Chief Learning Officer - August 2007 - (Page 40)

productivity in practice: Cash America: The Meaning Behind the Metrics The gauges on an automobile’s dashboard tell the driver about the engine’s temperature, the motor’s speed and the vehicle’s gas level. All this information helps the driver monitor the automobile’s performance and make adjustments when needed. But for these gauges to do their jobs, drivers need to understand what factors the gauges measure and how to fix any problems they report. When an organization uses key learning indicators to measure its performance, this is also true. Learning leaders need to understand which factors their indicators measure and how they link to their company’s strategic goals before they can make the changes that will help their business run better. This is why Cash America International, a finance company that specializes in secured nonrecourse lending to individuals, carefully reviewed its company objectives when selecting its learning indicators. Using CLO Dashboard, the company identified the goals, objectives and measures linked to each indicator as it set up its score card so the results would be more meaningful when they came in. Visually depicted by a simulated dashboard, the tool uses gauges to show leaders where they’ve made the most progress and which initiatives still require the most work. One of the indicators Cash America Training measures is time to competency, which measures the company’s success in making co-workers confident and productive as quickly as possible. To determine the organization’s progress toward this goal, Cash America Training selected three main objectives for its dashboard to measure: developing and delivering the onboarding process, timely completion of the onboarding process and providing job-specific skill training. These objectives are, in turn, assessed by looking at many key measures that reflect specific functions being performed within the organization. Measuring the percentage of employees completing the onboarding process, the average days to onboard and the percentage of employees satisfying all requirements identified in their assigned job role allows the organization to see where it stands and compare its progress against its target goals. The end product, said Sandra Fulton, Cash American Training vice president, will be a quicker, more effective onboarding process, which will affect the organization’s overall performance. “We hope that as we shorten the onboarding period for new hires, our co-workers will become more productive, which, in turn, will affect our turnover companywide and attract new co-workers,” she said. Although the dashboard was only implemented this spring, Fulton is confident the new score card system will teach the organization a lot about its strategic alignment, success metrics and overall performance. Like a car’s thermostat, which tells the driver when the car is overheating, these gauges will help her team members determine when their learning strategies need some maintenance, Fulton said. For example, if they find too many of their workers are failing to meet the requirements of their job role, they can easily see that they need to be more rigorous in training for job-specific skills. By determining its own benchmarks based on very specific competencies and goals, Cash America can prepare its leaders to prioritize its most important learning initiatives and take the most appropriate actions to solve any performance problems. “We are still in the process of introducing the dashboard to the organization, but we hope to learn about the best practices across the company in regard to onboarding, leadership development and our ability to reinforce our values and our culture,” Fulton said. —Tegan Jones, tjones@clomedia.com Learning Effectiveness What it means: The instructional design, delivery techniques and general pedagogy are optimized. Learning is applied during work activities, and it is consistently proving value to the enterprise. How it’s measured: Satisfaction surveys, progress indicators, completions, learning through pre-tests and posttests, job-impact surveys, work process improvement, business measure variation, return on investment. An example: An organization is instituting Six Sigma. Monitoring learning effectiveness and its key measures ensure the proper programs are in place to close skill gaps, course designers and facilitators are provided timely feedback to increase quality, performance accountability is captured for employees as they complete learning and onthe-job improvements are verifiable through business results such as error reduction, product improvement and customer satisfaction. Compliance What it means: The organization is complying with all mandated regulations, both internal and external. Accurate and accessible information streamlines the audit process. How it’s measured: Percent compliant of the total population, “haves” versus “have-nots,” periodicity, average days to recertify, violations, penalties and restrictions. An example: A health care organization is responsible for educating the workforce and complying with new federally mandated Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) legislation. Monitoring compliance and its key measures alert staff to gaps in certification requirements by category (e.g., business unit, location), timelines for recertification, costs and impact of noncompliance and the efficiency of recertification and compliance communication processes. August 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 40 Change Readiness What it means: A workforce is aware and prepared with knowledge and skills to execute a new business strategy and change swiftly as the strategy evolves. http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - August 2007

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