[This is the first in a two-part series.]
Learning management has become a hot issue in corporate America today, but the reasons why may not be the ones you'd suspect.
Of
course, distance learning is attractive to companies feeling the bite
of the current recession. They are trying to cut down on expenses,
including the travel budget. This makes e-learning appealing because
employees can take courses without ever leaving their desks. The appeal
of distance learning increased with the terrible events of September
11; even those employees not nervous about air travel suddenly found
it more cumbersome and uncertain.
However, e-learning and distanced-based learning are only part of why learning management is important now. In fact, learning experts all agree that a blended approach is the best, where programs consist of both live and virtual components. Learning management and learning-content management are making it possible for organizations to offer the kinds of learning solutions and development plans that contribute to an enterprise's bottom line.
Experts Agree
This past September the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) announced that it had found definitive evidence that investments in workforce training can predict a company's future financial performance, including its total stockholder return. After a major study of the late-1990s training practices of 575 U.S.-based publicly traded firms, the ASTD found that companies that invested $680 per employee more in training than the average company improved their total stockholder return the next year by six percentage points, even after taking other factors into account.
In addition, a joint study by the ASTD and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) showed that training and development had risen to the top as one of the most important benefits organizations had to offer to attract and retain talented employees.
In a recent report, "Best Practices in Employee Performance Management and Development," Best Practices, LLC, profiled "a diverse group of companies which have demonstrated effective operating practices and winning strategies in the area of HR management." The report documents how world-class companies maximized their employees' productivity through character-trait recruiting, career-path definition, blended-classroom and real-life training and performance measurement. According to Best Practices, the benefits included reduced costs and cycle time, improved employee performance, more effective employee training and improved employee satisfaction and retention.
Beneficial HR and learning initiatives followed by the study's most successful companies included:
- Analyzing goals and competencies when developing career plans,
- Incorporating career-path planning into performance-development initiatives,
- Implementing a thorough career-development process,
- Educating workers about their career-development roles to facilitate advancement,
- Involving key managers in the performance-development process to ensure implementation success,
- Implementing executive education programs to assist with succession planning,
- Screening applicants to identify appropriate candidates for succession-planning programs,
- Redeploying employees in response to changing business needs,
- Empowering employees to take responsibility for their own career advancement, and
- Utilizing employee-satisfaction measurements to develop improvement plans.
Given that employee development is an important factor in corporate success, HR professionals are interested in helping to make it happen within their own organizations. By becoming involved in learning management and learning-content management, HR managers can play a key role in choosing the methodologies and information systems put into place to support those practices.
Automated systems facilitate the application of proven HR practices such as competencies and performance measurement and meld them into a learning-management program that improves the performance of current employees, helps retain them, and prepares the organization for succession in the case of promoted or departing employees.
Taking a look at some of the methodologies HR uses to promote employee development, and showing how learning management supports those elements illustrates why learning management-especially when integrated with learning-content management-helps organizations achieve goals and objectives.
Competencies
HR professionals are familiar with competencies, which may be defined as the underlying characteristics of a role based on agreed-upon standards and measures. These characteristics include knowledge, skills, personal traits, and/or motives, the presence of which contribute to the successful performance of a role, and the absence of which predict an unacceptable level of performance. Roles may be supported by multiple competencies, and a single competency may include multiple underlying characteristics.
For example, two competencies relating to applicationHCMware development might be:
- "Application Software:" Designs, develops, maintains and implements effective application software on multiple technical platforms using one or more families of languages; e.g., 3GLs, 4GLs, OO, Web-based, product-specific.
- "Dealing with Ambiguity:" Effectively copes with change, shift gears comfortably, decides and acts without having the total picture, isn't upset when things are up in the air, doesn't have to finish things before moving on and can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
Competencies differ from job-related skills, which might include expertise in specific technologies such as COBOL, PowerBuilder, C++, Java, or HTML.
The core of a competency will always remain the same, although the particular skills required to carry it out might change. For example, knowledge of a particular payroll application might be required within a company at a certain point in time, whereas later on the company might choose to outsource the application. Payroll employees who still need to understand payroll functions won't necessarily need to know the "ins and outs" of the specific payroll package.
When correctly defined, competencies are the benchmarks or standards that are tied to roles.
In the real world, general managers tend to associate competencies with training needs. This can be useful because it encourages organizations to identify what individuals need to know and learn for their current and future roles. However, competencies are also extremely useful in terms of recruitment, assessment, developmental planning and performance evaluation.
For example, if an HR department is working with a manager to recruit an applications software developer, previously identified competencies can go right into the job description. The HR person knows what he or she is looking for, and candidates understand what skills, knowledge and work approaches they will need in order to qualify.
Similarly, when performance evaluations are given to employees, part of the evaluation should include measurement of how employees match the various competencies and associated performance standards for their position.
The Basis for All Learning
Competencies provide the basis for all learning activities. No matter how organizations use them, they are always directly related to any kind of learning activity. Once competencies are defined, they need to be mapped to a learning path. In the ideal world, an organization defines a set of competencies, devises a set of learning solutions and then maps each solution to a competency.
Once an organization has identified what it will take to achieve business goals, and a needs analysis has determined what part is lacking due to competency deficiencies and what might be attributed to other causes (e.g., process or infrastructure defects), the competencies can be mapped to learning solutions.
Learning solutions may be a blend of formats and delivery styles. In fact, as mentioned previously, learning experts believe that a blended learning approach is the most successful. A blended approach might include traditional classroom education, e-learning modules, distance learning via Web seminars (Webinars) and teleconferences, virtual classrooms and on-site training.
Individual learning plans should identify the competency gaps, outline the learning solutions needed to address the gaps, specify when and how those solutions can be consumed, list any necessary prerequisites, and assess the individual's progress in obtaining competencies.
An individual's learning plan is a roadmap for development. It is a tool to improve individual self-esteem and perceived value to the organization, create a sense of direction and achievement, permit managers to monitor employee progress, ensure that learning initiatives are tied to overall goals, and provide a discussion point as part of ongoing performance review.
Taking Charge of Learning Management
A well-thought-out LMS/LCMS implementation can go a long way toward enabling an organization to align employee actions and capabilities with business objectives, thereby enabling organizations to achieve business goals. And that is something that HR professionals should have a handle on to be instrumental in managing the initiative.
To Be Continued...
Look for Part II in the next issue of e-Insight, Q3 2002.
The above article was reprinted, courtesy of IHRIM.link.
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Q2 / 2002
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