Streamline Training & Documentation: Just Read the Sidebar

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Just Read the Sidebar

In its October issue, Chief Learning Officer has an article on the subject of evaluating learning that tells you nothing new. However, embedded in the article is a helpful sidebar by training specialist Tom Kelly that offers a half dozen practical tips for making sure your measurement of learning impacts is aligned with business goals:

Track macro trends, not individual results "In sales and other functions, too many variables exist to measure positive or negative impacts of training on an individual success/failure level. However, comparisons of regional teams, city teams or other groups can help identify a correlation between training and success."

Measure and report the right metrics — You need to identify impacts on revenue, employee productivity, and/or customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Look at the training strategies used by successful people or teams — Replicate what works, making appropriate adjustments to fit each group of employees being trained.

Create a teaching culture — Take steps to ensure experts share their expertise.

Decentralize content creation — "Peer-to-peer teaching tools mean giving up some control of the content creation process but increase the accessibility and speed that content can be updated or corrected."

Centralize content deployment — Establish a portal that aggregates content (and allows control of redundancy), and that makes accessing the content easy for users.

As Kelly points out, there is a dual benefit of adopting the above practices. You both acquire information needed to make the business case for investing in your training programs, and you bolster the degree to which your company is a learning organization with "an evolving, organic culture that’s open to growth and change."

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Labels: Evaluation of training

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