Talent Management - January 2009 - (Page 35)

— convinced Halliday to commit to continuing the investment as a “must have” for the business. At CoBank, a ﬁnancial cooperative serving rural America, there is a commitment to provide developmental opportunities for every employee and a belief that managers are crucial to build engaged employees and satisﬁed customers. “We believe that people leave managers rather than companies,” said Bob O’Toole, vice president of human resources. “To ensure we have great managers, we offer a Leadership Excellence curriculum for anyone with one or more direct reports.” Surprisingly, few companies assess behavioral change and the impact of training on critical business performance metrics, despite research from Accenture, Watson Wyatt, Tracom and others showing learning investments have a strong impact and positive ROI. A down market offers two advantages when it comes to conducting such evaluations: First, if an organization pares back course offerings and streamlines outreach, staff may have more time to develop a thoughtful Level 3 or Level 4 evaluation process and implement it. Second, if a company is using outside vendors for training, a tighter market should make the vendors more willing to help research the training programs. Learning providers are more willing to step up to keep a customer satisﬁed and to get access to data showing the impact of their training. At a minimum, a vendor should be able to provide an organization with ROI studies and research to substantiate the value of their offerings. If a vendor does not have these studies and isn’t willing to help assess training impact, companies should question the vendor’s commitment to achieving anything of value. In a tough economy, there is more scrutiny on spending and a greater need to make a compelling business case for learning. “But by aligning our learning and development strategy with key elements of our business strategy, it’s actually easier to show a return on our efforts,” said O’Toole. Demonstrate Impact In an ideal world, every organization would evaluate the impact of its training programs. However, when an HR department is running full steam with limited staff, it can be difﬁcult to ﬁnd time to do more than gather “smiley sheets” or perform simple learning assessments. These Level 1 and Level 2 evaluations are a start, but they’re not likely to carry much weight with a CEO who wants to measure impact. Be Efﬁcient, Whatever the Budget A recent white paper from KnowledgePool, a U.K. training consultancy, said organizations with staff of 2,000-plus can reduce learning and development expenses by 30 percent by following best practices and working efﬁciently. It recommends: • Careful supplier management, including adherence to an authorized supplier list and discount bulk purchasing. • Automating training administration. • More efﬁciently managing course scheduling to maximize occupancy and minimize empty seats and canceled classes. • Reviewing and modifying training offerings. Course content offered in the past doesn’t always have priority today. Here are some other ways to operate more efﬁciently: • Tie training to speciﬁc business initiatives and job tasks. The more talent managers can make training job-speciﬁc using workplace examples, the better. • Balance internal trainers with outside suppliers during peak times. The “day cost” will be higher when using a vendor, but companies will come out ahead if they limit use. • Offer ﬂexible delivery. Ten years ago, more than 50 percent of Tracom’s business was for training programs of two days or more. Today, most are shorter January 2009 BUDGETS continued on page 48 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 35 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - January 2009

Talent Management - January 2009 Editor’s Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Learning Connections Integrate Web 2.0 Into the On-Boarding Experience Show ’Em the Money: Compensation Trends 2009 Transition at the Top How Hollywood Manages Talent and What You Can Learn Get the Most Bang With Limited Training Bucks Life After Layoffs Attract Specific Talent Groups Performance Management: Its Time Is Now Helping the Helpers Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - January 2009

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