(This post has been moved to https://staging.management.org/trng_dev/evaluate/evaluate.htm#roi.)
Calculating ROI
Ten reasons why meetings fail
Meetings can take up a large portion of anyone’s working day and for many of us, demands on time in the office are already high. So in an ideal world every meeting should count, with specific objectives and results making the time invested worthwhile.
All too often though, meetings – even during and afterwards – are perceived as a waste of time by those invited. This can usually be attributed to a lack of understanding about what the meeting was for. To avoid the sense that it was all worthless, here is a list of ten reasons why meetings can fail for you to use as a checklist when planning your next meeting: Continue reading “Ten reasons why meetings fail”
The Paper Trail
A common misconception with employees and managers is that of the “paper trail.” It is believed that in order to make a termination decision, a manager must create this “paper trail” of documentations until they have enough evidence to satisfy the Human Resource (HR) Department. Unfortunately, this very notion typically brings great frustration to everyone involved including the employee. However, behaviors of both managers and HR professionals can continue to reinforce the thought process that leads to this fallacy. For example, let’s look at the following fictitious dialogue.
Manager – Hey HR person, I need to speak to you about an employee issue. I think it is time to let Bob go.
HR Manager- Okay Manager, what is the issue?
Manager-Well, Bob just can’t seem to meet the department goals.
HR Manager- What type of documentation do you have?
Manager-I’ve talked to him a hundred times and no matter what I try, it doesn’t help. Bob just can’t grasp the concept. He’s bringing down the whole team’s numbers, and now I am getting in trouble.
HR Manager-Ok. What type of documentation do you have?
Manager-I haven’t written up anything yet.
After this dialogue the HR manager thinks, “How many times do I have to tell them ….”
The manager thinks, “HR always gets in the way of me doing my job. They just don’t understand…”
And the cycle continues…
The cycle is able to continue in many organizations because there has been a failure to create a performance culture where there is a constant flow of feedback to employees at every level on performance.
What ideas do you have to create this culture? What has worked in your organizations? I look forward to hearing your thoughts as we continue to explore this topic in future posts.
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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.
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Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 16 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development. She is currently employed as the Human Resource Manager at EmployeeScreenIQ, a global leader in pre-employment background screening.
Welcome to the Team Performance blog?
We’re Tom Vaughton and Dan Collins from team performance experts Fresh Tracks, who run team building events, team development programmes and staff conferences, and we’re the co-hosts of this blog. You can read more about us next to our pictures in the sidebar. This blog will be about various aspects of team performance, team building and team development, and will focus especially on practical tips and tools, including posts from guest writers. You can learn more about this blog by clicking on the About link just under the header.
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Welcome!
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For more resources, see our Library topic Team Building.
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Evaluation: Running Training Like a Business
Evaluation – not everyone’s favorite topic but it is a necessary “evil” especially if we as trainers are running our programs like a business. What do I mean by this? Well with this lovely economic environment we are currently in, we all know that soft-skills training departments are the first to make cuts or lay offs (IT trainers not so much, they have the “techies” and updates to help)…I regress… Managers and CEO’s as we all know look at the bottom-line and if training departments do not produce results then bye bye training department.
We all know about Kirkpatrick’s 4 levels of evaluation right! Well let’s add one more level RETURN ON INVESTMENT or ROI this part of an evaluation program is often left out, not thought of as important or just not done because training departments don’t know how or it’s time consuming – but for what ever reason training departments often leave this critical piece of evaluation out. We should always do an ROI – then when the big guys come and look at our evaluation of training then we can show them that the rate of return was high enough to justify our program. CEO’s and managers understand ROI and can easily see how effective the program is or isn’t and if the ROI is high enough then it the TD is usually safe. Doing the 5 levels rather than 4 levels shows that we as trainers are accountable for a profit or at least a high rate of return on the companies investment. It shows we care to run our departments like a business. We are setting a good example of being responsible for our programs.
Friday I will give some tips on calculating ROI and show how simple it can be…
Remember comments, concerns and questions are always welcome.
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For more resources about training, see the Training library.
– Looking for an expert in training and development or human performance technology?
– Contact me: Leigh Dudley – Linkedin – 248-349-2881
– Read my blog: Training and Development
Effective training in a classroom setting
We as trainers have a responsibility to both the organizations we are working for and to the clients we are training to be effective and interesting. I realize that the topic for tonight was suppose to be on task analysis and andragogy, but I was in a classroom setting recently and the trainers simply were not effective. There were several reasons for this, so I want to stress the importance of classroom training that will work and that will not.
There are several items that make a classroom setting effective:
- Relevance to the problem or situation at hand
- Gearing your training to the population you are training (even though the 25th quartile holds true – we have to adjust for the 75th quartile also)
- Gearing our training sessions to the adult learner
- Group work
- Activities
- Making sure we are not lecturing for hours on end, but instead letting our clients come up ideas and solutions — if they need guidance, then let’s guide them
- Avoiding lecturing as if the clients are children
- Challenging our clients
- Asking our clients questions and then listening to their answers
- Being enthusiastic and asking the client what they feel the problem(s) and solution(s) might be
- Allowing for short breaks and not saving all the Q&A for the end — instead, mixing it up
What we don’t want to do is pedagogical training; we want our clients to be self-directed and independent thinkers — participation is key to good classroom training. Our training needs to be effective and interesting.
Remember that after we leave, the clients should feel that they have had a hand in the training and were helped by their own participation. We don’t want them falling asleep because the training was boring, irrelevant or tedious. They should walk away with new knowledge, of course (or why train?), but we have to keep it interesting and smart.
Ideas, comments and guest writers are strongly encouraged.
Happy Training!
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For more resources about training, see the Training library.
Andragogy VS Pedagogy in Training
As training professionals we all are aware of the real differences between the two learning styles. But do we really apply our knowledge of the effectiveness of andragogy in our programs? Malcomb Knowles, a predominant authority in the adult learning world, stresses the use of Andragogical style in adult learning programs.
This of course is important to trainers because we are predominately working with adults. It’s important in training to lead and direct a training, but let the group come up with their solutions and their own and keeping the training relevant to the problem we are trying to solve.
How many times as trainers do we put up a Powerpoint slide show, pass out some material and then start a lecture — pedagogical learning to the hilt.
Rather than this type of approach, lets get our folks into groups, present the current problem for that day and see what solutions or ideas they can come up with? This might be a little more time consuming but it’s so much more effective.
The principle difference in Pedagogy V Andragogy is that in Pedagogical style the teacher or instructor assumes full responsibility for what is taught and how it’s learned, and the teacher/instructor evaluates learning. In the Andragogical style: the learner is self-directed, the learner is responsible for his/her own learning and self-evaluation is characteristic of this approach. In the Andragogy style, the learner is the beneficiary, making the learning process much more fun, exciting and challenging. This in turn helps the training stick — and isn’t this why we train in the first place?
I am just pointing to the benefits of andragogy in adult learners. There are several more benefits and differences. For more information and an easy look at the differences between these two styles follow this link. http://www.floridatechnet.org/inservice/abe/abestudent/andravsped.pdf – it’s a nice chart showing the differences.
Comments to this post are welcome.
Next Topic will also be on adult learning and task analysis.
Any thoughts on topics you’d like to see here are welcome also.
Happy Training!
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For more resources about training, see the Training library.
– Looking for an expert in training and development or human performance technology?
– Contact me: Leigh Dudley – Linkedin – 248-349-2881
– Read my blog: Training and Development
21st Century Human Resources
What does Human Resources look like in the 21st century?
Human Resources (HR) is a term used to describe the human capital in organizations as well as describing the department charged with developing programs and strategies to manage that capital. Today’s human resource department has evolved over the past century from the administrative role of early nineteenth century welfare managers and mid-century personnel managers into the role of a strategic business partner. While the leap from administrator to strategic partner may not be evident in all organizations, the current competency models available for the human resources professional and recent research indicate that making this leap is necessary to the success of business.
A review of the competency models provided by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), International Personnel Management Association (IPMA), and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) shows that today’s human resource professional must not only be a technical expert in the HR field, but also must understand business. In addition to this knowledge, HR Professionals are expected to be competent leaders, consultants, and change agents.
In this blog we will discuss current and relevant topics and issues important to those working in or with individuals in a human resources role. Current competency models and traditional human resource roles will serve as a guide. Additionally, current topics in the news and your suggestions will further guide the content of this blog. Feel free to ask questions and answer those posted by others.
Also, your comments are always encouraged!
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For more resources, See the Human Resources library.
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Welcome to the Training and Development blog!
I’m Jack Shaw and I’m the host of this blog. You can read more about me next to my picture in the sidebar. This blog will be about various aspects of training and development, and will focus especially on practical tips and tools, and will include posts from guest writers. You can learn more about this blog by clicking on the About link just under the header.
- Before using the blog, please take a few minutes now to read about the policies. Go to Policies under the header.
- Feel free to share a comment about a post. Just click on the link “Leave a response” under the post in the body of the blog.
- You can use RSS or email to get copied on any new posts in the blog. Go to To Subscribe under the header to select RSS subscription or email subscription to get updates.
- You can also use email to get notified when there are new comments to a post. When you click on “Leave a response” under the post, check the box to be notified of any follow-up comments.
- You can get a lot of visibility to your work by being a guest writer. Many of the Library’s topics consistently rank in the top 10 of Google search results. Go to Guest Writer Submissions under the header.
- See the many Related Library Topics listed on the sidebar. They contain 100s of free online, articles related to the topic of this blog.
- Read the many other useful blogs in the Library. Go to Library’s Blogs in the sidebar.
- Search for any topics you’re interested in. Use the Search box at the top of the header.
- If larger text would be easier for you to read, just click on the 3 “A”s above the header until the text is large enough for you to easily read.
If you have any questions, just use the Contact Us form at the bottom of each page.
Welcome!
—
For more resources about training, see the Training library.