How the economy helped us to train smarter
Mpho has nearly chewed her pen to a stub this morning. As the Training Manager for a large corporation in South Africa, she has to finalise the training budget for the third time this month. Finance returned the budget each time with the request to cut it more. In terms of Skills Development legislation, as well as the BEE requirements for the organisation, she has to juggle many priorities and train the requisite numbers of employees in different categories. At the same time employee engagement is important and employees expect to get developmental opportunities.
Mpho is not alone. Despite the fact that the average spent on employee training is increasing every year, the need for training and development in organisations exceeds the funds available. SumTotal predicted in a whitepaper on top learning trends for 2012, that following the economic events of 2011, the theme of 2012 will be doing more with less. This is forcing some organisations to be very creative in how they train and develop staff.
Juanita Peter, an HR Business Partner at Microsoft South Africa, explains that they use the 70/20/10 learning model to balance their employees’ development plans. Research indicates that adults learn the most on the job (approximately 70%), followed by learning from others (20%) and learning through training (10%). Microsoft uses a combination of on-the-job training, coaching and mentoring, classroom and online training which has been instrumental in their success. According to Peter, Microsoft also offers virtual training that creates an engaging and interactive online experience. They also offer drive-time training whereby content is downloaded to various devices e.g. smart phones, tablets, CDs, etc.
Annette Bredenkamp, the Head of Skills Development at First Rand Bank’s Corporate Centre, says that the global learning trends that are shaping the learning industry seem to help them to deal with budget restrictions. She observes that traditional classroom-type training is playing a smaller role in the transfer of knowledge due to the technological revolution and explosion of social learning and open source software and tools that are available. She also expects the expenses of running large-scale training facilities to reduce as they adapt their training deployment approaches to more rapid and directed online learning.
She reveals that First Rand Bank is using a blended approach. She explains that the knowledge part of the training is available online for employees to prepare before they attend the classes. The contact sessions are aimed at applying their knowledge in either simulations, or group sessions, guided by what they have to learn.
Microsoft and First Rand Bank seem to be doing exactly what the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) recommended to their members in 2009, when they expected major cuts to training budgets. They recommended that organisations shift some of their most widely-used training programs to e-learning applications or virtual-delivery formats. They also reminded their members not to forget about rapid design software, performance management software, and learning management systems (http://www.astd.org/About/Economic-Survival-Guide/Action-Plan/Page-2-Review-Budgets.aspx). They further recommended the use of technology-based simulations to provide a new way of learning. They also suggested that organisations should encourage more communities of practice, wikis, and blogs and that they use webinars and podcasts for short, just-in-time learning opportunities.
SumTotal stated that one of the main keys to success is efficiency. They emphasised that organisations should not do unnecessary work, should not repeat steps and should make sure that all areas of the company follow the company vision and targets. This is exactly what First Rand Bank is doing. Bredenkamp explains that many of the individual business units carried formal accreditation in the past, which is now going to be housed under one Firs tRand Accreditation model. They also have an effective model of formal committees that convene at various levels of the training structure to drive effective collaboration and communications throughout the group.
Efficiency is also important in the allocation of the training budget. Peter indicates that business units carry their own budget for specific development interventions and that HR carries the budget for soft skills which consist of leadership, management and employee development.
Many South African companies also shortened the duration of training interventions and rely more heavily on coaching by the line manager. One learning intervention that seems fairly popular is a concept called “Power Hours,” whereby organisations use a series of 60-minute learning conversations over a specific period. This concept was introduced by Lisa Haneberg and she has achieved a lot of success in developing leaders, using this approach. Based on the information provided by Haneberg in her book Developing Great Managers the format of a Power Hour Session looks as follows:
Power Hours take less time, but still keep the focus on development. For a craft to be built, the development conversations must continue throughout the year. Power Hours go narrow and deep on a topic, versus wide and shallow.
The Department of Home Affairs in South Africa has also started to implement a development intervention based on this concept, which entails a series of Conversations in Leadership. The Department describes in its 2010/2011 Annual Report how leadership capacity was enhanced through the implementation of three Leadership Forums. These Leadership Forums focused on establishing a shared mind set and synergy between Senior Management Service (SMS) members, defining the Department’s organisational values; establishing a new Departmental cadre and the need for change, as well as the development of the Departmental leadership vision, mission and values.
