Performance Management

Performance Management and L&D are inextricably linked, the more in depth the complimentary relationship the quicker the real results are realised.

The role of this inter-relationship is that of improving performance by developing individual and team capability and capacity to work effectively.

Of course, PM is about much more than this, from bridging that gap that usually exists between the organisation’s mission and employee actions, to balancing those competing priorities of service levels, process efficiencies and budget constraints.

Of central importance though is the realisation that performance is not controlled by the executive team, it is in the direct control of staff. L&D can obviously play a huge role in influencing, developing and on-boarding these staff to the PM strategy and operational impacts.

Personal Development Planning (PDP) is a perfect tool to use to assist in actioning a PM strategy as PDPs are related to the work at hand and the capacity the individual has to carry it out. This is where the third circle of the Venn Diagram comes into play, Succession Planning, or as I see it, Talent Management.

If staff are focussed on their personal, professional and career development within the PM framework they are much more likely to be contributors to the PM strategy success. These will be the employees that view performance review meetings as learning experiences and change as an opportunity to adapt and grow.

The Coach

Coaching is what happens when a coach (or manager) assists a person to enable their talents to emerge and creates an environment where these talents can develop.

Unfortunately I have seen and heard of far too many internal coaching programs that are about “coaching” participants towards a defined goal of the business. Or more specifically, it seems that the coaching program offers a defined set of possible outcomes.

These programs meet with mixed success due to the fact that not every participant has the exact same goals that may have been identified by the business through a TNA, succession planning, or a desperate retention strategy.

Coaching takes the “learner-centric” model to the extreme, it is all about the participant. The only pre-existing structure to great coaching programs should be regular meeting times and a broad “behavioural” framework within which the coaching will operate. We must still keep in mind that this coaching is within a business context and although it may deal with some personal issues in a broad sense it must not cross the line into life coaching.

I believe that giving staff, particularly Gen X and Y, access to coaching programs where they feel valued and supported can be a key performance and retention tool. Staff like to see that their personal development is valued by the business and that developmental efforts are not just about job-specific skills or compliance.

Good coaching will attempt to move people from a rigid mindset that sees limited opportunities or possibilities in situations or the current environment to one of open-minded optimism. People are enormously empowered when they are able to see that nothing is impossible and the power to enable change is in their hands.

Nothing is more powerful than a group of “possibility thinkers” within a business for realising the full potential for creativity, innovation and breakthrough achievement.

Baby Boomer's Knowledge

How do we tap the knowledge of the most experienced and generally quite senior members of the organisation?

It has been shown that despite the best efforts of organisations to capture key knowledge, on average only about 20% is accounted for in structured or unstructured data. The other 80% resides in the heads of the Baby Boomers….who are in the exit lounge.

It is not just about transferring this knowledge to the next in line through clever succession planning, given the average tenure now-a-days this is only a temporary measure. The drive must be to capture this departing knowledge for broad consumption no matter how many times the seats are vacated and re-occupied.

So how do we capture that information before it exits the organisation without the use of a Matrix type spike that is inserted into the base of the skull? Much of it has to do with engaging these staff in some of the traditional roles of L&D, here are just some ideas:

Knowledge Transfer:

• Engage these staff in the creation of learning objects (formal training material, PowerPoint presentations or short e-learning objects)
• Engage these staff in producing documented information that supports existing procedures or policies (the thinking behind quality documentation is often more important than the documents themselves)
• Ask these staff to spend as much time recording details about required contact businesses, departments or individuals that are used to “do the business” as they would for a client record. This is quite often an overlooked area: the who and the how as opposed to just the what and the where.

Knowledge Sharing:

• Engage these staff in key roles in communities of practice or action learning groups
• Nominating these staff as the “ask the expert” for key operational topics
• Use these staff for group coaching (as well as individual coaching or mentoring)
  

L&D Marketing

When I first heard it, marketing seemed like a strange term to use for communication about training activities within an organisation. Now I see that it has much more in common with commercial marketing than I first thought.

Marketing has been defined as: the commercial processes involved in promoting and selling and distributing a product or service (Wordnet)

In L&D I think this is exactly what we are doing, the slight difference is that we need to be promoting to multiple levels of the organisation and generally we need to convince not only the consumer but also their manager and the whole of the business of the quality of the service.

We also have to also keep the three P’s of commercial marketing in mind. Product, Place, Price and Promotion.

Product: What do we have to “sell” and how desirable is it to the “market”, do we need to update it to keep it relevant?

Place: Are we offering the service in the right areas of the business in the right formats or delivery methods? (Face-to-face, on the job, e-learning…)

Price: Not only in terms of dollars, but cost to the business and the individual in terms of time and effort invested and return on this investment.

Promotion: How are we targeting the message to ensure we are appealing to the real needs of the business and individual?

In the same way that organisations will expect their marketing department to develop and deliver on a long term marketing plan I believe L&D should be doing something similar. Themed campaigns are particularly effective, to create a branded message around L&D activities can be very powerful.

I don’t think the production of a training calendar is sufficient, the message needs to be regular, relevant, and read by many (my three R’s). There are so many options available now to get the messages out there, with Intranets, Email, Team Meetings, Staff Notice Boards, Staff Fridges, Newsletters, the message needs to appear in as many different media as possible.

Of course, any promotion is also helped by celebrity endorsement, the business’s celebrity may be the CEO, GM, or an identified talent within the organisation. Use them! It won’t cost you a thing, and you probably don’t have to photograph them scantily clad to attract attention to your program.