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Strategic Training Strategic training initiatives are learning-related actions that a company should take to help itself achieve its business strategy. The initiatives are based on the business environment, an understanding of the company's goals and resources, and the insights regarding potential training options. There is a tendency for a disconnect between strategy and execution.

Strategic training initiatives provide a roadmap to guide specific training activities and articulate how the training function will help the company reach its goals. Common strategic initiatives include:

Diversify the learning portfolio—provide more training than traditional programs.

Expand who are trained—provide more training to more groups of employees.

Accelerate the pace of learning—provide more just-in-time training.

Improve customer service—training should place a greater emphasis on service competencies.

Provide development opportunities and communicate with employees—ensure employees recognize they have opportunities to learn and grow.

Capture and share knowledge—capture and share knowledge to ensure it is not lost if key employees leave.

Align training with the company’s direction—link training to strategy.

Ensure that the work environment supports learning and transfer of training—ensure there exists a positive learning climate for training.

The next step in the process is to determine the activities that align with the strategic initiatives. Activities will vary based on the initiatives that were developed.

Lastly, strategic training process helps determine if training investments were successful in helping an organization achieve its goals and objectives. The business-related outcomes examined should be directly linked to the business strategy and goals.

Some companies use the balanced scorecard as a process to evaluate all aspects of the business. The balanced scorecard considers four different perspectives:

Customer (time, quality, performance, service, and cost)

Internal business processes (processes that influence customer satisfaction)

Innovation and learning (operating efficiency, employee satisfaction, and continuous improvement)

Finance (profitability, growth, and shareholder value)

Benefits of Balanced Scorecard The balanced scorecard provides an avenue to performance measurement that delivers managers the opportunity to review the overall company performance and/or performances of specific departments, like training from an objective standpoint of internal and external customers, employees, and shareholders.

Given below is an example of items that could be included on a manufacturing balanced score card. Please note the items are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART). The SMART descriptors are a tool to ensure that each training objective is recognized and can be evaluated

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using metrics. The numbers relate to annual budgetary goals as stipulated by the strategic planning process.

Objective Metrics Target Results Responsibility

Market Increase market share

Increase market share by 2%

By the end of the fiscal year

Increase level of primary supplier by 10% Vice President (Marketing)

Production Increase productivity

Increase productivity by 1.5%

By the end of the fiscal year

Remove the lowest 5% of least profitable products

Vice President (Manufacturing)

Profit Elevate the net profit

Increase net profit by 2% By the end of the fiscal year

Increase to be demonstrated in the annual report

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

We must also be cognizant of the advantages and disadvantages of a balanced score card.

Advantages Disadvantages

A clear picture is presented to demonstrate the inherent relations among the various entities striving for organizational improvement.

Creating a balance sheet could be expensive and time consuming.

The items in the balance sheet highlight the company performance. Creating a balance sheet requires extensive data mining.

The balance sheet highlights the strategic goals and makes them SMART.

Objectives defined in the balance sheet may have poor support from the employees.

Additional Materials

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From your course textbook, Employee Training and Development, read the following chapters:

Introduction to Employee Training and Development

Strategic Training

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Role of Training As more companies are recognizing the strategic importance of learning, the role of training is changing. Training has evolved from a focus on a single learning program or event to a broader set of integrated learning activities that may continue in the future. Along the same lines, training evaluation is now more concerned with whether it impacts the “bottom line” and not just whether trainees have learned new knowledge and skills. The role of training as a program or an event will continue into the future because employees will always need to be taught specific knowledge and skills. However, these single training activities will need to be a part of a larger strategic training system.

“Learning organization” is a term for a company that has an enhanced capacity to learn, adapt, and change. A single training event or program is not likely to give a company a competitive advantage because explicit knowledge is well known and programs designed to teach it can be easily developed and imitated.

The emphasis on learning has several implications on human capital development:

Learning has to be related to helping employees improve their performance and helping the company achieve its business goals.

Unpredictability in the business environment will continue to be the norm.

Companies need to support informal learning because tacit knowledge is difficult to acquire in training programs.

Learning has to be supported not only by physical and technical resources but also by psychological resources.

Managers need to understand employees' interests and career goals to help them find suitable development activities that will prepare them for future success.

All of the above absolutely must be linked to the type of strategy and all environmental issues that impact the viability of the organization. These then must be linked to the training needs and different training models to produce efficient and effective results.

Methods of Training Within the context of this course, “training” comprehends the overall purpose of an organization in business. The general purpose of training is simply learning. Learning denotes the workforce obtaining knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes, and/or mind-set of actions to achieve organizational mission goals and objectives. A learning and learned workforce will generate enhancement of human capital. Human capital enhancement denotes increased knowledge, added advanced skills, systems knowledge and nuances, imagination, innovation, and incentive to bring high-quality products and services to the market. This human capital concept is probably just as imperative as additional types of capital in helping a company attain/maintain competitive advantage and viability.

It is therefore important to possess a detailed understanding of your needs assessment, employee

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readiness for training, development of the learning environment, the evaluation plan, guaranteeing training transfer, and method cost and return on investment for the training program evaluation.

We will now look at the different methods of training to include on- and off-job opportunities.

Types of Training (Both On- and Off-Job):

Review the tabs to learn more.

Profession/Industry Specific

Managerial/Supervisory

Process/Procedure/Business Practice

Mandatory and Compliance—Safety, Quality Harassment, Diversity, etc.

IT and Systems

Customer Care/Service

New Employee Onboarding

Basic Skills

Interpersonal

Product Knowledge

Executive Development

Lecture

Video

On-the-Job Training

Self-Directed Learning

Apprenticeships

Simulation

Case Study

Business Games

Role-Playing

Behavior Modeling

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Adventure Learning

Team Training

Action Learning

Additional Materials

From your course textbook, Employee Training and Development, read the following chapters:

Introduction to Employee Training and Development

Strategic Training