Chief Learning Officer - September 2007 - (Page 64)

CASE STUDY continued from page 55 This distance-learning partnership helps HSU meet its audience’s needs — many who are interested in taking HSU classes struggle to attend regularly scheduled classes, Clement said. “This is not a field where people can leave at 6 every night and take a class reliably at a community college because they don’t know if at 6 they will be called back into the shelter to manage the intake of 150 cats from a hoarder case,” she explained “It’s very difficult to get to class on time on a regular basis.” Outside of the degree programs, HSU offers a wide selection of in-person seminars and online courses that cover topics ranging from animal fighting and shelter sanitation to spay, neuter and humane euthanasia techniques. Students who take the online classes are required to make weekly discussion board postings, as well as take quizzes and/or tests and score 80 percent or higher overall, to earn a certificate of completion. Some of the inperson classes, however, require a more interactive assessment. “For the in-person delivery, most of our content has a practicum,” Clement said. “For example, in the euthanasia by injection course, the student will actually perform euthanasia and be certified by a veterinarian as qualified, or they will not be. They are physically doing the work that they are being certified that they are capable of doing.” Ensuring its students are trained at the appropriate skill level is just one phase of HSU’s assessment process — the institution is equally critical of itself, constantly evaluating its courses’ value to its target population. To make sure HSU’s offerings are in line with the needs of the animal care community, curriculum managers Kim Charmatz and Jennifer Boston work with HSU staff members and industry experts to develop informative and applicable courses each term. September 2007 PRODUCTIVITY continued from page 49 “We are always surveying the market to put a product out there that is timely, affordable and targeted to what the industry needs,” Roop said. In 2006, HSU had more than 5,000 enrollments in its online and in-person classes (some of those were taking more than one class — the actual number of students was 3,337). This is a significant increase over the 452 enrollments HSU had its first year. Additionally, Boston said many of these students have taken courses before, demonstrating the institution’s accuracy in targeting and adapting courses to meet its audience’s changing needs. “We realized fairly recently that we have a large number of repeat students — we have some students who have taken eight or 10 courses with us,” she explained. “So, we feel that not only are we presenting a good product, but students are learning so much that they keep coming back for more.” Roop attributes this success to an ongoing recognition of HSU as the trainer of choice within the animal care community. With the resources, experience and funding of The Humane Society of the United States behind HSU, it can offer an educational experience that other equally committed organizations could never match. “There are other animal advocacy organizations out there that do a fine job, but we have the resources and the staff to bring a highquality product to the table at almost no time to market,” he said. “We’re filling a void where people who are dealing with tens of thousands of animals a year really need technical training, applied training and strategic training, and no one else can deliver it as cost-effectively as we can because it’s part of our charitable mission.” As a $200 million organization, The Humane Society of the United States can offer free or inexpensive training to many lower-budget shelters through HSU. Although these shelters, including local Humane Societies, are independently operated, the educational and professional network HSU offers helps the animal care community function as a whole, Clement said. “One benefit of HSU is that it networks all of these people in a profession,” she said. “It’s creating a kind of connectedness so that we’re not all reinventing the wheel.” From the above scheme, you can identify all the areas of human capital process measurement in a complete manner. From this point, you can then use diagnostic tools to assess the readiness of measurement sophistication within each to determine where to focus efforts. Most of these processes need better management, and measurement is a start to getting a handle on this. A learning measurementreadiness assessment (and in broader terms, a human capital- or talent management-readiness assessment) can help diagnose gaps in existing processes and pinpoint opportunities for improvement in a prioritized manner. To perform the assessment, it might help to have someone who not only knows the domain (such as learning and development, human capital or talent management) but also is an experienced interviewer or focus group facilitator. Finally, from a change management perspective, to avoid political agendas and ensure everyone provides objective responses, a third party might be the best option for leading these assessments. Jeffrey Berk is chief operating officer for KnowledgeAdvisors. He is also an adjunct professor of management at Northwestern’s Kellogg School and Loyola University’s MBA program, where he teaches a graduate school course on performance improvement. He can be reached at editor@clomedia.com. “In terms of what topics we pick for the classes, we’re looking for courses that meet the overall mission of The Humane Society of the United States,” Charmatz said. “It’s really about what animal advocates in the field need to further their education.” To identify those needs, HSU communicates directly with its target population — after each course, students fill out evaluations that ask, among other things, what courses they would like to see offered. HSU also surveys animal shelter employees and executive directors to determine how to best serve these populations. I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 64 http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - September 2007

Editor's Letter Contents Letters to the Editor Strategies Selling up, Selling Down Take Five Imperatives Guest Editorial Learning Solutions Embarking on a Learning Journey Clo Profile Environment CIGNA Service Operations: Making Strategic Change Happen, and Making It Stick Tactics Black & Decker: On-Demand Learning Creation and Consumption Productivity The Army You Have Human Capital Holiday Inn Express: Delivering Critical Training Globally Case Study: Tegan Jones Business Intelligence Case Study: Lisa Rummler Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - September 2007

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