Strategic Workplace Learning in
the Public Sector
A little less than two years ago on this blog, I
entered a curmudgeonly post on "The Non-Strategic State of
Workplace Learning" (See Agile Bureaucracy, June 16, 2008 - http://community.thepublicmanager.org/cs/blogs/agile_bureaucracy/archive/2008/06/16/the-non-strategic-state-of-workplace.aspx ).
My snarky premise was that even though since the
mid-90s government at all levels had begun requiring strategic
goals, measurable outcomes and periodic reporting on results, "this
shift (hadn't) yet made a noticeable dent" in aligning training
and development investments with agency mission or management
priorities. For example, I noted, "In a post-silo organizational
culture, Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs) would be fully
involved in the organization's strategic planning and management
systems (and such T&D) activities would be (integrated) to meet
priority challenges."
Designing Strategic Leaning
Efforts
I also speculated that indicators of this
integration might appropriately include the training community's
involvement in designing learning efforts to:
foster an organization-wide
performance culture
improve oversight and
accountability behavior
recruit, engage and retain young
professionals - among other priority HR challenges
help IT professionals and
non-technologists alike keep pace with expanding
E-expectations
help managers transcend boundaries
of federal, state and local governments and foster collaboration
among public, private, and nonprofit sectors
assure that transparency becomes an
organization-wide value
help agency managers plan to share
responsibility for achieving results - with other governmental
levels, internationally and the private sector
prepare managers for and respond
more collaboratively to catastrophic disasters
Again, the unflattering picture I painted two
years ago didn't include much evidence that the T&D community
even had a seat at the table on these matters. To be sure, some of
the feedback (and blowback) I received suggested that I had painted
too bleak a picture. (After all, even the Dutch Masters included a
few swatches of thick, white oil paint on their invariably dark
canvases.) Nevertheless, few colleagues - trainers, HR leaders, and
other public management professionals - could point to instances
where training figured as an integral part of
strategic public sector initiatives.
Strategic Workplace Learning
Observed
Well, in searching for such illuminating examples,
I'm beginning to see some light. In fact, the theme of the summer
2010 issue of The Public Manager is strategic
workplace learning - with likely articles featuring case
illustrations from such government organizations as: the US
Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and
Urban Development, Interior, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs;
and New York State, among others. Moreover, many of these public
sector workplace learning innovations will be presented in
interactive or workshop-style sessions at the American Society for
Training and Development's (ASTD's) 2010 International Conference
& Exposition to be held in Chicago, Illinois, May 16-19
( http://www.astdconference.org/ ).
Here are brief highlights from just two of these
training efforts - both involving the US Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA):
Enabling Success
in Afghanistan: Building Cultural Expertise at the US Department of
Defense
As the United States geared up to send thousands
of troops into Afghanistan, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
faced the challenge of preparing hundreds of intelligence analysts
to enter the country knowing something of the history, culture,
politics, and governance of the region. The Afghanistan-Pakistan
Regional Expertise Training Program was developed to deliver
cultural expertise training to intelligence professionals and
operations personnel across the Intelligence Community and US
Department of Defense. This case study considers how the DIA
responded to a time-critical, far-reaching problem that crossed
agency and coalition lines. It examines how to meet the need for an
immediate solution while addressing questions of funding, format,
location, and ideal content - in effect, how to create and evaluate
a sustainable model for preparing employees to operate in a range
of countries and cultures.
Creating a
Collaborative Culture at the Defense Intelligence
Agency
After the terrorist attacks of September 2001, the
members of the Intelligence Community (IC) needed to transform from
a stove-piped culture, where employees viewed knowledge as power,
to a collaborative culture, where employees saw knowledge sharing
as their personal responsibility. Creating such a culture begins
with an effective onboarding program. In 2004, the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) leadership directed the development of an
orientation and acculturation program to bring together all
junior-level, professional-grade employees, regardless of job
responsibilities. The 5-week program develops an understanding of
how all elements of the DIA work together to support US National
Security objectives and Department of Defense operations, and to
collaborate with other Intelligence Community (IC) members. This
program is innovative among IC onboarding courses by its attendance
policy, the length of the course, the curriculum, and the
instructional methodology. DIA recognized that new employees could
be effective change agents and designed its onboarding program to
help establish a knowledge sharing culture. The recitation examines
training techniques DIA has used to foster a culture of
collaboration across organizational lines, explores the challenges
within organizations that inhibit collaboration, and identifies the
role of senior leadership in transforming the culture and the
onboarding process.
Share Your
Observations
In subsequent posts, I'll be sharing more
examples of how government organizations are aligning training
efforts with strategic agency goals. If you know of other examples
of how public sector organizations have begun to align workplace
learning efforts with priority mission and management challenges,
please let me hear from you. Better still, encourage trainers and
managers in these organizations to comment on this blog directly
and weigh in with their own best practice T&D stories. I'll
make sure to share these examples with a larger audience.