inform. educate. connect. Issue #8 - May 2010

Auditing the Elusive Training Function

By Jim Hopkins, JK Hopkins Consulting

I wrote The Training Physical after participating and observing competent training departments over the past 20 years. I realized that unless the company’s training management knows their purpose and applies it appropriately, the training function can get away with a lot of underperforming before anyone catches on.

I firmly believe that for a training department to return the investment being made in salaries, systems, equipment, facilities and program costs it must be able to perform the functions of each role in training. When competencies are in alignment with industry norms, training can function as the strategic partner it is meant to play in the organization. 

However, when a trainer is unable to facilitate a workshop or webinar well, a designer creates a course without regard to learning objectives, and the training manager is running a completely reactive department without a training plan, then no one wins and everyone loses!

As I referenced in the book, a training function should undergo a physical (audit) to diagnose the current health of all personnel, processes, systems, and programs to get an overall health rating. Too often when an organization is losing money or wants to cut costs, the training department is the first to go. Although I never concur that an organization should lose the training function, I have endorsed some training departments being closed for gross ineffectiveness. The key is not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

So why do most training departments go unaudited, checked or left to self-evaluation? Unless you know what to look for or evaluate, the training function remains elusive. You cannot audit something if you don’t know how it should work efficiently in the first place. Getting to know this function and its primary purpose can take time. Yet the importance of this group to the organization as a strategic partner does not allow management to spend years trying to figure out how to measure the impact.

Once you manage to identify the health of your training function, no doubt like our doctor when finished with our human physical, there will be treatment recommendations for curing some of our more vital issues. The choice remains the same when it comes to taking the cure or remaining unhealthy. I have found that people have more excuses for delaying the fixing of the training department than Carter has pills. Yet the longer an organization delays curing the issues found in their training function, the longer the organization will take to improve in every area they have humans functioning.

Training departments that establish an annual training plan, with goals and objectives that align with the business that they support are more focused. When these projects are then broken down into quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily tasks there is a higher probability of getting things done. However, once again I must emphasize that these plans need to be audited for not only relevance but for effectiveness. Having the right tasks on the list is the first step, but getting them done on time is what keeps the department moving forward.

In today’s economy, organizations cannot afford to waste money in any area of their operation. The training function if running in a healthy state can actually become a very indispensable part of a company’s strategic plan. When the training department is unhealthy it is almost like having a virus that is trying to defeat your success. Many of us when we were young experienced this same dilemma with tonsils that quit functioning correctly and needed to be removed so we could get healthy again.

To avoid needing to remove your training function because it is unhealthy and acting more like an operational virus, take the steps to Diagnose, Treat and then Cure Your Training Department. Get Healthy and then Stay Healthy!

<back to May 2010 HR & Training Digest>