Financial Training Ideas and News| Your Training Edge ®

Summary: Now that you have assessed the organization, the industry, and your most important internal clients, it’s time to take a good look at your vision for the training department.

You have assessed the organization in general, both the industry related to your organization and the training industry, as well as your internal customers. You may even begin to see a picture of how 2011 will be shaping up for you and your team. But before you make any solid commitments to a vision or a strategy for the upcoming year, it’s a good idea to create a training vision that is independent of your assessments. As you create this vision, you’ll be able to use your imagination and innovation to come up with a “wish list” of sorts. The main caveat in this type of planning is to remember that it is a wish list and that not everything on your list will become a reality. You may even want to involve the training staff in a brainstorming session, as each member of your staff is probably interested in a different training industry discipline. (more…)

Summary: Training in the current environment is very much like sales, so it is absolutely necessary to find out what your best internal customers are planning for the upcoming year.

In the current environment, it’s a good idea to manage your best internal customers just as a sales manager would manage that pipeline. As part of your planning process for 2011, you will definitely want to make contact with your internal customers to find out what they are planning for the upcoming year – and why. And even more importantly, this contact serves to solidify your relationship as a solutions partner and not just a
service department. By discussing the upcoming year with your closest customers, you may even begin to see the overall organizational picture before anyone else does – and with this information you can certainly determine how your department will help the
organization move forward in 2011. (more…)

Summary: As you plan your vision and strategy for 2011, it’s important to take a look at your industry in general. Let’s discuss why and how.

As training professionals, we have to remember that our industry covers not only the industry of our firm but also the industry related to training and development. And both of these areas can have an impact on your strategy for the upcoming year. The second step in planning your training vision and strategy for 2011 is to look at both areas in terms of trends and changes.

On the industry and organizational level, you may wonder why it’s necessary to look at trends when your organization’s executives may make decisions based on those trends. (more…)

As we move toward a new year, you will probably begin thinking about what you need to accomplish next year. But this list should be more than a set of objectives or goals – your plans for the upcoming year should take the form of a vision and strategy that can help your organization meet its goals. In order to do this, there are a few steps you should take during your planning process. The first step is to look at the organization as a whole and determine what the strategy will be for 2011.

As the economy emerges from recession, organizations are still slow to spend money or expand out of fear of the dreaded “double-dip.” Because of this, it is even more important that you start your strategy plans with the overall strategy of your organization. This may seem like a great undertaking, but if you approach it systematically it is manageable. First, determine who the strategic layers are or are going to be for the upcoming year. (more…)

Retention can be a difficult task for employees at any level, but retention at leadership levels can be more difficult. As employees develop their leadership styles and abilities, new doors may begin to open for them. Through networks and industry knowledge, high professional and high potential leaders have knowledge of positions that the generally public may not have. For these reasons, it is necessary for us to take a closer look at the training role in retaining leaders.

One of the first points in leadership retention is similar to our first point in general retention: ensure that new managers and supervisors have all of the tools they need to be successful. Your best subject matter expert, aside from managers and supervisors themselves, may be human resources. For example, many organizations create a course package that includes HR law and policies, the hiring process, the corrective action process, and the HR documentation process. After supervisors move through this package, they can move on to deeper management and leadership instruction. (more…)

In terms of retention, HR and training can work both together and separately to ensure that the talent acquisition cycle does not have to run repeatedly for the same groups or positions. In general, retention from the training perspective involves fine-tuning and monitoring all programs, as well as using those training programs as a potential source of advertising for retention. Let’s take a look at how the training department can assist HR with employee retention.

One of the first items to look at in regard to general retention is new hire training. Obviously evaluation of new hire training should be a continuous operation for the training department, but don’t forget to evaluate the managers who supervise new hires. You should certainly evaluate new hire performance via their supervisors, but be sure to examine the program itself from the managers’ perspectives. In other words, ensure that new hire training is what the managers need. (more…)

As we’ve discussed, development is a primary role for training, but there are ways that HR and training can cross in this important function. We’ve looked at more traditional forms of development, so now let’s examine other development avenues for training and HR.

One of the first avenues for employee development is through career paths and curriculum development. In terms of curriculum, training is usually going to work with managers, supervisors, and the people who do the jobs in order to determine what competencies or skills are included in training programs. This in itself is a form of development, but consider taking it a step further to career paths. The career path is essentially a collection of curricula that make up the most logical steps in an employee’s development. This could mean moving from one position to another within one area of expertise, or taking a logical step into another area. For example, call center employees can logically move into supervisory roles from lower positions, but in some situations they can also move into roles such as analysis or quality assurance. With career paths, HR is the training department’s definite partner. HR can tell you which positions people are moving to and from, as well as how department and division managers envision those career steps. In addition, just as you can give feedback on success in new hire training, HR can provide a profile of who works best when promoted into certain roles. For example, the call center supervisors may be more people oriented, whereas the quality assurance position may require more analytical skill. Career paths that are developed as a partnership with HR will be accurate and will also help increase the credibility of the training program as a whole. (more…)

The development of human capital is a primary role for training. Development can come in many forms, which we will review. However, we will take a different view on development by determining how we can best leverage HR in this all-important facet of day-to-day business.

First, let’s examine formal training programs, such as classroom, online, and social-media based learning. Depending on your organization and its scope, you may have formal training in place for just about every position. Or, you may have a formal training program that serves as a “funnel” for the rest of the organization. Your formal training program may be a blended approach, where participants attend class and then go to online learning interventions, but it may also use one approach or the other. However your formal training is structured, you can rely on HR to help you evaluate and improve each component. You are probably already evaluating training from the participant and supervisor perspective, but have you ever considered going in tandem with HR to evaluate training?
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If your department has been able to assist in recruiting, you may have been able to help bring in a pool of talented job candidates. But when it comes to selection, the major responsibility passes to the hiring manager and HR. How can training participate in this process, even from a less direct perspective?

First, your overall training program should include management training, which, in turn, should include training on the entire hiring process. In some organizations, you’ll find that managers and those wanting to be promoted must take a “core” of courses that teach the hiring process, the management process, such as coaching, corrective action, and performance evaluation, and then leadership. If your organization already does this, take a look at how the hiring training is set up. If not, now might be the time to create a program. (more…)