Why Corporate Training Fails – Part 1
For the next few posts, we’re going to be examining many of the major reasons behind the failures of many corporate training initiatives.
Training Challenge Number One: “The failure to tie training to corporate objectives.”
Too many investments in training are made which are unrelated to company objectives. It should come as no surprise, then, that management too often regards training costs as superfluous and unnecessary.
How different management attitudes would be if training was tied to corporate objectives and training expenditures could be linked to company growth and profitability.
A CEO in a recent Business Week article said it all, “An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
So how can you assure that your training efforts will help your company achieve that competitive advantage?
In order to successfully connect training initiatives to corporate objectives, you should:
a) Study the company’s business plan
b) Meet with some of the individuals who created the business objectives
c) Build a sound business case for how your proposed training initiative will positively contribute to company results.
Connecting learning to the business strategy will, in almost all cases, be a successful and wise investment. That’s because your training can be targeted, allowing only those training activities that add measurable value to company goals, while increasing the competitive position of your business. Such focused training will be both more effective and more efficient.
In the days to come, we will be discussing other key factors necessary for effective training. And, as always, please keep in mind that today’s learning environment is tied directly to multi-sensory instruction and to the promise of e-learning – but only when knowledgeable instructional design is paramount. The powerful tools for pay-back learning have never been so strong. Harness them wisely.
– Bill Walton, Founder of ITC Learning