Jack Welch, famed international businessleader and CEO of GeneralElectric once said, “An organization’s ability to learn and translate thatlearning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.” Iflearning is so important, why do most training professionals struggle to getthe funding they need? That’s a good question, and one I will explore in thisarticle.
Is your training operation critical to your organization?
According to a recent study by Bersin by Deloitte (see References), overall spending bybusinesses on workplace training and development increased by an average of 12percent last year. In addition, organizations with mature, highly effectivelearning departments spent 34 percent more on training than companies that didnot have mature learning departments. Those organizations that are increasingtheir funding are delivering outstanding results that directly align withbusiness goals.
So, how do you become a mature learningdepartment whose organization sees so much value in what you do that you get 34percent more funding than training departments in other organizations? Inshort, making your training operation critical to your business will give youthe greatest chance to receive increased funding and expand the impact oftraining in your organization.
The question remains whether your trainingoperation is designed to be a critical resource for your company. The fact thatfunding is increasing among organizations that recognize the value of learningis encouraging to any training department. But increases in funding have aspecific focus. For example, spending for training is rising for variableactivities but not for fixed resources or staff expansion. Growth is occurringin contract services, new initiatives, specialized training assignments, and topurchase existing courseware, freeing internal resources to take on strategicassignments (see References).
Oftentimes these expenditures relate tocorporate initiatives, such as new-product launches, implementation of newsweeping policies, or major reorganization. But what if you are not getting thefunding you need to be effective; what steps can you take?
Are you in step with the trends?
Progressive training departments areimplementing a number of trends; perhaps the largest and most visible is themove to mobile. Mobile learning, and the potential that this delivery systempromises, are among the most compelling of any training delivery channel in thelast several decades—maybe in the history of training. The opportunity toprovide training nuggets and performance support any time the learner needsthem is highly valuable.
A second trend is the move to sociallearning. Harnessing and leveraging online resources to build teams, shareknowledge, and solve problems with others are some of the most effectiveapplications of this technology. Again, you can harness mobile technologies toaid in this sharing of knowledge as it is created or needed.
Finally,another trend is the move from training as an event to learning as a lifelongprocess. Building a culture of learning within your organization is a path themost progressive and successful companies have taken. I’ll talk more about thatlater.
Run it like you own it
Perhaps the most valuable perspective you cantake is, “What would I do if this department were my own independent business?”Take a cold, hard look at your department’s performance, its value, and itsmessaging to your customer base, even if those “customers” are internalemployees. The place to begin is in evaluating the services that you provideyour organization.
Are your services vital to the company’ssuccess? Conducting training because it’s an obligation, or for legacy reasons,is no longer sufficient—in fact, it never has been. If you see training only asmeeting a requirement, or because this is the way the organization has alwaysdone it, your training may not be well aligned with the business’ needs, whichoften results in weak results and weak funding.
Ask yourself, “What is my department’s uniquevalue proposition?” Recognizing your team’s unique or proprietary capabilitiesis fundamental to the value proposition you can provide. Why should yourcompany choose “your business?” The answer lies in that unique valueproposition. If you don’t have something uniquely valuable to offer, theorganization won’t value it—and they won’t fund it.
Do you have advocates? Just like anindependent business, stalwart customers who believe in you are a great assetas a reference and a means to build future business. Raving fans and backers,proponents, and believers in your department’s abilities are important toproving relevance within the organization. These proponents may provide you thebest opportunity to lead your department in new directions.
Are you looking for opportunities? Beingaware of trends and initiatives inside and outside your organization helps youto be proactive in developing strategies that integrate learning with theorganization’s success. This will help you build business among yourconstituents. Here again, building allies within the organization can help yougain insight into situations you might not have otherwise considered, and enableyou to identify opportunities where learning can play a pivotal role.
Are you effective? How do you know? Whatmetrics have you put in place that enable you to build a compelling story aboutyour department’s capabilities and the value you provide to the organization? Results—onesthat matter—are central to your department’s success, and your ability to increasefunding.
Be driven by business drivers
Do you understand your company’s businessdrivers? When you break things down to their basic fundamentals, key businessdrivers become easy to identify. They fall into one of three areas:
- Reducing risk
- Increasing revenue
- Reducing cost
These key business drivers are fundamental toyour organization and its success—and since the organization cares about them,you must care about them too. It is precisely this area where many learningdepartments fail to prove value and relevance. Defining how your learningproject will reduce risk, increase revenue, or reduce cost is absolutelyessential to your learning initiatives being valuable to company management—youknow, the folks who are in charge of your funding. If you take nothing elsefrom this article, consider how your department addresses the three primarybusiness drivers, and how you express that to senior management.
Beyond the yawn
Unfortunately many employees still say thatthe biggest drawback to their corporate training experience is the quality ofthe learning experience itself. Oftentimes, training is designed merely totransfer information and, unfortunately, provides few opportunities for mentalengagement, problem solving, and other opportunities to motivate the learnerand elevate the learning experience. Learners report that training is boring, anda waste of time. These are harsh words, but often true. Plenty has been writtenabout improving the learning experience. I won’t explore this further here, butbe ruthless in your evaluation of the solutions your department provides andhow well they create engaging learning experiences with lasting value.
Training or lifestyle?
Historically, corporate training has occupiedits own universe within the corporate structure, at least in many companies.Learning occurs in one solar system, work exists in another. Progressive-thinkingorganizations, however, place learning and knowledge at the heart of jobperformance.
Changes in technology have opened doors toentirely new ways for learning departments to become integral to thefundamental operations of the organization. Mobile devices, for example, have becomeomnipresent and can be a vital support tool that enhances employee performance.This can be effective for sales, or operations, or corporate support, in fact, nearlyevery aspect of your organization. Thinking beyond merely the delivery ofknowledge and looking to the application of knowledge leads to concepts likeperformance support and introduces new and exciting ways to expand learninginto effective directions.
To be successful, however, you need tounderstand not just the content, but also the context. When will people needthis information? What will they be doing at that moment? How much depth ofinformation will they need? You must have a complete picture of the use-casescenario that surrounds the need for learning. Make sure you understand theprocesses and problems that need solving in a performance-enhancement scenario.
Concepts such as these lead to the potentialfor just-in-time learning. The nature, structure, and architecture of thejust-in-time learning experience changes remarkably when compared totraditional classroom learning. Learning needs to be short, requiring onlyseconds, or a minute or two of the learner’s time. Rather than asking what you cando in 30-minute engagements, ask what you can accomplish in 30 seconds.
First, engagement needs to be quick and immediate;that is, the learner must be able to access the information in seconds. Thelonger it takes for the learner to access the information within the context ofthe job, the less successful the performance support will be. Mobile deviceswith their instant-on capability and solid-state memory provide access toinformation quicker than any other technology to date. This is why we are soapt to reach to such a device for performance support. Make sure to capitalizeon such devices, and then make the content easy to access quickly.
Next, training content needs to be specificand to the point. The more the development team understands the use-casescenario, the more specifically the content can be pointed to the problem athand. The more specific the training, the more likely a 30-second engagementcould succeed, for example.
And finally, the solution must be presentwhen the learner needs it. That may seem obvious, but often it is not. Smartphonedevices and even mobile tablets are of a size and weight factor that can makethem available to the learner 100 percent of time on the job. With performance-supporttools targeted to known, specific scenarios, learning that is properly designedbecomes available at that moment it is needed the most. Those are also themoments when it will be valued the most.
So where’s the funding?
In order for your department to be amongthose that are gaining support from their corporate management you need toensure that your work is aligned with the three corporate drivers:
- Risk
- Cost
- Revenue
You must gauge every training initiative andevery training expenditure against these benchmarks, and you should create anROI statement before beginning any development work. This is primary, andfundamental to any training project. If you can’t answer why you’re creating apiece of training, your learners certainly won’t be able to either—and thatresults in learners saying training was a waste of time.
Like an independent business owner, know yourmarket: its values, initiatives, preferences, opportunities, and threats. Youneed to be relevant, if not vital, to those factors. Taking an aggressivebusiness-owner perspective will help your department become proactive inpositing learning as a strategic resource.
Objectively assess your department’sstrengths and weaknesses. Use formal and informal means of collecting opinionsand perspectives on your training endeavors from your target audiences. Thesecould be simple chats over coffee with colleagues to something more formalizedin terms of evaluative surveys and assessments. And of course consider multiplelevels of evaluation, not just smile sheets.
Gauge your operations and your strategic planagainst those emerging trends that are changing the landscape of corporatelearning. You need to think beyond the classroom, virtual or real, and movelearning delivery to the point of greatest value—the moment it’s needed themost—on the job.
You need to be proactive in promotinglearning as a strategic resource. But in order to do that, you need to build acase around the ROI values achieved through learning. Raise the visibility ofyour department’s accomplishments and justify new strategic directions based ondelivering results.
Followthese guidelines and your department will be in better position to be amongthose receiving the funding and corporate backing to set new directions ineffective learning.
References
“The Corporate Learning Factbook 2013: Benchmarks, Trends, and Analysis of the U.S. Training Market.” Bersin by Deloitte
“7Trends Driving the Future of Corporate Training Services in Community Colleges.”TrainingIndustry.com
