MusingsonSocialLearning

If there is one part of HR that seems constantly under question for its “ROI” potential, credibility or plain

effectiveness it is what is usually known as “Training” – or in the new world as “Learning”, “Management

Development” etc.

The reasons for the questions are not difficult to spot.

Training is the only group in HR that actually spends hard cash externally, as opposed to Recruitment

that uses it to get talent or Compensation and Benefits that spend it as salaries. Once people see rupees

flowing out of the organizational kitty, they are quick to question the ‘effectiveness’ of these trainings.

The training folks in organizations, haven’t actually covered themselves in laurels when it comes to their

work.

The reasons for these are varied. Here is my diagnosis of the reasons:

Training is usually organized as a monolithic sub-function within HR and is junior staffed. This usually

means a fresh graduate gets the fancy title of “training asst manager” or some such designation and

becomes a gopher for meeting various training requests.

• Why training is being asked for?

• What skills/competency gaps will it fill?

• What is the follow up program for that training ?

Questions like these are scarcely asked.

Metrics used to measure training are usually uni-dimensional. Lacking either content expertise or

process expertise, the training dept/person is measured by the HR head on factors like :

• Number of training programs conducted

• Satisfaction ratings

• Number of people trained

• Number of training days conducted per employee etc

• Budget variations to plan

With the result, that the training department/person essentially is trying to meet these metrics. As you

might have noticed none of these metrics even talk about linkage of training to business needs or

outcomes. Any wonder why training fails to link up strategically.

Different groups need to own different parts of training. Content expertise for example resides in the

various groups. The training group needs to turn facilitator and help these groups discover their own

knowledge and learnings. The role that training needs to play is less of ‘content provider’ and more of

standard settings and inculcating similar language across various organizational silos.

Training also needs to engage with various groups to help them to share learnings that are localized,

across the organizations.

At a horizontal level, training needs to work with business and identify developmental areas of various

levels to meet current and emerging business needs.

By doing that training will need to do a role that even HR is struggling in most organizations. i.e. linking

to strategic business needs. That can happen best when training is led by someone who has been in

business or can demonstrate in depth understanding.

The path for Training to become strategic

To uncover the way to become strategic training groups need to start doing the following:

Ask questions : Most training people are so ‘task focused’ that they do not seem to be able to ask “why

am I doing this?” “How will this impact my firm’s bottomline?” If they do not think about ROI, others will

think it for them

Think numbers : Training professionals need to think about a new set of metrics that focus more on

effectiveness and less on efficiency. They have to rise from Kirkpatrick’s level 1 to level 3 and 4.

Realise that learning is more than training: Let’s face it. Face to face, classroom training probably

accounts for less than 30% of what a person actually learns in an organization. Trainers, have to start

thinking how factors like supervisor and management support will help in learning, how they will help in

applying concepts learnt to increase workplace productivity. Attending training programs should not be

the end, increasing workplace productivity should be

Involve line managers: Training professionals should involve line managers to actually be responsible for

their employees trainings and where possible they should actually conduct the training themselves.

Outsourcing training might help in the short term, but does not pass organizational culture along.

Transparency: People who are getting trained need to understand the larger context of where the

training fits in with organizational strategy. Their managers and training professionals need to paint the

whole picture to help them understand and communicate it to them.

New skills: Trainers themselves should pick up new skills like business and financial skills and not be just

event managers. They need to understand the linkages between knowledge, learning and performance

to figure out how they can add value to the organization.

Understand the real difference between Learning and Training and how

to use Social technologies Learning has always been social, in the real world. Think about the time you learned how to cycle or

drive a car. You decided to ask an expert you trusted. They gave you instructions. You practiced. They

gave you feedback. You failed a couple of times. And then if you kept at it, you could cycle/drive - first

tentatively and then with time, without consciously thinking about it.

However, learning in the real world is different from how organizations believe it to work.

In organizations, your manager decides you need to learn something (mostly because the "competency

model" tell him to do a job, you need a skill). Your wishes on whether you want to learn it are hardly

taken into account.

Then you are packed off to a "training program" where others like you have been "nominated" by their

managers. And then you are subjected to some "training games" and exposed to some theory about

whatever you have to be trained on. And if you're lucky you do some role plays, case studies and tests ,

post which you returned to your workplace with a certificate of training.

So training gets over. But when does learning take place?

Learning takes place when the "knowledge" gained is actually applied in the context of work. What

happens with a person tries a new way of working that he has supposedly "learned"? Work suffers. He

fails once or twice. And then his manager, impatient that time is passing tells him to get a move on.

So he reverts back to the old way of doing things. And learning is nipped in the bud.

That is the sad truth of "learning & development/training" in most organizations.

How could social technologies help?

1. First, creating a community of fellow learners before they "attend training" would help them to

learn from each others' experiences.

2. Focusing away from "competencies needed" to people sharing their expertise and strengths.

3. The facilitator sharing content and theory before the training - so that face to face time could be

used for practice and feedback

4. The community of learners could be a support and ideation group when they go back to the

workplaces and implement the learnings.

5. The managers could also be a part of the community to understand how better to support their

people's learning to be translated into the workplace

Some examples that could be put together are:

Basics of the subject expertise – Files, Websites, Videos, List of Books that act as a primer for gaining

knowledge

Additional Reading Material – Documents that people can download

List of Resources – Agencies, Thought Leaders, Partners collated at one point.

List of People (yellow pages) – employees who have worked on Initiatives and how to contact them

(email, Skype, IM)

FAQs – A series of basic questions focused on what a new employee needs to know

Best Practices – e-books, videos, ppts.

All the above can be edited by certain key people. Other employees can add comments below the

content.

Once people have gone through this they can be tested for their knowledge using a quiz/survey tool –

acting as a feedback measure to what they have learnt

Updating new information

What’s new and up to date in the domain and what is the buzz around the firm's products/services/

operations and what is the Market/Competitive Intelligence

RSS feeds of Google Alerts with key words around the brand name, competitor name, market name.

RSS feeds of thought leaders' blogs and websites to ensure new ideas come directly to the employee’s

desktop

Twitter updates of the who’s who of subject matter so that employees can track and even interact with

them. Using lists curation services like http://listorious.com/

Competitive Intelligence – A dynamic page which is updated with news/tweets about the major

competitors based on publicly available data. Collated and shown on a specific site. The comments

section would enable the employees to add their personal experiences on what the competitor is doing

in their specific regions.

New videos and Slideshows – Using a keyword tracking processes, new videos and slides updated on the

specific subjects (like “Financial marketing” or "Consumer Behavior" or "HR Trends") would be

embedded in the dashboard of the employees.

Collaboration

Enabling employees to learn from each other using learning logs, ideation and connecting with each

other.

Ideation Platform: A blog/wiki in which senior management asks for ideas around a certain campaign,

product on initiatives

Status updates – would let other people know what the employee is working on so that if anyone has

any ideas/lessons to share can do that via the tool.

Lessons Learnt: Similar to the ideation platform focusing on the past initiatives and what worked and

best practices learnt from them

Sharing project plans for initiatives and getting peers’ feedback on them.

Q&As with partners, senior management, consultants – which are archived – and after some time some

which are basic can be moved into the FAQs section in the static part.

Discussion around events like conferences, trainings that some employees go to – can share learnings,

videos, slides with the rest of the peer group – resulting in richer and more learning

About: Gautam Ghosh is a Social Business and HR Consultant. He specializes in the areas of HR, Organization

Development and how businesses can leverage Social tools for HR. He is an advisor to HR magazine

People Matters and a Subject Matter Expert in the “Social Media and HR” area for SHRM India.

Earlier he was the India Marketing Lead at BraveNewTalent and before that a Consultant with Social

Business firm 2020 Social where he led the Talent practice, advising companies can build talent pipelines

and employee engagement and learning using emergent tools.

Gautam has worked as a HR Generalist and a Learning and Development Executive in firms like Deloitte,

Dell, Hewlett Packard and Satyam. He is an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur.