MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

LMS Market Still Strong, Despite Recession

Bersin and Associates is predicting that the $850 million LMS market will continue to grow at a rate of 10 to 15 percent. This is good news for learning and development organizations. The strength in the LMS market indicates that corporations view employee development as a business driver that they are willing to invest in. Training is moving out of “nice to have” into “must have.” Finally.

In addition, informal learning and the advent of social learning networks have changed the game. More and more corporations are trying to embrace information sharing, collaboration, and harness the power of informal learning that is happening within their organizations. In some cases the LMS is a major player in facilitating this. But certainly not in all cases.

The downside to the good news is that LMS systems are still difficult to manage. They are generally complex and in some instances cost millions of dollars and take a few years to fully implement. This issue is going to get worse over the next few years. Talent management and learning management are converging, and corporations are already wishing for more interoperability between LMS systems, talent management systems, and HRIS systems.

If your organization doesn’t have an LMS yet, chances are they will be looking at one in the future. If they do, ensure that there are clear goals for what functionality is important to the organization. Is it customizable reporting? Is it simply to serve up e-learning? Is it to provide an internal social network? Be clear about what is needed, and then assess vendors to determine if they have the potential to meet those needs.

What do you think? Is your company assessing or implementing an LMS system this year? What features are most important for your organization?

Are Your Talent Management Practices Rooted in the Past?

The Shriver Report was released a few weeks ago. The report is extensive and examines a single question. What are the implications for men, women and families now that women make up 50 percent of all workers? And make no mistake about it. The implications are huge and we as a society, including government and business have yet to effectively deal with most of them.

Let’s start off with a few facts. I am a woman who has worked all of my adult life and some of these surprised even me.

• Women receive 57 percent of bachelor degrees and 50 percent of doctoral and professional degrees
• Women are primary breadwinners in 4 out of 10 families
• Less than 25 percent of married couples have only one spouse working to support the family

The role of women in society is shifting rapidly. Only 30 years ago women were less than a third of the workforce. Only 30 years ago approximately half of American families were traditional nuclear families with a primary breadwinner (usually the man) and a primary caregiver (usually the woman). Yet most businesses behave as though it is 30 years ago and ignore the vast changes that their workforce, both male and female, are dealing with.

Now that women are half of the workforce, the dynamics of families have changed. Both men and women are in a constant state of negotiation about who will assume childcare responsibilities, household responsibilities, and elder care responsibilities. Equal pay, flexible schedules, paid medical and family leave, comprehensive childcare policies are not “women’s issues” they are family issues that affect all workers. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the workers who participated in the Shriver Report.

• “Men and women agree that government and business are out of touch with the realities of how most families live and work today.”
• “Over 80 percent of men and women agree that businesses that fail to adapt to the needs of modern families or risk losing good workers.”

So I ask you again. Are your talent management practices rooted in the past? Before you answer no, take a look around and examine the reality of what is happening in your workplace.

• Do you really practice equal pay for equal work?
• Do you and your managers act as though there is only one place where work happens?
• Do you and your managers believe (and behave as though) there is only one way to structure a workday?
• When is the last time you updated your family and medical leave policy?
• What kind of childcare policies do you have? When is the last time you updated them?

The answers to these questions and others like them will determine whether your company will be able to capture and capitalize on the talent that your workers bring to your organization. Those companies who can identify and truly address the shifting needs of their workers have a golden opportunity to differentiate themselves to the talent pool and steal (and hang on to) the cream of the crop.

Sales Training Drives HIgher Performance Levels

Have you trained your sales staff this year? Not product training. Not training in how to fill out their expense reports. Training in prospecting skills. Training in closing skills. If you haven’t, you are missing on an opportunity to increase your company’s performance according to a recent report released by Aberdeen Group. How much of an opportunity? Best in class companies experience:

• Over 80 percent of sales reps meeting their annual quota (compared to 65% for average companies)
• Average deal size/contract value increasing by 7% year over year (compared to average companies which had a flat deal size year to year)
• Average annual revenue increasing 11% year over year (compared to 2% decrease for average companies)

Best in class companies deploy training that focuses on what sales reps say and do to create perceived customer value to create these results. (Not just how to calculate quota or track number of sales appointments.) These companies have processes for:

• Sharing collective knowledge
• Training their internal trainers
• Reinforcing training on a regular basis
• Capturing organizational best practices
• Defining competencies (and training needs) for each sales role

Best in class companies also train often and train consistently, regardless of economic conditions. In fact, they are increasing spending on sales training over the next 12 months. This makes sense. As the economy recovers, these companies want to be positioned to capitalize on the positive changes.

One of the key takeaways of is that training and reinforcement should happen frequently. This doesn’t necessarily mean continuous onsite training. Consider what content you can license, how you can train internal trainers, and how access to training content can continue to reinforce new skills.

For more information, you can read the entire report, Sales Training: Translating Tribal Selling Knowledge into Bottom-Line Productivity.

Thanks for the vote!

MindLeaders is a finalist for a 2009 “Best of Elearning!” Award and we’re just so excited about it. Of course, part of the thrill is that the Best of Elearning awards are the only reader’s choice awards in the market. That makes the honor extra special to us. We appreciate all those readers who took the time to nominate us, and are so happy that we have had a positive impact on your learning experience. Thanks for the vote! (And keep taking those courses!)

As long as I have you here, we’d like to know what topics you’d like to hear more about. We want to make sure this blog (and any other content) we create is addressing your interests. So don’t be shy! Leave a comment and let us know what topics you’d like to hear more about. You could even point us to posts from the last year that you’ve found to be particularly helpful. We appreciate the feedback!

The Golden Rule of Training

Is the recession over? It may be too early to say, but there are some signs of recovery. Unfortunately employment isn’t one of those things. Employment recovery lags since employers don’t want to add headcount prematurely. But even in this atmosphere there are some interesting trends that everyone should pay attention to. An annual study from Robert Half International and CareerBuilder.com found that:

• Over half of employers polled planned to hire full-time employees in the next year. About 4 in 10 will hire contract workers, project workers, or part-time employees.
• 4 in 10 employers expect the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to create jobs for their organizations over the next couple of years.
• 6 in 10 employers are willing to negotiate with qualified candidates for higher compensation.

The last finding is perhaps the most surprising, since you’d expect employers to be less willing to negotiate with an abundant labor pool. The problem with the abundant labor pool is that there is still a shortage of skilled workers. Employers who participated in the study reported that over 40 percent of the resumes they receive are from unqualified candidates.

This is good news for qualified candidates and a mixed bag for employers. Employers who take care of their employees, provide fair compensation, and adequate opportunities for development will differentiate themselves from those who don’t. There’s also a warning shot for organizations that are cutting benefits and piling on the work with the attitude that employees “should be happy to have a job.”

• More than half of polled employees plan to make a career change or go back to school when the economy improves.
• A Monster.com poll found that 89 percent of employees would consider switching jobs.

The current labor market may lull managers into thinking that their actions don’t matter since immediate impact isn’t felt in turnover and retention numbers. But employees will remember how they were treated during this tough time and actions now will either ignite the desire to leave or retain talent. And guess who will hit the door first? That’s right. It’s the high performers.

The Golden Rule still applies. Treat others fairly and with respect. And for employers there is also a Golden Rule of Training. Give employees opportunities to grow and they’ll perform better and stick around longer. That same study showed that 20 percent of employees hoped for better benefits as a retention tool. At the top of the wishlist? Tuition reimbursement or subsidized training.

What if Learning Was Free?

A few weeks ago Seth Godin blogged that if TV ads were free, people would have learned to do advertising by simply doing it. Without that barrier to entry, people would just do advertising instead of talking about it and obsessing about it because it’s expensive.

Harold Jarche picked up on the parallels that can be drawn with corporate learning.  Instructional design systems and curriculum development is expensive. It takes time and energy. And once created, no one wants to do it again, or make significant changes to it.

Technology is removing barriers to entry in every industry and discipline. Internet technologies make distributing information to lots of people cheap. Want to engage with a community and ask for their feedback? Consider a focused blog directed at that audience. Want to build a collaborative group? Enter social media platforms. Didn’t get the results you wanted? Try, try again. After all, in the brave new world of technology learning really can be free.

But here’s the trick. You’ll have to let go of some control. You’ll have to facilitate and be a conduit, rather than a director. This can be scary, but it can work. Need proof? Take the Work Literacy site which helps teach Web 2.0 technology to learning professionals. Cost to develop: Zero. Time to create: A week. Content updates: Courtesy of participants. So there’s the proof that it can work. (Check out the site, it’s got some great content.)

Oh and get out there and start experimenting! If it doesn’t work the way you’d hoped, try something else. But stop waiting. The time is now.

What do you think? How has technology removed the barriers to entry for learning? Are you experimenting enough?

Using Talent Management and L&D to Meet Strategic Goals

In their September newsletter, Bersin and Associates featured a case study on one of our local companies – Nationwide Insurance. In 2007, Nationwide decided to migrate most of its applications from a COBOL/mainframe environment to a Java/web services model. Needless to say, this had huge implications for the organization and its IT staff. Nationwide had to decide whether to buy, build or rent the capabilities it needed. The case study is about their decisions and how things worked out. Here’s what I loved about it:

• Nationwide decided to build their talent pool’s skills to match their needs, rather than lay off most of the staff that had served it well to that point.
• Nationwide took the time to set clear goals for the program, including:
• Executive sponsorship from both IT and HR branches of the organization
• Incorporating both technical and business process training in their program
• Determining performance results, best practices and work environment
• Evaluating the appropriate mix of classroom training, coaching, practice, and informal learning
• Interested associates had to apply and be selected to participate in the training program.
• Communications about the program were frequent and in many forms such as e-mail, newsletters, meetings, etc. They emphasized the future direction of the company and the intensive nature of the training.
• They got great results! 70% of program grads were at expectations for their salary band within 3 months; 100% within 9 months. Better yet, all hiring managers would recommend the program based upon the quality of the results.

As Nationwide has demonstrated, properly managing your talent pool allows for the flexibility to meet the changing demands of the marketplace. This is certainly an instance where HR, L&D, and management goals were clearly aligned to meet a company’s strategic needs. The case study is available to anyone who wants to read it for a limited time. Go out and take a look!

Training Investment Predicts Future Stock Price

Banks are in the training news again. Last week I wrote about a WSJ article that said banks are losing top performers because they are failing to develop them. This week an article on Workforce.com discusses new research which shows a link between training budgets and future stock price.

The research was focused on banks, and their performance relative to their peers. Though the data set was relatively small, “it appears training expenditures were a very strong predictor of stock price even during last year’s market turbulence.” One of the examples cited was Wachovia. Wachovia cut training per employee by more than half from 2006 to 2007. In 2008, stock prices fell 95 percent prior to the merger with Wells Fargo.

Tying training investment to future business performance has always been tricky. Why should training investment yield better stock price? Improved business performance is one reason. Another theory is that training investment is reflective of overall management focus and direction. Those that invest are interested in long-term performance; those that don’t are only interested in short-term gains. Hmmm. Food for thought.

Retain Your Top Performers

The WSJ ran an interesting article earlier this week about banks that are failing to train and develop their top performers quickly enough. The result? Those performers are jumping ship. This is bad news for the banks. After surviving such a severe crisis, they are going to need all their talent to make good decisions and start growing again.

My guess is banks made a classic mistake in slashing their training budgets. Crisis is when companies have to evolve rapidly, be flexible, and perform at their best. What helps them do that? Training and development programs. Beyond the performance benefits, training and development programs also help build employee loyalty and increase retention levels. Employees know and appreciate when a company takes time to invest in their skills and career path. And the employees who are likely to appreciate it the most are the ones you want to hang on to. Those top performers who out-perform average performers by 40-50%.

Now that the economy is showing more signs of life, top performers stuck in companies with poor talent management practices are starting to look around. They remember how their company behaved when the going got tough, and are prepared to act. Unfortunately for companies, they are also the group with the best chance to make a change, even in a tough labor market.

What do you think? Has your company slashed training budgets? Has it made a difference in your retention levels?

The flu is coming! Trainers to the rescue!

Swine flu - pardon me, H1N1 - is coming around for an encore performance. Sadly, our hometown just saw its first fatality from it, and lots of dire predictions and warnings are being made for the next few months.

Gary Woodill at Brandon Hall wrote an article today about some of the best resources he's found about preventing and fighting H1N1. All of these provide plenty of good information and great tips. Within the CDC's site, there's a page of flu resources for businesses, including a PowerPoint presentation and a couple of posters.

But I don't see anything yet that provides a nice, easy-to-read-while-standing-in-front-of-the-coffee-machine summary of what to do if you're feeling sniffly this morning or you've noticed that your cubicle neighbor is coughing a lot today. There's a big need out there for learning professionals to step up to. How can we help? What can we do to quell fear and maybe to keep our offices healthier?

• Let's be the ones to demonstrate just-in-time learning (health job aids?) by putting hand sanitizer at critical spots: office kitchens, reception desks, coffee and water stations.
• Does your office have a policy for what to do if people are sick, how long people with an illness (H1N1 or unidentified sniffles) should stay home, how to notify the company if H1N1 does arrive? If not, start a conversation about preparing. If yes, how can we help make sure people know and remember those policies? As we know better than most, one email does not stick. Let's keep reinforcing the messages so that people don't forget it the minute someone sneezes and the whole office thinks it's the end of the world.
• The CDC has some posters that can be put up in strategic spots, like maybe bathrooms, or the opportunity is ripe to build your own Killer Training Aid. (Side note: does anyone else think the "employees must wash their hands" posters in public bathrooms do more to make customers worry than to remind employees?)

What else can we do? Trainers, teachers, and organizers, unite! How can we fight flu FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) with facts and... prevention? (I couldn't think of another word that started with F.)