in the past. It also means that the staff member with whom they are working has established himself or herself as knowledgeable, not only about training and education, but also about implementation for successful results.

Initially, you will probably receive requests from line organizations that are fairly small training projects. As the staff develops a positive relationship, the line beneficiary will become more willing to accept recommendations for other interventions and possible solutions.

 

Managing your beneficiary, your Peers, and Yourselves

As a member of the training a staff, never assume that beneficiaries know you are working on their project. Never assume that your boss or your peers know the projects on which you are working. Check in frequently.  Communicate!

Checking in with beneficiaries is easy when you jointly attend team meetings. However, it is harder to remember to check in with your manager (boss), your peers, and your staff. These people are as important to you, your organization, and the success of your projects as your receiving beneficiaries are. They can help to market your work, identify new projects, create connections, and align objectives.  They are also an excellent audience on which to try out new ideas.

Think about doing pilot programs of any new products, curricula, and development models on your HR management team. Do quick presentations or learning sessions about new research in areas you are exploring.

Let’s say that you’ve just started doing research into behavior-based interviewing.

The next thing you know a line manager mentions that he needed to hire new staff, but he isn’t looking forward to all the interviewing (very few managers care for interviewing potential new employees). The obvious next question was whether he or she knew anything about using a behavior-based interview approach.

All of the sudden, you have an audience.  That manager (or you) can then invite a few other managers to attend a workshop on behavioral interviewing.   After the workshop, you should hand out evaluation forms.  If the response is positive, you can publicize this to other managers.  If not, you can work to improve the workshop for other managers when they need to hire new employees.

 

Keep Management Informed

 One of the worst things you can do is to surprise your boss, so keep him or her informed. Check in regularly, providing updated information on all projects, whether they are completed or not. Continuously prepare your boss with information about your unit, your successes, and your projects’ results to take forward to his or her boss.

Management should always be considered a key beneficiary. After all, they often are the ones who are doing the return on investment calculations.  Keeping them updated and informed can be done by status reports, or it can also be accomplished as part of regular management staff meetings.

Most upper management is relatively highly educated, many having MBAs.  In some cases, they used the organizational resources to complete their degrees. Most have a fundamental belief in the training and education process and thus a strong sense of allegiance to Training and Development and its mission. A continuous flow of information to upper management lets them know that you are aligning the training organization with the organizational goals and helping them meet organizational objectives.

Also consider the impact their perceptions can have on your organization. Remember, upper management can eliminate your organization (your job may be included) with the

stroke of a pen.  So you must constantly communicate to them the positives and even negatives of your outcomes.

If your immediate upper management is not viewed positively by the rest of the upper level management team, it inevitably influences the credibility of your organization, how you are seen, and the ease with which you can do your job. 

 

Marketing Training and Development

If your organization is part of organizational Human Resources (HR), your staff may have to compete during the annual performance review process for ranking with other HR staff doing completely different work. This could have a positive or negative impact on annual performance ratings and compensation treatment.

Training management should balance projects so the training staff has visibility and a point of comparison with others in HR. Clearly, the majority of your projects should be worked with the line organizations .

In addition, maintain some publicity about your programs within the HR organization, team meetings, and so on. It is all about marketing and keeping people posted on who you are, what you do, and the impact you have had.

Always look for opportunities to work with line organizations on specific organizational issues and with key contacts. If they don’t see the opportunity,

you must! Thus, you must look at the world through the action sponsor/beneficiary’s eyes and with an eye to the future for you and your department and organization as a whole.

When organizational goals, objectives, and initiatives are published, put yourselves in the other manager’s shoes to envision what training they might want or need to put in place. Listen intently during meetings, in casual conversations, and while sitting at the back of classrooms. Learn informally what the issues are, follow up with questions, contacts, and

possible suggestions for what you have to offer that might help.

Assume that people and organizations do not know who you are or what you do. Become good at connecting multiple concepts and issues to the products, programs, skills, knowledge, and abilities your department and staff have to offer.

 

Always Communicate Positively and Frequently

The simple statement of “Yes” sends the first message to the beneficiary that you are responsive. Of course, you need to follow up and be responsive. A talented Training and Development consultant can wiggle his or her way into the other parts of the organization or organizations if given the opportunity. Once established, a positive relationship brings the beneficiary back. Your long-term goal is to become a trusted partner and advisor. Essential to this process is the alignment of the right staff person with the right beneficiary and the right project.

You may receive calls from line organization project managers in need of some general advice or assistance with a vendor program they would like to bring in for one of their work groups. After telling them yes, that you are glad to help, set up a meeting to talk about their goals and the role they want you to play. Over the years your staff will move from a position of providing advice and counsel to overseeing projects.

Frequently communicating that you understand their needs is imperative.  One way to do this is to provide frequent summaries and evaluations. This can be in the form of a monthly, quarterly, or annual report, or even individual product reports (to key beneficiaries, remember to include your peers and staff). Ensure that every report is easy to read and understand and simple to reference.

Prepare the information from the readers’ perspective, considering meaning and alignment with organizational goals and objectives. At first blush, this may seem like a lot of extra work, considering the number of other things that feel more important. It will pay off in the long run. This simple summary facilitates communication and keeps who you are and what you do in front of key stakeholders—this is your ad hoc marketing campaign. These reports are an excellent way to reinforce your staff’s work and help them feel good about their accomplishments and the organization for which they work.

 

Be Aware of sector of activity Best Practices

     Keep in touch with other training organizations . Also keep in touch with the Human Resources (HR), training, and education professional associations. Understanding the key issues in the field, external to your own organization, is extremely important in helping you maintain a top-of-the-line group. It also provides you with perspective. You must be able to discern the difference between the current fad and what will provide the organization with true performance improvement.

Reading publications and surfing websites will add to your knowledge base. Develop personal networking relationships with others in the HR, training, and education fields. Encourage your staff to do likewise and share what they have learned at staff meetings and other opportunities. Attend courses, seminars, workshops, and conferences and learn the latest terminology, research, and program and projects in development.

Benchmarking is not a singular, once-a-year event—it  needs to be continuous. Know the competition and the latest trends.  They will be an excellent source for good ideas.

Don’t be afraid to look at Training and Development efforts outside your sector of activity or your country.  Best practices come from everyone and everywhere.  There is no restriction on intelligence or creativity over national boundaries.

As an example, though not from training, the Ford Motor organization borrowed the simple idea from Mazda of paying vendors when the parts were received, rather than waiting for an invoice which needed to be matched with what was on the computer already.  The end result was Ford being able to cut its Accounts Payable staff in half, and the vendors were much happier because they received their money faster.  It also pointed out which vendors were reliable and which could be safely (and quickly) dropped without hurting car quality.

 

Common Threads

What are the common threads that will sustain your organization, your training group, and yourself in the future?

 

Assignments