Business Partners The Training Program example essay topic

I. ACTIVITY TRAINING TO IMPACT TRAINING. Training for Activity 1. The HRD dept. is held accountable for its activity, not for its results. There is no formal output of results so managers are left to decide weather it is beneficial or not.

2. The HRD staff is held accountable for design and delivery of training programs... In training for activity, trainers are held accountable for the number of programs they deliver or design... 80% of their time is activity so there's little time left to do needs assessment or research... Organizations that operate with the training for activity approach are looked at being non-productive or not working if not present in the classroom. 3.

Skill Transfer from the classroom to the job is unknown or absent... With an evaluation the skills and knowledge regarding the job cannot be determined... HRD professionals using this method rarely consider strategies that would guarantee a high degree of skill transfer... On-the-job application is viewed as the responsibility for providing the participant and his or her boss. The HRD dept. is responsible for providing the participants with skills and knowledge. (where little to no transfer occurs) 4. There is a lack of clear alignment with business needs...

A lot of the courses are out of date... Without a clear business need managers are sometimes reluctant and against training programs. 5. There is a lack of identified management responsibility for results... No one person or group of people has accepted accountability for ensuring that the skills taught will be used on the job. BUSINESS NEEDS FOR AN ALTERNATIVE TRAINING APPORACHOne of the criticisms most commonly leveled and HRD professionals today is that they lack business savvy and do not speak the language of business.

Business language requires HRD professionals to consider the return to the organization for dollars spend on training. Billions of dollars are spent on training and development including but not limited to is company time, expense for the training, and loss production. For HRD professionals to be seen as business partners the training program must be beneficial to the business, solve problems, and open opportunities and they must all be clearly visible and understood by management. The end results for any training program must be articulated before it even begins. Take into consideration the cost per employee should be calculated management must see if their budget will allow it and they must determine if it is needed or what benefits it would have.

Data should be provided to managers to help them see a picture that the anticipated outcome has been achieved. II. THE TRAINING FOR IMPACT APPROACH. Training for activity should be avoided due to many disadvantages for the HRD professional as well as the client. In training for activity there are no clear-cut expectations or end results. Rather than waste money and time we should gear more towards the result-oriented training approach.

You first consider or find the needs of the business, provide the skills and knowledge needed, assess the environment, pull management in on the entire process, and the end result will be helping the company achieve their goal. B. Training for Impact is applicable to any situation where training's purpose is to help the organization achieve its objective. FORMULA: TRAINING FOR IMPACT Th RESULT-ORIENTED TRAINING LEARNING EXPERIENCE X WORK ENVIRONMENT = BUSINESS RESULTS (HRD training professional) (Client / Manager) If the work environment doesn't support the learning experience then you will have a "0" percent in terms of on-the-job results. This could also happen vice versa. In training for Impact approach the HRD professional in the beginning develops a relationship with top managers involved with the training project. This meeting will be initiated by the HRD professional in this way.

The "learning experience" and "work environment" sides of the equation will be taken into account. To ensure that the business need can be met, some assessment of the front end of training delivery will take place. In this approach such assessment efforts are mandatory and not optional. Measurement of results is also required. FIGURE: RESULTS FROM ACTIVITY TRAINING AND IMPACT TRAINING TRAINING PROGRAM 3/4 (leads to) 3/4 Program 3/4 (leads to) 3/4 Business Results Results "increased skill "improved performance "increased knowledge "improved quality of's vc". increased awareness "increased revenue.

STEPS LEADING TO TRAINING FOR IMPACT Step 1: Identify Business Need. Some business needs are problems; they are focused on the past and indicate that there is a deviation between what should be and what is. Other business needs are actually opportunities for they are looking to the future and to something that is about to happen. Training that is a strategically linked to business needs must be done more project-driven and less curriculum-based. Step 2: Identify and Form a Collaborative Relationship with the Client For the training effort to be successful and have results, both the learning experience and the work environment must be examined and managed in a manner that will produce the desired results.

HRD professionals must seek out these clients and influence them to work collaboratively to resolve the business needs in question. Step 3: Conduct an Initial Project Meeting In this meeting, the HRD professional must influence a client manager to see the benefits of not conducting a training course immediately. Most important, in this meeting the HRD professional begins to raise the client manager's awareness that training by itself will not meet a business need. It is the partnership of training with management that will provide the desired results.

Step 4: Conduct a Performance Effectiveness Assessment. Once you and your client have determined which business need is driving the request for training, it becomes important to complete some assessments. These occur at the front end of training. In a performance effectiveness assessment, the HRD professional determines what should be happening, what is happening, and what gap exists between what should be and what is. The information must be collected from a various sources and is sometimes collected through interviews or questionnaires, sometimes through review of documents and observation of employees. Step 5: Conduct a Case Analysis.

Once a gap in performance has been identified, it is important to determine the causes of such gaps. Step 6 and 7: Tabulate, Interpret, and Report Results to the Client. Information should be provided for joint interpretation, and actions should be jointly identified. Step 8: Design the Reaction and Learning Evaluation Systems. There are two ways to evaluate the actual learning experience: by obtaining information from participants about what they thought of the program and by determining the degree to which people have learned the skills and knowledge presented in the program.

Step 9: Design Tracking Systems: Behavioral, Non-observable and Operational Results. To determine what training program (s) will be offered to employees it to identify only the training activity that will occur. Identifying these outcomes is, again, done with the clients, in a meeting. It is also important that such results be clearly identified and agreed to before the training begins.

Step 10: Conduct Training. The program is positioned so that maximum impact to the organization is ensured. Such positioning requires time, but the dividends, in terms of results, are tremendous. Only if the learning experience is of high quality will people learn, and learning is the first requirement if results are to occur on the job. Step 11: Collect, Tabulate, and Interpret Evaluation and Tracking Data.

If HRD professionals are to measure results from training, the process begins with the collection of baseline, pre-training information. If there are operational indicators to be measured, we need to determine the level of an indicator before training and compare that to what the indicator evidences some months after training. Step 12: Report to the Client. In the final step of the Training for Impact approach, results from all evaluations are reported. IV. CREATING STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS WITH MANAGEMENT.

Partnerships- a relationship between two or more people, usually involving close cooperation and with each party having specified and joint rights and responsibilities. In HRD efforts, it is not possible to have organizational impact by yourself. HRD professionals must be partners to the key decision makers, or clients, who can contribute to the overall effort in may key ways. V. IDENTIFYING YOUR CLIENT. A client for any training project must meet the following 2 criteria. 1. Must have legitimate organizational authority to make decisions on the project.

2. Must have a need to be involved in and make decisions regarding the strategic elements of the project. VI. CLIENT CHARACTERISTICS 1.

The client is usually two or more levels above the learners. ' 2. The client must approve significant actions associated with the training project. 3. The client is the "owner" of the business need that is driving the request for training, and the client has the most to gain or lose from this effort. 4.

While he client can involve others, someone in the client group must be in the chain of command of the learners. 5. The client receives all reports regarding the project. METHODS FOR IDENTIFY THUE CLIENTS DIRECT METHODS: 1. Ask client to have all involved in project present. 2.

Ask about key individuals. 3. Indicate concern at not including the necessary individuals in the meeting. 4. Listen carefully to names being mentioned.

5. Always ask questions for involvement. INDIRECT METHODS: 1. Ask questions that will determine if your contact is reporting to someone else. 2. Encourage through a meeting that contact invite the client.

3. If your contact needs permission from someone else ask that they invite that person. 4. After each meeting write a memo summarizing all that took place as well as the outcomes. Send a copy to the client.