7 Responses

1. Profit!
   Wendy

   Studies by the CIPD have shown that over 60% of employees would opt to stay with an employer that invests in thier professional development, rather than leave and go to an employer that pays more but does not invest in training. Training results in higher staff retention, and so saves the organisation cash in recruitment costs. Also employees who are better trained, perform better, have less time off work, are less stressed, make fewer mistakes, are more motivated and happier. These factors together save the organisation thousands and even millions dependant on the size of the company. There is also the legal aspect, in the fact that if employees are not trained and suffer an illness, accident or stress, the organisaiton may be looking at an HSE fine and also civil court action. I could go on all day, but if you want to know anything further e-mail me. Begining your presentation with the line ‘ training saves money’ may prick thier ears up!

   and lastly, a little line that I use – ‘the only thing worse than training your staff and having them leave, is not training them and having them stay’

   Good luck

2. Hints
   I love the adage – if you think training is expensive, try ignorance!
   Linking training to business goals and objectives works well.

3. Focus on business Outcomes
   Any training and development offered must focus on specific business outcomes otherwise the effort is wasted.

   The vocalising of the organisations vision, distillation of the goals and setting of business objectives is not just there to look good for investors or to give you something to hang up in the lobby. These provide us trainers with focus. When either developing our own training or outsorcing it, we need to focus on these objectives and ask:
   Before the training – what objectives will this training satisfy?
   During the training – is the training addressing the objectives we set.
   Immediately after the training – did this training satisfy the objectives we aimed for? Should we continue to invest in this training? Does this training need amending/reviewing/reworking or scrapping?
   Some time after the training – have the SKA’s taught achieved the set objectives and improved performance? If not – why not?

   So – How can training and development improve business performance? By providing people with the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed for them to achieve the business objectives set for them.

   One biased view. Good luck.

4. Where is the DMP
   Wendy,

   sounds to me like you are presenting to some decision makers here, or at least people who will allocate a budget if they beleive that training will add some value to the company.

   So the DMP (Decision Making Person) who is part of the Decision making Process is the one you want to make it relevant for.

   Training is only valid if it (eventually) adds to the bottom line of a company. So I would start out with knowing what is the corporate goal that is fixed/addressed by training.

   Are key company objectives to improve customer service, or to lower cost of sale by giving sales better skills or more appropriate knowledge, or is it that Product developement would be faster if engineers managed their time better.

   Once you know that is what your addressing you can focus on the particular business performance change that needs to happen, and then what needs to be done and what needs to funded to make it happen.

   To make it more impactful, focus on costs of doing in line with profit increase which makes the budget holder feel validated at putting money on the table. One other thing is maybe to see if any of your competitors have had similar trainnig programs to the ones you want to do, and what was the positive impact of their efforts.

   So link training and developement to business goals from the board or senior execs and you have a more robust case for getting funding and support

5. Easy to Relate the Impact
   What I find demonstrates this best is to relate the impact training has in the sales arena. EG

   What happen if your competitions sales force is better trained at closing new business than yours….. simple fact is you loose the business not matter how good your product and services are.

   The same can be said of customer service, telephone handling and then down the line to mangement performance.

   In a world where the only main differentiator between products and services is the people providing them, then you must make sure they are better trained than your competitors. …… this usually gets their heads nodding

   Easy I think.

6. Improving business performance
   Wendy – there may be a trap in this task you have. Training and development may *not* always improve businesss performance – that is, not unless it is clear where the improvement is needed and the development solution is appropriate!

   Assuming you have been charged with leading a discussion with some quite senior people outside an HR function, do let me recommend you lead with identifying the business problem(s) (and costs) before you offer any T&D solutions?

   Good luck!

   Jeremy

7. Decide what is important
   Wendy,
   Before you can show effectiveness it is important to understand what your organisations values are. Once you are aware of this you can then begin to identify how training can help meet this and how you would want to be measured. Always ensure that you get their agreement to the value of the measures before you start measureing to prevent wasting time.
   It may help to frame a problem statement around the organisation to clarify what training is meant to address.
   I am working on this issue in my organisation at the moment so would be happy to discuss further.