M A Y/J U N E 2 0 1 7
MIND GAP THE
TRANSFORMING BEHAVIOR | 16
Four Assumptions Holding L&D Back
THE FORGOTTEN LEADERS | 24 Shedding Light on New Hire Development
MAPPING LEARNING PATHWAYS | 44 Providing Customer Training at Scale
B U S I N E S S P E R S P E C T I V E S O N M A N A G I N G W O R L D - C L A S S T R A I N I N |G
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PERSPECTIVES - K E N TAY LO R
Learning and development teams around the globe are responsible for planning training programs that will close the gap on employee performance. But all too often, in my discussions with the heads of these organizations, the process by which these teams collect data on the gaps they need to close is flawed. We see formal planning processes that collect input from stakeholders and then that information is used to plan and budget for training. The question is, do the stakeholders really know what ails the performance of their team, and more importantly, are they qualified to make training recommendations that will improve their organization’s impact? The root of this question is, how comfortable are we with delivering on perceived needs from across the organization? How confident are we that our internal clientfacing consultants have the tools they need to truly get to the heart of organizational performance gaps? Do our training and development functional leads have access to, and fully understand, the data surrounding organizational performance? I believe that our function needs to look to the field to provide direction in terms of priorities for the scarce investments organizations make in training. We often lack performance gap data, such as what the team should be delivering and the target level
of employee productivity. It is only when we have a true perspective on expectations and the origination of those expectations, that we can find gaps. This is the quest of the learning leader: the more they can see and understand the gaps in performance, the more likely the initiatives put in place will hit the mark, move the needle and deliver improved performance to the teams they support. This issue of Training Industry Magazine touches on identifying and understanding the performance gaps that surface in many parts of a company. I believe that the root of our struggle to achieve true strategic alignment with the business is getting access to the performance data we need to understand if we are meeting the intended goals. Our challenge is a manageable one, and we should start the dialogue with our stakeholders surrounding the target performance they seek, so we can make recommendations that can help close the gaps where we know employee development is the right answer.
WE SHOULD START THE DIALOGUE WITH OUR STAKEHOLDERS SURROUNDING THE TARGET PERFORMANCE THEY SEEK.
As always, we would love to hear your thoughts about the point of views shared in the magazine. Ken Taylor is editor in chief of Training Industry Magazine and president of Training Industry, Inc. Email Ken.
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CO N T E N TS
TA B L E O F VOLUME 10
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I
ISSUE 3
I
MAY/JUNE 2017
4
FEATURES
16
TRANSFORMING BEHAVIOR
16
20
24 29
32 36
40 44
24 THE FORGOTTEN LEADERS
44 MAPPING LEARNING PATHWAYS
4 ASSUMPTIONS HOLDING L&D BACK: TRANSFERRING TRAINING INTO WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR By Peter L. Mitchell
Eliminate the assumptions associated with training to effectively transform employee behavior.
BOTTOM-UP ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENTS: ELICITING OPERATIONAL FEEDBACK FROM EMPLOYEES By Scott Moe
Hosting feedback forums has the potential to elevate organizational performance.
NEW HIRES: THE FORGOTTEN LEADERS By Paul Mahler
It’s time to reconsider what it means to be a leader and to alter leadership training strategies.
THE SURROUND STRATEGY MODEL: DRIVING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPABILITY TO BUSINESS IMPACT By Vince Eugenio & Karen Spataro Sieczka
Uncover performance gaps by adopting a consultative perspective to talent development.
WHEN SKILL REQUIREMENTS MOVE TOO FAST: TALENT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES By Dan Biewener
Take a step back to evaluate the skills gap in business and ways to help eliminate it.
DISRUPTING BEST PRACTICES IN L&D: DIFFERENTIATING HORIZONTAL & VERTICAL DEVELOPMENT By Sherryl Dimitry, Ph.D.
Form a better understanding of the types of development to more effectively develop employees.
CLOSING THE DIGITAL COMPETENCE GAP By Bob Newhouse
Developing learners with the skills to close the digital competence gap begins with training leaders.
HOW TO CREATE LEARNING PATHWAYS THAT SCALE By Linda Schwaber-Cohen
Increase customer purchases and retention rates through a scalable onboarding program.
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THOUGHT LEADERS
03 09 11 13
PERSPECTIVES By Ken Taylor
Our process of finding performance gaps is flawed.
GUEST EDITOR By John F. Broer
Technology can help bridge the gap between generations.
SCIENCE OF LEARNING By Srini Pillay, M.D.
A brain-based model can teach skills that will be retained.
DIVERSITY & INCLUSION By Dr. Shawn Andrews
The leadership gap has obvious implications for all of us at work.
15 55 57 59
BUILDING LEADERS By Sam Shriver & Marshall Goldsmith
Transferring training into the workplace begins before training.
SECRETS OF SOURCING By Doug Harward
We must understand the what in order to determine the how.
GEN WHY By Michelle Eggleston
Performance improvement is a shared responsibility.
TECH TALK By Amar Dhaliwal
The availability of key skills continues to be a business risk.
INFO EXCHANGE 48 I CASEBOOK
PeaceHealth transfers training into the workplace through continuous leadership development.
50 I GLOBAL OUTLOOK
Increase the effectiveness of cross-cultural training efforts through four foundational concepts.
52 I MEASURING IMPACT
Determine how to act on the evaluation results received to improve training in your organization.
60 I CLOSING DEALS
LTG has achieved its goal of creating a full-service agency through the acquisition of NetDimensions.
61 I COMPANY NEWS
Keep up with the latest in the training industry by reading news from the last quarter.
62 I WHAT’S ONLINE
Find additional articles, case studies and information available only on TrainingIndustry.com.
63 I TRAINING TALK
Review industry insights and poll results collected from learning leaders around the world.
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A B O U T OUR TEAM
STAFF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
EDITORIAL INTERN
Doug Harward dharward@trainingindustry.com
Stephani Mager smager@trainingindustry.com
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DESIGNER
Ken Taylor ktaylor@trainingindustry.com
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EDITORIAL BOARD Dr. Shawn Andrews Founder & CEO Andrews Research International Derek Cunard, LPC Chief People Officer Pinnacle Automotive Hospitality Services Vince Eugenio, Ph.D., HCS, CCMC Senior Leader, Talent Development Boys and Girls Clubs of America Carol Gajus, Ph.D. Director, Stores and Military Executive Development Programs Macy’s Corporate Nancy Gustafson Workforce Learning and Development Manager American Red Cross Lorna Hagen Vice President, People Operations OnDeck Laura Moraros Jeanette Harrison Vice President, Enterprise Learning & Development Pitney Bowes John Hovell Senior Manager, Learning Operations and Technology BAE Systems Kaliym Islam Vice President Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.
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GUEST EDITOR JOHN F. BROER
THE WEB:
NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR WISDOM
We are locked in discussion about the millennials, what they offer, what they need and how to guide them in their career journeys. I’m reluctant to label any group based on a range of birthdates. At a basic level, the millennials are just the current “emerging workforce.” They possess unique qualities and characteristics related to work style, habits and needs from their professional pursuits. Like previous workforces, we must be aware of what drives them and influences their decisions. Millennials tend to occupy positions only for a few years before moving on to a new opportunity. LinkedIn’s 2016 study shows that people graduating between 2006 and 2010 will average 2.85 jobs in a five-year period. Couple that with the “Silver Tsunami” that is upon us; where thousands of employees with extensive knowledge and experience are reaching retirement age every day. And they have something that is invaluable – wisdom. When this deep legacy knowledge walks out the door to start enjoying the fruits of a 401K, the emerging generation will look to the web and be found wanting. So, how do we bring these worlds together? The internet provides us with a wealth of knowledge, but wisdom is entirely different. Look up definition of wisdom and you will find phrases like “soundness of action,” “good judgement,” and “enlightenment.” The aggregate investment to cultivate this wisdom in the business world is likely incalculable, but the expense of losing
it forever is equally huge. So, what can we do to capture this wisdom from our exiting workforce and make it available to our emerging workforce? Organizations must find ways to engage our emerging workforce and create a setting where the exchange of information and the curation of wisdom is passed along. APPRENTICE AND MENTOR This is where mentoring can be of great benefit. Companies with wellorchestrated mentoring programs are intentional about how a mentor and apprentice are paired, how goals and expectations are managed, and when this relationship should conclude. In The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey, when a mentoring program is in place, millennials report a positive impact 61 percent of the time in emerging economies and 52 percent in mature ones. Furthermore, millennials intending to stay with their organization for more than five years are twice as likely to have a mentor. Based on that statistic, by pairing a millennial with a suitable mentor, you double the average time he or she is likely to stay with the company and reduce the high costs of replacing them. RECORD EVERYTHING Whether you have a studio or film crew, or simply a HD camcorder, webcam or smartphone to capture knowledge, these tools can create “snackable” content that can be cataloged and made available on demand to newer
employees via their mobile and desktop devices. This is a practical way to bridge the gap between the wisdom that is preparing to walk out the door and making it available in a format consistent with how millennials prefer to learn. Organizations can upload content to an existing LMS or place it on the company’s intranet. There are also technology disruptors that make it easy to capture your own content and make it readily available to your workforce via mobile device. These innovators have created a digital platform that puts company-specific content and videos in the palm of every employee’s hand.
THE EXPENSE OF LOSING WISDOM FOREVER IS HUGE. Just think, if you could enlist your most experienced employees and record the most critical elements of a job or task, you could curate and catalog that into manageable “chunks” that newer employees can reference and watch at their time-of-need and point-of-need. These knowledge platforms change the profile of the LMS and provide a way to capture legacy knowledge and deliver it in a preferential way. John F. Broer is the AVP of learning and development for Welltower Inc., as well as a speaker, facilitator, and learning evangelist. Email John.
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CONGRATULATIONS
TOP 20 SALES TRAINING COMPANIES
Check Out Our 2017 Sales Training Watch List The Top 20 Sales Training Companies are a service provided by Training Industry, Inc. Due to the diversity of services offered, no attempt is made to rank the “Top 20s.”
SCIENCE OF LEARNING SRINI PILLAY, M.D.
CLOSING SKILLS & COMPETENCY GAPS ACROSS THE BUSINESS
In these times of tremendous economic uncertainty and volatility, today’s new and relevant skills are tomorrow’s archaic and irrelevant competencies. For example, data crunching was once a goal of competent analysts, but has been largely outsourced to Watson. Robots are also rapidly replacing humans in manufacturing. If businesses want the skills they teach to be relevant, adaptable, transferable and quickly executed, they must train employees on the mindset “basics” that will help them remain agile and competitive.
SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES MUST LEAD TO ACTIONS. Skills and competencies must lead to actions, and for actions to be efficient, they must be grounded in an optimal mindset. As a start, use the brain-based PACE model below to help structure conversations with hired talent who are learning new skills. This will help your business run more seamlessly and efficiently. POSSIBILITY THINKING People with a sense of possibility will find alternative ways of doing things. For instance, they will find ways to ship materials after the mail has already been collected, or they will plan ahead to satisfy disgruntled customers when the solution is not obvious. Amplifying positive emotions improves performance at work. Believing in
positive outcomes activates the reward pathways and increases dopamine. Even when there is no evidence that an approach will work, this “belief” also relaxes the brain when opioids are released. Research shows that people with a growth mindset (the belief that they can change negative situations) have greater wellbeing and success. We use a questionnaire called the possibility index to address what is blocking a sense of possibility and the motivation to act. AUTHENTICITY When people feel authentic, they have greater self-control. This allows them to manage their time more effectively. Feeling connected to a “true” self helps people feel more motivated. Their work becomes more meaningful, they often feel less depressed and their work abilities increase. To address authenticity, consider how people can dress, spend their free time and express themselves safely at meetings. All of these factors can enhance or slow down execution. COLLABORATIVE ABILITY Leaders aren’t chosen because of their individual ideas, but because they synchronize their brains with others. Collaborative people can enhance the positive culture throughout the organization. Collaborative goal setting may also enhance buy-in when people feel that they can participate in their own futures. In this way, accountability is shared and not imposed. Also, collaboration helps self-connection by
understanding oneself in the context of an organization’s mission. EUDAIMONIA There are two types of pleasures that can be motivating. Hedonia, or “H-rewards” refers to external pleasures such as money or gifts. Eudaimonia or “E-rewards” refers to internal and less obvious motivators such as having a sense of purpose about the work. E-rewards help employees feel connected to their work, and in activating their brains differently than H-rewards, also protect them from depression. It allows employees to connect their work to a bigger purpose so that they feel optimally motivated to exercise the skills they have learned. Each of these factors activates the brain to enhance agility and efficiency. When trying to mind the gap in performance, shift the focus of the conversation with these brain-based questions: Do you believe that your life is on a path for continuous improvement? Can you be yourself at work? Do you understand your key role relative to others? Can you connect your work to a greater meaning and purpose in life? With PACE, any skill has the chance to be inspired, which is your first step toward enhanced strategic speed. Dr. Srini Pillay is the CEO of NeuroBusiness Group. He is also assistant professor (parttime) at Harvard Medical School and teaches in the executive education programs at Harvard Business School and Duke CE. Email Srini.
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DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION DR. SHAWN ANDREWS
THE LEADERSHIP
GENDER GAP Throughout history, there have been various gaps: racial, gender, income, education, skills gaps, etc. Society today is not any different. Even though we have greater technological capabilities now than ever before, we have a shortage of people with skills. For example, there are not enough experts in the STEM fields, effective communication, critical thinking and advanced leadership. The skills we learn in school and the experiences we acquire are not always aligned to what employers are looking for. The education gap in gender has undergone massive shifts recently. Today, 60 percent of bachelor degrees in the U.S. and Europe are obtained by women. Women account for nearly half of all JD and MD degrees conferred in the U.S. Women of all races are becoming the most skilled workers in the job market, yet many companies are remiss in developing this high-potential talent pool as their next generation of leaders. There is a pay gap in the overall earnings ratio across all occupations, with women earning an average of 79 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same position. Per the U.S. Labor Department, the top three most common occupations for women in 2014 were secretaries or administrative assistants, elementary or middle school teachers and registered nurses. Even within these three jobs, women earn less. Female secretaries and administrative assistants earn 85 percent of men’s salary, with female elementary and middle school teachers earning 87 percent and female
registered nurses earning 90 percent. In fact, none of the top 25 most common occupations have women earning more than men. A popularly discussed and studied gap is the leadership gender gap. Women occupy 52 percent of all management and professional occupations, yet at Fortune 500 companies, they hold only 19 percent of board seats, 15 percent of executive officer positions and 5.8 percent of CEO positions. There is a significant leadership racial gap: the number of Caucasians in leadership positions compared to other races and ethnicities. Women of color hold only 3 percent of board seats.
WOMEN OF ALL RACES ARE BECOMING THE MOST SKILLED WORKERS IN THE JOB MARKET. More than any other statistic, the number of Fortune 500 female CEOs has become a barometer for measuring the amount of progress toward gender parity. This number has fluctuated from 3 percent to about 6 percent in the last several years, with an average of 4.5 percent. The 5.8 percentage equals 29 female CEOs, with 471 male CEOs running the remaining 500 companies. The leadership gap has obvious implications for all of us at work. It represents how we develop our talent, work culture and decision-making, how
we engage our employees, connect with our customers, plan and value diversity and inclusion. There are ways to close this gap. First, CEOs need to make gender balance a strategic lever to achieving business goals. Put gender balance on the agenda as a top goal. Second, implement key initiatives that support gender equality. These include increased and more inclusive networking opportunities, skill-building, career development programs (mentoring) and leadership development programs (sponsorships). Third, set and measure targets. Establish concrete targets regarding gender parity, and then measure the progress by using clear metrics to count the number of women at all levels and areas of your business. Who is promoted most often? Who is leaving the company and when? What types of roles do men and women hold? Create graphs to help paint a picture. Globalization is heating up the competition for innovative and talented workers with the skills needed for tomorrow’s workplace. Let’s hope that more companies will invest the time and resources needed to help close these significant gaps. Dr. Shawn Andrews has 23 years of biopharmaceutical leadership experience. Her dissertation research focused on leadership, emotional intelligence, gender and unconscious bias in the workplace She is CEO of Andrews Research International. Email Shawn.
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BUILDING LEADERS SAM SHRIVER & MARSHALL GOLDSMITH
PRACTICAL ADVICE FOR
CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN
LEARNING AND ACHIEVING
Our mentor, Dr. Paul Hersey, used to explain the variables associated with effective leadership through the eyes of this equation: L (e) = f(S) F; TM; P; OC; E; E … (Leadership effectiveness is a function of the situation; the follower; top management; the follower’s peers; organizational culture; the economy; etc.) As he used to put it, “There is any number of forces that could help or hinder a leader’s attempt to influence, but if the follower decides not to follow, nothing else much matters.” We would like to recycle that wisdom as we offer our thoughts on “minding the gap” between a successful training event and the transfer of that training into sustained learner behavior change that produces targeted results. In full acknowledgement of the numerous other forces in play with the successful transfer of training, let’s zero in on the specific roles of two primary stakeholders, the trainee and his/her next-level manager (NLM), across three virtually unwavering periods of time (phases) associated with every training event. PHASE I: BEFORE TRAINING (ONE TO TWO WEEKS) NLM: Initiates a training-relate discussion with the trainee to cover the following: • Ensure the trainee is aware that participation in “the event” is an investment on the part of the organization, and directly tied to job-related skill development and
application. (“You will learn things that can accelerate your development and positively impact the productivity of your team.”) • Establish the expectation that, after training, the trainee will review with the NLM what was learned, how it will be applied and how increases in productivity could be measured. (“I want to meet again, soon after you return, to review what you learned, how you plan to apply it and anything I can do to help you in that regard.”) Our experience suggests that this conversation takes about 10 minutes, and the NLM does not have to be well-versed in the content of the training itself.
TRAINEES SHOULD BE MOTIVATED TO TAKE AN ACTIVE ROLE IN TRAINING. TRAINEE: Reviews the objectives of the training (at a minimum) and participates in the Phase I discussion with his/her NLM. In general terms, the trainee should have at least some idea of what they can learn and how they can apply it to increase productivity. Primarily, the trainee should be motivated to take an active role in the training event after Phase I. PHASE II: DURING TRAINING NLM: Ensures the trainee can attend and participate in the training event unencumbered by the demands of his/her job-related responsibilities. Operationally, the trainee’s absence needs to be treated like sick leave,
vacation or any other time an employee is deemed “unavailable.” TRAINEE: Keeping the post-event discussion with their NLM in mind, engages throughout the training to the upmost of their ability, then takes personal responsibility for transforming a general sense of how the training might apply to a specific set of actions that can be taken to implement skills and measure the work-related impact. PHASE III: AFTER TRAINING (ONE TO TWO WEEKS) NLM: Initiates a follow-up discussion with the trainee to cover the following: • Find out what the trainee learned and how he/she envisions transferring that learning to the workplace. This would include the nature and the timing associated with measuring the impact of that implementation. • Identify the NLM’s role moving forward as it applies to the objective of training transfer (i.e., will the NLM be providing guidance? Be available for discussion? Or, periodically monitor progress from a distance?). TRAINEE: Reviews plans to apply onthe-job learning with the NLM and transparently “contracts for a leadership style” regarding that implementation. Marshall Goldsmith is the world authority in helping successful leaders get even better. Sam Shriver is the senior vice president of commercial operations and product development at The Center for Leadership Studies. Email Marshall and Sam.
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TO BECOME A LEADER, LEARNING MUST TAKE PLACE IN A LEADERSHIP ENVIRONMENT.
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ASSUMPTIONS HOLDING L&D BACK BY PETER L. MITCHELL
TRANSFERRING TRAINING INTO WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ARE WASTED ON TRAINING WITH NO EVIDENCE OF TRANSFER TO WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR. TRAINING HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL, BUT DOES NOT PRODUCE THE EXPECTED RESULTS. TOO OFTEN TRAINING HAS BEEN USING INAPPROPRIATE METHODOLOGY, FOLLOWING FADS, IGNORING RESEARCH AND OPERATING ON FALSE ASSUMPTIONS. When employees attend training courses, there is an expectation that there will be a positive change to their work performance. This expectation is not normally met because of the wide gap between training and workplace behavior. This failure to transfer learning to behavior is severely limiting business performance, profits and personal development. Every year the U.S. spends an excess of $100 billion on training and development, and much of it is wasted. The blame for this loss must lie squarely on the shoulders of the buyers of training. They are the products of the same failed training systems they currently support. Despite huge advances in research and
understanding how people learn, they have failed to keep up to date and are content to support ineffective training processes that mirror their own experience. Low demands for measurable results from training have encouraged the proliferation of training providers delivering ineffective training contributing to a lack of transfer from learning to workplace behavior. There are a series of assumptions pervading the training industry that have created and reinforced the gap. These assumptions have been around for a long time and contribute to a colossal waste of money and resources. Let’s examine four of those assumptions.
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A SSUMING LEARNERS WILL DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD AND CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR
The first assumption is if people are not doing what is required and they are told what to do, they will comply. Training courses tend to focus on telling people what to do and how to do it rather than engaging human curiosity through a process of discovery. It is believed to be more cost effective to tell people rather than let them learn their way through to a solution. In reality, the opposite is true. Think about your organization. Is it common to see attempts to create the “right” behavior by telling people what to do? Are they told to work harder and smarter? Are they told to show their initiative and to increase their productivity? Are they told to improve quality? Are they told to work more safely? They may be told in a variety of ways, through emails, in-house magazines, newsletters, toolbox meetings, training courses, annual appraisals, bulletins on notice boards, production meetings and face-to-face. Telling the workforce may be subtle or blatant, but either way it has not proved to be very effective. Most training operates under the assumption that people will do what they know. Instructor-led training courses are firmly based on the belief that “knowing equals doing” which has led to the conviction that “more knowing equals better doing.” Experience dictates that people don’t
IF LEARNERS CANNOT REMEMBER THE TRAINING CONTENT, THEY CANNOT CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR. do what they know, yet businesses spend inordinate amounts of money supporting this basic misconception. This mistaken belief has invaded training design thinking to the point where training is promoted on the quality and quantity of the content – not the result. Training courses have been crammed with vast amounts of information without caring if any of it is retained, let alone applied. This preoccupation with information has been based on
the false assumption that the learner will perform in the correct fashion when they return to work.
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A SSUMING AN ACADEMIC APPROACH IS ENOUGH TO DEVELOP PRACTICAL SKILLS
The second assumption is that we can train groups in classrooms to develop practical workplace skills. Training providers have taken an academic
ESSENTIAL FACTORS TO TRANSFER TRAINING INTO WORKPLACE BEHAVIOR • Autonomy Learners learn better when they have input in the learning content. • Follow-up coaching The retrieval of learning is a powerful way to transfer learning to workplace behavior. • Relevance The training program should include the issues contributed by learners.
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• Learner centric Understanding how humans learn and behave.
• Spaced repetition Humans learn best through the “little and often” process.
• Reflection Learners need the opportunity to reflect on their behavior so they can modify it.
• Strategy for behavioral change All training should include strategies for the learners to implement changes.
• Positive reinforcement Changes are sustained if positive reinforcement is delivered by trainer, managers and peers.
• Context Humans learn skills better when the learning context matches the environment where skills will be applied.
approach to the process of skill building, but classrooms don’t provide the context and environment to develop practical skills. Classroom training is used to develop practical skills such as leadership, selling, emotional intelligence, communication, customer service, suavpervision and management. Information is confused with skill. Because the academic model has successfully existed for centuries, practical subjects have been shoehorned into it with the vain hope they will work the same way. It is evident that practical skills are best learned through a gradual process in the environment they are used. If you want to learn to swim, you must get wet. To become a leader, learning takes place in a leadership environment. Trying to train and develop a group of employees in practical and individual skills out of context has increased rather than reduced the gap between training and workplace behavior. A two-day leadership course in a classroom without follow-up coaching will not increase leadership skills.
3 | REMEMBER THE COURSE CONTENT A SSUMING LEARNERS WILL
The third assumption is that learners will remember and apply the content of the training courses. This false assumption has been roundly contradicted by Dr. Henry L. Roediger of Washington University in St. Louis with his research on the rate of which human beings forget information. This research has profound implications for training design because it now suggests that training should include strategies to interrupt the process of forgetting. If the learners cannot remember the training content, they logically cannot apply it to their behavior. The forgetting factor is exacerbated by training courses focused on delivering as much information as possible in the shortest possible time. This assumption of remembering is totally misplaced if 50 percent is forgotten within the first hour after training and 90 percent is lost after a week.
4 |
A SSUMING ALL LEARNERS ARE THE SAME
The fourth assumption is a big contributor to the gap between training and workplace behavior. We treat learners as if they are all the same. We deliver the same information and concepts to groups of individuals in the same manner, in the same place and in the same timeframe. This suggests strongly that there is an assumption there will be an even uptake of information across the individuals in the group. When we consider a group of people and focus on their characteristics, we begin to realize that there are many
WHY TRAINING FAILS TO TRANSLATE INTO BEHAVIOR CHANGE • Using institutional teaching processes to train employees in practical skill development such as leadership and sales • Lack of follow-up coaching • Humans are different and are unsuited for “one size fits all” packaged training • Lack of meaningful repetition • Emphasis on content rather than sustainable results • Failure to acknowledge and respect learner’s existing knowledge, skill and experience • Creating information overload • Assuming learners will remember the course content • Being trainer and content centric • Assuming learners will do what they are told and change their behavior • Generic training material that fails to address individual workplace issues • Omission of strategies to change learner’s own behavior • Lack of understanding human learning processes
individual differences. These will have important implications on the style, presentation, content, speed, relevance and application of the training. If effective training courses are to be delivered, the design of the program must take into consideration the majority of these individual characteristics. “One size fits all” instructor-led training courses have avoided catering for differences in group members for a variety of reasons. The principal reason appears to be that results from training are far less important than the financial benefits derived by the training provider or the cost of the training. This is demonstrated in the size of training groups. When consideration is given to some of the human differences represented by a random group of participants on a training course, you can see how current practices make it almost impossible to deliver the results we expect. This failure to transfer knowledge into workplace behavior is compounded by the size of the group. It is universally recognized that the larger the group of learners, the less the training will achieve in terms of retention let alone transfer to the workplace. Despite these human differences, there are a myriad of “one size fits all” training courses that are prescriptive, delivered by a trainer who is not accountable for results and working to a rigid timetable. The variety of human learning characteristics limit what can be learned through conventional classroom training in groups. These four assumptions are embedded deeply in the way training takes place and actively supported by institutions and training providers. It is little wonder why there is a lack of transfer between training and workplace behavior. It would make sound economic sense to design training programs aligned to the way humans learn to bridge the gap between the training content and subsequent workplace behavior. Peter L. Mitchell is an international specialist in workplace behavioral change. He is a trainer, writer and speaker. Email Peter.
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BOTTOM-UP
BOTTOM-UP ORGANIZATIONAL ASSESSMENTS
Seeing the big picture often comes from surprising places. There is a famous Indian parable of six blind men who come across an elephant. The first blind man feels the elephant’s tusk and says it is a plowshare. The second blind man feels the leg and says it is a pillar. The third blind man feels the ears and says it must be a large shade plant. The fourth feels his body and says it is a huge wall. The fifth feels the trunk and says it is a branch of a tree. The sixth blind man is feeling the tail when he steps in something. “Um, guys,” he says, “it’s an elephant.” In any business setting, understanding the state of a company depends a lot on one’s perspective. Executives like to pride themselves on their ability to see “the big picture,” but often can’t see problems in the functional, dayto-day operations of the organization. Employees at different parts of the company may see issues, but may only be able to address them with their direct manager. Determining a company’s true strengths and weaknesses is often a difficult and frustrating experience for both business leaders and their employees. Oftentimes, a sense of mistrust develops between employees at different levels within the organization, and communication is stifled. However, I feel that there are definite alternatives to this direct topdown management style that allows employees a method to communicate what they feel is working both within their department and across departmental lines. The first step to doing this is to re-consider how we look at the organizational structure of a business.
THE PROBLEM OF "PYRAMID THINKING"
ELICITING OPERATIONAL FEEDBACK FROM EMPLOYEES BY SCOTT MOE | 20
Most organizations suffer from what I refer to as "pyramid thinking.” The standard business organizational chart is often shaped in the form of a pyramid, with lower-level employees in the bottom, managers and directors in the middle and executives at the top. Departments such as marketing, finance, operations and customer service are shown side-by-side randomly, each with its own leader. The various departments form the structure of the pyramid which support the top executive level of the organization.
Although an organizational chart is just a tool to show everyone’s responsibility within the organization, people tend to take the chart literally. First, organizational charts tend to play out in the physical world. It’s a familiar sight to see executive offices on the higher levels of a building, where organizational seniority is in full display. Additionally, departments tend to divide themselves into silos with communication moving up through managers or down from senior executives. As an organizational chart rarely shows connections between mid-level employees in separate departments, communication between departments is often assumed to only happen within the executive ranks where department heads are “at the same level.” This scenario can create several communication problems within the organization.
• Leaders don’t bother to ask employees about potential operational improvement.
Executives usually approach operational issues from a “big picture” perspective, involving multiple departments or the organization, and assume that those within the organization will not be able to provide feedback that will be relevant to those decisions. Executives are put into situations where improvements by employees may have significant costs (financial, operational, organizational) that employees may not adequately grasp. Within standard business practice, hierarchy limits the methods in which communication may travel to executives (i.e., through a manager to a director to a VP, etc.). Even relevant suggestions may be ignored if they aren’t being received through the right channel.
• Employees often fail to consider relevant solutions to the problems that they experience. It’s an internalized cliché to envision workers struggling against the executives “who just don’t get it.” However, it’s rarely that simple. First, employees can easily mistake organizational problems (a lackluster co-worker or poor manager) for a business process problem. If a process is in place, but isn’t being implemented properly, that is a training and development problem, not a process problem. Second, workers often have
a myopic view of what they see. In the corollary to the “leaders” problem of relying on the “big picture,” many workers can be focused on a “small picture” that is only relevant to them and their personal work environment. Finally, employees often assume that problems can be fixed by executives spending more money on them. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.
RETHINKING THE ORGANIZATIONAL CHART VIA BUSINESS PROCESS Pyramid thinking's single biggest problem is that it completely ignores the business process. A standard organizational chart cannot show how an organization works to make products or provide services. An organization exists because it is creating new technology, providing goods that people need or offering services that are wanted by the community around it. A pyramid, however, is a giant tomb. So, how can business leaders change this dynamic? Instead of a multi-level hierarchy, use a 2x2 matrix which reflects a company’s business process to create products and provide services called the Four Corners Framework (see Figure 1 on page 22). 1| CREATE AN X-AXIS This is the Authenticity line 2 | CREATE A Y-AXIS This is the Communication line 3 | IN QUADRANT 1, write the following "business stages”: Fulfillment, Customer Service, Executive-level Review & Assessment 4 | IN QUADRANT 2 write the following "business stages": Branding, Marketing, Sales 5 | IN QUADRANT 3 write the following "business stages": Innovation, Process, Quality Control 6 | IN QUADRANT 4 write the following "business stages": Executive-level Strategy, Finance, People The quadrants flow clockwise from Q4 to Q3 to Q2 to Q1 and back to Q4 so that the movement of ideas and actions flow through the organization in stages
as a product or service would. Each business stage is a step in a process to create a product and service: setting up resources; developing and creating a product; marketing and selling it
FEEDBACK FORUMS ALLOW EXECUTIVES TO NARROW THE PAIN POINTS OF THEIR BUSINESS IN A SIMPLE WAY. to buyers; and finally, delivering it to customers. Every healthy commercial company will have these elements within the business process, although the areas of the company in which they reside will depend greatly on the organization. For example, a manufacturing company might look like this: 1 | IN QUADRANT 1 Fulfillment, Customer Service, Customer Feedback & [Executive level] Financial Review 2 | IN QUADRANT 2 Public Relations, Marketing [Print, Web, Social], Sales [Inbound & Channel Partners] 3 | IN QUADRANT 3 R&D, Manufacturing, Quality Control [ISO9001] 4 | IN QUADRANT 4 C-Suite & Board of Directors, Finance, Human Resources NOTE: Non-profit organizations have a slightly different format where Q1 and Q2 are switched. There are multiple benefits to using this format. First, all departments of the organization (including executives) are seen to be on the "same level." Organizational roles are relevant by their importance to the business process, not seniority. Departments are connected to each other by working in sequence to create value to customers. There is also an expectation of inter-departmental communication in which employees
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THE FOUR CORNERS FRAMEWORK™ | LEVEL 2
FIGURE 1
QUADRANT 2
SALES
THE PUBLIC IMAGE
COMMUNICATION
MARKETING
APPRAISAL
AUTHENTICITY
ANCHOR
AUTHENTICITY
QUALITY
PLAYBOOK COMMUNICATION
PROCESS QUADRANT 3
of connected departments can give suggestions and assessments to improve the flow of information. The overall structure provides a feedback loop to make continual improvement.
USING THE FOUR CORNER FRAMEWORK FOR OPERATIONAL FEEDBACK Once a company’s specific format for the Four Corners Framework has been established, it is possible to get meaningful and relevant feedback from employees on how to improve a company’s overall business process. Executives should hold frequent feedback forums either with employees together or individually, preferably on a quarterly basis. The goal is to discuss with employees four key questions: • In which business stage do you work? • How could the business process be improved in the way it moves into this business stage? • How could the business process be improved within the business stage? • How could the business process be improved in delivering to the next business stage?
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THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
CUSTOMER SERVICE
BRAND
THE ANVIL
QUADRANT 1
FULFILLMENT
INNOVATION
FINANCE PEOPLE
By focusing specifically on an employee’s responsibilities within a business stage and the way processes can be improved, the interviewer removes the threat related to speaking about organizational dynamics and individual attacks. Additionally, by asking employees to comment on the business stages both preceding and succeeding their own responsibilities, employees are forced to consider how communication and
ESTABLISH A FORMAT TO GET MEANINGFUL AND RELEVANT FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE A BUSINESS PROCESS. action flows through the organization, but only where it is specific to their responsibilities and day-to-day experience. A suggestion would be to allow interviewers to come from other parts (or outside) the organization to get more frank comments.
QUADRANT 4
THE BRAIN TRUST
In these forums, each of the key questions can be elaborated and expanded upon depending on the relevance to the discussion. If a business stage has several processes, depending on the products and services, then the interviewer may choose to ask about each in turn. Many comments by employees will not be relevant or actionable. However, comments that are repeated frequently in closely aligned business stages (i.e., employees in both R&D and quality control mention that manufacturing is hard to work with) or throughout the organization (i.e., employees in eight of the 12 business stages state that problem with the IT infrastructure slows down their work) can be given priority. By hosting feedback forums with employees, executives can help narrow the pain points of their business in a systematic and simple way. By working with employees to give them feedback on the small sections of the road they work, executives can soon improve the whole route their company travels. Scott Moe is director of business development for the Digital Training Group, which focuses on helping companies retain and develop their next generation of leaders. Email Scott.
NEW HIRES
THE FORGOTTEN LEADERS BY PAUL MAHLER
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Leadership training for managers and executives dominates the industry while new hires are almost entirely ignored. A carryover from the Industrial Age, this leader-manager focus ignores an essential need for innovative thinking at all levels of an organization. In the Information Age and beyond, the very idea of a leader should be divorced from a manager in favor of developing innovative thinking from every employee, regardless of their tenure. Since innovation is now the primary driver of growth, it is time to rethink leadership training strategies, and expand the very notion of a leader. THE TOP-DOWN STRATEGY IS OUTDATED In a January 2016 posting, HRmanagement.com claimed that “Recruiting innovators will be a truly important hiring trend in 2016.” Supporting that idea, Soren Kaplan, the founder of Innovation Point, said “The last thing you want is a key player on your team paralyzed by uncertainty and fear of risk-taking.” Harvard University’s Division of Continuing Education offers “Strategies for Leading Successful Change Initiatives” with a program that highlights “profiling and identifying change agents.” All these expert training resources agree that hiring and training for innovative change is important, but their focus is usually on key players in the hierarchy. Onboarding young professionals at the start of their careers as leader-innovators can create a company-wide culture that embraces creative change from the bottom-up.
THE EVOLUTION: FROM LEADER-MANAGER TO LEADER-INNOVATOR Delaying leadership training until the candidate reaches a management position is short-sighted in what we might call an advancing Innovation Age. Just as the Information Age transformed Industrial Age businesses to recognize the power of big data, Innovation Age companies must innovate to thrive. They need to recognize that every employee has the potential to offer creative solutions, and thereby to lead, regardless their title or length of service. To gain such an advantage, the notion of training leader-managers should give way to training leader-innovators. To do so, more attention needs to be paid to these concepts: • A leader-innovator is anyone in the organization who offers wellconceived and creative ideas, and has the determination to bring them to fruition.
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• Leader-innovator skills can be learned, and the best time to start is with new hires at the beginning of their careers. • Critical thinking skills broaden a leaderinnovator’s change mindset. • Emotional intelligence provides a foundation for risk-acceptable decision making and the determination to bring a good idea to fruition. • Leader-innovators, at every level of the organization, can provide a stable and collaborative foundation for change to take hold and thrive. TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP The notion of training young professionals as leader-innovators is transformational only when training tactics offer practical applications that lend themselves to selfhelp and continual improvement. Young professionals will need examples they can use every day to build their leaderinnovator capabilities. The key elements for training leader-innovators are: • Critical thinking skills • A strong personal emotional intellect • Leadership principles they can apply every day Critical thinking skills need to be considered if for no other reason than
IT’S TIME TO RETHINK LEADERSHIP TRAINING STRATEGIES, AND EXPAND THE VERY NOTION OF A LEADER.
The second is that critical thinking must involve reason, not simply assertion. In other words, the critical thinker seeks out real evidence from which they draw reasonable conclusions. From Paul’s point of view, these thinking objectives are lifelong challenges not readily mastered, but suggests we view them as a hub around which all other challenges are studied. It makes sense then that the earlier someone starts, the better. Understanding the importance of emotional intelligence in developing leader-innovators begins with an examination of why new hires tend to fail, and adjusting onboarding techniques accordingly. In a June 2015 study, Leadership IQ addressed the issue of why new hires fail. The study found that only 11 percent of new hire failures were due to a lack of technical competence, while:
to encourage people to reflect on what they think about. Richard Paul, from the Center for Critical Thinking, defines critical thinking as “thinking about what you’re thinking while you’re thinking, in order to make your thinking better.”
• 26 percent failed because they couldn’t accept feedback
Paul offers two aspects that he considers crucial. The first is that critical thinking isn’t just thinking, but thinking that entails self-improvement. In other words, what can I learn while I am thinking?
• 15 percent because they had the wrong temperament for the workplace
• 23 percent because they were unable to control their emotions • 17 percent because they lacked sufficient motivation
In sum, 81 percent of new hire failures were due to deficiencies in what we
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOLLOW THE MOST SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES BY RECRUITING INNOVATORS IN 2016
“THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK OF SUCCESS, LAWS OF LEADERSHIP FOR BLACK WOMEN” (2010)
by emotional intelligence failures than by lack of technical skills.
By Total HR
By Brown, Haygood and McLean
Provides the “Top 5 Employee Skill Sets to Hire for Innovation.”
This book offers practical leadership advice that translates across race and gender.
“HBR’S 10 MUST READS: ON LEADERSHIP” (2011)
THE MILLENNIAL LEADERSHIP SURVEY
WHY NEW-HIRES FAIL
By Workplace Trends
By Leadership IQ
A definitive study of millennial attitudes toward work and leadership.
An important study showing how turnover is affected more
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By Daniel Goleman
Goleman’s “What Makes a Leader?” essay defines the five components of emotional intelligence and provides straightforward hallmarks to help build your skills.
TRAINING NEW HIRES WILL IMPROVE RETENTION, ESTABLISH COLLABORATION AS NORMAL, AND WELCOME CHANGE. might view broadly as emotional intelligence, while only 11 percent failed due to technical incompetence. In his “What Makes a Leader?” essay for the Harvard Business Review, Daniel Goleman argues that IQ and technical proficiency are merely “threshold capabilities” for leadership. While he warns that developing one’s emotional intelligence is a lifelong challenge, Goleman offers these hallmarks as the keys for leadership: • Self-confidence • Integrity • Optimism, even in the face of failure • Empathy • Persuasive team building The practical application in training young professionals for emotional intelligence (EI) should include a selfassessment tool that asks the candidates to rate themselves on the several elements of EI. Examples might include, “I’m always calm under pressure,” “I manage everyday stress with relative ease,” and “I’m good at building rapport with my boss, colleagues and customers.” With a simple one to five personal rating on each of several elements, the candidate will quickly recognize their EI strengths and weaknesses, and have a model for continuous improvement as a leader-innovator. To appreciate the leadership principles important in developing leaderinnovators requires an understanding for typical leadership attitudes among business executives. In an October 2015 study, the Center for Creative Leadership asked the question “Are Leaders Born or Made?” The study divided responses into those CEOs who believe that leaders are born (they called them “Born Believers”), and those who believe that leadership can be taught (“Made Believers”). The “Born Believers” see innate personality traits such as charisma as the biggest contributor to leadership. The “Made
Believers,” on the other hand, see training and experience as the greater factor. Similarly, “Born Believer” CEOs view leadership as leading by example while their “Made Believer” counterparts see leadership as empowering, acts as mentor, and shows integrity. These leadership attitude conflicts among CEOs suggest that those executives who take the authority-focused, “Born Believer” approach to leadership expecting their charges to simply follow their lead, will fail to fully motivate today’s young professionals. On the other hand, those “Made Believer” executives who inspire their new hires with a company vision that connects with their desire to change the world for the better, will have far greater success. It is also the “Made Believer” executives who will recognize the value of training new hires to be leader-innovators. Just as with emotional intelligence, leadership skills should be presented in a practical format. Asking young professionals to rate themselves on leadership attributes will tell them you believe in their potential, and give them a model for improvement. These include, but are not limited to, “I am always honest with myself and everyone else,” “I always collaborate and share my ideas,” and “I make decisions boldly, and learn from my mistakes.” As with the rating tool for emotional intelligence, a similar personal assessment for leadership principles will provide candidates with a practical way to self-improve. TAPPING INTO THE MILLENNIAL OUTLOOK In its July 2015 Millennial Leadership Survey, workplacetrends.com confirms the need to adapt to the leaderinnovator. Its study showed that 91 percent of millennials aspire to be leaders, and that they are “motivated by a desire to transform themselves and their colleagues, and the world around them.” They conclude with this challenge: “If
companies want to build engaged and productive workforces, they will need to find a way to tap into the Millennial Outlook.” This is exactly the goal for leader-innovator onboarding. The pressure to train new hires solely for technical skills is understandable but short-sighted, especially given the research regarding failures in the workplace. While managers who are hiring need to fill open positions quickly, and need for them to be productive, they also need them to stay on the job and be motivated for the long-term. Training new hires as leader-innovators will not only improve employee retention, it will establish collaboration as the norm, and change as a welcome challenge. Paul Mahler is the founder of The Leader Within, offering practical leadership and business skills training for new hires, and the developer of The Leader-Innovator Certificate program for young professionals. Email Paul.
TAKEAWAYS • The notion of leadership is evolving from the Industrial Age leadersupervisor to the Information Age leader-manager, to the Innovation Age leader-innovator. • Leader-innovator skills can be learned, and the best time to start is with your new hires. • The leader-innovator can come from any part of your organization, regardless of their position and tenure. • Leader-innovators will combine creative thinking, emotional intelligence, and well-developed leadership skills to help establish a company-wide culture to support creative change. • Millennials want to be considered as having leadership potential. Recognizing that in the onboarding process will establish collaboration as the norm, and change as a welcome challenge.
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Recycled & Reused
Repurposing Training Content for Digital Delivery.
Read the Report
By Vince Eugenio, Ph.D. and Karen Spataro Sieczka
THESURROUND S Driving T ROrganizational A T E Capability G Y toMBusiness O DImpactE L
TALENT DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES MAY FULFILL SOME ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES, BUT LONG-TERM SUSTAINABILITY OF THESE INITIATIVES IS AN OFTEN OVERLOOKED VARIABLE. APPLYING THE SURROUND STRATEGY MODEL TO VIEW INCOMING REQUESTS THROUGH FOUR ORGANIZATIONAL LENSES OF CULTURE, CAPABILITY, COMMITMENT, AND CONTAINMENT CAN MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SIMPLY OFFERING TRAINING INITIATIVES AND CREATING REAL BUSINESS IMPACT. THE SURROUND STRATEGY MODEL MOVES BEYOND A FOCUS ON INITIATIVE DELIVERY AND PROVIDES A ROBUST FRAMEWORK TO DRIVE INCREASED SUSTAINABILITY AND IMPACT.
Reaction Equals Inaction Many talent development professionals work diligently to align their work with business goals. At times, hasty reactions to “urgent” training requests can often derail the thoughtful consideration needed for prioritization and sustainability. This rush to fulfill requests can result in missed opportunities that demonstrate value to the organization. A performance consulting-based approach, first understanding barriers to performance and then addressing key leverage points, can drive sustainability and ensure impact. Employing the Human Performance Improvement (HPI) Model to help identify barriers to performance, applying governance to select the right initiative, and then using the Surround Strategy Model to drive adoption and sustainability, creates a synergistic formula for success. Moving organizational requests for training and development through governance ensures the right things get done. Viewing the approved initiative through the lens of culture, capability, commitment, and containment provides a rich opportunity to engage executive sponsors in thinking through how the initiative will be sustained and the impact
measured. Working through crossfunctional partnerships, success enablers like compensation, talent acquisition, competencies, and/or performance management can be leveraged. Greater business impact opportunities can be gained through this collaborative approach by creating partnerships between departments, such as executive sponsors, human resources business partners, talent acquisition, talent development, compensation, etc. Each of these functional areas have access to enablers that can be used to support the sustainability of the initiative. Sounds like common sense, so why isn’t this standard operating procedure for organizations?
A Perception of Need Oftentimes, talent development initiatives start based on a perception of need, rather than an adequate understanding of the real barriers to performance. For example, an executive makes a unilateral decision about the solution for fixing a “problem,” or perhaps there’s leftover budget available. Then, a learning leader feels compelled to show responsiveness to all requests by doing “something” to quickly address the requests. This unspoken sense of
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FIGURE 1
THE SURROUND STRATEGY CONTAINMENT
TRAINING
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
INITIATIVE REQUESTS
CULTURE
COMPENSATION
COACHING
BUSINESS IMPACT
COMPETENCIES
INITIATIVE INITIATIVE INITIATIVE 1 2 3
GOVERNANCE
ANALYTICS
C O MM I T M E N T
HPI/PERFORMANCE CONSULTING
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
HIRING TECHNOLOGY
HR CAPABILITY
INITIATIVE 2
C A PA B I LI T Y
©2017 Eugenio & Sieczka
urgency results in skipping critical discovery and alignment work. The result is often inescapable, and a missed opportunity to provide business impact to the organization. A survey conducted during a 2015 webinar on implementing the Surround Strategy Model revealed 80 percent of talent development professionals agreed they were often reacting to a perception of needs, rather than true performance gaps.
Case in Point An executive requested a system training refresher due to the perception her team couldn’t effectively use the new software. Rather than taking a reactive approach by doing more training, it was recommended that a survey and targeted interviews should be used to understand user proficiency levels. The data indicated users felt the existing training was effective and felt reasonably proficient using the system. Also uncovered were several overlycomplicated workflows as well as some functionality issues. The result of this setback? The IT department was tasked to resolve workflow and functionality issues, rather than talent development retraining hundreds of users.
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Forging Ahead According to the whitepaper, The Value of Learning: Gauging the Business Impact of Organizational Learning Initiatives, “If learning activities are to positively affect organizational bottom lines, or even achieve high effectiveness, the strategies underlying them must tie
GREATER BUSINESS IMPACT CAN BE GAINED WITH A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH OF CREATING PARTNERSHIPS. to the specific results the organization seeks to achieve.” This sounds like common sense, yet the research found that only 44 percent of organizations confirmed use of business outcomes to drive learning strategy, revealing the tendency to forge ahead, reacting to perception of need or producing
“feel good” initiatives. It’s an attitude of hoping for business impact rather than actual strategizing to drive impact.
The HPI Model is a Great Start Why are training initiatives the “goto” solution? Performance gaps are often due to a host of issues such as hiring for the wrong competencies, not clearly rewarding the right performance behaviors, weak frontline leaders or simply poor business processes. A more holistic approach that accounts for these multiple drivers including barriers and incentives to performance applied before designing initiatives, uncovers the real underlying issues and sets the stage for business impact. The HPI Model is an improvement over a plainly reactive approach and guides development by establishing a business case for performance improvement, linking specific strategic drivers to skill requirements, then working forward to design supporting initiatives—a solid framework to identify barriers to performance. What is not clearly defined using HPI is long-term, sustainability governance to prioritize initiatives, or assessment to understand if an organization is ready and able to accept
and uphold initiatives. It also doesn’t fully address opportunities to use organizational enablers such as using goal setting within a performance management system to align and reward behaviors against specific performance criteria the initiative is meant to improve.
The Surround Strategy Model The Surround Strategy Model (see Figure 1 on page 30) builds on the HPI Model, viewing organizations as ecosystems, while delineating available enablers that executives, HR, talent development, and organizational development have to drive integration, accountability, sustainability and return on initiatives. Focusing on the right work, not just any work, is at the core of the Surround Strategy Model. Talent development from this consultative perspective provides a clearer view into the root cause of performance gaps. In addition, cross-functional governance offers a means for focusing on initiatives likely to have the highest organizational impact. The very nature of governance forces key stakeholders into alignment, increases buy-in and provides the support needed during implementation. Governance compels the separation of the “nice to haves” from the real business priorities. Once governance drives agreement, key performance indicators and potential impact, then conversations move through the Four C’s to assess possible impact, analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation of the initiative from the perspectives of:
• Culture
Will the organization’s culture be an aid or barrier to the initiative?
• Capability
Can leaders coach to the performance expectations of the initiative? What knowledge and skills will employees need to perform?
• Commitment
Will executives, sponsors and supervisors be committed long-term to doing what is necessary to support the performance expectations of the initiative? Are there competing priorities that may take focus away from this initiative?
• Containment
Is the scope of the initiative being adjusted to avoid overwhelming the organization? Critical to the surround strategy are enablers used with the intent to ensure sustainability and impact. Rather than training supervisors to drive compliance for conducting performance reviews, compensation could be used as an
TALENT DEVELOPMENT FROM A CONSULTATIVE PERSPECTIVE PROVIDES A CLEAR CAUSE OF PERFORMANCE GAPS. enabler. For example, applying a percentage of variable compensation aligned to a compliance metric, or applying the compensation enabler pushed compliance within one review cycle. Completion of mid-year reviews rose from 32 percent to 96 percent, and goals entered to the performance management system increased from 18 percent to 92 percent.
Summary Ultimately, talent development should be able to produce targeted, tangible gains through workforce performance improvement initiatives. This can come from better onboarding, increasing revenue, reducing errors or decreasing injuries. Unfortunately, talent management effectiveness is often based on a perception of contribution or responsiveness rather than actual value to the organization. A whitepaper from Impact International found, “In a tough economic climate with unrelenting pressure on training budgets, L&D professionals are constantly challenged to demonstrate the value, ROI and business impact of training initiatives. The way to increase the value and return of training is to design it in a way that is clearly aligned with corporate strategy (i.e., to increase
the relevance of training to the business need).” This sentiment makes clear definition of the gaps, alignment and prioritization of initiatives, and use of enablers for talent development initiatives to contribute value to the business critical. It was true in 2011 when the whitepaper was published and is more relevant than ever today. The Surround Strategy Model provides a simple framework for prioritizing, aligning, supporting, executing and sustaining organizational training initiatives that have a higher likelihood of adding long-term value to the business. It simply requires a shift in mindset to invest time to assess and prioritize the real needs of the organization, but is easy to set into motion and doesn’t require any specialized skills to get started. However, if done wrong, an initiative created in a vacuum could have negative financial impact to an organization, reduce the credibility and viability of the talent development function, and possibly cost jobs. Vince Eugenio, Ph.D., is a senior talent development expert with extensive experience in leading the function in Fortune 500 organizations. Karen Spataro Sieczka is a training and education manager for division of a Fortune 500 company that designs and manufactures inventory control hardware and software solutions. Email the authors.
FIVE STEPS TO IMPLEMENT THE SURROUND STRATEGY MODEL Next time an “urgent” training request comes, consider vetting the request through this process to see if training will fill the performance gaps and uncover the root cause of them. 1. Use performance consulting to identify barriers to performance. 2. Align and gain sponsorship through governance. 3. Identify no more than three KPIs to track business impact. 4. Use the 4 C’s to determine enablers. 5. Surround the initiative with the appropriate enablers.
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BY DAN BIEWENER
WHEN SKILL REQUIREMENTS MOVE TOO FA S T TALENT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES | 32
The skills gap in business is real, and hiring talent isn’t doing enough to solve it. According to the “New Talent Landscape: Recruiting Difficulty and Skills Shortages” report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), about two out of every three human resources (HR) professionals surveyed had a hard time hiring for full-time jobs in 2016—up from 50 percent since a similar report in 2013. SHRM President and CEO Hank Jackson says this is largely due to a lack of skills and required work experience. According to the research, 84 percent of HR professionals reported seeing applied skills shortages in job applicants over the last 12 months. In a recent annual survey of employers, Deloitte and the International Society of Certified Employee Benefits Specialists (ISCEBS) remarked, “The shortage of qualified talent and the skills gap has emerged as the biggest challenge facing employers over the next three years.” This skills gap continues to widen, despite the available pool of domestic and H1B job applicants. How can employers expect to fill their needs for such capabilities in emerging technologies? The answer lies within. More and more smart companies are training their existing employees to acquire the skills they need in the technologies and disciplines that are critical to their evolving business objectives.
USE TRAINING STRATEGICALLY TO FILL SKILLS GAPS As technologies rapidly evolve and corporate initiatives change, talent development is proving to be a faster and more cost-effective solution than talent acquisition. Certification-level training takes a typical investment of only $1,100 per employee. Meanwhile, the direct and hidden costs of hiring someone new averages 20 percent of the annual salary
for that mid-level position, according to a 2012 analysis by the Center for American Progress. Compared to recruiting, bringing existing employees up to speed on new software or related business skills such as cloud computing or digital marketing makes good business sense. Here are some strategies for making it work.
UPSKILL AND BACKFILL Upskilling and backfilling involves enriching the technical capabilities of your most productive employees and promoting them into more critical positions and replacing them with new hires in lower-risk roles. Rather than turning outside to find a new employee who has the specific skills you need, first consider if the desired skill really warrants creating a new full-time position. Instead, could any current employees be able to learn those necessary skills? If the answer is yes and you find internal candidates who are ripe for upskilling, you can free their time by offloading lessstrategic duties on to other promotable employees, or even backfill their roles by hiring junior positions. In addition to saving time and money, this upskill and backfill process maintains established corporate culture, enables uninterrupted employee productivity, and provides other benefits to your organization, including: • I mproved employee engagement and retention by building self-esteem with a culture of higher promotion potential and refreshingly novel or challenging responsibilities. • Better company brand reputation (on employer review sites like Glassdoor.com) as a place for career development and longevity for future candidates. • Reduced dependency on outside consultants or vendors for necessary skillsets.
NURTURE EMPLOYEES FOR FUTURE ROLES Organizations can use training programs to create a pool of promotable employees as a long-term strategic solution. By analyzing your company’s history of growth or attrition, “it’s possible to predict that specific openings will occur at a predetermined period in time,” says Hemant Kumaarr, an HR professional at ESQ Business Services, Inc. That’s how talent development can become part of your talent acquisition strategy. As Kumaarr notes, “[Training] enables you to recruit today for positions that do not even exist today but are expected to become available in the future.” Leveraging the tried-and-true concept of “on-the-job training,” you could hire at entry level, then upskill from within, and promote to new roles as the anticipated skills become necessary.
within your organization, rather than having them spend their time learning skills that are more useful elsewhere.
MANAGE “KEY PERSON” DEPENDENCY Talent development is an essential part of succession planning and reduces your organization’s risk from key person dependency – when one of your team members is solely responsible for an essential skill and there is no back-up plan. By having multiple employees trained on the same skills, the company can avoid losses of output and institutional memory should any one person leave or become too ill to perform critical functions. When planning for possible successors or additional team members to perform a critical function, it’s important to choose staff members who have comparable roles. For example, you wouldn’t necessarily want someone from accounting to manage your cybersecurity, or vice versa.
TALENT DEVELOPMENT IS PROVING TO BE A FASTER AND MORE COSTEFFECTIVE SOLUTION THAN TALENT ACQUISITION.
Organizations should take the necessary precautions to make sure team members do not feel threatened by having fellow employees trained in the skills. This is one reason why it’s wise to make this type of training part of a larger talent development initiative, where multiple employees are engaged in training on various skills that are complementary to other departments.
Providing training opportunities to employees also lets you guide which new skills your workforce should develop. Target skills to meet your company’s immediate gaps or to build toward projected growth or anticipated vacancies. This also lets you focus employees on training that is useful
Cross-training builds engagement by adding new knowledge and variety to job tasks. It also improves cooperation between departments by enabling symbiotic team members to understand their business processes and appreciate each other’s roles and efforts better than before.
IMPROVE ENGAGEMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY In addition to future-proofing your organization, cross-training employees in the skills and processes used by other departments benefits business operations in many ways.
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Plus, cross-trained employees are more productive. Employees who feel they have good work-life balance work 21 percent harder than those who don’t, according to a survey of 50,000 privateand public-sector employees worldwide by the Corporate Executive Board.
applied learning component. Applied learning projects give employees the opportunity to put the skills they’re learning into use by solving practice problems relevant to their industry and work. Examples of applied learning projects include:
PREVENT SKILLS DECAY WITH APPLIED LEARNING
• Case studies
Compounding the problem of fastchanging skills requirements, existing skills fade from lack of use. Newlylearned skills can also fail to take hold, especially if they aren’t practiced or applied in real-world exercises while being learned. As quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Eduardo Salas, professor of organizational psychology at the University of Central Florida, says skills decay is a big problem. “The American Society for Training and Development says that by the time you go back to your job, you’ve lost 90 percent of what you’ve learned in training,” says Salas. “That’s why you need to reinforce. If you learn something and you don’t have the opportunity to practice, eventually you are going to lose it.” One of the most important elements that talent development and other training designers can add to their courses is an
• App development • Simulations • Debugging • Peer reviews • Market analyses • Solution scenarios Authentic tasks like applied learning activities not only provide motivation for trainees to use what they’ve learned; it can equip them with skills in social interaction and collaboration. In many cases, the materials that employees create in their applied learning projects may be immediately useful in the performance of their actual jobs.
ESTABLISH A LEARNING CULTURE When done right, training can promote a culture of continuous and progressive learning that motivates the employee to strive for additional courses, higher training levels, and even certifications. It’s critical to have a training program
FIVE KEYS TO SUCCESS AT FILLING SKILLS GAPS A strategic talent development program can overcome the costs, onboarding challenges and culture shift that comes with talent acquisition. However, in order to be most effective, employee training should go beyond classes and include: 1| Analysis of the most appropriate employees to groom with training for advanced skills or higher roles. 2| Pre-testing to help stage employees at the proper course level (or provide the option to opt-out of remedial or irrelevant courses.
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3| M easurement of ongoing training progress, including surveys, quizzes, and completed work, ideally monitored using a learning management system or other management dashboard. 4 | Applied learning projects that let employees practice new skills to solve realistic
problems they can relate to in their actual work environment. 5| Social interaction, inspiring positive competition, motivation and collaboration through group projects, leaderboards, and even social sharing of progress and projects.
that provides opportunities for growth beyond the learning of basic skills. Providing a clear learning path—from foundation courses to more advanced and specialized levels—offers many advantages, including: • Inspiring trainees to see what is possible within the training program as well as their career path and aspirations, • Establishing a quantitative measurement of success through a structure of prerequisites for advancement to a higher-level course, and • Reinforcing retention of previously-learned skills.
TRAINING HELPS RETENTION, NOT JUST DEVELOPMENT Some employers express reticence about investing in employee training for fear that they will take these new skills and use them at another company. On the contrary, statistics show that providing new skills through talent development actually increases employee retention. A study by the Hospitality Industry Education Advisory Committee (HIEAC) in British Columbia reported that “40 percent of employees who receive poor job training leave their positions within the first year, [citing] the lack of skills training and development as the principal reason for moving on.” As Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, professed, “The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.” Dan Biewener is the director of training research at Simplilearn. He has 15 years of experience teaching and developing instructor-led training and video-based e-learning curricula. Email Dan.
DISRUPTING BEST PRACTICES IN L&D DIFFERENTIATING HORIZONTAL & VERTICAL DEVELOPMENT BY SHERRYL DIMITRY, PH.D.
Most organizations with a dedicated learning and development function have a solid offering of training and development opportunities for hard skills and functional competencies, and soft skills and leadership competencies. In many organizations, the persistently popular idea around using the 70-20-10 formula for learning is considered a “best practice.” However, this “one size fits all” approach ignores the fact that knowledge, learning a skill, behavior change and thinking skills are all different. In an era of disruptive change and VUCA” (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) challenges, our profession needs to do better.
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Our current mindset around learning is painfully outdated. We have yet to evolve outdated classroom pedagogies focused on lecture and information dissemination, and these are often woefully replicated in virtual and online training. Learning through experience typically lacks the rigor and focus to ensure that results can be effectively demonstrated or verified. As a profession, our L&D worldview still seems bound by the belief in a single ideal model/approach regardless of the learning or development objective. Good L&D departments offer multiple resources, encourage learning from experience and through others. Most of us in this field learned all the fundamentals of adult learning theory, instructional design (on the learning side) as well as coaching, 360 feedback and a variety of personality/ leadership style assessments (on the development side). Instinctively, we
know these are different objectives, but we continue to approach them in terms of “push” development: send them to a class; tell them to observe and learn through others; and, practice applying knowledge and building skills with experience. Rarely is structure or verification built into the experiential or practice components of learning. It doesn’t help when an employee or their manager focuses almost exclusively on formal training when discussing development needs and goals. The most a traditional training program can do is introduce new concepts that might help them rethink current perspectives, but it won’t help to internalize and act on them. In these cases, transformational learning is needed. What hasn’t really been done in our field is looking at them together: differentiating and then integrating them. By differentiating the types of development, we can look at the unique
challenges of each and consider which approach is best. Having an executive “practice” keeping composure or building relationships through better listening only addresses behavior and not the underlying worldview, values and beliefs that drive automatic behavior. Offering an online course for listening skills is laughable without additional feedback and practice – and yet, it happens all the time. Robert Kegan and Susanne Cook-Greuter both provide research supporting the position that cognitive and mental development in adults does not end at a certain age, including emotional intelligence. Cook-Greuter offers a description of horizontal and vertical development which aligns neatly with the description above of functional/ technical competencies and behavioral or leadership competencies.
HORIZONTAL DEVELOPMENT: WHAT YOU DO AND WHAT YOU KNOW Horizontal proficiency looks at knowledge, skills and functional or technical competencies. Think of these in terms of what an employee needs to know and what they need to do to deliver the work expected. It’s the manager’s job to make sure the employee is clear on what knowledge and technical or functional competencies are needed and
expected, what the manager’s priorities are and the quality of work expected. In most organizations, these expectations go deeper than the bulleted list of general skills and knowledge listed on a job description. An integrated framework of formal training, learning through others and learning by doing works well for most functional and technical skills. Three approaches are 1) formal learning through online/classroom courses and reading, 2) learning from or observing others with peer coaching, job shadowing and communities of practice, and 3) learning by doing with feedback and practice.
TRADITIONAL ADULT LEARNING APPROACHES WORK WELL FOR HORIZONTAL DEVELOPMENT. While knowledge can be gained from training or reading, skills and functional competencies require the utilization of all approaches. Some classroom
THREE METHODS TO BOOST HORIZONTAL DEVELOPMENT Horizontal proficiency looks at knowledge, skills and functional or technical competencies. In other words, what an employee needs to know and what they need to do to deliver the work expected.
• Formal training: online/classroom courses and reading
Here are three approaches to improve horizontal development:
• Learning by doing: feedback and practice
• Learning through others: peer coaching, job shadowing, communities of practice
learning will involve one or all three approaches. Traditional adult learning approaches work well for horizontal development. Learning through others is often implemented through peer coaching, observation and shadowing. As social learning and knowledgesharing technologies improve within organizations, opportunities and options for this aspect of learning will increase exponentially. New technologies in virtual and augmented reality will begin to transform how practice and feedback are implemented, and research supports the effectiveness of these immersive practices in learning.
VERTICAL DEVELOPMENT: HOW AND WHY YOU DO WHAT YOU DO Vertical proficiency focuses on how and why one delivers their work in the context of solving problems and working with others. Vertical proficiency is important for success in higher level roles or positions dealing with broader scope, increased complexity and diverse workforce and vendor and client populations. Behavioral competency expectations for many large companies are sometimes defined as a leadership competency framework or a competency model. Vertical proficiency looks at behaviors, mindset, professionalism, emotional intelligence and cognitive framework. The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) asserts that to be effective, a leader’s thinking “must be equal or superior to the complexity of the environment.” Vertical proficiency is not equivalent to your current role, title or position; it is common for people to be promoted into higher levels before achieving the vertical proficiency to be effective and successful at that level. Looking at the primary levels of leadership in a typical organization, the levels
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of vertical proficiency are suggested below. If a company has a level-specific leadership competency framework, it can be used here in these levels: Contributor Demonstrates the problem solving and interpersonal/relationship skills needed to perform well as an individual contributor. Manager Demonstrates problem solving and interpersonal skills needed to lead and drive performance of an interconnected team(s), with or without authority. Can motivate and develop individuals’ horizontal competencies, solve problems and build relationships across direct boundaries. Can coach a contributor to manager proficiency.
IMPROVING VERTICAL COMPETENCIES Vertical proficiency focuses on how and why one delivers their work in the context of solving problems and working with others. Vertical proficiency looks at behaviors, mindset, professionalism, emotional intelligence and cognitive framework. The following methods can improve vertical competencies: • Formal learning for new concepts • Experiential/interactive leadership development programs
Learning or reflection journal Perhaps an “old school” spiral notebook or a structured online tool.
• K eeping a learning or reflection journal
DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION
Unlike horizontal development, a traditional approach to vertical development may not be adequate.
capacity (systems thinking, managing complexity), a cookie-cutter formula for learning is inadequate.
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Personality/leadership assessments Gain understanding and awareness of the styles, perspectives and traits of others to appreciate and integrate differences.
• Personality/leadership assessments
• Coaching and mentoring
When an executive needs to work on a soft skill (e.g., building relationships, keeping composure, delegating, managing conflict), or increase cognitive
360 Feedback Uncover blind spots and identify areas for further development.
Keep in mind the adage that you can’t learn from experience unless you experience the learning. Progressive L&D organizations will begin to add rigor to non-formal learning experiences and create tools and processes to track their results. In the meantime, simply keeping a learning journal and utilizing personal and shared reflection opportunities will help developing leaders extract the most growth from their observations and experiences.
Executive A collaborative manager and leader who demonstrates interpersonal skills and problem solving to address complex problems by seeing the whole picture in both a current and future state across multiple and extended boundaries. Understands interdependent variables and impacts, seeks out alternative perspectives and holds multiple perspectives simultaneously. Builds collaborative cultures and healthy relationships, and can coach a manager to executive proficiency.
VERTICAL PROFICIENCY IS IMPORTANT FOR SUCCESS IN HIGHER LEVEL ROLES.
Reflect and discuss Use an “Immunity Map” to uncover competing objectives and hidden assumptions when old behaviors don’t change.
• Reflection and discussion • 360 feedback to uncover blind spots and identify areas for further development
Use the following to improve vertical competencies. These are primarily “pull” approaches and facilitate the employee’s ability to transform internally: Formal learning For new concepts and perspectives only – often includes reading. Experiential/interactive leadership development programs Provides new perspectives, time and space to dialogue and reflect as well as opportunities to receive feedback. Coaching Professional or structured and focused informal peer coaching/mentoring.
Many L&D professionals intuitively help employees develop in the way that makes the most sense for the kind of skill or competency they want to improve. Managers rely heavily on “push” approaches when they are trying to coach for development. By differentiating the types of development and clarifying which tools, approaches and methods work best to develop in each, we can create easy to use resources and models for managers to support and facilitate development conversations. Sherryl Dimitry, Ph.D., leads talent development for Skanska USA, one of the largest construction and development companies in the U.S. Sherryl holds a Ph.D. in organizational systems and has over 20 years of experience as an organization development leader in a variety of industries. Email Sherryl.
CLOSING THE DIGITAL COMPETENCE GAP By Bob Newhouse
Digital transformation is underway, but is the talent function up to speed? Rapid technological change means we face a very real digital competence gap in the coming years—a period in which technological capabilities accelerate so swiftly that talent and knowledge can’t keep up. The competence gap will create friction, slowing realization of the benefits of digital transformation. Enterprise-level digital business disruption will displace 40 percent of incumbent companies in the next five years, according to the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. Digital transformation is being accelerated by the explosive growth of data and connected devices. By 2025, we will live in a world with 80 billion connected devices, increasing actionable data almost ten-fold. Yet, digital business transformation is not just about automation and business model disruption; our organizations require the right knowledge, skills and experience to drive transformation and sustain advantages. Virtually every sector is experiencing radical change. In the coming decade, the 4 A’s of technology – automation, analytics, artificial intelligence, and augmentation – will require new knowledge and skills to drive business value. No longer is it sufficient for digital know-hows to reside in IT, engineering and R&D. Now executives, managers and front-line employees need to understand how technology changes the business model and need to be able to move fast to capture value. Forward-looking talent and learning leaders are now hiring and developing digital competence across the enterprise. This article highlights findings from ongoing research and interviews with chief talent, learning and technology leaders across the globe. What emerges from this dialogue is a picture of talent and learning organizations in flux and insights into how to support the changing business models and competence needs across the enterprise. Talent organizations surveyed demonstrate a wide range of response to digital change, from wellformulated, comprehensive strategies for bridging the gap to no appreciable plan in place.
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EMERGING PRACTICES The people-side of digital transformation is a work in progress. Some industries, those underpinned by technology for value delivery, are relative natives to the concept of digital competence. Incumbent industries face a radical transformation, either by external forces or by internal leadership. Forward leaning organizations have instituted broad-based efforts to select and develop competence toward new work and jobs emerging in the digital economy. About four years ago, Dr. Greg Powers, vice president of technology for Halliburton, a leading oil field services company, decided to build an innovation pioneering team that could tackle the toughest product development and solution challenges to make machines smarter. To drive more value to their customers, Powers knew they needed the ability to build and run complex experiments, and to model systems from first principles or heuristics. Powers was able to find the right talent, but it was not easy. “We don’t see enough sophisticated control engineers coming out of US schools,” he noted. “Nirvana would be systems engineers who understand automation and can build and run complex simulated models. We hired from a small group of US universities with excellent programs, with the vast majority of our hires having obtained their undergraduate education in Asia. The US supply is below demand and the universities need to emphasize these skills and opportunities more to undergraduates,” Powers reports. In the financial services sector, American Express has redirected its recruitment efforts to hire the skills needed to power its digital transformation. Brian Ruggiero, vice president of Global Campus Recruitment, said that despite widespread job cuts, the company has hired more employees for skills to transform the business towards mobile payment and digital service offerings. “We are looking for talented individuals who are fluent in code, understand parallel processing, data clustering and statistical analysis. These skill sets are very different from the ones you would expect from American Express, but being successful in the digital payments
industry means we are hiring and training differently in order to innovate and grow.” Tetra Pak, a multinational food packaging and processing company that originated in Sweden, established a Digital Board and appointed a VP Digital Officer, who has the responsibility to manage and coordinate different initiatives. Ralph Hagg, vice president of the Tetra Pak Academy, is responsible for examining how the company develops digital capability—specifically digital competence and skills, behavior, mindset and culture. Hagg notes “from a talent management point of view,
The biggest challenge for digital transformation isn’t the technology – it’s the people. digital capability includes where, how and who we recruit and how we further develop them and all other staff.” As part of Digital Capability, the Tetra Pak talent and learning functions are working to engage employees more through digital media and e-learning. Forward-leaning incumbent organizations are working to break down longstanding hierarchies and decision mechanisms to foster agility and drive innovation. Through the ongoing research, several key themes emerge as critical components of a strong digital talent strategy: • Senior leaders act as architects and advocates • Digital competence is being built into the entire talent lifecycle • Agile innovation is promoted and protected • Learning is becoming personalized • Educational institutions are engaged as critical partners • Talent functions take the leadership role for digital talent transformation
Now is the time for chief talent, HR and learning officers—in partnership with other executives and education partners—to articulate a digital competence framework to accelerate skills needed for the new era.
DEFINING DIGITAL COMPETENCE It’s a VUCA world: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Proliferation of information and communication technologies, globalization and accelerated change have contributed to the VUCA state of our world. The “VUCA world” is the context in which the digital transformation of business occurs. Having VUCA-capable leaders is correlated to financial performance, yet in a Conference Board Global Leadership Forecast, less than two-thirds of leaders said they were confident in their ability to meet VUCA challenges. The skills required for the assembly line of the Industrial Revolution are giving way to innovation, collaboration, problemsolving and communication. In Dancing with Robots, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane examine the structural economic changes brought about by technology. They argue that the future of work will focus on three human activities: • Solving unstructured problems • Working with new information • Carrying out non-routine manual tasks The bulk of the rest of the work will be done by computers or offshore labor. Digital-era business requires flexibility, innovation, collaboration and personal responsibility. Employees are expected to adapt to and thrive in a VUCA world. In this context, digital competence is more than simply computer, software or data related skills. As the 4 A’s of technology take center stage, industry requires a holistic framework for digital competence that reflects the systematic, strategic, innovative and collaborative skills required to transform business models. An adaptive understanding of competence, such as the definition put forth by the Organization for Economic CoOperation and Development, is critical: A competency is more than just knowledge and skills. It involves the
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ability to meet complex demands, by drawing on and mobilizing psychosocial resources (including skills and attitudes) in a particular context. Searching for a digital competence framework reveals significant public sector economic and education policy works, but little of that has been translated for industry. Two notable models have been promulgated: DIGCOMP: A Framework for Developing and Understanding Digital Competence
Talent and learning leaders must articulate and reinforce the vision for transformation. in Europe and the World Economic Forum’s New Vision for Education: Unlocking the Potential of Technology. Based on these reference frameworks and the ongoing research and input of industry leaders, a cluster of adaptive skills and abilities emerge that begin to inform digital competence for industry. The industry framework centers on seven critical abilities:
1 - Comprehend and Engage the Digital Environment
2 - Effectively Create and Consume Digital Information 3 - Communicate Effectively 4 - Collaborate with Diverse Stakeholders 5 - Innovate Rapidly/Agile 6 - Think Critically/Solve Problems 7 - Maintain Cybersecurity This digital competence framework extends Levy and Murnane’s three elements to include an overarching need to comprehend the digital environment, and to interact with data and people to effectively innovate and solve
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problems. Risk management requires that employees and leaders understand cybersecurity and take an active role in protection—rather than simply relying on IT to prevent damage.
CLOSING THE DIGITAL COMPETENCE GAP At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year a CEO panel all agreed that technological change brought by AI would create more jobs than it would eliminate. Fortune quoted Dow CEO Andrew Liveris as saying, “There will be more employment, just different.” But they acknowledged two serious societal challenges: first, educating and training workers to take advantage of the change; and second, assuring the benefits of productivity gains are widely shared. Talent and learning leaders have exciting and challenging years ahead, as we work to retool our functions and roles within organizations. Taking the lead to engage senior leaders as architects and advocates is no small challenge. As Rami Rahim, CEO, Juniper Networks put it, “True innovation requires an understanding of the value that technology brings and enables. The C-Suite doesn’t need to code, but leading a company strategy for growth requires a strong relationship between those who set the strategy and those who execute.” Building digital competence requirements across the employee talent life cycle is the most fundamental strategic challenge ahead. Talent and learning leaders must articulate and constantly reinforce the vision for transformation. Inertia in organizations and cultures will slow progress and occasionally make the quest seem Quixotic, but the external realities of digital transformation will ultimately prevail. Other critical developments needed include enhancing personalized and adaptive learning and expanding agile innovation to ensure all employees are engaged and empowered to push the organization forward. Finally, as organizations further define digital competence needs, working partnerships with educational
CRITICAL COMPONENTS OF A STRONG DIGITAL TALENT STRATEGY • Senior leaders act as architects and advocates • Digital competence is being built into the entire talent lifecycle • Agile innovation is promoted and protected • Talent functions take the leadership role for digital talent transformation • Educational institutions are engaged as critical partners • Learning is becoming personalized
institutions, from early childhood to university level, are needed to shift education towards this new reality. Most significantly, talent and learning functions must take a lead role as ‘futurists’ to drive change. Bonnie Houston, chief administrative officer for NOV, explained the self-examination and willingness to change required to take on the challenge of transformation: "The Talent and HR function needs to ‘step out on the balcony’ and look at all of our systems, processes and assumptions—formal and informal. Where are we creating inefficiencies or not serving the digital transformation of the business? We need to be ‘futurists’ and to look around the bend. We need to set the critical competence profiles for the future. The Talent function must become leaders for growth and innovation thinking." Our mission as talent and learning leaders is clear: to develop life-long learners with the skills and aptitudes to close the digital competence gap and renew our organizations. Bob Newhouse is CEO of Newhouse Consultants, founded to help clients accelerate results through talent and technology. Bob is the executive director for the Global Talent Innovation Network and was chief talent and learning officer for Noble Corporation. Email Bob.
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BY LINDA SCHWABER-COHEN
HOW TO CREATE
LEARNING PATHWAYS CUSTOMERS ARE DEMANDING CLEAR PATHS TO SUCCESS IN NEW WAYS.
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IT’S EASY TO IMAGINE THE SCENARIO. A CUSTOMER MAKES A NEW SOFTWARE PURCHASE FOR HER BUSINESS UNIT. SHE FINDS TONS OF RESOURCES TO HELP HER GET STARTED WITH THE PRODUCT, BUT SHE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHERE TO BEGIN OR HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE HER TO GET VALUE OUT OF HER INVESTMENT. IT’S OVERWHELMING TO NAVIGATE AN ONBOARDING PROCESS WITHOUT A CLEAR LEARNING PATH TO SUCCESS. AS BUSINESSES SCALE AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS GET MORE COMPLEX, THEY OFTEN INVEST IN A WIDE RANGE OF SERVICES AND TOOLS TO HELP AVOID THIS DIFFICULTY.
ACKNOWLEDGING THE PROBLEM The customer success technology stack of 2017 is broad, with many tools that are designed to improve the customer experience, and assist the teams that support customers. While models vary across companies, it’s not uncommon to find each resource or tool bubble with a different department or team. These teams often work in parallel, but can have separate management, and depending on the size of the organization, may be completely siloed from one another. As a result, it’s common to see resources scattered between a learning management system, and a knowledge base or help center, with different owners and processes around resource maintenance and expansion.
THAT
SCALE
As training organizations grow, they often become a stand-alone education services department, and aren’t necessarily integrated with the customer success or product support departments. If these departments are in completely different branches of a company, alignment on training and onboarding processes and activities can be difficult to achieve. Moreover, documentation and help articles don’t provide an opportunity for a cohesive or guided learning experience, and rely on a reactive approach on the part of the business. It can be tiring for customers to search for an answer and
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have difficulty finding it, especially at the beginning of their customer journey. They may not be aware that they don’t know, which presents a challenge when they face a search bar and lack knowledge on terminology and features of a particular piece of software.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
DESIGN TRAINING EXPERIENCES THAT HELP CUSTOMERS
While development is underway in growing software companies, customers are demanding clear paths to success in new ways. As the subscription economy continues to take hold, software purchases are no longer one-time buys. Recurring revenue models rely on renewals, and the lifetime value of a customer is realized over time rather than through a complete up-front purchase. The threat of competition and lost revenue is real. Customers want to get the value they expect quickly, and they will leave if that value isn’t realized. While customer success managers may serve as the quarterback, making plays and deciding what comes next for their clients, they often depend on the support of their training counterparts to onboard customers and create the path to value. Here are some tips for building a training and onboarding program that’s scalable, while maintaining a cohesive experience for customers.
MAKE ONBOARDING EASY When planning an onboarding process, it’s best to break down the skills that customers need for success by identifying essential knowledge. Customers do not need to know everything about a product on day one. Write down easy wins for achieving value and any critical setup processes that need to occur now for customers to see success later. Simplify these first steps as much as possible without diluting the subject matter. It’s tempting to plan to walk customers through the software based on the location of features alone. Product tours that hop from feature to feature, however, are hard to reinforce and don’t
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address users’ goals and use cases as skillbased training does. Documenting this essential knowledge allows for proper organization and prioritization. The topics can be organized across the onboarding phase of the customer lifecycle. At this phase in the planning process, it’s helpful to partner with customer success or account management. These teams have a strong understanding of common customer goals, and they can serve as subject matter experts in the training development process. Additionally, alignment with these departments can go a long way, as they are usually the teams that are directing customers to appropriate resources on their path to value.
CREATE ROLE-BASED AND GOAL-BASED TRAINING Onboarding can be defined in several different ways. In the section above, I recommend identifying essential knowledge, but it’s also important to recognize that this may be different for various users of a product. If a product has different user types or profiles, it’s helpful to define the purpose of each profile. One way to get a well-rounded understanding of the different buyer
personas that use the product is to work with product marketing, sales or product management. Depending on the company, this expertise will reside in different departments. Persona profiles include detailed information about a typical buyer, such as background, characteristics, goals and challenges. They can also include common use cases and needs, and descriptions of daily responsibilities. Understanding these personas is helpful for planning role-based and goalbased onboarding content. This type of pathway can often contain a large degree of duplicate content across personas, but provides a more custom and targeted experience. This is also helpful because it provides training professionals with a more concrete understanding of a well-rounded user; knowledge that can help drive a prescriptive approach to onboarding, with real recommendations and best practices. They can then design training experiences that help customers with different needs – integrating the software into their daily workflows and processes.
CROSS-LINK RELEVANT RESOURCES A key part of avoiding user fatigue is helping customers easily find the resources they need. Sometimes, this
SET EXPECTATIONS FOR ONBOARDING EARLY
INTEGRATE SOFTWARE INTO THEIR DAILY WORKFLOWS. materializes through learning pathways that take learners through a welldefined experience. This can also be accomplished in different ways when more flexibility is needed. Rather than create an onboarding experience that makes users hunt for resources, it’s possible to make additional learning opportunities highly accessible. One way to do this is by cross-linking resources. This is done by providing access to new content upon completion of a relevant resource. If students are learning through on-demand training in an LMS, direct them to similar help content in the company knowledge base at the end of a lesson. Collaborate with product support or documentation teams to insert links to extended learning opportunities in help content. Actions such as these can encourage customers to learn more about a certain topic or reinforce knowledge through immediate application. While providing related resources in different formats is a step in a positive direction, it’s also helpful to crosslink prerequisite concepts. If a certain concept requires an understanding of other product features or characteristics, linking to that information enables customers to easily acquire any knowledge they may need to achieve their desired goal.
While the content and format of the learning pathways dictate a large portion of a customer’s onboarding success, another critical component is customer buy-in. Since customer training is often voluntary, customer success and training professionals need to work to ensure that their customers are prepared and committed to the onboarding experience. One way to do this is to set customer expectations around next steps from the sales process through the realization of value. This involves creating a clear process around onboarding and defining the key components within it. For example, one process may contain a project kickoff call and one on-demand training course, followed by two inperson training sessions. Presenting all pertinent details and commitments needed from customers and reviewing this information with the customer early can provide them with more time to plan and prepare accordingly. After customers understand the stages within onboarding, devise a way to surface progress, so they can easily find information on what they have accomplished so far and what remains to be done. If progress is being tracked in an LMS, it is possible to automate completion triggers and distribute badges. If it’s not, a customer success professional can keep track of the stages on a shared document. This alone won’t always keep customers on track. Calls to action through mediums such as email campaigns encourage users to reinforce new behaviors and help them get a firm grasp on what needs to happen between each step in the process.
to put a cohort of new users into a Beta program. Testing can help evaluate the quality of the training program, highlight any points for improvement, and provide a forum for receiving feedback on the overall experience. Deepen this approach by implementing an A/B test and providing different pathways or processes to different testers. Observe learning, request real-time feedback, and compare success and satisfaction among the groups. Linda Schwaber-Cohen’s expertise lies in building and growing onboarding and training programs at software startups. She currently serves as head of training at Skilljar, a Seattle-based customer training platform and LMS. Email Linda.
KEY TAKEAWAYS • Identify and simplify essential knowledge and skills to prevent learner fatigue and improve retention. • Spend time learning about buyer personas and create role-based and goal-based learning pathways. • Cross-link between resources for an improved and more enriching learning experience. • Plan an onboarding journey and present it to customers to set proper expectations around training commitments. • Conduct user experience testing of the training program, and collect feedback on content and experience.
TESTING An onboarding program is meant to get a new user up and running on the product. Just as a product manager may conduct user experience tests on a newly developed feature, training professionals can also evaluate the learner experience. One way to do this is
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CASEBOOK
SUPPORTING THE CONTINUUM OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT BY ERICA DAVIS
EXECUTIVE PRESENCE AT THE TRAININGS REINFORCED THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PROGRAM.
Health care is in the midst of a rapid change, requiring leaders to quickly acquire the leadership skills essential for success in today’s ever-changing environment. PeaceHealth, a regional health care system with 800+ leaders across three states, 10 hospitals and multiple clinics, needed a cohesive strategy for developing its leaders. At the time, development opportunities were available through select cohort programs, requiring significant time commitment, travel and cost in order to participate. These programs were targeted for director-level and above, creating gaps in the development of frontline supervisors and managers. Leaders at PeaceHealth’s larger hospitals could access additional offerings; however, remote or smaller locations lacked those opportunities. As a result, leaders did not have a common skillset. DETERMINING THE PROCESS To identify the skills needed and then what to offer, an assessment was conducted by learning and development (L&D) in collaboration with human resources. In response to identified development opportunities, L&D developed and launched Leadership Essentials. The training series focused on how to equip leaders with the fundamental leadership and management skills necessary to achieve the organization’s goals in today’s changing health
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care landscape. This new program addressed leadership development needs through a series of trainings spread throughout the year, accessible to any employee in a leadership role and available at every hospital. Trainings were targeted for supervisor, manager and director-level leaders. Leadership Essentials provided a foundation of knowledge and skills, creating a cohesive approach to leadership development across the organization. Skills included coaching, leading change, performance management, finances and hiring. Each training was rolled out over the course of six weeks across the entire organization, providing access for every leader. Recognizing leaders’ busy schedules, the interactive, in-person sessions took no more than three hours, and resulted in increased retention rates from using shorter bursts of learning spaced over time. REINFORCING LEARNING Every other month a new skill was offered over the course of about a year. This provided time for leaders to apply each skill and allowed the learning to sink in between sessions. The learning management system was leveraged for easy registration. A centralized calendar, regular email announcements and presentations at monthly leadership meetings communicated the
development opportunities so that all leaders were well-informed.
Executives were asked to support in the following ways:
Learning continued outside the classroom with resources to encourage practice of the skills and allow access to materials via the organization’s internal leadership development website. Leadership meetings allotted time to discuss the skills to further embed the learning. At these monthly meetings, leaders shared testimonials of how they applied the learning to improve performance. This built credibility for the program and encouraged leaders to attend future offerings. Articles on the company’s intranet site shared leaders’ personal success stories implementing the skills and demonstrated the positive impact for teams and the organization.
• Attend a session
L&D created content in partnership with human resources and other subject matter experts such as change management and talent acquisition. Skills often leveraged previous ones, such as using the coaching model in performance management training. Trainings had a standard format and included opportunities to reinforce the learning beyond the classroom setting. Skills, practice and the opportunity to receive feedback from peers were core components of each training.
FACING CHALLENGES
GARNERING EXECUTIVE SUPPORT In order to create engagement at the executive level, L&D partnered closely with the executive sponsor, the organization’s chief administrative officer and a strong supporter of the organization’s L&D programs. Prior to launching each training, L&D created an announcement for the sponsor to send to the executive team, encouraging support and participation. An executive summary and slide deck was developed for each skill. These were used to brief executives on the skills being taught prior to the launch of each training.
• Share their personal experiences applying the leadership skill • Reinforce the skill at leadership meetings • Look for opportunities to reinforce on-the-job application of skills Locally, hospital executives extended personal invitations to leaders under their span of control to encourage attendance. Each training session opened with a story from an executive of their personal insight related to the leadership skill. Executive presence at the trainings reinforced the importance of the program.
One of the greatest challenges in offering training consistently across the organization was the capacity of the training team of five individuals. Offering multiple training opportunities required hundreds of hours of training delivery over a short period of time in several locations. Because of the nature of the skills being trained, L&D had a strong commitment to offer training inperson to allow for skills practice and peer feedback. To overcome this resource challenge, L&D collaborated with HR partners and internal organization development consultants to support training delivery. This provided a development opportunity for HR partners seeking to build facilitation skills. Members of the change management and talent acquisition teams supported facilitation of trainings related to their areas of expertise. The organization considered making attendance mandatory. Instead, they were determined to communicate
attendance as an expectation, not a requirement. Leaders were assigned the skill modules in the learning management system to prompt registration for sessions that fit with their schedules. L&D met regularly with HR to engage support, provide program updates and address challenges such as low attendance. HR partners conducted outreach to leaders when registrations were low or with leaders who they knew would benefit. Executives encouraged attendance and set the expectation for participating. PROGRAM OUTCOMES AND SUSTAINMENT In the program’s first year, the organization saw 50 percent voluntary participation and 96 percent of participants said they were able to apply the learning on the job. To provide ongoing training on these skills, all topics were incorporated into an onboarding program to ensure skills spread as new leaders join the organization or are promoted to leadership. Additionally, the skills are offered in a program for those who serve in a team lead role in the organization. This ensures the core skills are consistently part of development for all leaders, including those aspiring to a leadership role. In addition to providing leadership development training across the organization in a consistent manner, the program also enhanced L&D’s partnerships with HR, change management, talent acquisition, finance, and other internal subject matter experts. The program created a model for delivering organization-wide L&D programs in a consistent manner, demonstrating the value of a cohesive approach to leadership development. Erica Davis is a program manager for learning and leadership development at PeaceHealth. Email Erica.
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G L O B A L OUTLOOK
FOUR CORNERSTONES OF SUCCESSFUL CROSS-CULTURAL TRAINING BY RENIE McCLAY Cross-cultural training poses a myriad of challenges for instructional designers and facilitators beyond what they encounter on domestic initiatives. In cross-cultural learning environments, people bring different values and viewpoints based on their background, and it’s crucial to avoid offending or distracting them from the training at hand. There are four foundational concepts that can impact the effectiveness of crosscultural training efforts: global mindset, knowledge, design and delivery. GLOBAL MINDSET
TRAINING OTHER CULTURES IS A CONTINUOUS LEARNING AND EXPERIENCE JOURNEY.
The first step in preparing to create or deliver cross-cultural training is introspection. Global audiences include people with different values, religious beliefs, managerial perspectives and upbringings, and you need to first evaluate your own perceptions. For example, in some cultures, they would never call a manager by their first name; in the U.S. culture, addressing a manager by their first name is routine. One of the mindset shifts many people need is how to show respect to company managers and others when working across cultures. There are two important components of a global mindset: What it means to be a good global citizen, and how we can personally improve or expand our mindset. It’s important to view other cultures non-judgmentally; as different, rather than better or worse. We are exposed to different cultures
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on television, and perhaps in our neighborhoods, workplace, classrooms, and when traveling. All of these are helpful in expanding our knowledge of different cultures, but only when we make a deliberate effort to expand our knowledge and comfort of differences. When expanding a global mindset, ask questions when appropriate and inquire about cultural celebrations, holidays and traditions. Read up on cultural intricacies and business practices. Look for ways to be inclusive, whether it is in conversations, invites to lunch or coffee, or intentional outreach to colleagues and acquaintances. Be open to trying new things. Deliberately expanding your cultural understanding means honoring what you encounter. Accept and acknowledge differences, and strive for understanding. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE Preparations for developing or facilitating global training should include the various audience analysis points of a typical domestic training program, but deeper. There are several aspects to consider in global audience analysis that are not as critical for domestic initiatives. One of the most obvious issues is around language skills: confirming that the target audience speaks English (if used in training) is not as simple as merely asking your local contact. Ask follow-up questions to get a better handle on just how fluent they are with speaking, verbal understanding and reading. Find out if a fluent participant
will be present at the classroom training event, and request their assistance as an informal translator. Some audience analysis items to consider: • Environment: Consider weather, facility, power and elements that can occur unexpectedly. • Time and Calendar: Time zones, daylight saving time, and local holidays can confuse even seasoned global facilitators. TimeAndDate.com is a helpful resource. • Communication: Determine what titles to use, guidelines to managerial hierarchy and introduction customs. • Technology: Have a tech backup. Store everything in the cloud, and be cautious about sharing flash drives. Check for readability if showing a presentation on a different computer, and watch for LMS or system differences.
role plays or case studies; employing a variety of methods will increase the odds of successful engagement. Also, plan for contingencies. If your design includes role-play, for example, include a backup plan in the design. Doing as much as possible in their native language is preferred. For example, they can discuss and answer questions in their native language, and then report to the group in the classroom language. Leverage informal learning options. Discussion of content among learners can lead to better understanding and adoption, and this is especially relevant when the training is created and delivered by folks from other cultural backgrounds. Following up after a training event (lunch and learns, meetings to discuss adoption or barriers, success stories, discussing scenarios) helps to increase connections and stickiness. Likewise, mentoring can be a valuable tool as a bridge to adoption and closing knowledge gaps. DELIVERING TRAINING ACROSS CULTURES
DESIGN TRAINING WITH GLOBAL INTENT Reading, writing, listening and speaking are different skills, so don’t presume that each participant can do all four well in their non-native language. Use simpler language, enhancing handouts and PowerPoint decks with extra context and content. Where you might otherwise use short bulleted text, write out multiple sentences. Provide handouts in advance, and encourage learners to read through and ask questions. In short, give them every opportunity to understand what you mean to say, to help improve comprehension. This often means adding more content to materials than normal. Make sure to communicate learning objectives, using them as a roadmap through the course. It helps with non-native speakers to track where you are and where you’re going. One of the biggest differences between cultures is interaction and engagement methods. Don’t rely on one method, like
In addition to having a global mindset, two valued characteristics for a global facilitator are flexibility and adaptability. It is challenging to manage differences in classrooms and unexpected things that invariably come up. For example, Terrence Donahue, corporate director of learning for Emerson Electric, sends a short introduction via video before the session. He introduces himself and the course, and prepares participants for any pre-work. On the day of the training, he stands at the door and greets everyone as they enter. He is creating a comfortable and safe environment before the training even begins. Ask questions of an in-country contact prior to the session regarding manager sensitivity, gender practices, lunch, breaks and attire. Look for relatable topics to make conversations and connections at breaks and meals,
like recent festivals, music, sports, geography, or places of interest. DELIVERY TIPS If you are speaking to a group from a different culture, state your intention to not offend and apologize in advance for any missteps you may make. Research cross-cultural meanings and translation in advance, and avoid idioms and metaphors that don’t translate well across cultures, like regional sports. Don’t merely lecture; facilitate learning. Have a deep knowledge of the subject you are facilitating, and don’t count on the knowledge being in the room. Have things to contribute – there are cultures where that is extremely important, and they may ask you direct questions to go deeper and expect you to know. Be aware of your pace and effective communication, and plan and practice giving clear instructions. Allow additional time for students to process and understand. Create a safe place for questions, but understand that they still may not ask any. Have a person or two in the audience, an “ally” if you will, who is comfortable with asking questions or for clarification. Be sure to have a tolerance for side conversations; they may be helpful for participant understanding. KEEP IN MIND Cross-cultural training cannot be learned from reading an article or book or doing it once. Increasing the sensitivity to the topic is a great start. Learning new things with every training event or rollout will continue to enhance understanding. When it comes to training other cultures, it is a continuous learning and experience journey. The more you learn, the more you find you have yet to learn. Renie McClay is a past learning leader for Fortune 500 companies and currently is a global learning project manager with Caveo Learning. Email Renie.
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MEASURING I M P A C T
HOW TO MAKE TRAINING EVALUATION A U S E F U L T O O L F O R I M P R OV I N G L & D BY JEAN-SIMON LECLERC & ODETTE MERCIER
Most writings on training evaluation focus on the best ways to measure training impact and show how the training function influences the business. Of course, the objective of training evaluation is not only to deliver data reports, but to use that data to improve training delivery and impact. The path from having results to acting on them holds an underestimated challenge maybe even more crucial and tricky than training measurement itself: How can L&D teams really use evaluation results to systematically improve their training? There are four steps needed to maximize training evaluation usefulness, with each step addressing elements that must be considered to achieve this end. STEP 1: ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS The approach, “we’ll look at the data once it’s gathered and we’ll surely find some stuff to improve” is the perfect way for evaluation results to sit and gather dust. There might be some interesting, unsuspected results that deserve attention, but the idea is to not rely entirely on this post-hoc exploratory analysis. A balanced analysis should include predefined targets that when met (or unmet) trigger real decisions and interventions. This is one of the reasons why, when starting a measurement project, you should start with your stakeholders’ needs, whether they’re inside or outside the L&D team.
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The first question that could be asked is what the L&D team wants to know about the training. To frame the discussion, a second question could be what they intend to do based on the results. Paradoxically, sometimes what they want to know won’t help much for what they want to do. This refers to the notions of interesting versus useful information. Asking these types of questions assures that you cover their needs more exhaustively, avoid missing an important aspect and also, by concentrating your efforts on useful information, prioritize and narrow your metrics framework. At the end of this step, you should have a list clearly specifying all the decisions that will be made based on your evaluation results, whether those decisions imply no change or totally revamping the training. You should also clearly state the questions that will and won’t be answered. This will avoid the issue of some stakeholders wanting to expand or twist the results to serve other purposes. STEP 2: DETERMINING WHAT TO MEASURE Identify which metrics are relevant and necessary to support decision making. When confronted with all the possibilities of training measures, it can be hard determining what is useful to know, realistic to obtain and will have the buy-in from your stakeholders. For example, training participation rates
A BALANCED ANALYSIS SHOULD INCLUDE PREDEFINED TARGETS THAT WHEN MET (OR UNMET) TRIGGER REAL DECISIONS AND INTERVENTIONS.
may indeed be relevant, but doesn’t reveal much information on training impact or ways to improve it. It has also now become accepted for training measurement to go beyond trainee satisfaction, considering the weak correlation between satisfaction and training transfer. Where should one begin the reflection on what to measure? One convenient way to categorize your metrics is to use the efficiency, effectiveness and impact categories. Efficiency metrics refer to operational types of measures (e.g., participation rate, cost per trainee, hours of training, etc.). Effectiveness refers to the change in attitude, learning or behavior that occur from the training. Impact refers to the influence of that change on business results and strategic objectives. Contrasting with the traditional four levels model of Kirkpatrick that assumes impact is the ultimate metric destination, it is argued that these three categories of measurements can all be useful depending on your stakeholders’ needs and plans. For each metric category, different objectives and targets should be set, followed by the identification of a mean of collecting the data. You may find it practical to divide the intended metric from the mean of collecting the metric. For example, if the metric of interest is performance improvement, the mean of collecting this information could greatly differ, such as interviewing or surveying the trainees, their managers or collecting business data. Thus, for the same intended metric, different methodological choices could be made based on resources, availability of data and the need to obtain more robust results. When showing interest in impact metrics, which is often harder to grasp, it is recommended to use a multi-sources method that allows you to
have a complete assessment and more confidence in the results. STEP 3: BEING A MATCH MAKER Determine the best way to match metrics to metrics users. It is often assumed that interest about metrics is homogeneous among stakeholders, but it depends on what their responsibilities are in the training process. For example, a trainer might not be interested in the same metrics that a training designer is. Trainee evaluation of trainer clarity could be valuable for trainers and ignite motivation to improve themselves, but it might be too narrow of a metric for the head of HR. How do you find out which metrics each stakeholder will need? First, try to map all your stakeholders (externally or internally) that would benefit from having training measurement results. Then, structured interviews with each stakeholder, before you deploy your measurement strategy, can be sufficient in identifying the most relevant metrics for them. Being able to target which metrics you must deliver to each stakeholder will allow your measurements to be more precise, gainful and less overloading for each stakeholder. STEP 4: DELIVERING THE RESULTS AT THE RIGHT TIME This is the moment when the results should be analyzed and the conclusions reported. To have the momentum and the exposure that evaluation results deserve, L&D professionals need to find a way to present them at a strategic time. Not too soon, not too late, just in time! The reason is that stakeholders interested in the training outcomes won’t want to wait until an unknown moment, and will probably find another way of guessing the results (such as
making one or two phone calls to trainee managers). The consequences are that your measurement effort will have been in vain and their conclusions might be wrong about the training, resulting in decisions made on unreliable grounds. Note, however, that if your conclusions are going to be partial and subject to change as more data is gathered, you should probably refrain from announcing conclusions until you’re confident about them. To have success with timing, it is helpful to pre-establish the timeframe of delivering results and the conditions under which each metric will be reported (e.g., reaching a minimum response rate). You and your stakeholders may want to negotiate this timeframe to find the right balance between ideal timing and what is possible and trustworthy in terms of results. SUMMARY Derive a story from your data. The results should be placed in context and oriented toward decision-making. Once decisions are made to improve training, the four steps proposed may go on to drive further improvements. Keep in mind that interest in training impact must not overlook measurement impact. Training evaluation should be approached in its organizational system to trigger real value and usefulness. Hopefully, putting in place the four steps before training deployment will maximize your chance of providing a valuable contribution for your measurement effort. Jean-Simon Leclerc is a senior advisor in talent management, with an interest in talent metrics and the use of HR analytics to improve diagnosis and intervention in organizational development. Odette Mercier is a clinical psychologist who has specialized in training and development for the last 25 years. Both work for National Bank of Canada. Email the authors.
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CONGRATULATIONS
TOP 20 TRAINING OUTSOURCING COMPANIES
Check Out Our 2017 Training Outsourcing Watch List The Top 20 Training Outsourcing Companies are a service provided by Training Industry, Inc. Due to the diversity of services offered, no attempt is made to rank the “Top 20s.”
SECRETS OF SOURCING DOUG HARWARD
CONTROLLING VARIATION IN TIME TO PERFORMANCE Traditional workplaces are changing. Employees are working remotely more than ever and have access to almost any information at their fingertips. The expectations of how workers want to learn are changing as well. To adapt, training managers are being tasked with transforming the training function from traditional course-based systems to those that balance classroom and online courses with informal learning experiences such as coaching and onthe-job training.
we must understand the seven elements of T2P that impact a learner’s ability to get to a targeted level of proficiency as fast and inexpensively as possible. Then, we can design a system that controls the variation of each element. The more we control these elements, the faster and less costly we can be at achieving targeted performance. The more variation and less structured we are around each, the higher the probability that it will take longer and have higher cost. Here are those seven elements:
Before embarking on the process of transformation, we must know what we are transforming to. To help you envision what your transformed training function should look like, refer to a very old principle of training – one that we fundamentally understand but often gets lost in how we do things. It is the principle of “time to proficiency” (T2P) – also referred to as time to competency.
1| Expected Level Of Core Skills Be clear as to what entry level skills are expected of new workers and hire based on those skills.
Our research has taught us that organizations that operate an integrated system of learning solutions that focus on getting a learner from an entry level of core skills to a targeted level of proficiency as fast and inexpensively as possible is one that can better measure results and demonstrate impact to the business. Alternatively, we have found that organizations that focus on building mini school houses with topic-based curriculums allowing learners to pick and choose what training they desire often struggle with how to measure impact and meet the expectations of the business and the learner. How do we use the T2P model to envision our transformed training function? First,
2| Process for Onboarding Prior to starting a new role, workers need knowledge and skills to do the job autonomously. Designing a controlled onboarding experience minimizes risk of failure while on the job. 3| E xpected Skill Level at Point of Autonomy Autonomy is that point where a worker leaves onboarding and performs the job on their own. Defining the expected skills necessary for a worker to do the job on their own is critical to controlling workplace errors and risk of failure. 4| Process for Formalizing Informal Learning Informal learning allows the learner to continue to evolve based on job experiences. Formalizing an approach to on-the-job training and ongoing structured learning programs is necessary for continuous development.
5 | Process for Reinforcement To minimize the effect of forgetting on the job, design reinforcement activities into the learning system, such as access to performance support content and structured learning interventions to reinforce critical skills and knowledge. 6 | Targeted Skill Level When Proficient Be clear as to the targeted skill level expected of successful workers. This is the ultimate goal to get a worker to this level as fast and inexpensively as possible. 7 | Process for Upskilling All jobs change over time. Managing “retraining” or upskilling of jobs for new tools, processes and performance expectations is critical to ongoing success. From where I sit, understanding what we are transforming to is just as important as understanding the process
WE MUST FIRST UNDERSTAND WHAT WE ARE TRANSFORMING TO. for transformation. You can’t transform successfully without understanding what you are transforming to. By spending time on understanding the concept of time to proficiency, we will have a much clearer vision of our next generation training function. Doug Harward is CEO of Training Industry, Inc. and a former learning leader in the hightech industry. Email Doug.
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WHY BECOME A
CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL IN TRAINING MANAGEMENT? The Certified Professional in Training Management (CPTMâ„¢) program will give you the tools and authority to succeed both as a leader of learning and development and as a business leader.
THE CPTM PROGRAM IS: Focused on Business Alignment: You will gain new tools and techniques to align training programs to business strategy. Actionable: You will gain access to tools, resources, research and a network of CPTM colleagues to elevate your professional abilities as a learning leader. Achievable: The CPTM program consists of 10 self-paced online learning modules, followed by a face-to-face (in-person or online) practicum and concluding with an online certification exam. You can earn the CPTM certification at your own pace in as little as four weeks.
UPCOMING CPTM PRACTICUM SESSIONS:
VIRTUAL SESSION JUNE 26-29, 2017
DENVER, CO
RALEIGH, NC
JULY 17-19, 2017
SEPTEMBER 18-20, 2017
VIRTUAL SESSION JULY 24-27, 2017
VIRTUAL SESSION
BOSTON, MA
AUGUST 7-9, 2017
PHILADELPHIA, PA
SEPTEMBER 25-28, 2017
OCTOBER 11-13, 2017
VIRTUAL SESSION AUGUST 21-24, 2017
TAMPA, FL
OCTOBER 23-25, 2017
For other practicum dates and locations, or to learn more about the CPTM program, visit cptm.trainingindustry.com.
GEN WHY MICHELLE EGGLESTON
THE QUEST TO REACH YOUR
FULL POTENTIAL Employees need continuous development and feedback to be successful. They look to their employers to provide them with the necessary tools and resources they need to improve their performance. Reaching your full potential is a two-way street. Leaders must inform employees on where they stand in terms of their performance, but it is up to the individual to take steps toward improving their own performance with guidance from their manager or mentor. Interestingly, fewer than half of employees know if they’re doing a good job, according to research by Leadership IQ. In fact, only 29 percent of employees say they “always” know if their performance is where it should be. That number is alarmingly low and shows that managers are not eliciting feedback as frequently as they should be.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT IS A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY. Gallup research further reinforces the bizarre lack of clarity around performance expectations, finding that only about half of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them at work. So, if only half of an organization’s workforce knows what is expected of them, then what is the other half doing? That’s a scary thought.
These individuals are essentially blindly navigating the halls of your organization without a clear sense of direction. Leaders need to set the precedent of outlining clear expectations for employees. Annual performance reviews are no longer cutting it when it comes to employee development. Employees need regular feedback, especially feedback-hungry millennials. Whether it’s quarterly, weekly or immediate feedback, employees need visibility into their strengths and weaknesses. It’s a win-win situation for both the business and the employee when all the cards are on the table. Overall, performance improvement is a shared responsibility. While managers hold a large amount of responsibility in the development of their employees, it is inevitably up to the employee to want to improve and drive their own performance. Here are a few steps that employees can take toward achieving a greater level of success. • Goal Setting: Goals are essential to being successful both inside and outside the workplace. When meeting with a manager or coach, employees should discuss their career aspirations and chart the skills and experiences that will be crucial in getting there. • Embrace Mistakes: While mistakes are frustrating and often viewed as a setback, they are actually a necessary evil to establish perseverance and resilience in the face of a challenge. Without failure, there is no risk taking, and without risk
taking, there is no growth beyond the status quo. • Accept New Challenges: Always be on the lookout for new opportunities to improve and expand on your skills. This could come in the form of learning a new task, managing a project or peers, or simply strengthening communication and listening skills. Throughout the workday, there are many opportunities that arise to develop new skills. • Training & Development: Employees need to take the feedback they receive from managers and seek development opportunities whenever possible. If organizations do not have any formal training offerings, then ask to take online courses through providers like Lynda.com, Udemy or Coursera. Learning can also come in the form of peer mentorships, job shadowing and social learning. It is shocking to believe that half of employees are utterly unaware of their workplace performance. While the blame is shared with managers, employees also need to hold themselves accountable for their own performance. These statistics may also be indicative that employees are not adequately included in the goal setting of the business. A high-performing company culture must be one that is accepting of involvement from employees versus just doing a job. We need to develop an inclusive culture that moves the needle on performance. Michelle Eggleston is the editorial director at Training Industry, Inc. Email Michelle.
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THANKS TO ALL THE SPEAKERS, SPONSORS AND ATTENDEES WHO HELPED TO MAKE OUR 2017 EVENT A SUCCESS!
SAVE THE DATE JUNE 26-28, 2018 | RALEIGH, NC Be a part of TICE 2018! Learn more at TICE2018.com.
TECH TALK AMAR DHALIWAL
SETTING THE SKILLS AGENDA FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION
PwC recently published its 20th Annual CEO Survey. For the past 20 years, global CEOs have been asked what they consider to be the greatest risks facing their business. And year after year, they have identified the availability of key skills in the top three risks. In fact, other than macro risks, such as economic uncertainty and government regulation, the availability of key skills has been identified as the number one risk inside their businesses. This comes at a time when significant investment has been made in learning management platforms, performance improvement initiatives and competency modelling. I think there are two main factors that can explain this disconnect. NOT ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS Our profession has the tendency of reverting to an order-taking mentality. When approached by our colleagues looking for a training program, we will often respond by simply asking how many people do you want to train, what is the topic, when do you need it by, and what budget do you have? Instead, we should be asking questions like, what do we need to accomplish as a business? What products or services are we launching and what skills will be needed? Where are we growing and do we have people with the right skills there? What skills are strategic and needed to have inhouse? What skills are more tactical and could be possibly outsourced? Asking these questions changes your role and impact. They give you a
strategic view of the organizational and development priorities.
and where we need to develop or acquire skills – and to update these in real-time.
THE FAILURE OF COMPETENCY MODELS
HOW TO ADDRESS THIS PROBLEM
How many of you have worked on creating a competency model or skills framework for your organization? How many of those initiatives would you say were successful?
Start by proactively setting the skills agenda for your respective organizations. Here are some ideas to get you started:
While initiated with good intentions, most competency modeling projects have failed to deliver the expected returns. The fact is, establishing a complete picture of the job roles in an organization, the associated competencies and skills, and the required proficiency levels is a large, manual and daunting process. Mapping these competency models to training or learning objects is even more manual and daunting.
THE AVAILABILITY OF KEY SKILLS CONTINUES TO BE A RISK. If an organization has the fortitude to complete this work, they often fail to keep the competency model up-todate with the changing requirements of their business. As a result, the models can become irrelevant very quickly and not applicable for the strategic reasons behind the original investment. To be clear, I am not saying that the objective of competency modelling is not valuable. It is, provided that the we agree that the objective is to identify what skills we need, what skills we have,
• Ask your leadership and business partners the essential question: What are the most important skills we need to be successful over the next 12 months? • Establish a near real-time and dynamic skills map of your organization. There is an exciting set of emerging technologies that can help you with this. • Use your skills graph to identify the important skills you already have and where they are based. Do you have enough of these skills? • Ask which of these important skills do you need to develop, acquire or outsource? • Build a real-time understanding of all the learning resources you have at your disposal. Emerging artificial intelligence and machine learning-based solutions can help you map these resources to the people who need them. Use the answers to these questions to inform your planning, investments and initiatives, which should help you and your CEO fill the critical skills gap. Amar Dhaliwal is the chief evangelist at EdCast. He was co-founder of THINQ and, after its acquisition by Saba in 2005, led Saba’s product, engineering, cloud and customer operations teams. Email Amar.
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CLOSING D E A L S
LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES GROUP CLOSES ITS CONTENT DEVELOPMENT GAP WITH NETDIMENSIONS ACQUISITION
- TARYN OESCH Since it was founded in 2013, Learning Technologies Group (LTG) has been consolidating training businesses with the aim of creating a full-service agency. With its latest acquisition, NetDimensions, it seems to have accomplished that goal. NetDimensions offers a talent management platform that includes an LMS, agile performance management, online assessments, analytics and a mobile learning app. With over 4.4 million active users in 40 countries, NetDimensions is LTG’s largest acquisition to date. With what Jonathan Satchell, LTG’s chief executive, calls an “extremely elegant, well-engineered solution,” it closes the final gap in the content development cycle offered by LTG’s companies.
LTG’S GOAL IS TO HELP TRAINING ORGANIZATIONS PROVIDE LEARNERS WITH “CONTEXTUALIZED PERFORMANCE SUPPORT.” LEO is a custom content company, gomo learning is a SaaS multi-device authoring tool and Rustici Software is an e-learning software standards expert. Preloaded is a games studio, and Eukleia focuses on governance, risk and compliance training. Satchell says that LTG is interested in acquiring other industry-specific or niche companies after the NetDimensions integration is complete by the end of the year. Now that NetDimensions is part of LTG, its portfolio companies are starting
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to offer joint solutions to clients, and NetDimensions CEO Jay Shaw says that they already have some clients in common. “The thinking behind” the acquisition, Shaw says, “is that a portfolio of learning products and services can both sell independently” and be “fully integrated into what is really a next-generation learning platform.” For example, most of NetDimensions’ clients are not only looking for a talent management platform, but they also need an authoring platform; gomo learning can provide that missing piece for those clients. Satchell says that LTG looks at potential acquisitions from three perspectives: 1 | Does the business add a capability to the portfolio? 2 | Does the business bring a new “sector specialization” to the portfolio? 3 | Does the business enhance or add a geographic area to the portfolio? In addition to adding the talent management platform to LTG’s portfolio, NetDimensions enhanced LTG’s offerings for high-consequence and highly regulated industries (for example, health care, life sciences, financial services and transportation). It also expanded its presence in North America and added Asia to its geographic reach. MEETING BUSINESS NEEDS WITH TECHNOLOGY Satchell says that LTG’s goal is to help training organizations provide their learners with “contextualized performance support” that demonstrably “makes a difference to business outcomes.” In the fast-moving
world we live in, our brains can’t possibly hold everything we need them to. By moving away from linear courses and toward on-demand, chunked training content, organizations can provide “instant gratification of knowledge.” This trend is perhaps especially important in the industries in which NetDimensions works. For these clients, Shaw says it’s important to ensure “that large workforces of knowledge workers are able to find and share information in ways that are safe and self-correcting.” This user-generated content is “not a free-for-all à la YouTube, but more a semi-controlled environment with quick and useful corrections.” Technology makes this possible. Artificial intelligence is part of “just about everything” NetDimensions offers, combining content curation with machine learning that draws on usage patterns to anticipate “next steps on the part of users.” With xAPI, Satchell points out, it’s possible to correlate learner data with business results; the LMS provides training managers with data on what employees have learned and the skills gaps they need to fill, and then managers plan the training accordingly. LTG’s revenue has grown from £7.5 million (about $9.3 million) to more than six times that number in just three and a half years, and Satchell anticipates strong growth and profitability to continue. With its £53.6 million ($66.5 million) acquisition of NetDimensions, closing the content development gap in its offerings, it’s off to a good start. Taryn Oesch is an editor at Training Industry, Inc. Email Taryn.
C O M PA N Y N E W S
ACQ UI S I T I O N S A N D PA RTN E R SHIPS TCC Software Solutions, a leader in designing high-value, cost-effective IT application and cloud technology solutions for the private and public sectors, acquired Vertex Solutions Group and Triple Impact. This acquisition allows TCC to enter the learning and development marketplace, embed interactive learning technology into existing or new software. Together, the companies will expand their impact in all markets. Hallcon Corporation, a North American provider of outsourced transportation services in the public and private transit sectors, acquired Transportation Certification Services, Inc. and Rail Temps, Inc. These two companies combined are the premier providers of training, certification, consulting, regulatory compliance, and staffing for the rail and transit industries. This acquisition gives Hallcon the opportunity to expand into new markets within public and private transit.
EVERFI, the nation’s leading education technology innovator, acquired Workplace Answers, an online compliance training company. EVERFI also acquired Workplace Answers brand, Campus Answers, which provides faculty and staff with training related to critical campus issues. This acquisition offers EVERFI a way to further their commitment to solving complex prevention and workforce challenges through interactive, scalable education solutions.
VitalSource Technologies, Ingram Content Group’s global leader in digital education content delivery, acquired Verba Software. This is a company that uses technology to support campus stores and provide students with financial help when buying course materials. Together, they will help institutions implement inclusive-access programs that ensure first-day access to learning materials at affordable prices, and provide e-texts to faculty.
GP Strategies announced that it has completed the acquisition of certain assets and business of Emantras, an innovative digital education company that provides effective learning experiences and delivery through digital and mobile solutions. This acquisition enhances GP Strategies’ e-learning development capabilities, providing its customer base with the latest digital learning solutions.
Communicaid, one of the world’s leading culture and communication skills consultancies, announced its acquisition by Learnlight, a leading provider of language and skills training in the EdTech market. Part of Learnlight’s strategy for this acquisition is to become the global leader in blended language and skills training. Acquiring Communicaid offers an advantage through its global footprint, international client base and suite of training solutions.
INDUSTRY NE WS TRAINING ADULTS WITH AUTISM HOW TO CODE There are not enough quality skills training programs designed toward adults who have autism. This leaves many people either without a job or the skills necessary to secure a job. To help close this skills gap, Coding Autism has launched a campaign to fund their training program to help adults with autism learn the fundamental skills necessary to secure an entry-level web developer job. DELOITTE LAUNCHES DELOITTE UNIVERSITY NORTH Deloitte launched Deloitte University North (DU North), a new learning and leadership development center, and in the process, declaring its commitment to the growth and success of its people, clients and the global business community.
DU North is located within Deloitte’s new national office, and it is designed to invest in and to inspire new leaders by integrating real-world experiences with active learning. BRINGING DIGITAL SKILLS TO AFRICA IBM is investing $70 million in building digital, cloud and cognitive IT skills to help support a workforce in Africa. It provides a cloud-based learning platform designed for offering free skills development programs for up to 25 million youths in Africa over a five-year span. It will enable digital competence and nurturing innovation in Africa.
and his company, Profit Builders, helped sales leaders, salespeople and managers thrive in their careers. Today, it is called Coachquest, and helps individuals and organizations define their purpose to create their own culture-shifts so that they can have a clear intention around their priorities, values, visions and goals. Coachquest is the first transformational company focused on the personal transformation of people, processes and company cultures.
THE EVOLUTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL & LEADERSHIP TRANSFORMATION “Executive sales coaching,” an idea developed 30 years ago by Keith Rosen
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WHAT’S O N L I N E T R A I N I N G I N D U S T R Y. C O M
ARTICLES 3 TOPICS EVERY NEW MANAGER TRAINING SHOULD INCLUDE | By Dan Schwartz To lead more effectively, new managers require training on the top challenges they will encounter. MAKING TRAINING STICK: ENSURE YOUR CULTURE SUPPORTS KEY SKILLS | By S. Chris Edmonds A high-performing organization aligns its work culture with the skills taught in its training programs. NEUROSCIENCE MAKES LEARNING A DRIVER OF GROWTH | By William Seidman Neuroscience-based learning allows organizations to pivot quickly and efficiently to drive growth. HOW MOBILE-FIRST EXPERIENTIAL TRAINING CAN HELP CLOSE THE SKILLS GAP | By Saul Garlick Use today’s technology to develop tomorrow’s skills by incorporating mobile phones during training.
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TRAINING T A L K
5
WAYS TO ASSESS
PERFORMANCE
INDUSTRY
PO
What method of measuring learning impact post-training is most effective?
8% 11% 54%
1| GOAL SETTING
Managers should regularly meet with employees to set goals and objectives they need to achieve.
S
27% N=37
2| 360-DEGREE FEEDBACK
Collect performance data from members of the team who work with the employee and share constructive feedback. 3| FORMAL ASSESSMENTS
Provide tests and quizzes before, during and posttraining to assess the employee’s level of knowledge and skills.
Job/in-role observation Delayed assessment (knowledge retention) Observation in role play/simulation Immediate assessment What will be the core activity driving your professional development goals in 2017?
21%
30%
4| OBSERVATION
Observe employees in their physical work environment or in a virtual lab environment to monitor and correct any negative behaviors.
23% 26% N=43
5| WORK QUALITY
Evaluate the quality of work produced by the employee in terms of time and efficiency.
Attend a conference Obtain a professional certification Participate in a formal instructor-led program/course Take courses from my company’s learning library/corporate university
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