Workforce development: Case studies in private and public sector implementation
Kate Carruthers is a marketer, technologist and educator. She has extensive experience as a senior executive in large international companies and has worked in in the areas of ICT, web, marketing and business development. Recently Kate has been lecturing at Macquarie University and delivering VET sector business courses. She is an in demand speaker and writer who specializes in web, e-learning, social media and social networking.
Links to Kate's business site (Digital Business Group) and her personal blog can be found at katecarruthers.com
Kate will be facilitating a panel at the eLearning08 conference.
Workforce development is a key issue for both private and public sector businesses. Previously a fragmented approach to the elements comprising workforce development led to lack of integration and inability to align the workforce to current and future business demands.
A structured approach to workforce development brings together analysis and planning, capability development and aligns it to the business goals. It brings human resources management together with learning and development as key enablers in building capability in the people within an organisation to meet current and future business demands.
This kind of approach also enables the business to make strategic investment decisions regarding training and development. For example, in times of economic uncertainty it is traditional to cut training budgets. These cuts are usually made because it has been hard to demonstrate the return on investment for training and how it relates to business performance.
With a formalised approach to workforce development, return on investment is factored into the entire plan.
Public Sector
One area that has undergone a revolution in its approach to workforce planning and development is government and the NSW Department of Commerce is a great example. In 2007, the then Director General, John Lee 1, encouraged a strong focus on learning and development, and upon cultural change to support changes within the business. He tasked People, Performance + Development (PP+D) with establishing a leadership development program for all Commerce managers. PP+D then set up a number of consultative forums and worked with stakeholders to define the content and structure of the leadership development program.
Previously there had been a number of programs with varying results, but often approached in a non-integrated manner. There had been a number of training initiatives, for example delivery of Certificate IV in Frontline Management under a traineeship model for some individual agencies, but nothing across the entire organisation and as part of an integrated leadership development plan.
The new leadership development program includes:
- Executive
- Management
- New Managers
- Learning events – topical events/programs
- Brown-bag lunch forums
- Mentoring program
It includes a comprehensive range of activities, and all managers will access development.
The leadership development planning team looked for program providers that offered “real return on investment”, that is providers who had a track record of demonstrating return on investment for training activities. It was also seen as important to map the training to VET qualifications via an RTO who could deliver and assess.
Practical Focus
Prior to the consultation process it was not thought that the staff would be focused on obtaining VET qualifications. However, the internal consultation process indicated that a surprising number of staff members are interested in obtaining a qualification, with some even asking about articulation pathways.
Another important focus area in the leadership development plan is that any training is practical and work focused – not just theory. Feedback so far is that people really like the practical element.
Manager involvement is another key success criterion for this program. Managers of the participants are active in several of the training and individual coaching sessions and the learning is integrated back into the workplace as work based projects. This manager involvement is really important – both as a support to the participants and to reinforce the work based nature of the learning.
One challenge with government businesses is that they deliver services in rural and regional areas and staff members have limited access to training opportunities. One advantage of this program is that the training provider has a national and regional presence and thus regional staff members now have an opportunity to access development.
Typically within the public sector learning and development is focused at the Certificate III and IV levels via traineeships and those are usually well integrated at an operational level. But at management level the integration of learning and development with day-to-day operations has not been common at all. Typically management education is done separately to the workplace – they elect to study independently, for example an MBA or Master of Public Policy. But the current approach is different in that it is integrated into the workplace and thus is focused on building capability for both current and future business demands. Commerce is providing access for a large number of experienced managers to achieve a qualification at diploma level.
Integrated, Practical Work Based Program
This program is specifically designed as an integrated work based program, and it is comprehensive in its application of adult learning principles. Learners are actively engaging with the material, using multi modal learning techniques, and active reflection processes, all of which are linked to practical work actions and coaching. It is not just face to face sessions with reading materials as is traditional.
The anecdotal feedback from participants has been very positive and these materials map back to and reinforce learning material from the course. It is easy for busy managers to consume this material because they are short and sharp, and highly engaging with the speakers sharing very candidly about their experiences.
Another different approach has been taken with the range of inputs. For example, participants have audio visual access to 50 Les50ns (www.mindresources.net). This resource has top international business and academic leaders talking about important management issues such as communication, planning, and difficult conversations.
Metrics
A critical component of this program is measurement, including assessment and evaluation. This was built in from the beginning with Kirkpatrick Model requirements included in the Expression of Interest for the pilot program. Potential providers were required to explain how they would address the elements of the Kirkpatrick Model (reaction, learning, behaviour, and results).
Measuring success of the program by simply collecting ‘happy sheets’ was not sufficient and it does not provide sufficient evidence for continuous improvement. Formal course assessments are an integral part of the program, and behavioural change will be tracked via a number of means including longer term HR organisational culture and staff exit surveys. Return on investment will be tracked via productivity improvements resulting from the work based action learning. The short term results will be participant self reporting.
The leadership program is targeted at developing the skills of the management workforce and providing personal growth opportunities for individuals. It is focused on delivery of practical skills that can be applied in the workplace on a daily basis.
A key enabler of the program is strong top down support – “rock solid support” from the executive team. Participants are supported by their line managers and results are measured both in terms of VET competencies and workforce development.
This program is directed at driving positive change within an organisation that faces growing challenges in the future. Executive level support and positive staff feedback to date are good indicators of success.
This kind of integrated approach to workforce development is better aligned to achievement of business goals. And, since it focuses on measureable benefits, it is possible to evaluate program effectiveness more rigorously than in other approaches from the past.
Private Sector
The situation for workforce development in the private sector is very similar to that in the public sector, but there is more focus on looking at strategic organisational and operational needs before getting to the individual development. According to Michael Specht 2, founder of specialist HR technology company Inspecht, companies are taking organisational needs as a starting point – from recruitment and then through to training and development. This activity is very much aligned with movement around creation of a learning organisation, and there is lots of movement beyond basic training into education and development of staff. There is a reduction in old style training courses and focus has moved to on the job training.
However, many organisations are also looking at aligning to the national qualifications framework (Certificate III and IV, Diplomas and Advanced Diplomas).
In the private sector management training tends to be more at MBA level but there is also growth in specialist business courses. All of this is occurring in an environment where there is a move away from line HR towards strategic level HR. This means we are seeing HR moving away from command and control type policing activities into strategic value adding. Thus there is also a trend for Learning and Development professional to move into more of a strategic focus. Thus HR and L&D are undertaking strategic organisational assessments based on skills and competency frameworks, and then using that to determine development needs for staff.
Move to Talent Management
Much of this work is being rolled in under the title of ‘talent management’. However, Michael noted that many of the private enterprises are only focusing this strategic workforce development at senior level roles and high potential employees. In fact, recent US survey by Taleo found that 80% of organisations are taking this approach.
This finding was confirmed by a recent IBM survey, which showed that organisations which extend workforce development and talent management have higher sales growth and performance.
However, the survey that found organisations that pushed workforce development approach across their entire staff experienced better performance.
Since HR and L&D are moving into more strategic roles this means that metrics are critical to be able to demonstrate value and ROI from these initiatives. As Michael commented:
This is where the need to develop an HR scorecard is critical. This can provide the basis for evaluation of ROI for current programs and demonstrate ROI so you can then put further investment into development.
The metrics need to be built in up-front and people need to understand difference between strategic and operational ROI. According to Michael “this means partnering with the financial org upfront to ensure access to the data required to demonstrate real ROI”.
From a private sector perspective, another area that a lot of work is being done is in assessment and evaluation. The Kirkpatrick model is still very much used within private sector and while people are looking at other methods they are generally underpinned by Kirkpatrick. However, typically organisations remain stuck at level 1-2 assessments, with the holy grail remaining attaining level 4.
Who’s doing it well?
According to Michael Specht no single organisation jumps out as doing it all well. Several are doing some bits well but nobody is doing it end-to-end as yet. However, an example of the important of workforce development to the HR industry as a whole is demonstrated by the Australian Human Resources Institute’s (AHRI) work in refocusing their training towards workforce development.
AHRI have upgraded their Professional Diploma of HR this year and have framed it around their Model of HR Excellence (based on work by Prof Paul Dainty from Melb Bus School). These changes reflect the increased focus on workforce development and being a cultural change agent and strategic architect within the business.
Impact of economic downturn
Michael Specht commented that during an economic downturn “workforce development and talent management will be even more critical. Companies cannot afford to lose good staff and they can’t afford to lose focus on developing and retaining their key resources. If you are not doing it you will be out of business. Having proper workforce planning, understanding critical skills and competencies are necessary to make effective downsizing decisions. Otherwise you make downsizing decisions based on hunches and best guesses.”
As Michael put it “organisations should focus more on head content that on head count at the moment”.
This means that the private sector cannot afford to ignore workforce management at the moment – profitability is the key to their survival and the quality of the workforce determines this. This is especially true now that much of business is in the knowledge based economy.
Talent Management Systems
One area that the private sector is only just coming to terms with is the need for effective Talent Management Systems (TMS). TMS are even more important in an economic downturn as downsizing needs to be done effectively as well as efficiently. Lack of usage of TMS is not just limiting downsizing activities it could also be affecting revenue growth. Research in the recently published Cedar Crestone 2008–2009 HR Systems Survey has found that organisations that extend their talent management strategy across the entire workforce have better returns.
The Cedar Crestone survey also identified that organisations using competency management had significant sales growth, and when coupled with succession planning across the entire organisation they had significantly higher sales growth.
This research is confirmed by another survey from IBM on the ROI of Talent Management, where it was noted that organisations "that apply talent management practices demonstrate higher financial performance compared to their industry peers".
Kate Carruthers will be facilitating an interactive enterprise panel on 4 December 2008 at eLearning 08
Reference
1 John Lee was recently appointed as Director General of the Department of Premier & Cabinet NSW, previously he was Director General of the Department of Commerce NSW
2 Michael Specht is the founder of specialist HR technology company Inspecht and worked on the redevelopment of the AHRI Professional Diploma of HR this year.