Operational Leadership and Workforce Development

Getting Value from your People Development Programs

The annual spend on training and education in business is estimated at $160 billion in the US, and $356 billion around the world annually.

Training programs are ‘sacred’ in the eyes of many. They are consistently regarded as a core element in supporting cultural change initiatives, improving leadership capabilities, and maintaining strong safety performance.

However, studies indicate the results of most training programs are underwhelming. In fact, three quarters of the 1,500 senior managers interviewed by the Corporate Executive Board Company (CEB) in 2011 were dissatisfied with their people development programs. Other studies found that major training initiatives left companies with the same core leadership challenges, stagnant safety performance, and an unchanged workplace culture.

Surprisingly, most managers in the same companies believe the content in their training programs is ‘good stuff ’, yet the training fails to achieve its objectives across the board.

The evidence points to a disconnect with training and development. One camp of people believes training is essential, while another insists training programs are not achieving their objectives. How is that possible? An easy explanation we hear from Utilities is that the employees attending the training didn’t apply themselves and they didn’t “get it”. But, the same employees say the training was underwhelming – and the cycle continues.

We suggest the root cause of the dichotomy in the Utility Sector is typically found in one or more of the following misconceptions about training and people development.

Knowledge Training versus Skills Development

I like to learn new things and recently tried surfing for the first time. When I took my first lesson, my group was given a little theory on the beach before getting into the water to try catching small waves. The experience was a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed ourselves, even though we spent a lot of time falling off the surf board.

If that same training program had been run following a typical corporate model we see executed in many Utilities, we would have sat in a conference room going through dozens of PowerPoint slides covering the theory of surfing, the physics behind gravity, waves, and the centre of mass. There would have been tests after each module to prove that we had retained the theory and upon completion of the course, we would have been signed off as ‘trained’ in surfing – all without getting wet.

Of course, that sounds crazy. Clearly surfing is a skill that must be developed and not a piece of information to be conveyed once. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens in many Utilities.

Whether training is targeting maintenance trades, operating practices, leadership skills or safety, there is almost always a component of skill in the execution that’s required and not just knowledge.

We recently worked with an energy company that wanted to train its first responders in their regional offices. These are the employees who would respond to a hazardous goods spill from a vehicle incident. The energy company prepared a PowerPoint deck, emailed it to each office and ran select employees through it. One employee told us they felt ill-equipped to deal with a real emergency at the end of the process. They explained although they had been ‘trained’ by the company, they did not see a hazardous goods vehicle in person and therefore, did not feel confident in their ability to respond to one in an emergency situation. They only saw photos of the vehicles in the PowerPoint deck. The perspective at the management level was quite different. They saw a ‘tick’ in the incident response training box and considered it completed.

On the other end of the spectrum, we see companies try to make their training more realistic, which is great. The use of simulators for driver training, and role playing in leadership training are good examples. While these strategies make sense and can close the gap in training effectiveness, it is important to note there is more to effective training than simply being in a realistic setting.

If I think back to my surfing lessons, the thing that accelerated my development was the fact that somebody who knew what to look for (the instructor) watched me fall and gave me very specific feedback about what I was doing wrong, and what I should try to adjust. That form of purposeful feedback is called coaching. The evidence is overwhelming that coaching, when done in conjunction with knowledge training, accelerates and anchors skills development. In the corporate environment, the use of simulators, realistic settings, and role playing provides the opportunity for feedback and coaching. However, we also know that coaching can be used in every form of skills development in business, whether or not simulators exist.

While enlightened companies are doing more coaching, and appreciate th