Business Transitions, Inc.

Newsletter September 2001

Fulfilling Training Needs

Evaluating and Choosing Cost Effective Portfolios

   Jay Kalawar, CEO, Business Transitions, Inc.

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Introduction

Training Managers are faced with fulfilling a variety of training needs – sales and marketing, information technology, team building, sensitivity training, product and services training, to name only a few categories.  The challenge most managers tackle is getting consensus from consuming departments and end-users in the evaluation and decision-making process, while selecting the appropriate training delivery channels and packages.  Unilateral evaluation and decisions, without consensus input from department managers and end users, increases the likelihood of non-utilization of training channels and packages.

In this paper, we describe a process by which Training Managers will be able to facilitate rapid collaborative evaluation and decision-making on a) how to select a combination of delivery channels most suitable for each training need and b) how to select combinations of in house and vendor solutions within each of the selected delivery channels.

Evaluating Delivery Channels for Specific Training Needs

Alternate training delivery channels that are available have their own advantages and disadvantages with corresponding costs and benefits.  These include the face-to-face classroom channel, video instruction, online classroom instruction, eLearning and correspondence, among others.  The very first step a Training Manager needs to take, prior to selecting vendors (including in house vendors), is to determine which delivery channel or combination of delivery channels will meet the specific training needs.

For example, consider telephone based CSR training requirements which may consist of two broad components: a) customer interaction training and b) products and services training.  Customer interaction training requires that the trainee have numerous and immediate clarifications; it also requires the trainer to assess whether the trainee is able to perform to certain criteria under a range of scenarios.  Customer interaction training need, therefore, may be more suitable for classroom instruction.  

Then, there is the question of post training tracking of retention and impact.  The learning on the customer interactive component may be most cost effectively tracked by instructors listening in to customer calls; product and services content component may be tracked through CSR responses to periodic online quizzes.  Analysis from such tracking process can then be used to design customized learning paths.

In the CSR training example, the criteria of need for immediate clarification and evaluation, ongoing updating and need for self-paced access can then be used to evaluate alternate combinations of training delivery channels.  Other criteria that can typically come in to play in channel decisions are: travel costs, rate of change of the training content, need for customizing content for individuals or groups and whether training needs to be made available on demand.  As multiple criteria are applied to a particular training need, the choice of channel may become fuzzy, especially when viewed from different perspectives.

The following example further clarifies the importance of a collaborative channel evaluation process.  In the case of IT training needs for Java programming skills, the requirements may be to satisfy the criteria for self-paced training, availability on demand and by geographically dispersed personnel (and, therefore, associated travel costs).  Satisfying these criteria may tend to pull the choice of delivery to eLearning.  However, when the criteria of need for clarification and on the spot evaluation are added to the mix, the choice of delivery may not be as clear; depending on weighting given to each of the criteria, class room instruction as a means of selecting candidates with ‘Java aptitude’ may be required.  The challenge for training managers in this, as in many cases, is to apply the range of evaluation criteria from differing perspectives and rapidly reach the best decision for each training need, without getting bogged down in the process

For illustrative purposes, the rest of this paper specifically addresses how choices within the eLearning delivery channel are arrived at, and how a similar process may be applied for making vendor choices in other training delivery channels (classroom, video, synchronous online etc).                  >>Top

Evaluation and Decision on eLearning Solutions

Typically, Training Managers need to involve department managers, end users, finance and HR analysts to arrive at a consensus based decision on the combination of channels that will best serve a specific training need.  Once consensus is reached on the delivery channels, the next step Training Managers take is to choose a combination of in-house and vendor offerings within the channels.  

For most, eLearning has become a low budget, seemingly high-value proposition that just makes sense to have in the corporation’s training portfolio.  What is not clear, however, is whether the purchased value is being utilized to its fullest extent within the company, once the eLearning packages are brought in.  The challenge for corporate Training Managers is to ensure an internal buy-in of the eLearning packages, even before they make the purchase decision.

Buy-in?  From whom?  A purchase of an off-site training course requires buy-in from the individuals attending the course, their managers who have to sign-off on the perceived benefits accruing from the course, and the Training Manager who needs to ensure the course fits within quality, content and budgetary guidelines.  On-site training courses require buy-in from individuals, managers, facilities administrators and, depending on the funding levels required, of senior budget managers.  eLearning purchases, however, differ in several respects when it comes to buy-ins.

eLearning packages can be purchased at a very low cost threshold level and, therefore, seemingly do not require an end user buy-in.  Their internal utilization, once the packages are made available, tells a different story.  In the case of eLearning packages, the question of buy-in is a question of determining what drives internal utilization.  Relevance of content, ease of access and delivery, ability to measure impact of training and total cost from purchase to utilization are often considered key elements driving eLearning utilization.  Each of these utilization drivers is enabled by different sets of personnel in an organization.

A seemingly low cost, simple purchase decision is really a much more complex process. It requires that the apparently hidden costs and hurdles be made more explicit and directly compared to the obvious benefits of reduced travel costs, continual updating and maintenance and ability to tailor to individual training needs.  Relevance of content needs to be determined by end users and their managers; ease of access and delivery need to be assessed by end users and by IT personnel responsible for ensuring such delivery; ability to measure training impact requires a joint evaluation by end users, their managers and by training specialists; assessing total life cycle costs of an eLearning package, including ongoing upgrading and maintenance, needs joint work of financial and training specialists.  Thus, successful, value-added, implementation of eLearning requires end to end buy in of all the roles and responsibilities involved.  

Collaborative consensus from en From the Training Manager’s perspective, getting clear sign-offs from all the relevant players - first on the best combination of delivery channels and then on vendor choice - before making the purchase decision is a necessary condition to successfully meeting training needs by ensuring high levels of utilization of channels and solutions purchased.  Given that multiple training delivery channels and multiple vendor offerings are going to be a part of the training mix, Training Managers who implement an accelerated collaborative processes for evaluation and sign-offs will succeed in meeting complex and varied training needs of their organizations in a cost-effective manner and to the satisfaction of participants.

One such process is embedded in the B-Slate Measurement, Evaluation and Monitoring Process developed and implemented by Business Transitions, Inc This process meets all 3 critical conditions required to evaluate delivery channels and offering against training needs rapidly and effectively across an organization.  Designed for the Training Manager, BTI services help facilitate effective and rapid implementation of training delivery channels and packages.        Copyright 2004  Business Transitions, Inc

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