Mike’s Doc Blog

We’ve all spent time wondering what it is that training departments and trainers do all day. In fact, if you read my blog often enough you’ve probably caught some posts about the change in training departments from being all formal learning to being a full-service provider of learning including multiple modalities, multiple styles, and multiple approaches. My research is focused on one such activity: the learning impact of using blogs and poscasts in corporate training.

I’ve spent my career becoming a learning and performance professional. I study the profession, experience the profession, and think about the profession. A lot. Just as you study your jobs and careers, I study mine. It is, in fact, what makes us professionals. You won’t catch me going around claiming to be a professional in another venue and yet I often find people coming along to pretend to be professionals in mine without the experience, education, of skills to do so.

That said, or written, some recent activity in my experiencing of the profession has caused me to think about how best to work with professional training departments. For those in the know and not-in the know, feel free to add to the list below:

• Staff the department with people who demonstrate an understanding of learning and performance.
• Involve the department early in your projects and processes so they get the benefit of knowing what is going on and how to make that sound training for your people.
• Be a partner, not an autocrat, that listens to the advice of these professionals and works with them to a mutually beneficial end.
• Assist in finding performance benchmarks that can be used to evaluate learning beyond the ’smile sheets’
• Get the group involved in communities of practice so they can continually enhance and evolve the learning in your organization
• Provide the department realistic resources to do the job expected of them
• Insist that learning and performance leadership ’sit at the table’ with you
• Incorporate more learning modalities, styles, and approaches than PowerPoint driven classroom training
• Don’t send your cast offs into training departments. We don’t want them either.
• Don’t constantly ‘move the ball’ on the training department. Leaders stick to the plan.

I am sure there are a lot more, but the essence you should draw from this list is that this group should aid in leading your organization. Moreover, the new economy is going to be creative and thought leadership; you’d be well advised to position your organization for that change now.

Image Source: Scoobymoo