You Can Teach an "Old" Employee New Tricks-From ASTD

At 54, Dan Johns wanted to find his future, and he decided it would be in renewable energy.

He'd spent nine years in the same role as leader of construction and engineering insurance for insurer RSA in Toronto, and was ready for a change. Captivated by the green movement himself, he also saw a niche the company had not yet tapped and felt there was opportunity for both to benefit.

But nobody at the company was approaching him to do anything different - and, he says, "you always have the question they might not think it's worth the investment at my age."

Read the article at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/you-can-teach-an-old-employee-new-tricks/article1454215/

Ten Predictions for Learning and Training from TrainingIndustry.com

By Doug Harward, CEO, Training Industry, Inc.

2009 was as challenging a year for the training industry as we’ve had in the past twenty. The good news is that it’s over. Now it’s time to get up, dust ourselves off, and begin the task of making 2010 the best that it can be.

As in previous years, the staff here at TrainingIndustry.com looked into our crystal ball to provide our annual predictions on how we see the training marketplace changing and performing in the upcoming year. Our intent is to provide a sense of visibility that helps you in strategic planning and decision-making on managing, developing and delivering training. We form these predictions based on our research, our industry knowledge and our ongoing communications with the buyers and suppliers of strategic training services. We believe our combined experiences give us insights into how corporate executives, training management and learning and technology suppliers are driving the market.

Read the entire article at: http://www.trainingindustry.com/articles/10-predictions-for-2010.aspx

Training Journal: McDonalds Receives Award for Investing in People

McDonalds has become one of the first in a handful of companies to be honoured with a new look Investors in People (IIP) Gold award.The organisation was presented with the award at the Institute of Directors this week, in recognition of its continued investment in talent management and its use of people metrics to identify the impact of development strategies.

Investors in People said McDonald’s employees were able to identify inspirational leaders at all levels and there had been an improvement in people’s view of how they were managed and developed within the organisation.

Read the article at: http://www.trainingjournal.com/news/2441.html#

Pygmalion in the Classroom

Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson

Self-fulfilling prophecies are powerful particularly within social institutions. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson demonstrated the power of self-fulfilling prophecies in a school setting.1

The two researchers had spent much of their careers in education and had become increasingly concerned that teachers' expectations of lower-class and minority children were contributing to the high rates of failure among these students.

Such ideas were not without support. In the early 1950s sociologist Howard Becker had found that teachers in slum schools used different teaching techniques and expected less from their students than did teachers in middle-class schools.2

Read the rest of this article: http://www.pineforge.com/newman4study/resources/rosenthal1.htm

The Case for Training and Development NOW!!

It is sure easy to delay, defer and cancel training programs in this economy. As a lot of training professionals will tell you, it is one of the first line items to be axed from any budget.

Unfortunately, reductions in training also carry a significant penalty. It will prolong the length of time needed to recover from a downturn. It will limit the ability to capitalize on the faltering of competitors (in fact, they may prey on you). It will reduce your ability your ability to perform at the high levels required when staffing is cut. It will harm your ability to attract and retain good talent when the economy recovers.

Below is a brief synopsis of some types of training that are most necessary in an economic downturn:

1. Leadership, Supervision and Management
More is asked from the leadership team and they must rally troops in time of difficulty. Innovation is needed. Fresh outlooks and a critical view is required. This takes skills and competencies obtained in training.

2. Customer Service
The one proven factor to retaining market share in a down economy is service quality. Doing it right requires a training commitment.

3. Sales and Marketing
To capitalize on competitors when they fail, your sales team must be poised with axes sharpened. This honing can only be accomplished through learning and growth.

4. Teamwork
Never has the ability to work together been more important. The synergies needed to produce more with less is critical in difficult times.

Article from Business Week-How Proctor and Gamble Retains Great Team Members

By Roger O. Crockett

Few employers spend as much time cultivating their workforce as Procter & Gamble (PG). The consumer-products company expects to get 400,000 applications for entry-level management positions this year. It will hire less than one half of 1% of them, selecting only those most likely to fit the P&G culture. "We actually recruit for values," says Chief Operating Officer Robert McDonald. "If you are not inspired to improve lives, this isn't the company you want to work for."

The careful vetting, training, and career development pay off. P&G boasts 23 brands with at least $1 billion in annual sales and is the market leader in everything from detergent to diapers to razors. True, the company's renowned marketing skills and deep pockets help. But another important edge is personnel management—bringing in and promoting creative thinkers.

INTENSE INTERNAL TRAINING

The P&G strategy starts on college campuses. The Cincinnati company dispatches line managers rather than human resource staffers to do much of its recruiting. They home in on schools whose earlier graduates have moved up at P&G, such as Harvard and Stanford. Interviewers look for what they call a candidate's "power," including leadership ability and empathy. Innovation skills and values are measured in an online assessment. "Our managers are skilled at probing for the right fit," says William Reina, director for global talent. "The people they identify score well on the assessment."

For the few who get hired, their work life becomes a career-long development process. At every level, P&G has a different "college" to train individuals, and every department has its own "university." The general manager's college, which McDonald leads, holds a week-long school term once a year when there are a handful of newly promoted managers. Further training—there are nearly 50 courses—helps managers with technical writing or financial analysis.

Career education takes place outside the classroom, too. P&G pushes every general manager to log at least one foreign assignment of three to five years. Even high-ranking employees visit the homes of consumers to watch how they cook, clean, and generally live, in a practice dubbed "live it, work it." Managers also visit retail stores, occasionally even scanning and bagging items at checkout lanes, to learn more about customers. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, says this level of involvement by executives is rare. But that's what separates P&G from the pack.

Everything DiSC Pulse: Training in Tough Economic Times

A survey of recent trainees shows 77 percent of their organizations continue to put a strong emphasis on providing training, despite the current economic climate.
By Mark Scullard and Jeffrey Sugerman

With millions of potential learners looking for jobs and organizations everywhere cutting budgets to stay afloat, we postponed our originally planned topic for this month’s Everything DiSC® Pulse to look at something more critical: the role and relevance of training during tough economic times. We assumed that learners would be highly critical of the quantity and quality of their learning experiences. While this may be the case in many companies, it is far from universal.

Admittedly, our sample is biased. All of the 7,476 participants surveyed were participants in classroom training from January 15 to February 11, 2009. The people polled here work for companies that not only value training but also spend money on people-skills training during an international economic crisis. In fact, when asked if their company puts a strong emphasis on providing training, 77 percent said yes. Clearly, this sample is not representative of everyone or every organization. But for those companies that are committed to training, your employees will notice your commitment. And you are getting it right.

Now more than ever, your employees see the relevance and the value of training. Of those surveyed, 69 percent said they tend to value training more than they used to. In addition, more than half—58 percent—said that given the economic uncertainty, they spend more time thinking about the marketability of their skill set.

We found that among these training-centric organizations, learners felt they were receiving an adequate quantity of training. Of those surveyed, 84 percent said their organization offered many training opportunities. And 72 percent said they had the chance to choose from a variety of training opportunities.

Participants also felt they were receiving quality training. When asked if they had the skills to be competitive if they had to find a new job tomorrow, 90 percent said yes. Participants also gave high marks to the quality of their training, with 86 percent saying it was effective. And they were equally positive that if they asked their boss for additional training, it would be made available (86 percent). But for the majority of our sample, management was already in touch with the types of training its employees wanted. Seventy-one percent said management was aware of the real training needs of employees.

Perhaps the best piece of news was that the learners we surveyed did not see a decline in their company’s commitment to training. Only 26 percent said their organization seemed to be cutting back on training because of the economy. It is doubtful any organization will come out of this recession unchanged. But it will be interesting to watch how a commitment to training during this crisis influences these changes.

It is easy to expect the training industry to suffer during difficult economic times. At the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish, we hope to have illuminated a bright spot, and we congratulate those companies who have the foresight to maintain an investment in their people during this time.


Mark Scullard is the director of research at Inscape Publishing, a leading provider of training materials for the corporate market. He has more than a decade of research and data analysis experience in the development of psychological evaluation tools and methods. Scullard received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Minnesota, with a supporting program in statistics.

Jeffrey Sugerman is the president and CEO of Inscape Publishing. He has more than 20 years of experience in senior management, marketing, and business development in the technology, training, and publishing industries. He holds doctorate and master’s degrees in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, and a bachelor's degree in psychology from Northwestern University.

Budget Woes Cut Training Dollars

The inevitable affect of a shrinking economy and the associated impact on businesses is to reduce the commitment to training and development.

When faced with the difficult decisions about what to slash and what to keep, consider the following:

1. The long term impact of reducing training and development investments.

2. The higher costs of mistakes, lost customers, labor issues and turnover associated with a lack of training.

3. What does a gap in training and development do to succession planning and the organization's bench strength.

Although there are no easy answers in tough economic times, cutting training dollars is not the best answer.