Change is necessary. Stagnation of processes can impact development and performance.
A question frequently asked in situations where acceptance and change play major roles is, “How adaptable are you or your system/product/service?”
A systematic training and development plan helps ensure efficient transfer of learning to the job. Companies (or organisations or individuals) that do not employ systematic planning usually form a downward spiraling pattern that includes:
- None or immeasurable performance objectives and therefore undefined or incorrectly defined training objectives
- Irrelevant and untimely classroom presentations
- Inefficient employee training and development data management
- Immeasurable task specific on-the-job knowledge transfer
- Incorrect trainer/trainee approach and attitude towards training
- Negligible employee development programmes
This pattern or trend leads to a false belief that required knowledge is being transferred and skills are being developed. In such circumstances, companies falsely believe that they have employed an efficient training and development plan and feel secure under such false belief (especially when they have evidence in support of it).
The truth is, these trends lead to little, no, or negative return on investment due to improperly managed time, high rate of errors on the production floor (as a non-formalized learning ground), high attrition rates, unnecessary repetition of trainings, high dependency on a few skilled/trained employees, client expectations not being met, etc.
The CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, has said, “Great companies are built on great products.” But is that the bigger picture as per your organisational goals?
Experience develops foundation – fundamentals of thought systematically controlled within organisationally established goals of a learning environment.
Developing your learning environment can help to achieve a lot of your organisational goals. Developing a learning culture that evolves and is customizable means that:
You will be able to (organisational goals):
- Manage talent from acquisition to succession
- Optimize people life cycle management
- Optimize search engine and social media marketing
- Optimize marketing and sales cycle management
- Adapt to change
These organisational goals can be achieved with the help of shared information, such as:
- Blended learning solutions
- Virtual classrooms
- Interactive presentations
- On the job training
- Query resolutions
- Error and issue histories for machines/production lines/cycles
Making the change to start this relationship, between us, will entail an effort (tested, unanimously approved) to create a perfectly suited learning environment and thereby promote learning as a culture within your organisation, the benefits of which are many, such as:
- Attracting new talent and retention of established/existing talent
- Internal promotions – promoting from within the organisation is always more cost-effective than external hiring
- Increasing employee accountability keeps employees sharp and focused on the job, thereby reducing any lackadaisical employee attitude
- Improving employee confidence, for example, when adapting to change
- Reducing need for supervision while increasing efficiency and self-reliance
- Reducing accidents and wastes by adopting best practices
- Advantages of a trained group as against a trained individual:
- The company cannot be held for ransom at the whims of a trained specialist if there are ready replacements from within your employee pool
- Ensure trained replacements for sick or any unaccounted for absenteeism
- Increased knowledge sharing among peer groups
- Healthy competition among employee peer groups leading to better individual, team and overall performance
- On the job training is on-going; formalising it helps avoid duplication of training efforts, allows for the tracking of individual knowledge and skills and team development within the organisation, provides ease of access to learning for new learners as well as essential revisions for transitional learners, and update learning and training materials as per the T&D plan that coincides with organisational goals, growth, and changes
- Improving the organisational image and in turn, shareholders’ returns
- Improving the measurable performance of the marketing, sales, transitional, and other teams:
- Awareness of your organisation’s tools and technologies for knowledge transfer, customer education, and as an integral part of the marketing toolkit
- Effective articulation of products, processes, etc. by the marketing team and improved communication methods and skills
- Organised knowledge and skills transfer when and where required
- Better alignment of individual tasks, performance, and skills to organisational goals and performance metrics
Adopting a culture of learning within your organisation is beneficial. But these or any other benefits become reality only after relevant research and analysis is done towards creating a well-designed, easy to develop and implement T&D plan that provides for regular evaluation and updates.
Imbibing a culture of learning within your organisation means taking recognizable and measurable steps to include as professional ethics of knowledge sharing, decision making, skill development, capability and personal development, and idea creation and evaluation
Educational institutes that prepare students for work life teach professional ethics. New age professional institutes reverse that dictum on the shop floor by making learning a professional ethic, thereby ensuring that the employee stays open to new experiences and improvement just as when they were students but with the added advantage of professional motivation. The next step is making your corporate learning culture into a high impact learning culture.