inform. educate. connect. Issue #10 - November 2010

Making Training a Productivity Center

By Jim Hopkins, JK Hopkins Consulting

Your CEO knows exactly how much is invested in the training function. Yet if I asked them “Did training return on the investment you made this year?” would they be able to say yes? If not, then was training just “busy” this year and not really “productive?”

This is not a hypothetical question, as I ask it all the time of senior managers for every kind of company, not just banks. Often with the flip of a few pages in a file or clicks on the computer the CEO is seconds away from knowing how much money it cost to run the training function. It is the look on their faces when asked if the investment was returned that is priceless.

The ability to show value actually begins with being a competent training function.  How healthy is your training function? Do you have the right people with the right skills and are they doing the jobs well? When was the last time you took a real good look at this department and evaluated it from top to bottom?  I find that when I am auditing a training function there are always things going on extremely well, and then there is a list of things that are causing the function to be a financial drain.  To show a return on investment, everything must be working well!

Just as it is difficult for most of us to ignore a ringing phone over what we should be working on at the moment, training can be easily sidetracked without a clear set of goals.  Goals sprout from the training plan, and are essential to building a productive function.

Setting goals for training programs is basic project management, with a twist. Instead of focusing on the end date of a project, I encourage training managers to focus more on the desired implementation date of that first workshop or online event. Working backward from that date gives you a sense of how quickly you must pull everything together.

Most training programs involve the following steps and become the roadmap to designing goals and subsequent lists of tasks.

Designing the Learning Process – As long as there is a clear objective of what kind of behaviors need to be developed once the training is completed, then designing the learning process is clear-cut. Determine whether you will be training in the classroom or in a virtual (webinar) environment. Then decide what kind of practice needs to be in place to reinforce the learned skills so they get used quickly after the training event. In some cases, a program supplied by a vendor will include this environment, which will save you countless hours designing one.

Designing or Acquiring Training Materials – If you have the luxury of time between today and your implementation date, you can consider designing materials yourself. Keep in mind that design is a costly phase and should only be used when the level of customization outweighs the ability to purchase an off-the-shelf program.

Preparing Trainers to Deliver – Ask vendors how your facilitators will become certified to teach the vendor’s program. When you are designing materials, your facilitators are part of the design process and are learning along with the design creation. In any case, the facilitator needs time after learning the content to practice before that first delivery.

Approval and Payment Process – You need to determine, if you were ready to purchase today, how long it would take to review a proposal, get the necessary people to agree, have your legal department approve of any agreements or contracts, and pay the invoice. All this must be completed before you get your hands on the training materials, and best-case scenarios can take another month sometimes.

My challenge to anyone reading this article is to end 2010 with a clear and documented report that shows what was accomplished and how it returned value to the company. Training Leaders should be able to justify every dime spent, so that they can prove the need for continued support throughout 2011. If you returned on the investment in 2010, then the 2011 budget is often approved with the assumption you will return on it again.

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