Chief Learning Officer - August 2006 - (Page 38)

CO0806.qxd 7/19/06 10:15 AM Page 38 productivity i n practice: This is where the learning officer's need to evaluate the impact of training has an additional positive conse- Pe r k i n E l m e r : quence. It serves to enforce quantitative rigor on the A d m i n i s t e r i n g Growth in Learning entire competency assessment scheme. If competencies have not been defined appropriately, learning will know, As workforces and operations grow, lear ning and development functions also must and it will be in learning's interest to see that the prob- develop apace. This has led many enterprises to adopt technical modalities to deliv- lem is corrected. er much, if not most, of their employee education over long distances. This strategy offers workers quicker, easier and more frequent access and consumption of learn- D e v e l o p i n g the Level 3-4 ing and also can save the company a bundle on expenses associated with trav- Measurement Infrastructure el and lost productivity. The measurement infrastructure relies on a competen- For health sciences company PerkinElmer, which creates instrumentation and soft- cy assessment that has certain distinguishing charac- ware for customers in the pharmaceutical, chemical and genetic screening fields, teristics: these were key drivers in the decision to develop e-learning for its global population of more than 1,100 service engineers. From a service perspective, the importance It must begin with identification of the strategic of training is pretty straightforward, said Gary Grecsek, the director of technical sup- needs of the organization. port and training for PerkinElmer. The better trained the engineers, the more effec- The strategic purpose of each role within the organi- tive they're going to be in front of our customers. The priority is to maximize effi- ciency: The key thing we look at is productivity, and the ability to balance effective zation must be defined. time in front of the customer and training is where we're trying to get to. A job charter must be developed outlining account- Up until a few years ago, PerkinElmer relied mainly on established means of educa- abilities for each role. tional delivery such as classroom-based training and a few scattershot e-learning programs, Grecsek said. Historically, the majority of our training was traditional and Competencies that underpin the ability to accom- classroom-based, which is effective, but it's not necessarily the most efficient method plish identified accountabilities must be correctly when you've got 1,100 engineers scattered across the world. We did have some e- identified. lear ning training materials available for our service team. It was developed sporadi- cally and stored in a number of different places. It was not available to our global Metrics that allow measurement of the relationship ser vice team. between the demonstration of competencies and the accomplishment of accountabilities must be in place. To consolidate and expand its e-learning offerings, PerkinElmer invested in a learn- ing management system, Grecsek explained. We put that in place and now our field Competency assessment must be a routine part of ser vice engineers have one location where they can schedule classroom-based organizational life. training as well as initiate a number of our e-learning courses. The LMS is really one of our key enablers that allow PerkinElmer to move to a more blended approach Training must be mapped to competencies, and the toward training. Because we're in the service business, metrics are something we purpose of training should be the development of look at on a regular basis. Productivity is obviously key. One of the things we meas- precisely those competencies that are weak. ure is e-learning course completion, or total engineers taking training. E-lear ning is now 50 percent of our total service training. With that, we haven't decreased our total Does this describe the situation in your organization? If so, classroom training we've actually increased it. It's a very strong tool that our field then you're in luck http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - August 2006

Editor's Letter
Table of Contents
Trends
Effectiveness
Taking the Lead
Best Practices
Learning Solutions
In Practice - U.S. GAO
Environment
In Practice - Army National Guard
CLO Profile
Productivity
In Practice - PerkinElmer
Case Study
Human Capital
In Practice - Countrywide Financial Corp
Tactics
In Practice - Siebel
Business Intelligence
Advertiser's Index
Editorial Resources
In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - August 2006

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