Effective training administration

First of all, we can probably all agree that decentralized training administration is inefficient.

It becomes a problem when there are multiple administrators in multiple groups completing the same tasks or transactions, but doing it in multiple ways. Various groups within an organization have differences in their processes and procedures, such as registration needs or course description details. But often these variations are driven by lack of bandwidth or minimal training.

Take as an example the process of uploading courses to an LMS. If an organization has various people doing this, it’s common to see different administrators using different course-naming schemes and course descriptions.

So, centralization of learning support and learning operations management is critical, which goes without saying.

On the flipside, it’s not a good idea to develop inflexible processes that don’t adapt to the needs of your customers, the business units. Be careful about trying to eliminate customized support that they’ve grown accustomed to. Dissatisfaction quickly rises when executives feel their needs and interests are not heard, considered, and acted upon.

Establishing a decentralized approach to customer training support is that business units have enough control over employee learning and can tailor all aspects of learning to the specific needs of their employees.  Long term, you get ever closer to the elusive goal of aligning learning with business objectives.

To learn more about the concept of Centralized Services and Decentralized Processes, download the white paper.

For more information on this topic and the nine ways to trim operational expense, please download the recent webinar or read our white paper, Eliminate Waste and Reap the Rewards: Nine Ways to Trim Operational Expenses to Fund Strategic Learning, both available at http://www.trainingefficiency.com/.

If your organization wants to increase the training efficiency in terms of your learning technology or training processes, contact us.

For more information log on to www.expertus.com

www.trainingefficiency.com

Measurements: One of the Toughest Challenges in Training

We come across many learning executives who still struggle to obtain meaningful metrics that would support decision making and exhibit the business impact of the investment made in training. In fact, in our most recent training challenges survey, 78% of respondents said the biggest weakness in their current reporting was providing information to support business planning and strategy.

Some of the other major obstacles encountered are data accuracy, lack of data, data standardization, time constraints, and data access.

A lot of companies look to their LMS to solve their learning measurement challenge. But, our survey found that 84% of respondents were dissatisfied with their training reporting.  Respondents cited limited standardized reporting, learning technology integration issues, customization requirements, and usability as the primary areas of dissatisfaction.

It is not fair to blame all measurement problems on LMS technology. In our first Learning Intelligence Forum, learning executives were concerned about the difficulties of measuring informal learning, the need to efficiently correlate performance and learning, and the technical challenges involved in pulling data from multiple sources, such as HR and CRM systems.

We believe efficient, effective, and meaningful metrics are essential for successful training operations management.  And we believe there’s a dearth of information and resources about this important topic. By facilitating discussions, gathering market data, sharing our experiences, and offering informational resources, we hope to do our part in moving the industry forward.

I’d love to hear from you about your training measurement programs or if you don’t have one our learning strategy consultants can help you build one.

For more information log on to www.expertus.com

www.trainingefficiency.com