2009 Trends in Review: What Do You Know?

T+D December 09 // Customer Training //

Customer Training Avoids the Ax

If one area of training is less vulnerable to budget cuts, it’s customer training.

Customer training refers to knowledge shared between business-to-business customers, not one-time visitors to a retail store. Doug Harward, CEO of TrainingIndustry.com, identified two primary reasons why customer training is a fast-emerging trend: the need to promote future sales and concerns about liability.

For organizations today, ensuring that distributors use a product correctly and encouraging them to continue buying the product, are tied directly to revenue. Software service providers are a typical example of companies that utilize customer training. Employee training budgets have been slashed as much as 30 percent over the past year, but customer training survived the cuts.

“Training employees is still viewed as a discretionary expense,” Harward says. “Training your customers is not.”

He acknowledges a “graying of the lines” between training and sales because in the end, both training and marketing departments are trying to influence customer behavior. “Trainers need to take their academic hats off and put on their marketing hats,” Harward says. “They have to remember that they’re not working for a university; they’re working for a business.”

Whether the approach is beneficial to the learner is still to be determined, he says. Typically, organizations train a trainer to deliver a course, but they often do not teach her to be a representative of the company. Such a shift does not mean becoming an aggressive salesperson, although there is some element of salesmanship involved. Instead, customer training requires talking to learners as customers instead of merely as students.

Risk management is another element of customer training that businesses do not talk about. Product manufacturers want to avoid a situation where they could be liable for injuries or claims that they did not teach a customer how to use equipment properly. As a result, thorough customer training is becoming a common practice.

T+D December 09 // innovation //

Innovation Emerges as a Critical Skill

“Innovation is the DNA of this company. For 25 years, we’ve celebrated innovation as our reason for being,” Adobe President and CEO Shantanu Narayen said in a May 2009 T+D article. Adobe revolutionized its industry through a commitment to innovation. Other notable examples include eBay, Apple, Southwest Airlines, Dell, and Cisco.

The learning profession was obsessed with innovation this year, as companies fought to remain competitive in this economic recession. “There is tremendous pressure on everyone, individually and organizationally, to try to figure out how to do more with less,” says Thomas Koulopoulos, consultant and author of The Innovation Zone. “This is not just a function of the current economic situation, but a result of the fact that people are starting to become more skeptical of how we use and invest resources. The answer then is to think of more creative and innovative ways to do things with these resources.”

Scott Anthony, a consultant and author of The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times, adds, “It’s not just about doing things better, but doing things differently. Innovation has emerged as one of the top three priorities when I talk to companies. Five years ago, people thought that innovation was the job of a few. But now we are seeing that innovation is the job of the masses, and learning professionals must equip people to do things they haven’t done before.”

Today many experts believe that innovation is a discipline that can be learned. Anthony observes that organizations are increasingly asking their employees to do new things, but employees haven’t yet developed the muscles necessary to accomplish these new tasks successfully. It is the job of learning professionals to teach employees to develop their innovation skills, he adds.

T+D December 09 // Succession //

Succession Plans Focus Heavily on Readiness

If you buy into some of the headlines, succession planning in 2009 played the role of talent management’s errant stepchild. But while we continue to hear more about how (and how often) succession planning is mishandled, there are also signs of health.

Rich Wellins, senior vice president for DDI, notes a steady, ongoing shift in focus in succession planning, from transition to end results, with leading global teams high on the list. “Over time, the ability to lead and manage globally has become prevalent, as opposed to five to eight years ago,” he says.

And whether worldwide or local, the key is to aim for meaningful outcomes—namely, readiness to lead and ability to handle specific business drivers. Wellins points to a growing realization that competencies by themselves are inadequate in measuring good successors. “They need to be linked with business drivers and a firm readiness to approach them,” he says.

One current approach to succession planning that could continue to catch on has been embraced by University Health System. Administrative Director Jacque Burandt and Performance Development Manager Lynn Lindemann indicate that a more rigorous and structured approach to grooming successors is a necessity.

“It was more informal and very much linked to who you knew,” says Lindemann of the “old days.” In recognizing a need to do more to prepare employees for the next step, UHS is zeroing in on preparing people for the next step—even if they are not on the CEO track—through the “Institute for Leaders.” This is a series of leadership academies that cater not only to executives, but also administrative assistants and supervisors.

An area of concern that is gaining increasing attention is the retention of workers once the recession subsides. The Institute for Corporate Productivity reported in September that 59 percent of companies surveyed are looking to an increased focus on succession planning strategies and methods to make certain that valued employees stay put.

T+D December 09 // Sales Training //

Sales Training:
A Critical Organizational Need

Sales training took center stage as an emerging trend in the learning profession this year, with a specific emphasis on the sales skills gap that many organizations face. In response to the tumultuous economy, organizations sought to close this gap and improve sales team performance to increase overall revenue.

Matthew Valencius, manager of sales learning design and development at IBM, confirmed that the economy was one of the greatest forces affecting the evolution of sales training over the past year: “We are no longer in a boom-time economy where people are throwing money all over the place; in fact, it’s the opposite. If we’re going to be positioning our companies for growth, we need to train our salespeople to be in the appropriate place to do this.”

In response to the demand for well-trained sales professionals, this year ASTD created a World Class Sales Competency Model, which provides leaders with a new approach to sales training and development based on sales competencies, areas of expertise, and roles.

As the learning profession evolved over the past year to keep pace with employee demands and organizational needs, sales training adapted accordingly. “The days of shrink-wrapped training are not getting the job done,” says Dave Stein, founder and CEO of ES Research Group. “The move toward individual, on-demand, self-paced learning will make a big impact on the performance of salespeople and the sales organization’s ROI.”

Marc Ramos, director of the Sales College at Red Hat University, adds that consumers today care about more than just total cost, investment, and ROI. Environmental, political, and social factors are perhaps more important to them than ever before. “[Going forward] we must train salespeople to be more holistically minded and authentic, and build learning content that supports this new type of buying style.”

T+D December 09 // Talent Management //

Talent Management Takes a Tumble

Many aspects of employee development took a beating this past year, but none more so than the concept of talent management.

It was the buzzword among executives two or three years ago, only to drop off the radar when organizations made drastic cuts to their talent rosters. So the burning question is whether talent is only important when the economy is strong.

Executives were quick to explain how knowledge, in the form of valuable employees, provided a competitive edge. Yet surveys about their priorities during a downturn reveal otherwise as leaders were focused on generating revenue and cutting costs. Talent management has fallen from the top tier.

Is talent management merely a slogan to retain people only to be discarded when times are slow?

“Last year showed us who is serious about it and who isn’t,” says Rich Thompson, vice president for Adecco. “The question is, ‘What have you done in the last 18 months?’”

Regardless of the rhetoric that is spun, many organizations continue to view talent as a cost and not an investment, he says. Besides layoffs, many organizations eliminated classroom training entirely, opting to make all training online and just “push it out” to all employees.

The greatest risk now lies in a lack of future planning. With most leaders consumed with six-month projections, an exodus could begin soon.

People are staying in white collar positions because they have few options. Thompson forecasts a possible talent shuffle when the economy recovers. Employees have grown weary of hearing how they have to withstand cutbacks “temporarily” because Thompson believes such cuts may actually be permanent.

“A lot of workers who survived the cuts are not happy with how they’re being treated,” he says. “They’re being asked to do more, take pay cuts, or lose their benefits.”

Another negative development is the lack of recognition for top performers. It would be advantageous for leaders to express to remaining employees how important they are even if financial rewards are not forthcoming.

“Identify the people you want to keep and let them know,” Thompson says.

T+D December 09 // Web 2.0 //

Web 2.0: User-Generated Content Is the New King

While the multidirectional exchange of information and ideas saw its share of early adopters, it has also seen its hallmarks begin to gain traction among learning professionals.

2009 has revealed how Web 2.0’s more personal approach to learning in some ways trumps the less agile, more content-driven approaches of the past. “One of the greatest impacts [of Web 2.0] has been the realization of the power of experiences, practice, conversations, and reflection as vital elements in learning,” notes Charles Jennings, director of Duntroon Associates. “Web 2.0 is providing the tools for real learning.”

2009 also saw the take-off of Twitter as a collaborative learning platform. Microblogging has developed into a no-budget, priceless complement to formal learning and other delivery channels. “Twitter has been a surprise in its unique capabilities and also in its support of new types of information flow and interaction,” says Clark Quinn, executive director of Quinnovation. “It’s a valuable augment to other channels,” he notes.

Twitter didn’t shock everyone, however. Independent consultant Harold Jarche points out that Twitter is a variant on the blogging tools that had already been effectively leveraged for collaborative learning. “The biggest surprise,” he says, “was the amount of spam and how quickly it appeared, post-Oprah.”

And there is yet another side to the uptake of Web 2.0 tools for organizational learning. CSC Chief Learning Officer Holly Huntley says that her organization, which is developing and delivering internal social networking and collaboration tools, from instant messaging to online communities of practice, has been met with what she calls, “an integration challenge.”

“When you reach the saturation point, you end up spending time trying to mediate the tool wars and educating employees on fit-for-purpose,” Huntley says. But there is also agreement concerning the significant upshots of Web 2.0, particularly the transparency that it brings to learning. “These tools have shifted the power base... Teacher as expert is no longer the model, and knowledge is no longer power. The real power is in your network and how you use it.”

Learning networks, on the other hand, are still waiting for their break-out year. As Jarche states, “You will probably be able to find dozens, if not hundreds, of learning communities on the Ning.com social platform, and I would guess that most have died or did not even get going.”

T+D December 09 // Economy //

Learning in a Down Economy

Amid the recent economic downturn, human capital became critical to business success. Hiring and retaining high-potential employees were the challenges that learning professionals juggled on a daily basis.

As Peter Capelli wrote in the May 2008 issue of Learning Executives Briefing, “The ability to get the right people with the right skills into the right jobs in a cost-effective way makes it possible for an organization to adjust and respond in the strategy arena.”

Organizations put pressure on their various business functions to manage costs closely. According to the ASTD/i4cp report “Learning in Tough Economic Times,” nearly 70 percent of learning organizations looked for ways to become more efficient at delivering learning. Many were interested in new or less expensive ways to deliver learning, such as e-learning, simulations, and other social networking options.

The need for efficient training led to an uptick in informal learning, a reduction of travel to training events, less “nice-to-haves” at training events, and more use of webinars and podcasts for just-in-time learning.

“This is the opportunity for Web 2.0 to take hold,” says Jeanne Meister, founding editor of The New Learning Playbook. “I have seen Twitter used as an online support tool—following a more traditional learning class—to get the contact information to all the participants. They are then part of a community that can share issues that crop up.”

The recession affected corporate learning efforts amid challenges, such as fewer resources and reduced staff sizes. Learning budgets were trimmed, but no more than other budgets in many cases. This recession forced learning professionals to make training delivery more effective and efficient, increase the value of learning, and align the training function with overall organizational goals.

T+D December 09 // E-Learning //

E-Learning Landscape Evolves

E-learning isn’t going anywhere, but some of the trends that have been proposed in the last few years have been slow to catch on in some sectors.

Government and military organizations are driving the simulation demands, while many corporations aren’t yet using this type of e-learning product, according to Clark Aldrich, author of the new book, The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games.

In the past few years, simulations and games have become a more acceptable form of learning, but they are still not fully integrated into a company’s workplace learning initiatives. Simulations have evolved from day-long activities that required dedicated instructors and significant set-up costs to short, self-paced, web-delivered experiences, Aldrich writes on his blog.

While virtual conferences and classrooms are becoming mainstream, mobile learning has been slow to connect. But that will change in the coming year, according to a SumTotal Systems whitepaper, “The Top Five Emerging Trends in Learning Technology.”

“In addition to development challenges, mobile learning applications face a strategic barrier within organizations,” according to the report. “Most businesses have interest and user demand, but they lack the understanding and practical strategy to make it happen.”

The uses for mobile learning are infinite, but mobile learning has been mostly missing from the learning profession. The current use of mobile learning is to deliver static content or support materials, not provide a platform that delivers training such as job aids, simulations, videos, podcasts, quizzes, coaching, mentoring, game-based learning, and more.

According to a SumTotal blog post, a recent Bersin & Associates study found that 18 percent of companies are currently delivering learning via mobile devices on a regular basis, but another 35 percent of the companies are seeking best practices on how to deliver training to mobile devices.

T+D December 09 // Performance //

Performance Matters

The economic situation forced companies and workplace learning and performance professionals to focus on improving performance—not just an employee’s poor, adequate, or superior performance in the workplace, but also an organization’s vision about talent management, human and environmental sustainability, and the work environment.

The trend, a move toward an organizational approach to performance, examines the health of the whole organization, including the work, the worker, and the workplace, to find where it is weak and not performing. The most successful companies during this recession aligned people, processes, and systems to effectively manage their overall performance.

This new approach to performance adds value to learning departments because it links learning to business strategies. Instead of focusing on employee training, learning executives began to uncover an organization’s ailments—from a weak culture and financial volatility to ineffective leadership or low employee engagement. In an i4cp productivity confidence index study (April to July 2009), the most commonly cited reasons for an increase in productivity and productivity confidence was a “redesign of work processes” and “quality or continuous improvement efforts.”

Enhancing a company’s effectiveness, efficiency, and quality strengthens customer loyalty, increases market growth, and decreases operating costs. In the ASTD/i4cp Learning in Tough Economic Times research report, one survey respondent said, “This recession has caused us to refocus on improving performance and quality at the operational level.”

This is one trend that will continue to flourish when the recession ends. “Performance-based learning brings the greatest value,” says George Wolfe, vice president of global learning and development for Steelcase. “Learning is good, but it more or less teaches us how to test out the knowledge part of the material as opposed to transferring that learning into the workplace.”

T+D December 09 // Skills Gap //

The Current State of the Skills Gap: Catching Up to the Present

The skills gap—defined as “a significant gap between an organization’s skill needs and the current capabilities of its workforce”—is alive and well, even though this recession has forced many baby boomers to remain in the workforce.

According to a recent ASTD report on the state of the skills gap, 79.2 percent of respondents reported there is still a skills gap within their organizations.

The four causes of the skills gap are evolution of new jobs; the lack of education as it pertains to workforce skills; the slowing of workforce growth; and the ineffective leverage of learning investments by businesses.

In addition, the financial climate has played a significant role in the evolution of the skills gap. The loss of jobs across all industries during the ongoing recession, which started in late 2007, has caused a mismatch between the skills that are needed to restart the economy and those that are readily available.“Recessions accelerate the trend to eliminate low-wage, low-skills jobs,” says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, “and those jobs don’t come back.”

Carnevale predicts that the skills gap issue will intensify again by 2013 when the lost jobs from the economy are recovered and millions more will need to be created to spur growth. “In a recession, the economy goes to sleep, but when it awakens, there will be a need for higher-skilled people to fill skill-intensive jobs.”

Many of the jobs that will be distributed during recovery will be given to women since they cost less to employ than men, and are concentrated in industries such as healthcare and education, which are expected to grow.

T+D December 09 // Ethics //

Ethics in Leadership: The Moral of the Story Is… More Morals

The issue of ethics in leadership is an extremely salient one due to the influx of corporate scandals in recent years—WorldCom, Enron, Xerox, and Satyam—plus the arrest of Bernie Madoff and the capsizing of Lehman Brothers and AIG that ushered in the recession.

The consequences of the actions of those at the top quickly flooded their way down the hierarchy. Many employees are barely keeping their own heads above water these days, let alone smiling about it. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, in 2009, 62 percent of participants (ages 25 to 64) from more than 20 countries reported that they trust businesses less than they did a year ago.

How important is trust within an organization? Stephen M.R. Covey, author of The Speed of Trust and CEO of CoveyLink Worldwide, argues that trust is a hard-edged economic driver that can affect two measurable outcomes: speed and cost. He says, “When trust goes down in a relationship or company, or with a customer, you will see speed go down with it and cost go up.”

Therefore, trust not only affects the internal culture of an organization, but also its external goals. The statistics speak for themselves as 77 percent of respondents said they refused to buy a product or service from a company they distrusted. The solution means overhauling ethics training and that means going all the way back to school basics, business school that is. But it’s not just paying lip service to the topic.

“In their curricula, business schools need to focus more on integrating the ‘soft’ focus on values-based leadership with the ‘hard’ focus on details,” writes Joel M. Podolny, dean and vice president of Apple University, in a 2009 Harvard Business Publishing blog post entitled, “Are Business Schools to Blame?”

He also notes that some experts have argued for the b-school equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath, and suggests that an existing professional governing organization should go along with it to punish any transgressions.