Can L&D save organizations from melting down?

The speed at which some of the supposedly and most respected financial institutes have melted down is stunning. Bear Stearns disappeared almost overnight. Shareholders in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are virtually wiped out. WaMu is down 93%, Lehman has filed for bankruptcy, and Wachovia, AIG, Merrill and others have suffered huge losses. Lehman and Merrill Lynch together have some 85000 odd employees who are worst effected apart from the shareholders. They will now have to compete with the armies of other financial institute workers who also have been laid off this year. This seismic change in their fortunes from master of the universe to a tribe living in fear of the pink slip has left many questions un-answered.
 

Who drove these institutes to the state they are in now? Lost opportunities, federal government’s failed bailouts, or short-sightedness of the top management? The answer is definitely Short-Sightedness of the top management. Companies are increasingly bypassing departments like Operations, HR, Quality, Production and treating customer focus, Marketing and Sales on priority. With the top management living quarter on quarter the focus on long term impacts is lost. It’s the lower and the middle level that is more sensitized to long term impacts of business decisions. The role of Human Resource function is largely undermined, it is the keeper of ethics and values of the organization, but in an increasingly sales oriented competitive environment it is bypassed to suffice the bottom line of the balance sheet.
 

Learning & development (L&D) function plays a vital role in not only coaching ‘how to sell’ but also on ‘balancing short term benefits to long terms business impacts’. The L&D of the organization plays a pivotal role in handling the human aspect of the crisis situation. The core objective of T&D department should be enhance skills and make the employee more productive. Most organizations are now resorting to cross-functional training which has a dual benefit of complying to business obligations and as well an effective mechanism to cater individual interests and career prospects. Trainings of this nature not only help companies build skilled resources but also help employees break out of their role fatigue by providing opportunities of vertical growth in career track, opening up multiple career tracks, and applying the business acumen in day-to-day activities, thereby adding significant value to their own profile. And in times of adversities, layoffs and business closures these trainings become weapons for the employees while competing in the job market.

Perhaps it is time for HR professionals to move past being just the messenger and assume a strategic role in leading crisis planning efforts.

Trainer vs. Instructional Designer

During a recent conversation with a Learning & Development Head of a large corporation, she posed an interesting question: “Who, do you think, can evolve into a better L&D Manager—a trainer or an instructional designer?” The more I contemplated the SWOT of each role, the harder it was for me to hazard a black-and-white answer.

The former does have formidable practical experience in the field, but the latter has the collective knowledge of ID theories and principles tested by time. This conundrum is akin to the “physicist vs. engineer” argument.

As L&D managers, what do you think of this poser?

From R&D to L&D – Optimizing cost and resources (7)

Bob took all the benefits of this L&D initiative to the Board at the annual general meeting to review the entire project. All key stakeholders were present at this meeting. Over the review, the team identified many benefits, such as rise in sales by 13%, increase in repeat orders, improvement in customer satisfaction index, and recovery in market share. Though the initiative definitely brought significant benefits to the organization, it had its own drawbacks. The gross project cost was about 200% over the budget, with a schedule variance of approximately 100%. The feedback from the learners showed that the quality of product/technology needs improvement; the stakeholders’ feedback showed a need to improve the quality of process and people. From the feedback, Bob took the following decisions:

1. Outsourcing as an optimal (effective & efficient) solution
2. Outsource the needs analysis and implementation to a team of external consultants
3. Based on the recommendations, outsource content development to an e-learning factory
4. Outsource “Train the Trainer” programs
5. Outsource L&D Managed Services
6. Outsource LMS management and tracking

Delivery was decided to be done in-house and was planned to be outsourced after 3 years. The entire outsourcing would be anchored by Bob as Single Point of Contact (SPOC). It took Bob almost a year to action all the decisions. Upon implementation, the organization noticed the following benefits:

• Cost of content development reduced by ~25%
• Speed and quality of development was impressive
• Helped resources to focus on core competencies of the organization
• Productivity skills enhanced for employees
• Overall operations scaled up
• Operating costs reduced
• Minimizes risks associated with investments in technology

L&D outsourcing definitely worked for the company. It brought immense value to Acme Corporation and furthered the career of Bob.

Calibrating the L&D Organization

We all know how the CMM and PCMM models have fundamentally changed the way mega corporations manage their operational processes. These industry standards, however, have predominantly benefited the production and HR organizations. But, what about the Learning & Development (L&D) organization?

Based on the CMM and PCMM framework, I’ve synthesized a Learning Maturity Model (LMM) for staged measurement of corporate L&D organizations.

The LMM has 5 levels and 15 practices, as depicted in the rendition above. Having peer-reviewed the model, I’m now conducting two dipstick surveys to determine the level of learning maturity of India Inc.

1. State of Corporate Learning Maturity (Foundational) – to ascertain whether Indian corporations have moved up from “initial” (ad-hoc L&D efforts) to “defined” (L&D process standardization)
2. State of Corporate Learning Maturity (Advanced) – to check whether Indian corporations have graduated from “managed” (L&D process measurement) to “optimizing” (L&D process improvement)

As a senior L&D professional, your contribution to the development of this L&D calibrator is vital. If you can take these quick surveys (of ~3.5 minutes burden time) to share your L&D organization’s maturity and notify me, I’ll email you a free report on the state of L&D organizations in India. You can also share your thoughts on the LMM by commenting on this post, and I’d very much like that.

Thanks in advance

Instructors 2.0 (3)

(With inputs from Nilesh Vani, Executive Vice President, Aptech Learning Services)

Blended Training
With so many factors conspiring against the instructor, how could we have effective training in organizations?

In his classic 1954 article, The Science of Learning and the Art of Teaching, B.F. Skinner—the father of operant conditioning—described the conditions of the typical classroom as particularly adverse to learning. A single teacher cannot individually and appropriately reinforce thirty or more students at the same time. He proposed the “Teaching Machine”, which has today blossomed into eLearning. Is there a space for the human teacher in a Webbed world? Yes, according to John Dewey’s experiential learning “Toolbox”. Dewey averred that learning was driven by the learner’s sense of disequilibrium (cognitive dissonance) when confronted with new experiences and ideas rather than by reinforcement. He believed that traditional reinforcement of information only led to superficial learning. The educator is responsible for creating learning events in which the learner is presented with problematic situations which he/she would be motivated to solve by learning.

So, how do we strike the balance? Through a two-tiered L&D program:

• Tier 1: Delivery of knowledge-level programs through eLearning
• Tier 2: Delivery of skill- and attitude-level programs through ILT

In this approach, the “what is what” of the competency is first delivered via eLearning—CBT or WBT. Next, the “how to” of the competency is delivered via ILT. The overlap is the judicious balance called Blended Training (BLT). This way, both the learners and the instructor retain their motivation on the learning process. And all stakeholders achieve their ROI.

An Optimal Solution
In the Technology Age, eLearning has fundamentally changed the way corporate L&D departments perceive returns from learning investments. Better fiscal prudence due to tighter budgets has compelled many an L&D manager to take the long-term view on recovering learning costs, which is a key strength of eLearning. In the industry whitepaper released in August 2007 by The Training Associates, the CEO Victor J. Melfa states,

The largest single expense for training organizations is the cost of instructors, both full-time staff instructors and contract instructors.

Victor has astutely noted that,

In addition to the total salary of a trainer, all direct and indirect overhead costs attributable to the trainer must be added to obtain his or her true total cost.

The image comparing the cost-time correlation between CBT/ WBT and ILT showcases the quintessential fact about eLearning—long-term ROI realization. Naturally, smart L&D managers tend to make the obvious choice.

Using modern authoring techniques, well-designed eLearning programs could even enable skill/ competency training. Typically, such programs have content, supported by technology, as the backbone of the training. Here, the recommended learning components include:

1. Assessments/ Evaluations - Pre and Post, Formative and Summative
2. Immersion/ Experiences - Scenarios, Case Studies
3. Exercises/ Activities – Quiz and Practice, Scoring and Certification

In these programs, the trainer is the “coach” who facilitates learners to make the most of the content to enhance their competencies and thereby performance. And, that’s the real deal!

Instructors 2.0 (2)

(With inputs from Nilesh Vani, Executive Vice President, Aptech Learning Services)

Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction
School and college students, by design, do not have a say in what they have to learn. Learned collegiums of wizened educators decide what should and should not go into the textbooks. The immature mind accepts this lack of control, but not for long. As the human mind grows and expands, it starts asking the “why” and “why not” questions. Andragogy allows (and even encourages) this desire by including the learner as a participant in the instruction development process.

Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for learning activities
Punitive markings in exams have always been wielded to much effect in schools and colleges as a technique for course correction. In that sense, the cost of learning is quite high for the young mind. In the corporate environment, adults encounter unique problems and need to take risks to solve them. Failures are inherent. Punishment for such risk-taking and experimentation is a recipe for decimating the creativity and innovation that companies need to survive and grow in the competitive world.

Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance to their job or personal life
Formal educators pump into their young wards the universal knowledge of what they think “might be required” for adult life. Subjects from botany to astronomy are mugged up by rote learning. What is the use of learning the structure of the uranium atom when one deals with aluminium in real life?—the student might wonder, but don’t have a choice except to learn. The corporate learner needs to be convinced that the corporate training topic on cleaning the uranium reactor would be “needed” by him/her because he/she will enter the reactor to clean—at the completion of the training. It’s personal and immediate.

Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented
Even as pedagogy focuses on transfer of the “knowledge” from the teachers’ mind to the students’ mind, andragogy emphasizes on discovery of the “skill” by the learner. Related to the earlier postulate, the corporate learner is interested in solving a work problem, not wax eloquent content to his superiors, and be looked at askance.

Formal Education vs. Corporate Training
Let’s contrast the design and delivery of formal education—pedagogy—against corporate training—andragogy.

1. In formal school or college education, the curriculum is top-driven—from the “learned” teacher to the “ignorant” student. If corporate HR attempts to follow this design for their L&D programs, learners will lose their motivation to take or complete the course.
2. Educational curricula are chunked into annual and semester courses. In time-crunched corporate training calendars, the L&D manager is thinking hours and days—not months or years—for competency building.
3. School and college teachers educate an audience that has demographic and psychographic homogeneity, established by the entry criteria for formal education. The corporate trainer who expects all employees to be of the same age and maturity is a trainer without a job.
4. Most corporate trainings don’t have promotion-linked course assessments, which is an integral part of formal education.
5. The educational institution is a citadel of peace and quiet. Students are able to focus on the task at hand—learning. Employees, on the other hand, are diverted from their work for a few hours/ days of training, all the while distracted by deadlines and work spillovers.
6. The teacher-centric pedagogy, typically, disallows student feedback on teachers. However, corporate trainers endure the Damocles Sword of 360-degree feedback perpetually hanging over their heads—a stress that can take toll over several careers.
7. Despite the learner-centricity of corporate training, formal education is less dependent on the performance of the teacher, but more on the process. Due to the inherent flexibility required of L&D programs, corporate trainers can make or break employee learning.

Self-directed andragogy contrasts sharply with the teacher-driven pedagogy. So, in corporate training, where the “learners” (not “students”) are adults, a pontificating instructor on a podium invariably ends up doing more harm than good. The “instructor”, in Transactional Analysis terms, tends to operate on an “I-Know-You-Don’t-Know” premise when “teaching” to students. On the other hand, the “facilitator”—in order to motivate learners to learn—must perform on an “I-Know-You-Will-Know” platform. As this approach is more skill-cum-attitude intensive, seldom does a “facilitator” measure up to the expectations of corporate learners.

The solution … in the next post—last part of this series!

Instructors 2.0 (1)

(With inputs from Nilesh Vani, Executive Vice President, Aptech Learning Services)

“Instructors are indispensable”—the factoid has been drilled into our collective consciousness over millennia. From the gurukuls of ancient India to the Lyceums of the West, this practice of face-to-face instruction to wide-eyed pupils—technically called “pedagogy”—has prevailed through the annals of time.

However, Knowles’ “andragogy” (teaching to adults) has turned the traditional “pedagogy” (teaching to children) on its head.

The image presents a visual contrast between the paradigms of pedagogy and andragogy. In the former, learning is unidirectional, from the knowledgeable master to the ignorant pupil. In the latter, learning is multidirectional, between the more knowledgeable facilitator and the less knowledgeable (but not ignorant) participant. Also, the learning environment is more amorphous in adult learning.

In this context, what pedagogical perils await the corporate trainer? Do write to us … and we’ll respond in the next post!

Learning Efficiency @ Work

If your performance as a CLO is in the red this fiscal, you may be wondering how you can possibly convince your Board not to squeeze your budgets any further for the next fiscal, if not worse. At the Board meeting this April, make a bold statement, “By the end of this fiscal, I will reduce learning costs by 15% and increase revenues by 15% …” You may probably be thinking it was mistake clicking that hyperlink that took you to this page of wishful thinking. Read on …

By implementing the best practices of lean manufacturing and lean systems, you can actually achieve the above outlandish utterance.

For starters, take a long, hard look at your entire Learning & Development (L&D) process. Which are the activities that do not add value—activities that your internal and external customer will not pay for? For example, is the Sales Head seeing performance improvement in their team after that induction program? Does that satisfaction survey add value to the performance of your Production Head? If the answer is a “No” or even a “May be not”, axe the activity. When it comes to sanctioning your precious L&D budget, just follow the rule of thumb, “When in doubt, cut it out!” Easier said than done? Not really, if we go by this 1-2-3 process of Lean Learning:

• SUPPORT: First, reduce learning burdens by removing cumbersome activities from the L&D process. These could typically be administrative activities that could either be outsourced or deleted altogether. Analysis of the learning strategy and process is the key.
• STREAMLINE: Next, reduce learning inconsistencies by delivering JIT learning of nano-modules. Here, module design, learner enrollment, and scheduling are the focus.
• SIMPLIFY: Finally, reduce learning wastes by evaluating the outcomes of the above process simplification and streamlining efforts. Note that you need to ascertain whether the waste activities thus identified are “non-value adding essential activities” or “non-value adding non-essential activities”; correct the former, kill the latter.

In sum, Lean Learning = L&D Waste Reduction + L&D Process Improvement

Getting started with eLearning 2.0

The second generation of eLearning design, development, and delivery (called eLearning 2.0) are a far cry from the traditional eLearning courseware the world has gotten used to (and, not infrequently, abused on).

Today, learning organizations (read as Learning & Development department of your company) can offer to their in-house subject matter experts (read as Senior Staff) and learners (read as Trainees) a mutually beneficial opportunity to learn and grow.

At the fundamental level, there are two key eLearning 2.0 tools available, ABSOLUTELY FREE:

• Blogs, which enable experts to publish evolving ideas and learners to respond to those ideas
• Wikis, which enable experts to document (and iterate) their knowledge and learners to learn from those knowledge repository

The beauty of these tools is that they enable such fantastic collaboration between the knowledge givers and receivers.

If you are a learning champion in your organization, explore these two opportunities for knowledge acquisition and sharing. And, it doesn’t cost much!

From R&D to L&D (6)

Measuring Bottomline Impact

It’s time for Bob to show results. Something as subjective as training is difficult to measure, especially when ROI needs to be calculated. But as rightly said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”; Bob’s task was to show the Board the ROI on this new L&D initiative. This was the only way to prove the success of this new training initiative.

Learning Analytics (LA) helps organizations understand the activity, effectiveness, and impact of learning and training. LA, with its 4 levels, assures some degree of measurement and results. Bob widely researched about LA and formed a team to administer and implement it within the organization. The most striking feature of LA was it would give different users the information they would need to make decisions. Bob formulated a balanced scorecard that articulated the understandings of the stakeholders’ perception of ROI.

The team went about evaluating level-by-level of the Kirkpatrick’s model. Level 1 of measurement involved administering “happy sheets” for 100% of the coursed rolled out. The feedback forms measured the satisfaction levels of the learners. At level 2, 60% of the courses are covered with a report to line managers on all the mandatory courses, such as compliance and regulatory courses. Bob’s preparation on this was truly commendable. He made the participants undergo pre-assessment test and, post the training, made them undergo the same assessment to check the increase in knowledge. This showed him how much the learners learnt from the training. Level 3 involved stakeholder surveys. This was conducted after 3 weeks of training delivery. Also called perception survey, it involved studying the training impact on the job from the learner, his/ her superior, colleagues, and subordinates. The evaluation was determined based on the various parameters defined in the learners Key Result Areas (KRAs) of the annual performance appraisal system.  Level 4, the final one, involved MIS analysis. Bob used MIS data along with Sales departmental survey information to find out post training if the sales (booking) increased. Similar trends were studied for Quality department where the fall in number of rejects was recorded. Survey from Finance department helped him plot the income (collections) hike post training. Increase in Delivery (billing) was recorded from the Production department, and finally what mattered to the business the most, i.e., customer satisfaction index, was measured from the Marketing department.

The 4 levels of Kirkpatrick’s model helped Bob immensely in drawing conclusions on training effectiveness. As this model is scientific in nature and produced measurable results, Bob had some very positive results to show to the Board.

Wow … LA did wonders for Bob. It helped him measure the subjective tasks (training). Measuring the training is not the end, there are lessons learnt from this exercise. Find this out in my next post.