MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

Do You Have a Portrait of Your Ideal Employee?

In marketing there’s lots of talk about your ideal buyer. What is this person’s job title? What does their day look like? What are their skill sets? Their pain points? Their goals? Their challenges? Knowing the answers to all these questions and more allows marketers to better speak to their ideal buyers. It allows them to create content that gives them value. And it allows them to figure out not only who they are selling to, but just as importantly who they aren’t selling to.

It seems like HR could benefit from something similar. Who is your ideal employee? What skill sets do they have? What kind of behaviors do they exhibit? What attitudes do they bring to the workplace? How do they impact the day of those they work with? What impact do they have on the bottom line of the company? Having answers to questions like these allows a picture of the ideal employee. It helps to paint a picture of someone who fits into the existing company culture, and contributes in a meaningful way.

If you want to have more ideal employee on staff, know what you are looking for. It will help make your screening process more efficient and your hiring process have more hits than misses. Of course the flip side of catching ideal employees is to hang onto them. Do you know how many ideal employees you currently have on staff? Do you know if their turnover rate is higher or lower than the average? Do you know what the company is doing (or not doing) to hang onto them?

You should understand what your ideal employee’s pain points and goals are, not just a required skill set. What do they want their work environment to be like? What benefits are likely to appeal most to them? What changes can you make to increase their retention? In The Shriver Report, most employees agree that businesses aren’t keeping up with their needs. I suspect it’s because HR is focused on skill set descriptions and stopping short of creating a full picture of what their ideal employee looks like, and what they need to do to attract and retain them.

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?

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.

Play is far superior to Work

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and [...]Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

I love this quote from Tom Sawyer. Not just for the insight on its face, but also for its context: the fence still got whitewashed. Work got done, and yet everyone had a grand ol' time accomplishing it. And with the growth of "serious games" and "virtual worlds," the training and organizational development world might be starting to agree with Mark Twain.

At MindLeaders, we believe deeply in Play and Fun. We believe that it's a core part of building knowledge, and of building teams and relationships. Our greatest example of this was held on Friday: our annual Halloween Party.

 

Outrageous costumes roam the halls all day long, we feast on a massive potluck lunch, and we gather up for an early end to the day to give prizes for all kinds of contests held throughout the week and eat and drink together. My friends envy me on Halloween Party day. When I show them pictures of the costumed craziness that goes on, their cracks are usually something along the lines of "Do you guys do any WORK in your office?!?"

Tom Sawyer's answer to that is no. Nobody is Working in our office on that day. Everyone's doing a lot of Playing. But much still gets accomplished, and the effects continue throughout the year. When MindLeaders employees talk about the company culture or what it's like to work here, the Halloween Party is frequently one of the first things mentioned. We've been doing it so many years that it's part of our DNA. Teams work together months in advance to come up with group costumes. Silos disappear on that day as everyone explores the halls to enjoy cool costumes or check out office decorations.

Our Halloween Party is strictly a company-building type of Play. For a great example of a teaching type of Play, check out DevLearn 2009's "Zombie Apocalypse." People are getting familiar with all types of social media, scouring it far more deeply than any Work class assignment would ever compel them to do, and it's Play. (And if you're trying to come up with a play idea, it's hard to go wrong with zombies.)

Got a team that needs to communicate better? Trying to teach some tough skills to someone? Want to knock down some tension or closed doors between teams, departments, or management and employees? Do some Playing. Not the fake kind of play that's still an obligation. If someone watching from the outside would question whether you're Working, then you have the right kind of Play.

Social Media's Rise Doesn't Mean Formal Learning is Dead

The landscape of employee development is shifting under our feet. While learning and development organizations are facing lots of changes, two developments are driving most of them.

·     Technology and social media are allowing information to be shared quickly and easily

·     Learning management and talent management are converging

Remember when e-learning came into the market and there was lots of talk about the death of instructor-led training? Stand up training is still here. E-learning is here. And now we have the influx of social media platforms and a lot of chatter about how it will wipe out formal learning (and e-mail and other forms of communication). And guess what? It won’t.

Formal learning is far from dead. The fact that learning management and talent management are converging is one reason why. Integrating learning into career development and performance improvement will always be formalized in organizations. And of course content lends itself to different deliveries. That which lends itself to instructor-led or e-learning formats isn’t likely to be completely replaced by the new social media and information sharing technologies. So social media's rise hardly means the death for formal learning. It does make for some interesting challlenges though.

Learning organizations are faced with helping organizations integrate these technologies in a way that makes sense. New roles will emerge and new skills will become necessary for learning organizations to move forward effectively.  But the ones who can will reap some real benefits. These new technologies let peers easily share information. They allow transparency between groups. They make it harder to blow smoke about what you are up to. They practically eliminate the ability to information-hoard. Yes, there are some who won’t like that much, but the benefit of easily accessible organizational knowledge is well-worth the price.   

Squeezing in Time for Training

Several years ago I worked for a newspaper, and one of my co-workers liked to wear a shirt that said, “I was put on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind I will never die.” All of us in the office thought it was hilarious and quite apropos. It seemed like we were always on deadline and running behind. And the thought of that making us immortal did lessen the stress.

Not much other than my job titles has changed since then. The workday pace certainly hasn’t slowed. My to-do list hasn’t miraculously gotten shorter, although there are an increasing number of books and tools to help me manage it better. I am always pulled in many directions at once. And I don’t think I am alone. This is the reality of today’s workplace. And it’s a tough competitor when you are trying to squeeze in time for training.

If you and your staff you don’t make time for training, it won’t happen. It’ll get lost in that workday frenzy, buried in the marathon list of to-dos. So here are some strategies that have worked for me over the years to squeeze in the training I needed.

• Block out time on your electronic calendar so that you will be reminded to start training and others will know you are busy.
• Put a sign on your door or cube entrance to encourage others to go away until you are finished. Humor is acceptable.
• Use some earphones to deaden the inevitable noise around you. You don’t have to pipe music into them and no one has to know that but you.
• Borrow a vacant office or small conference room for your session. If they can’t find you, you can’t be bothered. Plus you’ll look like you are doing something really important, which you are.
• Schedule time for group discussions and debriefs to ensure that information is shared at the end of projects.
• Declare a training time-out for you and your staff, say a couple of hours on a Friday afternoon each month. (No one is working on Friday afternoon anyway and the time-out is valuable for everyone.)

This list isn’t comprehensive, but simply things that have worked well for me. What strategies have worked for you? How do you squeeze in time for training?

Leadership Mastery Demands Experience

Leadership development programs utilize many different tools to help build future leaders. Everything from courses to workshops to books can help the beginner begin to establish some level of competence. The trick is moving from competence to mastery. In this month’s issue of Leadership Excellence Kim Lamoureux argues leadership mastery is only attained through experience. Thus companies who wish to create a team of exceptional leaders will establish ways to accelerate learning experiences.

Creating experiential learning opportunities for leaders isn’t a quick and easy solution. (And throwing a new leader into the role with a “sink or swim” attitude isn’t what we’re talking about.) Lamoureux suggests three methods for incorporating learning experiences into your leadership development program.

1. Simulations – Lamoureux’s examples center on in-person simulations where a team role plays different situations. However, online simulations and decision trees can provide this element as well. As usual, a blended approach will likely yield the best results.
2. Job Rotation – Many companies choose the best and brightest for their rotation programs. Rotating members through different jobs provides quick experience and a broad base of knowledge to draw on when making business decisions. It also allows management to see the relative strengths and weaknesses of participants and choose roles that fit them well for permanent placements.
3. Action Learning – Action learning uses small teams to work on and solve business problems. I see this as more of a leadership practice approach. A bit more involved than a couple hour role play simulation but not as long-term as a two year job rotation. The team is assigned a business problem project and then leaders are evaluated on ability to perform under pressure, define recommendations, deliver solutions, and how well the team functioned as a group.

I particularly like the action learning approach. Maybe it’s because I worked in project management for so long, but projects are good crucibles for molding talent. Projects allow for fixed-deadlines and show how well people behave themselves when under pressure to deliver results. It also gives people a framework to work within that they are familiar with while trying to learn new skills.

While these three methods are great suggestions, I’m sure there are other effective techniques to give young leaders some good learning experiences. What other experience-based activities have you seen in leadership development? Were they effective?

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.

Be Smart with Your Human Capital Management Practices

Aberdeen Group has released a research report called Intelligent Human Capital Management: Workforce Analytics Drive Profit and Performance. First let’s state the obvious. Despite the recession, the importance of Human Capital Management (HCM) is increasing. But while more and more companies are aware of the importance of HCM, they also realize that not all HCM practices are created equally.

To get the best bang for the buck, you must have metrics. And as we all know, it is very difficult to get everything in place to make data-driven decisions when it comes to people and their performance levels. However, it is something that best-in-class companies do, and do well. Other best-in-class practices include:

·     Integrating HR, talent management, and other organizational data to see future and current needs (break down those information silos).

·     Training leaders on how to use analytics and reporting systems.

·     Creating standardized HCM metrics (what doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get done).

·     Making reports available down to the line manager level (don’t keep that information at the top of the organizational chart).

·     Improving processes so that data is accurate and timely (and available for decision making).

Bottom line: Good HCM requires collaboration between many different areas of the organization – HR, IT, line managers and strategic leaders. Unless your organization fosters collaboration between these groups, uses a system that everyone is trained on, and implements appropriate workforce metrics HCM is unlikely to give the performance gains that it could.

What do you think? Is there enough collaboration between HR, IT, and management in your organization to foster strong HCM practices?

Field notes from the HR Technology '09 Conference

I attended the HR Technology Conference & Exposition this week and really enjoyed the chance to soak up some great thoughts and meet a lot of people doing really interesting things in their businesses.

In no particular order, here are some of the most interesting themes and ideas I heard this week that might be great takeaways:

• In the Expo Halls, lots of companies are talking about tracking and reporting on people, but very few are talking about how to train them and how to meet their day-to-day learning and social/informal learning networking needs. Analysts in one of the panels touched on this as the two "bookends" of talent management. Since I come from the learning bookend, I'd love to see us get some more weight on that side of the equation.

• According to Bersin & Associate's new study on Talent Management customer experiences, two of the best things you can do when you're deciding on a talent management vendor (and I think this applies to learning management systems, too) are:
• Check with the vendor that they've handled your kind of situation before. As they put it in the conference session, "You don't want to be a test case."
• Talk to some current clients, and ask them whether the final product matched up with what they were promised by sales. This can be one of the biggest determinants of satisfaction with your vendor.

• In the panel of leading industry analysts, one of the big themes that they talked about was the importance for Human Resources and other talent management/learning & development leaders to be able to talk in terms of business and hard numbers. I wish I remembered who it was, but someone in the discussions said that we "need to stop feeling guilty about not supplying analytics and just do it." It was a clarion call to read some books or take some courses in business basics and statistics and start applying it to our jobs every day.

• In the session about Creating a Private Social Network for your business, Kris Dunn gave the best one-sentence suggestion for a social media policy that I’ve heard: just tell everyone that when participating online in public or private, they’re responsible for everything in the employee handbook. Simple and to the point.

• Don Tapscott, during his keynote address about the Net Generation and the attitudes they're bringing to the workplace, presented this formula as a summary of the way that the newest entrants into the workforce see the world: "Work = Collaboration = Learning = Fun". None of these components are separate, they should be tied together intrinsically. Whether they are in your office will be one of the determinants of whether young workers will come to and stay in your organization, and it sounds to me like a darned fine recipe for all of us.

Did you attend HR Tech? Are you one of the people I talked with while I was there? Any favorite takeaway, "ah-ha" moments that you'd like to share?