It is Time to Clean Up the Learning Mess - For Good (Let's Save Money While We are Doing It)
Have you ever had a pile of papers on your desk or bit of a mess in a room that you continue to walk by? After having it camouflage itself mysteriously into the background, you finally decide it is time to clean that mess up. Hours pass and things are filed or thrown away and finally, its cleaned up ….only to have it appear again days, weeks or months later.
Now – think about how many times you or your company has had to do this with regard to learning or talent development. Every time we turn around, the way we support and develop our people has turned itself into large unmanaged piles around the company or an absolute mess located in one place. Why and how does this happen? - For the same reasons that the piles and messes happen around your house or office– talent development and learning is typically given a lower priority than the other things you have going on.
Psssst…. in the meantime, how much are you really spending with those piles and messes?! We all know budgets get cut and learning typically goes first, but people spend the money anyway and hide them in budgets as “other”. I found over $2M of “other” within one year at one particular client.
SO LETS CLEAN UP!!! …For good this time. Make it a routine (perhaps we can think of it as the 9th Habit) to include learning and talent development as part of what needs to be managed as part of our projects, initiatives and if needed, daily lives. After all, how can you have a high performing or innovative team if they don’t know what they are doing?
Here are some quick wins to think about to get things started:
1. Vendor / Content Rationalization & Management: (You did it with your supply chain – guess what, it works in learning too!) Put a stop gap on money being spent where it doesn’t need to be…think green – reuse/repurpose the content that you have. Align it to the performance needs and competencies assigned with your workforce. The value that can be quickly realized includes:
• Volume of Courses Reduced
• Spend Managed
• Repeatable Processes Introduced
• Sustainable Control Plans Introduced
2. Technology Roadmap: How many spreadsheets are being used to manage talent development and learning? Have your performance management plans worked? Is there an integrated strategy to Talent Management that you and your company are thinking about (Workforce Planning & Management/ Learning / Performance Management / Compensation & Benefits / Employee Services)?
Addressing any of these areas now, can begin to place you in more effective and efficient times including financially.
Comments
It’s unfortunate but it is the reality of every team I’ve ever been on. I think of refresher training as back to basics. In sports, if your team is not winning games it most likely ties back to not executing on the basics. So what do we do…blame the coach that’s what. It’s the American way. But really, all kidding aside training and a focus on training really boils down to a core shift in our operations paradigms and perceptions. Executing the basics has to be built into each project plan and reviewed up front. Remember college level Trig? (I do vaguely). At the end of the semester, if you don’t score high marks it's most likely due to forgetting your times tables, long division or what a hypotenuse even is (try a visit to the zoo ;>).
Same holds true with Operations…we can over engineer to the point where we feel there is no more need for training, that is when we need it the most.
Posted by: Jonny Cash (aka KC) | April 1, 2009 07:25 PM