Training and Development - Preserve the Learned!

Learning professionals live on the edge, while their business strategist colleagues stay safely guarded...

Key learnings:

1. Dual domain speciality is important for achieving corporate learning objectives
2. Learning leaders have to partner, outsource and learn continuously to establish a desirable business-learning equation

Despite the growing interest and concern over an organisation’ s learning apparatus, recession seems to have sounded the alarm bells for learning professionals. Most organisations have been indifferent towards learning efforts, and as a result, learning theorists, strategists and instruction designers live under constant threat. It is indeed disconcerting to see how organisations let their learning muscle slacken, despite the definite strength it gives to their business prospects.

Experts believe that an effective learning framework is pivotal to business success. Hence, letting it pass under the axe in a bid to control costs can only be self-destructive. This, however, does not suggest that learning should be spared from cost analysis; it must be treated as an indispensable part of business, which gives much more than what it takes. Organisations that truncate their learning initiatives in a cost-cutting exercise only betray their shallow approach to learning. It is critical that organisations find the right balance between learning and doing business. Earlier, when organisations advocated the need for learning without analysing the business case, learning initiatives continued to mushroom without logic. And today, caught in the economic downturn, the learning function finds itself being axed, again without logic. Finding the right balance, where learning needs of business complement its growth needs, is important for success.

Business of learning

Most leaders acknowledge the need for striking the right balance between learning and business, but fail to achieve it. Also, every organisation takes a different approach to finding the desired balance, and hence, understanding the basic framework on which the approach should be based for best results is important.

According to Roberto Euguino, the chief learning and organisation development officer at Alloys Inc, the Sweden-based information protection and storage company, corporate success comes from a well-orchestrated act of pulling all critical business levers. Identifying these levers and aligning them is important for driving better corporate performance.

Euguino lists four levers that he believes are critical for organisational good performance. They are:

1. The right set of people
2. Effective training and development framework
3. Ensuring good performance through effective compensation systems
4. Performance optimisation through effective performance management systems

Each of these levers is important for consistent organisational success. Leaders who fail to leverage even one of these can sabotage their learning and HR efforts. Efficient learning officers work their way through these levers and make sure that their learning efforts are well aligned with the overall corporate objectives.

It is, however, difficult to ascertain that all the four levers work in tandem if the reigns are with one leader. Experts, therefore, suggest learning leaders to be more inclusive and bring in various perspectives to design their learning frameworks. Learning cannot translate into tangible benefits unless there is a partnership between business strategists and learning theorists. Each has to understand the perspective of the other to arrive at a holistic learning solution. There are also other ways of accomplishing a better learning experience. These include:

Partnering with external consultants

Learning leaders can partner with external consultants to leverage their enterprise learning experience and skills. The advantages of bringing in an external voice are many. For instance, external consultants always approach learning with an innovative bent of mind and treat it as a challenge. Therefore, the probability of a transformative learning experience increases. External consultants also keep the pace high and provide solutions at a faster rate. Their expertise also lends learning managers a sound base to build their future organisational development capabilities.

Continuing education

Learning leaders should ensure that their learning team is on a knowledge-enrichment drive constantly. To do so, organisations should offer continuing education programmes targeted at executives on the learning team. Consistent training and learning would help learning designers and theorists get an insight into the changing needs of business, and therefore, frame a programme that is effective and relevant. In addition, theoretical reinforcement of concepts will help executives from the business side to get a better hold of the learning concept.

The future looks bright for learning professionals who understand that business–learning dual domain speciality is the best way forward. For executives to grow in a manner that is more holistic and effective, it is important that learning experts make the right investments to ensure both learning goals and the organisation’ s larger business goals are met without compromising on either.

Ref: TheManageMentor.

The Critical Need to Supplement Personality Testing for Recruitment and Development

Personality testing is popular, but research reveals it is a limited tool for selection and training. However, HR initiatives in 2009 can be bolstered by replacing or augmenting personality testing with best practice skills or competency testing.

A down economy need not prohibit organizations from launching effective business strategies. In tough times strong organizations survive while weak ones die. Unfortunately, not every company understands that the way to stay viable and strong is to invest in its people. This oversight therefore offers a tremendous competitive advantage for organizations who believe that training and professional development are critical for retaining and maximizing the most from the talent that leaders count on to pull their organizations through. In short, employee and organizational development equal business development.

Psychometric assessments can be a cost-effective and efficient strategy for evaluating individual and team effectiveness, identifying training needs and selecting the right people. Strategically speaking, good assessments help your business develop its strengths, minimize its weaknesses, seize opportunities and deal with economic threats. That said, it is not widely known that personality tests - traditionally popular with training and development professionals - are incomplete tools for selection and development. Take time this first quarter of 2009 to review your HR and training department's practices to see if you need to supplement any of your initiatives that rely on personality testing.

What is Personality Testing?

Personality refers to innate and relatively mental structures that provide general direction for individuals' choices and behavior. Among the many theories of personality, the "Big Five Model" is arguably the most popular and well-validated. The Big Five dimensions represent broad traits believed to encompass the range of normal personality.

a) Agreeableness: Highly agreeable people tend to be altruistic, warm, generous, trusting and cooperative.

b) Conscientiousness: Highly conscientiousness people are typically efficient, punctual, well-organized and dependable.

c) Emotional Stability: Emotionally stable individuals are usually calm, relaxed and generally free from worry.

d) Extraversion: Highly extraverted people are typically highly sociable, assertive, active, energetic and talkative.

e) Openness to Experience: People high in openness tend to be imaginative, original, unconventional and independent.

Some important points about this model...

First, the traits are dimensions, not types, so people vary continuously on them, with most people falling in between the extremes. Second, the traits are stable over a 45-year period beginning in young adulthood. Third, the traits are, at least partly, heritable or genetic. Fourth, cross-cultural studies have confirmed that the traits are universal. For all of these reasons, personality testing is often used in an attempt to help gauge the interests, motivations and broad behavior patterns of candidates and incumbents.

Is Personality Testing Useful for Recruitment and Training?

For decades personality tests have been popular for pre-employment screening. Despite the validity of the Big Five model (or any model of personality) , personality traits have serious limitations when applied to industrial-organiza tional psychology. Research shows that personality tests are poor predictors of workplace performance, whereas measures of general mental ability (reasoning, planning, abstract thinking, comprehending complex ideas and learning quickly) and job-specific skills are stronger and more consistent predictors of performance. In fact, the popular 0*net database of job classifications and corresponding requirements describes positions in terms of skills and competencies rather than broad personality traits. It is not surprising therefore that many companies are either replacing or supplementing personality testing with competency testing.

Simply stated, personality tests do not provide sufficient measurements or insights to give you an accurate understanding of a person to help you make a sound hiring or developmental decision. Moreover, it is questionable whether most of them yield legally defensible information. Measuring "how" people express themselves in general circumstances is good information, but it is markedly incomplete.

In today's competitive market where the best candidates for positions are aggressively
pursued, using the best tool for hiring and training is not a luxury, but a necessity. The best practice approach to selection and training is not personality testing but rather skills assessment - i.e., measuring cognitive performance and competencies related to the service-hospitality industry.

How Does a Skills Assessment Supplement Personality Testing?

Relying on a personality test to guide your hiring, performance analysis and training initiatives is much like relying on a road map to guide your vacation choices - it is interesting but terribly incomplete information. As one reasonable critic of personality testing put it, "Without weather forecasts, resort reviews, activity guides and price data, a long-planned, restful excursion could end up at a wilderness boot camp." A skills assessment, on the other hand, is a specialized tool that analyzes the attitude and skill set of a candidate or incumbent. Similar to the roadmap analogy, a well-constructed skills assessment provides the critical information left out by the simple personality tests so often touted by consultants and vendors as the golden keys to recruitment, results and retention.

Personality variables are not synonymous with skills and abilities. You cannot truly develop employees based on personality given the fixed nature of the Big Five traits. But leaders can impact learned attitudes and behaviors that underlie important skills and competencies. Therefore, the results of a skills assessment can be leveraged in powerful ways that add immediate and lasting value to businesses. First, they help managers hire better employees. Next, they are used to troubleshoot performance problems with existing employees. Finally, they benefit in helping develop employees into better performers. It is also important to mention that some skills assessments utilize legally defensible analytics, which protect test takers and organizations from unfair results and biased hiring or development decisions. Therefore, unlike personality tests, the results from skills assessments have superior validity and can be used across the employment cycle for an individual.

As an added bonus, skills assessments also benefit the broader organization by allowing leaders to benchmark the competencies for positional success, evaluate the effectiveness of training programs in an unbiased manner and facilitate more specific and useful job descriptions and succession plans. The use of a well-validated and industry-specific skills assessment is a business strategy to seriously consider adopting in the current economic climate. It is an important, cost effective and easy-to-implement step in making your HR and training departments profit centers in 2009 and beyond.

[About the Author: James Houran holds a Ph.D. in Psychology and is President of 2020 Skills Assessment. He is an 18-year veteran in research and assessment on peak performance and experiences, with a special focus on online testing.]