Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2008 - (Page 26)

their human capital investment decisions. The issue of what to measure depends on how receptive senior management is to the recommended measurements. Agreement by operating management is key to buy-in, not what other learning leaders select in their interventions. Isolating Impact All of this brings us back to a fundamental issue for you, the providers of learning solutions. To advance the principles shown here, some very specific expertise is needed that typically is not part of the learning provider’s tool kit. Among these required skills is the ability to have a conversation about business impact in the first place. It is the language of business that is often missing in the training conversations. Another required skill is the ability to design a learning intervention experiment with control groups and statistical techniques — both elements are needed to isolate the impact from other factors. This expertise involves specific skills, skills not routinely a part of the experience of learning and training professionals. In response to this market need, Bellevue University has partnered with the CLO Institute to create a fully online CLO Certification program to deliver the needed business skills to busy professionals. In the certification program, detailed courses are made available to the learner. The list of topics deals directly with the issue of measuring the business impact of learning interventions. Here are the topics in the certification program: Leading Organizational Learning Business Models for Learning Services ■ The Capital Side of Human Capital Investment ■ Learning Technologies, Infrastructure and Integration ■ Strategies for Talent Management ■ Marketing Corporate Learning ■ Practical Applied Project ■ ■ Deliver This! Before exiting the value creation conversation, one additional point is worth exploring. The world has changed. With that change comes a shift in what organizations are expecting from their learning provider, be they internal or external. For a very long time, training providers were highly tactical and reactive. The operating managers dictated training intervention scope and deliverables to the training organization in a form something like: “We need a self-study training module to train sales personnel on this new product and we need it in 10 weeks max because we are going to product launch in the next quarter.” In this scenario the training organization is highly tactical and executes against an externally defined set of criteria. The change is that learning and training organizations are being asked to be much more strategic. The challenges are more open-ended and the freedom for the learning organization to innovate is being offered. The shift relates to the famous “seat at the table.” What learning and training organizations have to do to take that seat is to be much better equipped to demonstrate the value of their proposed solution. Until leaning/training leaders step up to take on the value demonstration challenge, the contribution to the strategy of the contribution to business results will be limited. The time to invest in the skills and expertise required to make a bigger contribution is now. The options to do so exist. What it takes is the commitment to step up to the challenge. Dr. Mike Echols is currently the director of Bellevue University's Human Capital Lab and the author of three books on human capital. He was recently named one of the "Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals" in the United States. He can be contacted at: mike.echols@bellevue.edu FastFacts $130 billion – ASTD estimate of U.S. organizations 2006 expenditure for learning. Less than 0.1% — author’s estimate of resources committed to experimental design, data analysis report generation related to the $130 billion expenditure 15% — the ratio of balance sheet value to market price for Standard and Poor’s 500 companies 92% — percent of productivity growth 1995 to 2003 related to something other than brick-and-mortar Virtually zero – number of CFOs interested in evaluating learning and development expenditures as capital investments rather than current period expenses Three challenges to learning leaders: What business outcomes should be measured? What does upper management need to see to agree that the business outcome measured is related to the learning intervention and not something else? How much does it cost to measure the value created by the learning/training intervention? Innovation recommendations to Secretary of Commerce: http://www.innovationmetrics.gov/Inn ovation%20Measurement%200108%20rev%20040908.pdf Takeaways It will take high-level conversations with senior management for learning and development professionals to deliver against value demonstration requirements being demanded. The execution challenge is to define business outcomes that can be measured AND contribute to the mandates of the executive suite. What is often missing in the training conversations is the language of the business. The change that is occurring is that training organizations are being asked to be much more strategic. Valuable expertise is available at: www.clocertification.org. 26 Training Industry Quarterly, Summer 2008 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ http://www.innovationmetrics.gov/Innovation%20Measurement%2001-08%20rev%20040908.pdf http://www.clocertification.org http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2008

Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2008 At the Editor’s Desk Contents Ezine Email Winning Organizations Through People Before You Buy… Learning Technologies Games & Simulations: Playing to Learn Designing Learning Simulations: Strategies for Leveraging Failure Business Impact 101: The Value of Learning Strategic Alignment: Transforming the Business of Training Meet David DeFilippo Meet Krys Moskal Meet Vince Eugenio Dealing with Death: Learning’s Most Sensitive Lessons Closing Arguments

Training Industry Quarterly - Summer 2008

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