For Feedback To Be Effective, Put First Things First

First things first.

This wise little maxim is the underlying theme of “Stop Teaching People How to Give Feedback,” a thought-provoking post written by Fistful of Talent guest blogger, Ben Olds. When Olds instructs us to nix the feedback lessons, he means temporarily of course. Just until we’ve put first things first.

The “first thing” in this case, according to Olds, is for us to recognize that simply teaching managers to give feedback “doesn’t work.” The reason? “Because this approach starts in the wrong spot! There are four traits that have to exist to have a strong feedback culture, and we typically need to foster each,” writes Olds. These four traits are: 1) the will to receive feedback; 2) the skill to receive feedback; 3) the skill to give feedback; and 4) the will to give feedback.

Olds’ position is that giving feedback is part of a larger continuum and we need to instill other necessary feedback proficiencies across our organizations before and after we train managers.

Olds’ points are eminently sensible but it’s not entirely true that teaching managers to give feedback effectively doesn’t work. Our employees want feedback and the vast majority say it improves their performance. Read the Harvard Business Review post, “Your Employees Want the Negative Feedback You Hate to Give,” which makes a strong case for the value of both positive and negative feedback. And even if 100 percent of employees don’t put feedback to use, many do.

Undoubtedly, we would be better off if we took Olds’ advice and created workplace environments in which all four of his traits could take root in the proper order. These environments would be true “feedback cultures,” nurturing continuous learning and improvement, inspirational performance reviews, and universal accountability.

But even in our less-than-perfect workplaces, managers who know how to give feedback effectively do make a difference.

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Connect with the individuals and sources highlighted in this post by clicking the links below:

@FistfulOfTalent

Benjamin Olds (LinkedIn profile)

@HarvardBiz

Reskilling and Upskilling Our Workforce Are Essential as Talent Gaps Expand

More than a third of the world’s employers are struggling to find the right talent.

ManpowerGroup’s 2013 Talent Shortage Survey canvassed more than 38,000 employers worldwide, and 35% of them reported “difficulty filling jobs due to lack of available talent.” What’s more, their struggle has been worsening; the 2013 findings were the highest proportion of employers expressing concern about talent shortages since 2007.

Surprisingly, this news comes at a time when talent pools are virtually brimming with people, and when a recent Harris Interactive study shows that 74% of workers would consider taking a new job immediately. With all of this talent available, what’s causing our shortages? The debate around this question has been lively. An aging workforce, unexpected and rapid growth in specific sectors, the sudden need for entirely new types of jobs (in the technology and data niches, for example), poor training and knowledge sharing practices, and even inadequate compensation have all been blamed.

Whatever the cause, we all know the results of unfilled talent gaps: reduced productivity and innovation, greater burdens on the workers we have, lower satisfaction and engagement levels, increased turnover … the list goes on.

The obvious question is … how are employers responding to these talent shortages?

“Nearly eight out of 10 employers surveyed tell us they are taking steps to grow the talent pool and ensure access to the right skills that will help drive business results,” the ManpowerGroup report states. “Yet more than one out of five employers report that they are currently doing nothing to remedy the skills gaps indicating that they may not understand how the talent shortage is putting their business at risk or they simply don’t know how to effectively solve the issue.”

Doing nothing clearly isn’t a viable long-term strategy for most employers but growing talent pools certainly makes sense. However, it’s not the only option we have. We can also reskill and upskill the workers we currently have. But to do so, our vision of these individuals must be crystal clear. We need to know precisely the talents and skills they possess and those they lack—especially those we need to grow and remain competitive. Once we have this clear vision, we must put it to use and implement training and development programs that fill our gaps, disseminating the right knowledge in the right ways. For today’s workforces, this means more mobile and social learning, more interactive and independent learning technologies, more mentoring and peer-to-peer learning, and the like.

We also have to take steps to better understand the specific work our people are most interested in doing, where their natural capabilities and skills lie, and the types of projects they want to work on in the future. Frequent and effective performance reviews are an ideal tool for gathering all of this critical information.

If we want to fill our talent gaps and build workforces capable of successfully carrying us into the future, expanding our talent pools is a terrific idea. But it can’t be our only one.

Employee-to-Employee Learning: Should We Foster More of It?

Advances in technology and changes to the ways we access and share knowledge are reshaping workplace training and development.

Training magazine’s 2013 Training Industry Report shows how this reshaping is taking place:

·      44% of training hours at U.S.-based businesses were delivered last year by an instructor in a classroom setting—a small but telling decline from 45.2% in 2012.

·      28.3% of training hours were delivered with blended learning techniques in 2013, an increase from 27% in 2012.

·      25.9% of hours were delivered through online or computer-based technologies, up from 24.7% in 2012.

·      About 16% of hours were delivered through virtual classrooms and webcasts, a rise from 13% in 2012.

·      3.3% of hours were delivered via social learning, up from 1.1% in 2012.

·      1.9% of hours were delivered via mobile devices, which is nearly double the percentage from 2012.

While much of the learning occurring in the workplace is still being delivered the old-fashioned way—by instructors who are face-to-face with their pupils—the Training report shows that remote learning, virtual learning, social learning and mobile learning are all trending upward. One question the report doesn’t answer is this: how much of this learning is happening on an employee-to-employee basis?

We found no reliable statistics to answer this question. But a Fast Company article by Sara Kessler makes a pretty good case for why the answer should be “Not enough.”

The article describes a learning program at Google—fittingly called Googler to Googler—that puts employees into teaching roles, which the company believes is a “good business idea.” Kessler writes: “Telling your employees that you want them to learn is different than asking them to promote that culture themselves. Giving employees teaching roles, says Google's head of people operations, Karen May, makes learning part of the way employees work together rather than something HR is making them do.”

In short, employee-to-employee learning at Google is about instilling a culture of learning. And it happens to be an effective way to teach, the company avows. Google’s data (which it declined to share with Kessler) purportedly show that employee teachers perform as well as teachers “who facilitate employee education as their primary job.”

Obviously, employee-to-employee learning won’t suit every organization or fit every learning culture but it’s certainly worth a closer look by employers who want to bolster their learning and development strategies. While employers are exploring alternative forms of learning for a number of reasons, perhaps the primary reason is improved performance. Research from Bersin by Deloitte shows that organizations with strong learning cultures significantly outperform their peers: their employee productivity is 37% greater, they’re 35% more responsive to customers’ needs, and they’re 17% more likely to be leaders in market share.

It’s awfully hard to argue against numbers like those.

Employee Learning and Training—No Retreat, No Surrender!

How much do employers spend on learning and training?

According to the American Society of Training and Development’s 2013 State of the Industry Report, U.S. organizations spent more than $164 billion on employee learning in 2012. (In this case, “learning” encompasses a wide array of educational initiatives including training.)

Training magazine’s 2013 Training Industry Report, on the other hand, offers a narrower focus on training initiatives and the dollars spent. The report indicates that U.S. training expenditures, which totaled $55.4 billion in 2013:

·       increased among large companies (from $11.3 million in 2012 to $17.6 million in 2013);

·       increased very slightly among small companies (from $294,532 in 2012 to $301,082 in 2013);

·       and fell among midsize companies (from $2 million in 2012 to $1.2 million in 2013).

No matter how you slice and dice the definitions or the numbers, it appears that employers’ commitment to training and learning remains strong overall—especially considering the state of the economy during the past few years, the increasing challenge of global competition, and the ongoing turmoil around employers’ healthcare costs, among a host of other ongoing competitive hurdles.

Make no mistake, no matter what our other business challenges are, we need a no-retreat, no-surrender commitment to training and learning for one simple reason: organizations that are dedicated to learning crush their competition.

Bersin by Deloitte’s Corporate Learning Factbook 2013 contains several persuasive proof points based on years of study. They show that organizations with “strong learning cultures:”

·      Are 42% more likely to innovate (i.e., be first to foster ideation and implement change initiatives) than their peers.

·      Are 37% more productive.

·      Are 35% more responsive to customers’ needs.

·      And have a 26% greater capacity to deliver quality products.

It’s hard to ignore numbers like those, which clearly show why our investment in employee learning must be unwavering. Obviously, how we allocate our investment is equally important. The Training magazine report shows that employers’ top three priorities in allocating training resources in 2013 were: 1) increasing the effectiveness of training programs (32%); 2) reducing costs/improving efficiency (20%); and 3) increasing learner usage of training programs (14%).

When it comes to training and learning, our bottom line costs matter. But the greater bottom line is this: if our commitment to learning weakens so will our companies.

5 Must-Have Features for Your Performance Management Software

Talk about your troubling data …

Asked to describe their confidence levels regarding their own workforce management, employers surveyed by Ventana Research were nearly evenly split: while 51% expressed moderate or high levels of confidence, 49% are only somewhat or not at all confident.

That’s troubling enough but when asked about their workforce management systems:

·      Just 41% said they’re satisfied or very satisfied with their current system.

·      42% are only somewhat satisfied.

·      15% are flat-out unsatisfied.

·      And another 45% indicated they need new applications to improve their workforce productivity and results.

It’s no wonder that talent and performance management software are among today’s most sought after HR solutions. After all, these solutions deliver a powerful set of benefits including greater productivity, stronger employee engagement, better alignment between company strategy and employee performance, and a stronger capacity for conducting sound succession planning.

So, whether you’re in the market to buy new performance management software or you’re simply looking to upgrade your current solution, remember this important (and often overlooked) guideline: don’t compromise ease-of-use just to get the features you want.

Sure, the solution you choose has to offer the right features. No doubt about it. But if the software is difficult to use, your people will avoid it. No amount of training or clever “promotion” can overcome difficult software. In the end, you’ll not only waste your money but you’ll also let down your customers (i.e., your managers and employees at large) and your senior leadership. And you’ll have gone a long way toward losing their trust.

Fortunately, with the array of robust performance management solutions now available, you don’t have to compromise ease-of-use for features. Not if you do your homework properly and research your options online.

However, when it does come time to consider features, certain ones do top the lists of most organizations. In our experience, are five must-have features:

1.     Customizable Performance Review Forms—Cookie-cutter reviews are worthless and a waste of time. The same is true of cookie-cutter software. If a solution doesn’t allow you and your managers to tailor it your needs, move on to another option.

2.     Goal Management Tool—Having the ability to manage and track concrete performance goals is not only wise, it’s an imperative for any company that wants to become truly performance driven. A goal management tool that can be used/accessed throughout the entire year (or performance cycle) helps to maintain strong alignment between employee performance and the company’s goals and targets.

3.     Journal Entry/Notes Tool—This is an especially useful feature—not just for managers but also for their direct reports, as it helps to keep both parties informed and engaged in ongoing communication about goals, action items, areas for improvement, education and developmental matters, etc.

4.     Strong Reporting Function—This makes it easy for managers and HR to run performance reports, conduct proactive succession planning, and share this information efficiently among key personnel, department and functional heads, and senior leaders.

5.     eSignatures and Automated Notifications—These are features that enhance compliance, facilitate administrative actions and maximize convenience—all of which help to ensure that people actually enjoy and utilize your software.

If you’re looking for added value, be sure to explore software that offers these additional features:

1.     360-Degree Feedback Module

2.     A Learning Management System and Learning Content Integration

3.     Compensation Management

4.     A Mobile App

These features are becoming increasingly attractive to organizations that value comprehensive solutions that can be accessed from a wide range of devices and technologies.

Bottom line, you no longer have to sacrifice ease-of-use to get the features you need in your performance management software. Research your options carefully and you’ll make the right choice. Even better—you’ll help your company become significantly more performance-driven.

4 Trends That Are Transforming Performance Management and Organizational Learning

At its core, performance management is all about giving our people the information, resources and guidance they need to achieve specific goals. Sounds simple enough. Of course, the devil is in the details.

One reason performance management is so challenging—the business world isn’t static. Our organizations evolve. Our business goals and targets shift. Our customers’ needs change. Some of these changes occur swiftly while others take time. But there’s no stopping them.

It’s a good thing, then, that significant changes are occurring to the tools, technologies and techniques at our disposal for managing performance and developing our employees. In fact, here are four trends that are on their way to becoming standard operating procedure for improved performance management and corporate learning:

1.     Bring your own device (BYOD) policies—Many companies are adopting these policies for a variety of reasons including their cost-effectiveness, their appeal to younger workers, and the 24/7 connectivity mobile devices provide to workers who travel frequently and work remotely. In addition, a growing cadre of talent management and learning/development providers are now delivering mobile solutions as part of their offerings, which enable companies to share powerful tools and resources with their people in exciting new ways. (See Gartner’s interesting research on BYOD here.)

2.     Bite-size learning—This refers to the practice of breaking topics and lessons into smaller, more “digestible” pieces. The rationale: to enhance retention of information and to allow busy employees to consume a topic in a few minutes. It also makes learning incredibly more effective in the age of the mobile, fluid, and multi-generational workforces.

3.     Location-based learning—This is the kind of learning you see taking place in museums and tourist sites. The learner is presented information on the spot via sound, images or text—or a mix of these three. Sound is delivered through headphones or speakers while images and text are delivered to a variety of devices including smartphones, laptops, tablets or screen projectors. Smartphones, in particular, have dramatically increased the popularity of location-based learning.

4.     Cloud computing—The “cloud” offers a convenient and inexpensive way to access an increasing selection of tools designed to help organizations track and improve employee performance, learning and development. Cloud-based solutions eliminate the need to update software manually, and they facilitate the easy sharing of information, resources and tools (especially those related to learning programs and knowledge sharing). Plus, cloud-based solutions are particularly attractive to enterprise organizations and companies with large, dispersed workforces.

Without question, those of us who want to improve all aspects of performance management—from assessments to learning and development programs to compensation management—need to take better advantage of these concepts and technologies.

For most of us, this means arming our companies with systems and solutions that enable us to do several key things well:

·       Empower our learning leaders to easily create development goals and recommend specific learning activities based specifically on an employee’s performance appraisal ratings.

·       Give employees easy access a full external learning curriculum that supplements our internal training and development content.

·       Provide our people with online access to a comprehensive learning management system.

·       Provide our managers with real-time access to reporting analytics and transcripts of learning activities.

The more we embed these strategies into our business cultures, the better we’ll become at building workforces that deliver real competitive advantages.

Interested in reading further about the convergence of talent management and transformational technologies? Download our white paper, “Performance Assessments in an Increasingly Mobile World,” which is available here.

Let Employees Learn When and Where They Want To

Despite the plethora of mobile apps for this, and the dizzying array of cloud-based solutions for that, when it comes to how businesses offer learning to employees, most organizations still rely primarily on

classroom-based workshops.

It’s ironic when you consider that businesses continue to face tight and uncertain budgets; more and more of today’s workforce is choosing to work remotely; the trend toward mobile computing just keeps growing; and the generational makeup of the workforce is getting more complex.

Consider just these two statistics:

·       By next year, millennials — people born between 1977 and 1997 — will comprise more than one-third of the global workforce.

·       There’s recently been a two-fold increase in the prevalence of mobile tools for learning, according to Aberdeen Research.

As Aberdeen puts it, mobile is no longer a “nice to have” for learning programs but a strategic part of any comprehensive learning plan. Bearing all of that in mind, you’d think companies would be on alternative learning methods like white on rice.

Some are. In fact, companies that want to succeed in driving employee development will embrace flexible training alternatives.

Research by futurethink Innovation Institute in 2009 found that almost 62 percent of companies believed that successful learning programs would need to include e-learning options. A whopping 85 percent agreed that most learning going forward would be collaborative. And every company in the study agreed or agreed strongly that learning was going to be done in short time frames, using “micro-modules” for more-focused learning and better results.

That’s some of what flexible learning looks like. At least from the employee’s perspective. For the learning and development leader, it all hinges on — or at least is substantially enhanced by — a new evolution of learning technology. For example, e-learning, collaborative learning, and the implementation of micro-modules have a greater chance of success if they’re supported by automated content-integration solutions.

These operate behind the curtain between the employee and the learning and development leader. They help leverage the full power of the new trend in flexible learning.

Reviewsnap’s automated Learning Content Integration (LCI) module is one example. It lets learning and development leaders extend information gathered from an employee’s performance reviews to automatically develop targeted learning plans for that person.

Some of the ways Reviewsnap’s LCI module makes it easier to consider expanding your learning formats include:

·       Enabling learning leaders to automatically create development goals and recommend specific learning activities based on an employee’s performance appraisal ratings.

·       Allowing employees to easily access a full external learning curriculum, in addition to their company’s custom training and learning content.

·       Providing online access to a full learning management system (LMS).

·       Providing real-time access to reporting analytics and transcripts of learning activities.

In a nutshell, Reviewsnap’s LCI improves talent management by integrating learning activities and performance management. It’s another way business is changing how it manages employee development.

Developing Internal Case Studies: 5 Tips to Market LMS Value

Companies have been putting more money into their learning and development budgets. In fact, Bersin by Deloitte’s 2013 Corporate Learning Factbook shows that U.S. organizations grew their

spending by 12 percent in 2012.

With all those dollars being allocated to training, are your employees taking advantage of the opportunities? It’s easy for employees to forget or even miss that there’s learning management software available to them. Courses that are relevant to their job might be hard to find, lost in a large library of titles.

Instead of sending reminders, take a marketing spin and create internal case studies of what employees learned and how the training applies to the job.

1.     Find people who are your power users. Your LMS or learning content management system should track who’s using what courses or downloading additional resources.

2.     Interview them about the courses they’ve been taking. Approach the power users and ask about their experience. Make sure they’re getting value from the training and would be willing to participate in a promotional case study.

3.     Learn how the training has impacted their performance. Training should help employees do their jobs better, so ask how the training has made a difference. Also ask how the team’s performance might have been improved.

4.     Include insight from their managers. Managers could be encouraging development, or they might not even know employees are going the extra mile to train themselves. Find out what each manager knows, including how improved performance could be changing the way those managers work toward developing the rest of their teams.

5.     Capture the story. You can capture the story in any number of ways — writing an article, taping a Q&A, or even making a video. Make sure you put the story in a format that’s easy for other employees to consume when you share it with the rest of the organization.

Keep tracking use in your LMS so you can find additional power users and see which case studies might have increased usage overall. It’ll be powerful information to share with your executive team, and it can help ensure future budget increases for training.

Why Learning on the Go Is So Important

As companies try to diversify their learning programs and make training available across a variety of mediums, they’ve been forced to consider how mobile fits into the learning picture. Let’s face it — our phones are an extension of ourselves now:

·       79 percent of users check their phone within the first 15 minutes of waking up

·       70 percent of smartphone users frequently check Facebook

·       78 percent keep up with email on smartphones

Phones keep us connected and help us be productive (and increasingly more social). So when companies begin to update their traditional training programs, mobile has to be a part of the process.

Mobile makes previously irrelevant information relevant. Think about going to a training class that had workbooks and exercises about a product or service you don’t actively use. Sure, the information is helpful, but it’s not retained if it isn’t needed. Then four months down the line, suddenly that training becomes applicable. Is the information still in your brain? Probably not.

Mobile access to just-in-time training gets employees the information they need, when they need it. Salespeople are great examples of employees who are always on the go and need information literally at their fingertips. They can brush up on facts or get updates while sitting in a waiting room, riding a train, or standing around the luggage carousel.

When thinking about adding mobile components to your training, make sure you identify the most important information needed. Transferring a 40-page workbook to a PDF might make access easier, but those 40 pages won’t be helpful on a phone. Instead, identify a quick list of talking points. You can also do a short podcast (and by short, we mean two minutes) of an instructor giving an overview. 

You can always have workbooks, simulations, and additional instructor-led training as part of your learning program. As you think about training with mobile devices in mind, you’ll also start identifying ways to prioritize information for other mediums as well.

Internal Expertise Is an Untapped Learning Resource

While learning programs are going more digital, don’t forget that your company has many internal experts who have knowledge to share. Those specialists have expertise in areas that affect different parts of the business.

For example, the logistics manager will have insight into how the supply chain affects whether products are delivered on time. When marketing needs to set product launch dates, it’s critical to partner with the logistics manager.

What if marketing could get a download from the logistics manager before ever scheduling a meeting?

Your company can create learning content developed by your own internal experts. Here are some things you can do:

·       Have departments record introductory videos about responsibilities and contacts

·       Launch a wiki for the product development team to give everyone the ability to learn the ins and outs of your new offering

·       Set up Google+ Hangout events with your executive team and let employees ask about new initiatives or strategic direction — or allow people to collaborate remotely on projects

·       Record radio and webinar broadcasts that feature your employees and share them on the internal network

·       Invite teams to host “Lunch and Learn” events to keep everyone abreast of what’s happening in other departments

·       Let authors of internal process manuals deliver a recorded presentation of rules, processes, or best practices to follow so new employees have access to onboarding resources

As you can see, there are many ways you can transform your learning programs from being generic to being customized. As you log all these materials, you’ll create a learning library that makes it easy for employees to get answers faster. Your teams will stay productive, and your experts can share their insight across the company.

Connect Learning Back to the Job

With the Internet, it’s never been more obvious that the skills you learn in school could drastically change over the years of your professional career. The Internet (as we know it) didn’t exist prior to 1991, yet graduating college students are incredibly savvy about SEO and mobile connectivity.

When you don’t have the option to go back to school, get updates through skills-based learning.

Learning exists to help you do your job better, and learning management systems have matched the most-needed skills with training modules. Instead of classes on topics too vague or high-level to be useful in your daily job, today’s learning dives into the proficiencies that you actually need.  

Here’s how a flexible learning strategy can help you perform better:

·       Learning to update your skills: You might have already learned something once, but your brain fills up fast. If you need a refresher, you should be able to breeze through some short learning modules that help you remember what you covered before. For example, you might have to work on a new machine in the shop, something you’ve done before but it’s been awhile. A quick tutorial will get you up to speed and moving products down the line in no time. 

·       Learning just in time: Usually more tactical, these types of training courses will cover skills you need to perform a function or get you background information when you need it. The idea is that you don’t spend five weeks in classes to get where you need to be. If you’ve got a sales meeting and you’re pitching the most recent updates to a product, just-in-time training should have a short video of the product updates along with some talking points so you don’t sacrifice the sale.

·       Learning for the long term: These types of training courses might include strategic perspectives or behavioral development that you don’t need right away. Learning how to communicate as a manager (when you’re not a manager) will help you practice early in your career, help your soft-skill development and help you better understand the communication techniques your own manager uses.

You can always learn, and unfortunately, the pace of change means you’ll be constantly learning on the job. When you’re in need of some information, check out your company’s learning management system. You could find the answers you need before you have time to ask questions