The No. 1 threat to the ongoing success of American companies remains the ability to attract and retain qualified people.
As technology continues to change the landscape of how a business ultimately operates, a technologically skilled work force becomes critical. Business owners who recognize this may want to consider offering continuous learning as a means to overcome their work force needs of retention and skill development.
A 1999 Kepner-Tregoe report revealed that a lack of career development opportunities was among the top three reasons why employees left their organizations.
Admittedly, continuous learning programs can create a financial headache. But there are proven ways to integrate them without breaking the bank.
A new model
When Ford Motor Co., American Airlines and Delta Airlines announced that employees worldwide would be provided a computer, printer and Internet usage at home for $5 a month, the stage was set for a new direction of engaging employees in the work force.
The goal of the program is to build employees’ technology skills by providing the tools and network necessary to gain those skills. Although most companies cannot afford to provide such an attractive package, the benefit behind such a move can be captured on a smaller scale.
For a continuous learning model to be successful, four critical components must be addressed — change management, valuing or measuring performance, cost of delivery and an internal marketing strategy.
Every company’s change initiative is unique. To get employees to embrace continuous learning, try a soft approach, encouraging participation from the bottom up. Typically, a focus group or team is established to evaluate the objectives of the company, the interests of the employees and the solutions that best meet the needs of both. A detailed implementation plan includes an explanation of why continuous learning is recognized as a new or enhanced benefit.
Once the change initiative is mapped, build in support mechanisms. Performance reviews should value skill development through training, managers should schedule time for employees to take training and alternate delivery methods such as online courses or distance learning could be offered.
Set expectations that the cost for continuous learning is shared. Whether a company is beginning a continuous learning initiative or enhancing a current benefit, sharing the cost is beneficial. This requires the company and the employee to contribute. The company contributes by identifying and making available a link to a training portal where a variety of online courses may be selected, by listing in-house classroom training or by sponsoring brown-bag lunches led by experts. The employee contributes by paying for courses or by making time to attend.
Studies indicate employees gain or retain more knowledge from training selected based upon their evaluation of need than by that forced upon them from the top down.
An internal marketing plan is the absolute critical element. According to Michael Beer in “Cracking the code of Change,” Harvard Business Review, “The brutal fact is that about 70 percent of all change initiatives fail.”
The plan includes information from each phase of the process:
- Reasons why the company has chosen continuous learning as a new or enhanced benefit;
- A summary of the cost broken down by lost opportunity costs of employees learning vs. working and actual training expense of instructors, technology and travel;
- Value placed upon continuous learning as defined in the new performance review;
- Benefits to the company and the employee.
No longer should training and education be viewed as a cost of doing business. Rather, companies must deem continuous learning as a key element in attracting, retaining and growing the skills of their work force.
Strategic business decisions that affect a company’s future are based upon how their people resources are prepared. Darla Root ([email protected]) is president of BeanDance, a Cleveland-based e-Learning consulting firm. She can be reached at (440) 257-8687.
