Adult Education English As a First Language: Corporate Training Philosophies

An Introspective Look at Corporate Training Philosophies
Discover how companies are rethinking their employee-training philosophies to meet the challenges of the new millennium.

In 1999, Integral Training Systems, Inc., (ITS) conducted a survey of 60 Fortune 100 executives who are at or above the director level. One of the questions asked of the group was: In looking ahead to the new millennium, what skills will be most important for employees to possess, and how prepared is the American workforce to meet these demands? According to Dr. B. Lynn Ware, president and CEO of Half Moon Bay, California-based ITS, a provider of training-related software, education and consulting, the top four skills selected from among 22 items (including a choice termed, "knowledge of latest technical trends") were: Business-minded and knows how the company makes a profit; Takes responsibility for his/her own skill development; Demonstrates an entrepreneurial spirit (can innovate and come up with ideas to lead the company to success amongst global competition); Knows how to sustain his/her own commitment during changing and/or difficult times.

"Unfortunately, most employees are ill-prepared to exhibit these skills," explains Dr. Ware, "because there are [few] role models to follow, and employees have never formally learned how to handle these tasks [in any other situation]."

To solve the problem, many companies are choosing to develop their staffs from within, rather than trying to find the optimal job candidate from the dwindling labor pool, especially in the rapidly evolving high-technology field. Whether it means sending their employees out to be trained, sitting them down in front of a videoconferencing set-up, or bringing in corporate trainers, companies nationwide are waking up to the fact that preparing for the new millennium and maintaining their "edge," requires that their employees be top-notch in their respective fields.

The Driving Force

According to Training magazine, an industry publication that monitors trends, the five-year trend in budgeted training dollars revealed total spending was up 26 percent since 1993, and budgeted spending on formal training by U.S. organizations with 100 or more employees totaled $60.7 billion in 1998, reflecting a 3.6 percent rise over 1997, and a 26 percent since 1993. The average organization's training budget was seven times more likely to have increased in 1998 than to have been cut (35 percent vs. 5 percent). And firms with more than 500 employees were more likely than the smallest organizations to have cut training budgets.

Overall, U.S. firms have simply been forced into training by an onslaught of economic, technological and demographic changes. The demands of flexible high-tech manufacturing require an agile new breed of skilled workers - those who can write a memo to the company's engineering division as swiftly as they can adjust a computer-controlled welding machine. Corporate downsizing and proliferating computer technology have thinned the ranks of middle management and created a need for retooled executives whose main job is "empowering" subordinates to solve problems. Regrettably, many can't: An estimated 8 percent to 20 percent of the labor force is functionally illiterate. And an aging corps of Baby Boomers, likely to dominate the labor force well into the next century, badly needs to update its knowledge and skills.

So, like millions of children across the country, America's workers are going back to school. But they aren't just headed for stress-management seminars held in climate-controlled corporate classrooms. Today, the education and training of much of the modern labor force is as sophisticated, lively and diverse as the state-of-the-art American workplace.

Technology is perhaps the single most-important factor driving changes in training today's workforce. The best training programs anticipate changes in technology and equip workers to cope with them ahead of the competition.

Consider the training at Xerox's "Document University," a division of the company's Leesburg, Va., training center where print-shop owners and other Xerox customers learn to build their own businesses through total quality management. Or Motorola Inc., where executives actually "go back to business school" while on the job. They meet in teams to study "cases" with a close-to-home twist, such as how to turn a company traditionally focused on high-tech hardware into a more friendly environment for tomorrow's software engineers.

According to Ginny Hronek, principal consultant and trainer for Professional Development Group, Inc., in Pittsford, N.Y., one-third of all employee training during the past year was information-technology-related, an indication of the gradually increasing trend toward keeping employees current on computer applications and systems. "The training requested and provided today by companies focusing on maintaining a competitive advantage centers around building creativity and improving communication skills," says Hronek. "This skill-building can easily be integrated into high-performance team development, or customer sales and service training."

As an example, Hronek says one major corporation implemented a training program that forced its employees to "think out of the box." Several teams within the company evolved from work groups to high-performance teams by committing to ongoing training and development, she explains. "This has been a year-long process requiring assessment and commitment to working on interdependence and high performance," Hronek explains. "For example, within a limited timeframe, participants may be required to develop a product or service for a customer with no restrictions on cost of management approval. From brainstorming and prototype-building, participants experience the value of innovation and liberation from typical restrictions, an experience that encourages risk taking and out-of-the-box thinking that they will then apply to their everyday practices."

The Virtual Answer

In today's highly technical business world, experts agree that the best solution to corporate training requirements may be instructor-led online learning. Such courses are characterized by a class led by a live instructor, combined with videoconferencing technology that allows students in other locations to see, hear and interact with the class from their computers. The ideal solution also includes features that allow students to see and use the software on their computer screens as they are being taught. Companies are increasingly turning to state-of-the-art online learning classrooms to provide cost-effective, real-time technology training to employees around the globe. Once they make the switch, they not only save valuable time and money; they increase employees' retention of new material and create a more effective, fun classroom environment.

According to Training magazine, 1998 saw an 84 percent hike in spending in the hardware category - dollars budgeted for everything from slide projectors to computers to elaborate videoconferencing systems. For example, Austin, Texas-based ProSoft, a company that does training on Internet and intranet software tools such as Netscape Communicator, is among those using Troy, N.Y.-based Interactive Learning International Corporation's distance-learning solutions to deliver mission-critical training. By using LearnLinc, ProSoft can connect about 100 full-time instructors online from 42 sites around the United States, as soon as courseware is ready - without spending time and money for travel to corporate offices.

"Distance learning is on the upswing because employers see, theoretically, how cost-effective it can be when compared to traditional training models," says Dr. Ware. "However, the technology still has a long way to go in terms of learner efficacy … Even in high-tech companies, employees prefer classroom or group learning situations."

Also in the high-tech realm, company intranets are being tapped into as effective training resources. Sharon Lieder, president of Lieder Consulting Group, cites San Diego-based Qualcomm, Inc. as one company that has invested heavily in intranet development. "Some of the more progressive employers are moving toward using their intranets as a training resource," say Leider, who, as a training and organizational manager, instituted internal training functions at both UCLA and University of California San Diego in the '80s. "Qualcomm, [a company that develops and manufactures digital wireless communications], provides a number of resources for their employees via their own internal Web site."

Studies Show …

After a major national study of workplace learning practices and outcomes involving 540 U.S. corporations, the American Society for Training and Development revealed in late 1998 that investments in training and learning predict corporate financial performance. The professional association of more than 70,000 workplace learning and performance professionals worldwide revealed that companies that invested the most in workplace learning found higher net sales per employee, higher gross profits per employee, and a higher ratio in market-to-book values, compared with companies who invested less in workplace learning.

"We find that leading-edge companies simply approach this whole topic of investment in people with a different mindset," says ASTD President Curtis E. Plott. "They spend more, they use technology more extensively and creatively, they outsource more, and they have a more innovative blend of practices." Specifically, ASTD found that leading-edge companies:

* Spend up to 6 percent of payroll on workplace learning;
* Train 85.9 percent of employees on average;
* Use high-end technology, like the Internet and intranets, to deliver learning;
* Are 11 percent to 18 percent higher than the industry average in the use of training companies and educational institutions to deliver innovative training, high performance and compensation practices simultaneously.

Measuring the Results

Until recently, even companies heavily committed to workplace training admitted that much of what they did was "hard to quantify." Few of those companies could cite exactly what they spent on training, since those outlays were frequently buried in department budgets or other expense items on the corporate income statement. As a result, firms that could cite with precision the returns they reaped on investments in physical capital could seldom quantify the benefits they got from educating workers.

Today, the landscape has changed, and companies are paying attention to and expecting more from their training dollars. More specifically, the benefits of those expenditures and efforts must be revealed in measurable quantities. "The biggest trend for trainers is that organizations are demanding return on investment," says Lieder. "From a management perspective, every company should challenge or train their human resource function to really get to know the business and help them design programs that will benefit the overall organization. For example, many of the companies that do mandatory ethics training don't really know, or care, if the training is working or not."

According to Dan Heck, consultant and trainer at Northbrook, Ill.-based Management & Employee Training Services, General Electric's training strategy includes the requirement that all managers be at least "green belts" in the company's Six Sigma program. "The rationale is that it does employees little good to use statistics and other quality tools if the people signing the checks can't understand the terminology or processes," Heck explains. "Many leaders are lacking or weak in areas like using quality tools, problem solving and project management, for example."

Implementation

For businesses looking for help with their internal training functions, local universities, colleges and community colleges are all valuable tools. In fact, many of the larger corporations are finding themselves partnering up with these institutions in an effort to create a viable workforce that is already knowledgeable and employable upon graduation or certification. "There are a tremendous variety of avenues to acquire knowledge and skills," says Heck. "That's why the skill of learning how to learn is critical. Not only are the community colleges in many states very attentive to companies' needs, but most colleges and universities feel the competitive pressures to venture into new areas and students."

Heck continues: "I believe training and education - on the right subjects and skills - is a strategic and competitive weapon. If human resources can't handle the coordination of skill accumulation that has been linked to the business strategies, then an internal training coordinator is justified. If all of the external resources for a company's strategic training have been exhausted, or outside training required is uncomfortably expensive, then more sophisticated cost models could be employed to look at internal options."

In offering advice to business owners and managers, Heck says the first step is to start with a strategic training plan. "If a strategic plan is weak or absent, training will be scattered and debated," he says. "Any training objectives in the corporate world need to be linked to what the business wants to accomplish and how that business is satisfying customer needs."

Looking to the Future

With the new millennium swiftly approaching and a labor force that is, at least for now, contracting at a disconcerting rate, companies nationwide are being forced to rethink their human resource functions. New information, products and services continue to challenge employees at all levels, and at an astounding rate. Unfortunately, too many companies wait until they're "in pain" before taking action, and end up behind the curve instead of in front of it.

"Investment in employee education and training is the single most-valuable thing you can do for your business," says Hronek. "Without continuous employee development, you run a big risk of stagnation, not to mention being overrun by your competitors."

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