Who’s in charge of employee development?

When it comes to bad guys in employee development, it is easy to point fingers. There is an employee who is only physically present when it’s time to train, and when discussing career goals, he just shrugs and says ”Dunno…” To counter that, what about that manager who never gives feedback and thinks that training is just waste of time. And to top that, how about those companies whose training budgets are cut to $0, whose departments hoard talent and hold back their top performers. So, where should the big finger point?

Employees?

Learning agility is one of the key ingredients of top performers and leaders of the future. As the amount of information and change increases, it is not enough that we get a degree and then decide we have learned all we need to know. Organizations are looking for lifelong learners; employees who adapt to new situations and know how to find information that doesn’t exist in neatly stacked binders. The concept of the job contract is also changing. A cozy career in one organization is a thing from the past. Forward looking companies manage their talent pipelines aggressively. Employees should manage their own career pipelines with equal vigor. Career development is not a one-way dialogue. Both parties benefit, when their best interests align and are actively managed.

Managers?

Managers are catalysts for growth. They can motivate their team by providing meaningful assignments, gradually increasing in challenge, or they can be boring task masters trying to drum up obedience with strict rules. Good managers provide opportunities to try out new skills while providing feedback and coaching on the way. They know how to conduct a purposeful dialogue around career and development. They celebrate successes and nudge their employees when they veer away from the right track.

Organizations?

Organizations are responsible for the environment and the infrastructure for learning. They provide the process for individual and organizational development plans. They come up with the resources for training, wisely investing more in high performers and strength building. They push for the big picture with workforce planning and for the long view with succession planning. Organizations also ensure the quality of managers who play a critical role in employee development.

So who’s in charge? Without the employee’s initiative, the manager can’t push a noodle. Without the manager’s insight and support, it’s hard to develop on the job. And without the organizational learning environment, it just wouldn’t be a priority for anyone.  To reap the full results, we need the full contribution of all three.

If you need help with gearing up your managers for better career and development discussions, or improving your organizational development processes, contact me at liisa@forteconsulting.biz or 512-484 8263.

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Coaching: Make it a daily habit

Coaching is a gift

Coaching – what is it really? We have sports coaches, all the way from the little league to the ones who make millions. We have career coaches, business coaches and life coaches. Managers are expected to coach their employees, but a recent study by Leadership IQ shows that two thirds of employees feel they are not even receiving enough attention, let alone coaching. Perhaps if we didn’t make coaching sound like something so formidable, managers would take up on doing it on a regular basis.

There are two main types of coaching: formal and informal. Good coaches use both. Formal coaching is a goal and process oriented approach, while informal coaching is an on-going effort to turn every opportunity into learning, looking for teachable moments.

Formal coaching is a good choice, when there is a specific goal and a specific timeframe to be met. Sometimes, the employee has an aggressive vision of leapfrogging to the next level of skill and expertise. Other times, a performance improvement plan is required to address a productivity or behavioral issue. Professional coaches often use formal coaching plans to help their clients stay focused on their goals, and integrate other resources to provide informal coaching. The formal coaching process typically includes an analysis phase, goal setting, an action plan for improvement, identification of resources and support, setting of milestones, and agreement on the review schedule for monitoring progress.

Informal coaching happens daily. It should happen daily. If you think of sports, formal coaching would be the practices, informal coaching would be the coach’s feedback during the game and the debriefing after the game. Learn as you go. Perhaps you show a handy shortcut key as you walk by. You prep together for an important presentation. You may walk through a complex project plan with your team and give them tips based on your experience. Or, you sit down with your employee after they messed up and discuss together how to prevent it from happening again.

Feedback is an important element of both coaching approaches. Objective and specific feedback, followed by a gentle dialogue of a better way to approach the situation, has the greatest value for the receiver.  When the objective is to learn and not to evaluate, coaching becomes a daily gift, and not an administrative task.

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Working with slackers

Pretty much everyone has experienced working with coworkers who are not carrying their weight on the team. It creates feelings of unfairness and even helplessness or hostility when the situation drags on. High performing team members must cover for their coworker, usually for little or no reward. They look to the manager to do something about the situation and don’t understand when insufficient attempts are done to correct the performance of the one who is slowing down the whole operation. There is no way around it, low performance does not go away by itself; it has to be addressed proactively. This responsibility falls on the managers and the company.

The reasons for low performance are many and not all are even the fault of the employee. Sometimes the employee just doesn’t have the skills for the job, or the orientation for the new job is ‘sink or swim’. I was at Waffle House a few weeks ago, and the bacon cook was getting the evil eye from the rest of the staff as he was falling behind on the orders. He was doing his darndest to catch up, but it was not looking good for him. The key to high performing teams is a solid selection process. Companies who know what creates high performance go looking for it, using assessments and structured interviews. They don’t settle for warm bodies.

Personal issues can be a significant distraction. Good managers know how to help their employees navigate through tough times, creating flexibility where needed, while expecting solid performance on an on-going basis. The solution should not be just piling it on the team to cover someone else’s last minute emergencies.

Many performance problems originate from insufficient organizational support. It would be wise of the manager to analyze the work process and systems, as well as the tools and resources available before jumping to conclusions about the employee’s work ethics. Obviously, if the whole team is working with the same support and only one is lagging, something else is going on.

Work relationships are their own Pandora’s box. At some highly political workplaces, who-knows-who may determine the results more than the effort put into the projects. One person told me about a work group where the low performer was the business owner’s friend, so all the team could do was to wring their hands and pick up the slack. If two coworkers can’t resolve their inflamed work relationship, the manager must step in. (Career advice: If you need your manager to referee, it is not a good pattern for your career; get coaching help now.)

In addition to work relationships, other work behaviors lead to performance problems. Whether it is communication style, forgetfulness or the lack of eye contact with customers, these behavior issues tend to escalate over time. The proactive manager nips them in the bud by using informal feedback. Informal coaching supports feedback. If all else fails, formal coaching and performance improvement plans are tools to use to make sure that it is the manager who takes care of the performance issues and not the team.

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Training and development that actually work

I can venture a guess that it can be frustrating to pay big bucks to send your employees to training, see them return from the seminar, put their binders neatly on the shelf and return back to their old habits. Here are a few tips on how to make training and development bring results.

First off, training programs are not always the solution. As a rule of thumb, 70% of your employee development should come from learning through experience, 20% from feedback and coaching, and 10% from formal training. When you want to develop your employees’ competence and confidence, the best way is to gradually increase the challenges in their job assignments while providing the necessary guidance. If you are dealing with troublesome behavior, your best bet is feedback and behavioral coaching. Training is not going to be enough to create the necessary change. It will take more dedicated attention by the manager.  So when DO you use training?

Training works the best when you need to teach new skills or methods to your employees. Perhaps you want to introduce a new sales methodology to your sales force. Or you are installing a new computer system at the company. Perhaps your employee is starting to work on large contracts and needs more advanced negotiation skills. These are all good examples when training is certainly a good idea.

Adults learn on a need-to-know basis. Do not train them until they need to use the new skill. Provide them just the right amount of information to be proficient. For example, when you introduce a new system, some people may just need a one-page job aid, while some need a more in-depth classroom introduction. Don’t force everyone to sit through 4 hours, if they just need that one-pager. Promote informal learning via social media, Google searches, intranet, from peers and via company “experts”.

To really learn a new skill, there must be some practice. Good skill training includes hands-on portions. If your employee goes to a “talking head” seminar or webinar, don’t expect too much change in skill level. What you can do as a manager to improve the learning impact is to ask them to apply the new knowledge on the job right away.

E-learning has come a long way since its early conception. There are some excellent e-learning programs that are cost and time efficient. Good e-learning includes interaction and simulations that allow employees to practice the skills and take shortcuts in areas they already know. Set your expectations right about e-learning programs that teach interpersonal skills. They can only go so far without including skill practice with other people.

To truly know if a training program is effective, it must be evaluated. Most companies evaluate their training by asking if the participants liked it. Also check if they actually learned the key content. Perhaps the most important metric to follow is what happens after the training: did the employees start applying the new skills and methods and how did it impact the job results?

Up to 85% of the training impact is determined by what happens before and after the training. Most of it is under the manager’s control. Select the right participants, set high expectations, and make sure they have the opportunity to apply what they learned. You’ll be happy with the results.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved. SVPGMGDX8TEC

Why is nothing changing after training?

According to Robert Brinkerhoff research, only about 15% of learning impact is determined by the actual training event. Up to 85% of the learning impact is influenced by external factors: what happens before and after. As so much scrutiny is put on the actual training event, and not much attention is paid to what really matters, it’s no wonder that most training sessions become a nice, although high quality, break from the daily grind but not much more.

Typical pitfalls of training with low impact are:

• Wrong people sent to the training
• Lack of purpose / expectations
• No opportunity to apply new skills and knowledge
• Lack or reinforcement after training
• Work environment makes it difficult to apply new skills and knowledge
• Wrong learning attitude

1. Send the right people to the training

The reason to train a person is to improve or learn a new skill, behavior or knowledge. This can be achieved through many methods. Sometimes just handing a simple job aid or a book could do the trick. If a fundamental behavior change is expected, one-on-one coaching over a long period time is often more appropriate. In some cases, the whole team needs to adopt a new methodology, approach or tool, and training everyone at the same time is the most efficient. If your employee is having a behavior problem, training is not the silver bullet. I have seen whole teams sent to a behavior improvement class so that the manager could avoid having a frank discussion with just a couple of employees. Sit down with your low performers and communicate your expectations. If it truly is a skill gap, you may consider training. In most cases, it is matter of close monitoring and getting back on track. Send your high performers to state-of-the-art workshops and conferences where they really get to expand their expertise.

2. Set the expectation for learning

Whether it’s your whole team or one or two individuals, plan ahead to make the most of the learning experience. If you are not concerned with the ROI of the learning, why bother sending them at all? Be clear why they are going to this particular training and why they were picked. Make the new skill part of their performance plan, and expect them to share the key learning points with you and the team.

3. Ready to apply

Prepare for their return so that learners will immediately be able to apply what they learned. If it is new software, the tool should be installed on their computer, ready to use. If they are going to learn negotiation skills, agree with them in which deal will they be testing the new skills. If there won’t be any chance to apply upon return, delay the training.

4. Reinforce and enforce

Inspect what you expect. Ask for a briefing on the key learning points. Work together to create a simple action plan to ensure that the skills are applied immediately after the training. Monitor progress and celebrate success together. Give feedback and coaching as much as you are familiar with the topic.

5. Create a supportive work environment

Cynical coworkers can certainly kill any budding new skill. Set rules of engagement for the whole team to expect support. If the whole team is learning new methods, share war stories, wins and best practices as they emerge. Remove obstacles such as bureaucratic processes or old systems that can be counterproductive to the excitement of gaining new skills.

6. Select people with a positive learning attitude

To create an innovative organization, you need people who are curious, open to change and who want to continuously improve and learn new things. Make this a performance evaluation and promotion criteria and, more importantly, a  selection criteria for new hires. Nothing stops progress more than an employee who thinks he or she knows everything there is to know and poisons the learning environment for everyone else on the team.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved.
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How big of a chunk of your company’s talent is underutilized?

The CBS post-Super Bowl show Undercover Boss thrilled or further jaded over 38 million viewers. The Waste Management President and COO Larry O’Donnell spent five days on the ground learning the ropes of the basic operations from the first line employees. Who wouldn’t enjoy watching a corporate big wig scrubbing latrines?

The outcome of the show was that Mr. O’Donnell ordered some changes in the local practices and a task force to look into their productivity policies that seemed to override all other company values. Having worked side by side with five employees, he also ended up promoting three of them. Now, three out of five makes 60%. It took the company President to notice that 60% of the employees he met did not work to their fullest potential.

Waste Management has 45,000 employees. With O’Donnell’s quick sample, 60% of talent being underutilized would make 27,000 missed opportunities. Yikes! Something to talk about with Jay Romans, Senior Vice President, People.

When a company grows past 400-500 employees, the CEO can’t know every employee. The VP of HR can’t know every employee. It is time to put in place talent management mechanisms that ensure that the CEO’s eyes reach all the way to the front lines to recognize and move the right people to the right opportunities.

The selection process should reflect the qualities that make the company culture successful. Sometimes, the culture is not quite there yet, so the management must find the pockets of excellence, and start building the desired culture by replicating the top performers’ attitudes and aptitudes, starting with hiring.

With the talent already in the organization, it is important not to let it go stale. The company loses opportunities, the employees lose motivation. There must be a process in place that frequently checks where the opportunities are, and where opportunities can be created. You also must create visibility into the strengths and talents of your existing employees. How else can you match talent to opportunities? The market provides many options for skill inventory software, or better yet, integrated talent management software.

And even with the fanciest software, keep this age-old rule in mind: garbage in – garbage out. It applies even at Waste Management. If the managers and employees don’t take the talent management process seriously, your software is not worth a byte.

Managers a the key to spotting talent are the managers. If they are only interested in and rewarded for getting today’s tasks done, there will be no talent management. They must have the skills and confidence to have in-depth conversations with their employees about their motivations, strengths and career goals. The company culture must also promote resource development and allocation beyond one’s own turf.

Many employees don’t even realize that they have opportunities beyond their current position. With a supportive company culture and a manager who knows how to develop their skills and coach their careers, they can look beyond the dead-end job, even if the President doesn’t come for a visit.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved.
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