Post a cohesive response based on your analysis of the Learning Resources and your professional experience. Be sure to discuss the following: “See attachment for detailed instructions
Improving Performance in Workplace
Relating Training to Business Performance:
The Case for a Business Evaluation Strategy – William J. Tarnacki II
For many years organizations have been professing that the key to a truly sustainable competitive advantage is an engaged and talented workforce. “Managers are fond of the maxim `Employees are our most important asset.’ Yet beneath the rhetoric, too many executives still regard—and manage—employees as costs. That’s dangerous because, for many companies, people are the only source of long-term competitive advantage” (Bassi & McMurrer, 2007, p. 115). This professed realization has pushed organizations to establish training programs (and even corporate universities) that provide opportunities for employees to develop skills and competencies related to their existing (or sometimes future) roles in the organization.
These training programs have evolved tremendously over time, becoming much more sophisticated and oriented toward creating a well-rounded workforce. Unfortunately, these training and development (T+D) efforts have not kept pace with the changing demands of business. In fact, T+D departments have evolved to be separate entities from the operations of the business, basically managing a repository of training options versus partnering with business and operational leaders to customize solutions based on evolving business needs. Recent attempts to broaden T+D efforts to encompass performance improvement (PI) are a much needed, long overdue, uphill climb. Unfortunately again, today’s business leaders are looking to their human resources (HR), PI, and T+D colleagues to operate at a much higher level and to develop a new language around the expectations and the demands of the business.
If our field of practice is changing (albeit slowly), it stands to reason that the traditional evaluation methods (see Table 4.1) we use to measure transfer from our training programs (skills and knowledge) are also too narrow to measure business results. These evaluation methods are being taught and even trained in the context of another narrow model—the ADDIE instructional design model (analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate). Evaluation strategies and tools, based on T+D and ADDIE, limit our ability to understand the overall business model and associated metrics in order to offer robust, impactful, meaningful evaluation results that help manage the business.
To prepare for this Discussion, pay particular attention to the following Learning Resources:
· Review this week’s Learning Resources, especially:
· Types of Evaluations –
See pdf
· Read Week 2 Lecture –
See Word doc
.
· Read Chapter 3 & 4 – See Word doc
Assignment:
This week you have learned about the importance of workplace training. This week’s learning has introduced you to both the benefits and downfalls of a training session. With your current workplace in mind:
· Analyze the current training setting.
· Your response should include what works and what does not in the current setting.
· In addition, expand on the suggestions you might offer to create the perfect training setting that would help to improve the workplace.
· Explain the challenges that you might face in implementing this training into the workplace.
· 3 – 4 paragraphs
· No plagiarism
· APA citing
Evaluating Results and Benefits – Week #2 Lecture 1
Performance, Training, and Success
Welcome to Week 2. I hope you have found your way around the classroom and are ready to continue. This week our focus will be on the power of training within the workplace.
Last week we discussed the meaning behind research, measurement, and evaluation. You learned that measurement and evaluation are key players in the success of an organization. Training is also a critical player in the success of an organization. Without training, one might find the organization failing to grow or productivity lacking.
Training provides an opportunity for a company to expand. This expansion might focus on one department or many. The expansion might also focus on specific employees. Regardless of where the expansion occurs, the main concept revolves around the people within the organization. By implementing a training program, an organization can focus on the areas that need growth. Despite the need for training, some organizations resist as they feel the costs of implementing a training session outweigh the benefits. These organizations couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, though training can be costly, if run and implemented properly, the training will lead to cost savings in the long run. You might be wondering how this can be and the reason is this: when looking at those employed within the workplace, one will find that many, if not most, employees have some sort of weakness in their skill set. By implementing a training program, you will be able to focus on the weaknesses to (1) determine why there is a weakness and (2) turn that weakness into a strength. In addition, leadership skills may be developed by those who have stronger skill sets and can assist and motivate those that may be struggling.
Training also promotes morale within the workplace. Over time, an employee who receives training and then implements their learning will become more productive. The reason for this is that the employee will feel empowered and may aim for higher standards within the workplace. In addition, a trained employee tends to have more confidence than one who lacks an understanding of the workplace concepts. Continuous workplace training will help to keep an organization on the cutting edge of industry developments which can eventually lead to the company holding the position of an industry leader overall.
So, what happens when your employees decide that training isn’t worth their time? Surely some of you can relate to feeling as if the training provided is not helpful or not taught in a manner that makes learning easy. This, unfortunately, is very common. Sadly, many organizations do not properly implement their training program. They spend a lot of money up front and consider it done. Management fails to follow up to see if the training is working and all the money spent to help the organization is left wasted. This, however, does not have to be the case. In fact, if a training program is run properly, you will find that you have money in the budget for the training and the follow up.
When choosing a training program for the organization, there are many items to consider. What training is needed? With the training, what materials are required? How will this affect the day of the employees when they are away at training? Who will implement the training upon completion? Who will know if the training is working? These are just a few of the questions that need to be considered when adding a training program to the workplace.
Consider the methods that work for you when it comes to learning. Most of you will likely agree when I state that hands-on training is effective training because people learn by performing. Adding a hands-on option to your training program will engage your employees and will help them to see the importance behind the learning.
Once the training has been completed, it is important that someone be put in charge to lead the implementation. This is something that cannot be overlooked. If you do, you might as well forget the training occurred because very few people will change their daily work habits. So, choose your leader wisely as this will be the person who proves success from the training.
Finally, be sure to follow up to ensure that the training is working. Just because the training was learned and implemented does not mean that it will be an automatic success. Obtain feedback on a regular basis to see what tweaks might need to be made and make them! Let your employees share their thoughts on what works and what doesn’t. By doing this, you will be able to make the necessary adjustments to ensure that the learning is successfully being applied and that the workplace is productive and successful.
As you can see, along with training, research, evaluation, and measurement continue to play a role. This will be common, or at least it should be if you are doing your job as a manager properly. Taking the time to learn from your employees will allow you the opportunity to continue to build success for the organization overall. Please remember that your work is due by 11:59pm on Tuesday. I look forward to your effort this week!
Resources:
Mosele, J. & Dessinger, J. (2009). Handbook of Improving Performance in the Workplace. (Volume 3). Pfeiffer-Wiley
CHAPTER THREE
Unleashing the Positive Power of Measurement in the Workplace
Dean R. Spitzer
Effective management is based on a foundation of effective measurement, and almost everything else is based on that. Organizations are conglomerations of many systems. Measurement is actually the most fundamental system of all. The measurement system—for good or ill—triggers virtually everything that happens in an organization, both strategic and tactical. This is because all the other organizational systems are ultimately based on what the measurement system is telling the other systems to do. No organization can be any better than its measurement system. If the measurement system works well, management will tend to manage the right things—and the desired results will occur.
THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASUREMENT
So why is measurement so important? Here are some of the most compelling reasons:
It cuts through the B.S. and gets right to the point. People can (and often do) advance their points of view with incredible vagueness until they are challenged “to measure it.” Suddenly, clarity emerges.
It makes performance visible. Even if you can’t see performance directly, you can see it indirectly using measurement. This is the concept of “operational definitions” that is such a critical part of effective measuring.
It tells you what you need to manage in order to get the results you want. Using “measurement maps,” you will be able to identify, understand, and discuss the high-leverage relationships that drive results, and apply them to your benefit—and to the benefit of your organization.
Measurement makes accountability possible. It’s difficult to hold yourself—or anyone else—accountable for something that is not being measured because there’s no way to determine that whatever it is that you’re supposed to do has actually been accomplished. Measurement tells you whether you (and your employees) are doing the right things at the right times—the essence of accountability.
Measurement lets people know if they are off-track so that they can do something to correct their performance. Without measurement, feedback is often too vague and too late—and feedback that is too vague and too late is useless.
Measurement tells employees what is important. If you don’t measure it, people won’t pay attention to it. As one colleague said: “Measure it, or forget it.”
Measurement makes things happen; it is the antidote to inertia. We have all experienced, for example, how milestones in a project plan get people moving energetically toward a goal, while open-ended timeframes inevitably lead to complacency and low energy. Give people measurable goals—and help them measure their progress—and they will make progress.
Measurement results in consequences (rewards and punishment) that further reinforce the inherent power of measurement. Any effective system of rewards and recognition, and any system of performance appraisal, must be based on a solid foundation of measurement.
Above all, measurement helps you to understand what is really happening in your organization and to take action based on that understanding. Measurement enables you to make comparisons, study trends, and identify important correlations and causal relationships that will help establish a roadmap for success. And this is just a sampling of what performance measurement—when well used—can contribute to organizational effectiveness.
The good news is that organizations are finally discovering the importance of measurement. The bad news is that most organizations are still using it very poorly.
THE DYSFUNCTIONS OF MEASUREMENT
Unfortunately, when used poorly, not only does performance measurement not live up to its positive promise, but it can be a very negative force in organizations. In The Agenda, Michael Hammer (2001, p. 105) puts the problem this way: “A company’s measurement systems typically deliver a blizzard of nearly meaningless data that quantifies practically everything in sight, no matter how unimportant; that is devoid of any particular rhyme or reason; that is so voluminous as to be unusable; that is delivered so late as to be virtually useless; and that then languishes in printouts and briefing books, without being put to any significant purpose. . . . In short, measurement is a mess.”
What is commonly referred to as “measurement dysfunction” occurs when the measurement process itself contributes to behavior contrary to what is in the best interests of the organization as a whole. When measurement dysfunctions occur, specific numbers might improve, but the performance that is really important will worsen. While some of the most egregious examples of measurement dysfunction in the history of business were at companies like Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco, its more mundane manifestations are being played out virtually every day in almost every organization around the globe.
Most organizations are full of examples of negative, self-serving measurement: measurement used for self-aggrandizement, self-promotion, and self-protection; measurement used to justify pet projects or to maintain the status quo; and measurement used to prove, rather than improve. Although the more routine cases of dysfunctional measurement might not appear to be very serious individually, the collective consequences of small doses of measurement dysfunction can be profound.
Probably the biggest problem with measurement is not the flaws in the system, but with the consequences, both positive and negative, that so often follow flawed measurement. There are two major types of measures, based on how they are used: informational measurement, measurement that is used for informational purposes, and motivational measurement, measurement that is used for rewards and punishment.
Most of the functionality of measurement, as described in the previous section, is related to the enormous value of measurement as a source of information—information for organizational members to use to improve management and the work that is done. However, when measures are tightly linked with rewards or the threat of punishment, the informational value of the measurement becomes subordinated to its use for inducing people to exert more effort. This is where the major problems begin.
Most organizations have very strong contingencies that tell employees, either explicitly or implicitly, “If you do this (behavior) or achieve this (result), you will get this (reward, punishment).” Because, in most organizations, behavior and results can’t be directly observed, these performance expectations are operationalized by how they are measured. The performance measures become the way to achieve rewards and to avoid punishment. No matter how many other things might be measured, what is rewarded or punished becomes the focal point.
Striving for rewards is one of the most important aspects of life and work. But when rewards are at the end of the line, measurement becomes a means to that end. Furthermore, the greater the rewards that are offered, the less focus there is on the information that measurement can provide. When the focus is on the carrot, it’s difficult to see anything else! And human beings are very adept at doing whatever it takes to get a reward. Because measurement is so powerful, especially when coupled with contingent rewards, measurement dysfunctions are quite prevalent and widespread. Furthermore, when people are being rewarded by the existing measurement system, they will resist any changes that will reduce their rewards.
While linking rewards and measurement does not automatically lead to dysfunction, it very significantly increases the probability of it happening.
HOW PEOPLE EXPERIENCE MEASUREMENT
People tend to refer to those things they perceive as negative and threatening as the enemy. When I ask participants in my workshops about their personal measurement experiences, the negative ones far outnumber—and, more importantly, outweigh—the positive ones. Even more distressing is that, even when I probe deeply, most people can’t even think of any positive experiences!
Almost everybody has, at one time or another, experienced negative measurement used to expose negative things—errors, defects, accidents, cost overruns, out of stock items, exceptions of all kinds—and to trigger negative emotions—like fear, threat, fault-finding, blame, and punishment. They also know how dangerous measurement can be in the hands of those who don’t use it well or benevolently. Although negative measurement can get results, it is mostly short-term compliance, and it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths.
For most employees, measurement is viewed, at best, as a “necessary evil.” At worst, it is seen as a menacing force that is greeted with about the same enthusiasm as a root canal! When most people think of performance measurement at work, they tend to think of being watched, being timed, and being appraised. This is why Eliyahu Goldratt (1990, p. 144) says that “the issue of measurement is probably the most sensitive issue in an organization.”
The environment of measurement tends to have a major influence on how measurement is perceived by employees and, therefore, how they respond emotionally to it. Since measurement is such an emotionally laden subject, the environment in which it is being conducted is particularly important. Even if people aren’t directly involved in measurement, almost everyone feels strongly about it. And yet, very few people talk about it—which, as we will see, is one of the primary problems with the way performance measurement is implemented in most organizations.
Measurement is powerful, and—for better or for worse—what is measured tends to be managed. Most employees also seem to intuitively understand that measurement provides data upon which many important decisions are made—most prominently personnel decisions. Although seldom explicitly acknowledged as such, measurement is important to people because they know that their success, their rewards, their budgets, their punishments, and a host of other things ultimately are, directly or indirectly, based on it.
Many of these negative attitudes about measurement at work are due to its association (and confusion) with evaluation. Few people, including corporate executives, know the difference between measurement and evaluation—and there is a very significant difference! The word “evaluation” is really composed of three component parts: “e,” “value,” and “ation.” The central element of the concept of evaluation is value. When you evaluate, you place a value on whatever you are evaluating. Most people don’t mind measuring, or even being measured; they just don’t like being measured upon. And that’s what most evaluation is—having a value placed by an external agent on us and our performance. The outcome of an evaluation is a judgment. Evaluation is essentially about making value judgments. People don’t like being judged—especially when they are suspicious about the fairness of the evaluation process and the motives of those who are doing the judging. As long as measurement is closely associated with judgment, there will be fear. And as long as there is fear, measurement will be viewed as a negative force—rather than a positive one. And, as long as the “measurement experience” is negative, there is little hope that performance measurement will realize its potential as a powerful and transformational force in organizations.
In my book Transforming Performance Measurement (Spitzer, 2007), I talk about four keys to transforming performance measurement and making it a more positive force in organizations. These four keys are summarized in Table 3.1.
In the rest of this chapter, I will discuss those four keys.
CONTEXT
The first key to transforming performance measurement is context. Much of what we have already discussed relates to what I call the “context of measurement.” Context is everything that surrounds a task, including the social and psychological climate in which it is embedded. This includes such factors as the perceived value of measurement, communication around measurement, education around measurement, measurement leadership, and the history of how measurement has been used in the organization. To a large extent, the context of measurement tends to reflect how measurement is perceived by employees and, therefore, how they respond emotionally to it. Interestingly, even if it is accomplished with great technical skill, it can still carry a negative implication. How people respond to measurement is largely a function of how it is used—that is, what is done with the data that are collected makes a huge difference in how measurement is perceived. For example, as we have seen, it is experienced much differently if it is used to inspect, control, report, or manipulate—compared with when it is used to provide feedback, to learn, and to improve.
Table 3.1 Keys to Transforming Performance Measurement
Four Keys Definition Importance
Context Context is everything that surrounds a task, including the social and psychological climate in which it is embedded. The context of measurement tends to reflect how measurement is perceived by employees and therefore how well it will be used.
Focus Focus is what gets measured in an organization, the measures themselves. Selecting the right measures can create leverage and focus the organization on what is most important.
Integration Integration is how the measures are related to each other, the relationships among the measures. Measurement frameworks make sure that measures relate to each other and are not just isolated metrics.
Interactivity Interactivity is the social interaction process around measurement data. Interactivity is the key to transforming measurement data and information into knowledge and wisdom.
The importance of the context of measurement in an organization cannot be over-stated. It can make the difference between people being energized by measurement or people just minimally complying with it, and even using measurement for their own personal benefit (that is, gaming or cheating). No matter how sophisticated the technical aspects of your performance measurement system, how managers and employees experience it on a day-to-day basis will be due more to the “context of measurement” than anything else.
So what can be done to improve the context of measurement? Here are a few important points: Be aware of the sensitivity of measurement. Be vigilant for dysfunctions. Use it for learning and improvement, so that employees can see the positive side. Avoid using measurement for judgment and, above all, don’t confuse measurement with evaluation. Discuss measurement openly and honestly. Educate employees about measurement and help them use it well. Make measurement less tightly connected with judgment and rewards. And make sure that evaluations are much more data-based.
FOCUS
The second key to transformational performance measurement is focus. The right measures will provide laser focus and clarity to management, while the wrong measures, or too many measures, will likely cause lack of focus.
What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed gets done. Selecting the right measures can create enormous leverage for any organization. And, of course, the things that are measured command management attention. Because of the validity of “You get what you measure,” it is vital to select the right measures. If the right things are measured, the right things will happen. Unfortunately, most organizations’ measurement systems lack focus, and most of what organizations measure is routine—the hundreds or thousands of measures that permeate every nook and cranny of organizations. This dilutes performance measurement—like trying to boil the ocean! When everything is important, then nothing is really important. This focus on the wrong things, or the lack of focus, tends to do little more than perpetuate the status quo. However, in today’s competitive marketplace, organizations need to have very clear focus. Not only do companies need to do the routine things well, better and better, they must also find new measures that are high-leverage so that they can achieve competitive advantage. This can be done by focusing on a critical few transformational measures—measures that will make a real difference to competitive advantage and that will differentiate the organization from the others with which they compete—measures that will make a real difference to the organization’s competitive advantage.
While most organizations realize that measurement is essential for managing, they don’t realize how important the selection of their measures is. Unfortunately, organizations and organizational entities fritter away much of the power of measurement by not differentiating between the critical few measures that will have the greatest impact from the hundreds, or thousands, of other measures—the trivial many—that permeate every area of their organizations. Knowing what to focus on is crucial to success. Organizations must measure the right things, even if it means coming up with new measures.
Probably the most frequent question I am asked by clients and prospective clients is: “What should we be measuring?” This question drives me crazy, because too many executives and other managers think it is sufficient just to track generic or standard “metrics.” These are what I call “routine measures,” and they are satisfactory for maintaining the status quo, but not for taking the organization to the next level. Many organizations are paralyzed by billions of bits and bytes of fragmented raw data that clog their information systems—like the supermarket chain that was collecting 340 million different data points per week, but using only 2 percent of it!
An organization’s routine measures are not differentiators. How can any organization differentiate itself from the competition while measuring exactly the same things as the competition? It is also important to realize that when we choose to measure a particular object of interest or dimension of performance, we are—at least by default—choosing to ignore other things. Just look at your own organization’s measurement system and you will probably find a vast array of measures that keep your business running—but few, if any, that will help get your organization to the next level.
Focused measurement is not just about “getting things done; it’s about being effective, and getting the right things done. In order to thrive—not just survive—and move to a higher level of performance, organizations need to focus their measurement on one, or a critical few, measures that matter most. The key to what I call “transformational measures” is finding the most crucial few measures that provide the organization with the greatest insight into competitive advantage.
Two great examples of transformational measures are (1) the “turnaround time” measure used at Southwest Airlines, which enabled people (from pilots, to flight attendants, to maintenance workers, to refuelers, to cleaning crews, and everyone else) to see something that was formerly invisible, the time from arrival at the gate to departure from the gate, so that it could be managed to create value and achieve competitive advantage and (2) the “cash conversion cycle time” at Dell Computer, the time from the outlay of cash for parts to the receipt of payment for completed computers, which was able to help the company conquer its cash flow problems and also provide the mechanism to make its innovative business model work in practice, not just in theory. Everybody knows that if aircraft turnaround time increases, Southwest will lose the key to its competitive advantage—and everybody knows what they have to do to keep that number low.
Most transformational measures start off as what I call “emergent measures”—measures that emerge through increased understanding of the major drivers of business success. They rarely come from a textbook, off a menu, or are provided by a vendor. Many of the emergent measures will be measures of difficult-to-measure intangibles, because transforming organizations are realizing that many of their key value drivers are intangible. But don’t let anyone tell you that something isn’t measurable. Everything is measurable in some way that is superior to not measuring it at all.
The next great challenge in organizations is to measure and manage intangible assets. While most of the tangible components of businesses are already being accounted for (albeit in rather traditional ways and with rather predictable effects), in today’s world, the most important drivers of value in today’s organizations are mostly intangible. As Herb Kelleher (1998, p. 223), former CEO of Southwest Airlines, put it: “It’s the intangibles that are the hardest things for competitors to imitate. You can get an airplane. You can get ticket-counter space, you can get baggage conveyors. But it is our esprit de corps—the culture, the spirit—that is truly our most valuable competitive asset.” That’s the problem: Most of what is valuable is intangible, but most of what is measured is tangible!
According to James Brian Quinn (2002, p. 342), “With rare exceptions, the economic and producing power of a modern corporation lies more in its intellectual and service capabilities than in its hard assets.” And Michael Malone (2000) insists that the biggest financial question of our time is how to value the intangible assets that account for as much as 90 percent of the market value of today’s companies. Did you ever think that one of those unmeasured and unmanaged assets might be the key to your organization’s next competitive advantage?
True transformational change will not happen until organizations begin to think much more creatively about the value of the assets, how to connect them with strategy, and how to link them to competitive advantage. One of the reasons it is so important to begin to think differently about intangibles such as intellectual capital is that the way you measure them will determine how you treat them. For example, your organization probably has already begun to manage people differently, because it is at least beginning to view them as assets worthy of investment rather than just as costs to be expensed.
The key to transformational measures is to change perspective. In many organizational areas, dramatic shifts in vision have taken place because of relatively minor changes in perspective, such as from “product-line profit” to “customer profit,” or from “on-time delivery” to “perfect orders.” In addition, few realize that one of the key success factors for supply chain management is the ability to measure trust throughout the system, and a key measure is “supply chain trust.” Transformational measures measure many of the same things, but from a different perspective.
The biggest problem of performance measurement is that the world is different, but the measurement of performance is pretty much the same. If you were to compare the workplace of today with the workplace of fifty years ago, the difference is dramatic. But if you were to compare how most performance is measured, it looks like a throwback to yesteryear. Just think how little progress has been made in performance appraisal! And those who “mind the gates” are not particularly encouraging of those who want to change the measures—much less the “metric system”—because, after all, these gatekeepers have benefited enormously, and continue to benefit, from the legacy systems.
That is why most organizational measurement systems are dominated by antiquated, obsolete, and outdated measures. Many existing measures seriously constrain performance and prevent breakthrough performance improvements (especially in services and knowledge work), but most workplace environments still discourage trying anything new. Take for example the following typical scenario: A company sends out a team with instructions to “improve” a specific project. More often than not, the team comes back with a set of incremental improvement recommendations that only end up further entrenching the status quo, while declaring victory because the project came in on time and under budget! Trying to innovate without the freedom, and the mandate, to explore unconventional approaches and to take risks ultimately leads to more of the same old measures and, of course, the same old managing.
To improve the focus of measurement in your organization, make sure that you don’t measure too much. Focus on what is most important. Don’t just measure the financial things, the lagging indicators, and what is easiest to measure. Don’t just measure what has always been measured. Focus on at least some of the things that are most important to drive future success. Adopt some innovative, emergent measures to measure those things that are difficult to measure—but vitally important to organizational success.
Selecting the right measures can create enormous performance improvement leverage. But, even great isolated measures aren’t enough.
INTEGRATION
The third key to transformational performance measurement is integration. Integration can be defined as “the state of combination, or the process of combining into completeness and harmony; the combining and coordinating of separate parts or elements into a unified whole.” Integration is the effort that must take place in order to achieve alignment of the parts. Integration is about getting things into alignment and then keeping them aligned. Much of what passes for management today, by necessity, involves trying to get the isolated pieces of work done—turning the dis-integration of our organizations into something that is reasonably integrated. But it is an uphill struggle. Because measurement is so crucial to management, measurement must be used in an integrative way.
As powerful as individual measures are—even transformational ones—they can be poorly used if they are not integrated into a larger “measurement framework” that shows how each measure is related to other important measures and how the constructs (which the measures represent) combine to create value for the organization.
Focusing on isolated measures has tended to build functional “silos” that focus on their own self-serving measures and disregard the measures of other functions. Most companies are composed of pieces vying for scarce resources—operating more like competitors than cooperators—acting individually, without regard to systemic interdependencies. Managers at one financial services company were tracking 142 different departmental performance measures that were totally uncoordinated. No two managers could agree on which measures were most strategically important. People were simply following the traditional, if flawed, logic, which was: “If every function meets its goals . . . if every function hits its budget . . . if every project is completed on time and on budget . . . then the organization will win.” However, it should be clear that such thinking no longer works, if it ever did. Organizations should be focused on the performance of the whole, not on the independent performance of the parts.
In order to make strategy more readily executable through the use of performance measurement, Robert Kaplan and David Norton (1996) developed the concept of a “balanced scorecard,” an organizational scorecard that would facilitate the integration of functional scorecards and enable better organization-wide strategy execution. The balanced scorecard is not just a four-quadrant template for categorizing existing measures—although that might be beneficial if the right measures are already in place. But a balanced scorecard will not make the wrong measures right.
A key to the integration of measurement is developing measurement frameworks, which visually depict the interdependencies between measures. In any interdependent system, you can’t change one measure without affecting the others. With an overall framework that shows the relationships among measures, it is easier to make the proper tradeoff decisions, so more optimal decisions can be made.
Another key point is that the cause-and-effect logic between measures (especially between drivers and outcomes) must be understood. The payoff of doing this well is that organizations will be much better able to predict with greater confidence what should be done to create optimal value for the organization and its stakeholders—and that’s what outstanding management is all about!
So what can be done to increase the integration of measurement? The key as far as integration is concerned is that measures must be aligned with strategy, and then must be integrated across the entire organization (even the extended enterprise). In addition, measurement frameworks will spotlight the potential of “cross-functional measures”—measures that can help to integrate functions and lead to higher levels of collaboration. Develop measurement frameworks to help you “see” the actual and hypothesized cause-and-effect relationships among measures, such as a strategy map. Make sure that everyone has a scorecard (a set of measures for their individual work), a clear line-of-sight between his or her
CHAPTER FOUR
Relating Training to Business Performance: The Case for a Business Evaluation Strategy
William J. Tarnacki II
Eileen R. Banchoff
For many years organizations have been professing that the key to a truly sustainable competitive advantage is an engaged and talented workforce. “Managers are fond of the maxim `Employees are our most important asset.’ Yet beneath the rhetoric, too many executives still regard—and manage—employees as costs. That’s dangerous because, for many companies, people are the only source of long-term competitive advantage” (Bassi & McMurrer, 2007, p. 115). This professed realization has pushed organizations to establish training programs (and even corporate universities) that provide opportunities for employees to develop skills and competencies related to their existing (or sometimes future) roles in the organization.
These training programs have evolved tremendously over time, becoming much more sophisticated and oriented toward creating a well-rounded workforce. Unfortunately, these training and development (T+D) efforts have not kept pace with the changing demands of business. In fact, T+D departments have evolved to be separate entities from the operations of the business, basically managing a repository of training options versus partnering with business and operational leaders to customize solutions based on evolving business needs. Recent attempts to broaden T+D efforts to encompass performance improvement (PI) are a much needed, long overdue, uphill climb. Unfortunately again, today’s business leaders are looking to their human resources (HR), PI, and T+D colleagues to operate at a much higher level and to develop a new language around the expectations and the demands of the business.
If our field of practice is changing (albeit slowly), it stands to reason that the traditional evaluation methods (see Table 4.1) we use to measure transfer from our training programs (skills and knowledge) are also too narrow to measure business results. These evaluation methods are being taught and even trained in the context of another narrow model—the ADDIE instructional design model (analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate). Evaluation strategies and tools, based on T+D and ADDIE, limit our ability to understand the overall business model and associated metrics in order to offer robust, impactful, meaningful evaluation results that help manage the business.
Table 4.1 Traditional Evaluation Types
Types of Evaluation Which Evaluates . . .
Formative appropriateness of all components of an instructional solution through each stage of the instructional systems design (ISD) process
Summative learning and reaction from an instructional solution during final development and implementation, including all stakeholders, media, environment, and organization as components of that instructional solution
Confirmative effectiveness of an instructional solution after implementation through analysis of changes in behavior, achievement, and results
Meta evaluation methods applied to the ISD process
Level 1 participant reaction to an instructional intervention
Level 2 participant learning as a result of the instruction
Level 3 changes in participant behavior on the job due to the instruction
Level 4 results to the business as a result of the instruction
Level 5/ROI financial value of the instruction, in terms of positive cash flow from the investment minus the cost of the program implementation
To help build the case for a more business-focused evaluation strategy, this chapter will trace the real-life professional journey of Joseph Williams (fictional name) as he matures from a young, academically prepared ADDIE advocate to a sophisticated human resources strategist and business partner. Mapping Joseph’s experiential journey demonstrates how his perspectives changed to align his training results with business results without completely revamping the long-trusted tools and methods he learned in graduate school.
STUDY OF PERSEPCTIVES
The Academic Perspective
It was May 1997 and Joseph Williams had just graduated with a master’s degree in instructional technology from a very reputable urban university. Basking in the glory of his new degree, Joseph was excited about applying all the wonderful concepts and practices he had just spent two plus years learning. He left the graduation ceremonies eager to employ ADDIE and its corresponding evaluation techniques to become the hero he knew some organizations were desperately waiting for.
While completing his coursework in the evenings, Joseph spent his days as a foreman and quality specialist on the shop floor of a small manufacturing organization. In this academic preparation period, he worked diligently to incorporate several new skills and techniques into his day-to-day manufacturing activities. But he soon ran into the brick wall of lack of interest and engagement and found that this organization was just too small and had too few resources to “hear his voice.” In order to begin applying his new wealth of knowledge and expertise, he decided he had to move on to a bigger and more strategic enterprise.
The Novice Perspective
Soon after graduation (in 1997), Joseph jumped at an opportunity to work in the training and development department of a large automotive company’s finance division. From his first day in the new white-collar environment, Joseph was sure he could make a difference by analyzing, designing, and delivering training programs that would have an immediate, positive impact on this global finance business.
Alas, it did not take long for Joseph to realize that the full application of the instructional design model was not part of the expectations of his new job. Instead, management directed him to use his ISD background to oversee projects that addressed needs they had identified during an analysis performed five years earlier! He also soon discovered that his deliverables were predetermined (seminar courses in a standard format) and that the implementers (the project trainers) would have minimal involvement in the design, development, and evaluation processes. Joseph held the title of “Instructional Designer,” but he soon acquiesced to being just a project manager.
The “siloed” nature of the firm’s T+D structure was perplexing to Joseph, but there were several other issues that also seemed even more counter-intuitive to this fledging ISDer.
First, Joseph could not understand why design and development activities were focused on “old” information, especially when the organization was in the process of a major restructuring. For some time now, many department customers were indicating that much of the proposed content was out-of-date due to recent technological and organizational improvements.
Second, he did not know why T+D operated as its own function, was not integrated with the operational areas of the business, and was only minimally assimilated with the broader human resources function.
Third, Joseph struggled with the reality that there were stand-alone needs analysis, design, development, and delivery functions, but evaluation was not its own entity. And worse yet, evaluation was not conducted with any depth besides basic Levels 1 and 2 or summative evaluation (even formative evaluation was minimally applied).
Table 4.2 illustrates Joseph’s foundational perspectives—how different types of evaluation were taught and aligned during Joseph’s (and most professionals’) graduate preparation.
Table 4.2 Application of Traditional Evaluation Types
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