Brought to you by Business Training Library
The #1 Provider of Training Solutions for Growing Companies!
In this issue:
1. Customizing Your Talent Management Strategies
2. Identifying Performance Gaps
3. Best Practice: Using the LMS to Communicate with Learners
4. Course Review: Presenting Your Proposition
1. Customizing Your Talent Management Strategies
This month’s issue of Talent Management magazine ran a timely article regarding talent management titled “Make Every Person Count: Customizing Talent Management.” The article talks to customizing our talent management practices – something of particular importance to HR and training professionals in a time where talent is scarce and our organizations are working lean. Authors David Smith and Susan Cantrell argue that the generic practice that one-size-fits-most simply doesn’t work in managing today’s organizational talent. Instead they suggest that our talent management practices need to be aligned with business goals and tailored to individual employees’ performance needs. Otherwise, productivity will suffer ... now we’ve got your attention!
How do we create a customized talent management solution? As HR and training professionals, we need to build a partnership with our organization’s business unit managers. “An organization is more likely to support individual workers’ needs if it gets closer to where the work is performed.” Our business unit managers can provide us with insight into their employees’ needs and responsibilities, so that we can tailor our processes to the performance needs of each department and individual.
Smith and Cantrell suggest a few areas where customizations can be made at the micro-level to better align your talent management practices with the individual needs of each valued employee, in addition to supporting strategic organizational goals.
- Customize Performance Management
In terms of performance management – and in particular – performance reviews, Smith and Cantrell point out that managers at high-performing companies provide feedback and recognition on an on-going basis in a more informal and personal manner. This allows for every employee to be consistently recognized as a valued contributor, rather than waiting for your quarterly or annual review for important feedback.
- Customize Career Development
Career development should also be customized. Linear career paths are not always the best fit for a given employee. Many of the companies that Smith and Cantrell reference are providing their employees with a voice in where they want their career paths to take them there, and work with each individual to determine the best path – even if that means non-traditional work experiences and cross-department moves. This customization plays to the strengths and interests of each employee.
- Customize Learning
We all learn differently. Some of us are auditory listeners, while others prefer collaborative projects, mentoring opportunities, or self-paced learning options … to name a few methods. “Enterprise learning departments must continually explore ways to engage employees with the right content, in the right form, at the right time.”
Partnering with business unit managers, we can better align our efforts for managing our organization’s most critical asset … our employees. Working together we can customize our performance reviews, career development paths and learning methods to maximize the potential of each employee.
Check out the article in the digital copy of Talent Magazine on page thirty-eight.
Interested in learning how Business Training Library can help you to automate performance review processes, customize individual employee development plans and learning methods? Contact us today!
2. Identifying Performance Gaps
Brought to you in partnership with SkillSoft, one of our e-learning content partners.
A performance gap is the difference between desired and actual performance. When you know what's missing, you can take steps to fill in or minimize that performance gap. Before you can achieve your objectives, you need to determine what kind of performance is needed to meet the objective and what the actual employee performance level is.
To analyze desired and actual performance, you need to do the following five things:
- Determine desired performance
- Determine the skills of your best performers
- Set up measurement criteria
- Determine the actual (or current) performance of employees
- Collect data on the performance gap
Determine desired performance
Desired performance is where you want your employees' skill or performance level to be.
Determine the skills of your best performers
Once you know the desired performance for your objective, you can begin to figure out how to get there. The second step of the five step process is to determine the skills of your best performers.
Set up measurement criteria
After you've determined your desired results, the third step is to set up measurement criteria for performance improvement.
Measurement criteria are the means by which you'll know:
- When the desired result has been accomplished
- If each performance outcome has been met
- How well the overall outcome has been met
Setting up measurement criteria for performance improvement might sound complicated and time-consuming. But once you know what your corporate objectives are, the process becomes a lot less cumbersome because you know what your goals are. Once you know that, you can tailor the measurement criteria for your desired performance improvements accordingly.
By now, you should be able to determine the business objectives of your company, identify best practices to model, and choose measurement criteria to demonstrate you've hit your target.
Determine the actual performance of employees
To determine the actual performance of the majority of employees, try rating the importance of each skill based on your business goals. Skills which support tasks that address current problems or objectives should get the highest priority.
You'll need to review the skill levels of all the employees of your department to see whose skill levels fall into which category—for example, high, average, or low.
Collect data on the performance gap
In the fifth and final step, you collect the data that represents the performance gaps relative to your specific objective.
Statistical measurements are important, of course, but also look at the performance of the people you're measuring. Methods at your disposal for collecting data on how people perform are listed below:
- By interviewing the supervisors as well as employees, you may get a broader picture of the skills required to achieve your goals.
- Interviewing a representative sample of high-performance employees helps you establish a benchmark of performance excellence that others can aspire to.
- Questionnaires may be your preferred method of getting specific details about performance.
- Search for documentation, especially statistical measurements, that are applicable to your skill or performance goals.
By determining desired versus actual performance, based on skills analysis, you can identify the performance gap. Take the time to establish what and where the gap is before you cross over into unplanned, unnecessary, and costly training territory.
3. Best Practice: Using the LMS to Communicate with Learners
Calling all e-learning clients! Are you maximizing the capabilities of our recently updated LMS functionalities? The news section of your LMS home page is a great place to communicate with users regarding upcoming releases, tips, due dates & announcements. Get the word out to everyone – or even a select group – with just a few keystrokes!
Ideas for news items to include:
- New user welcome information
- Navigation instructions
- Reminders about upcoming courses
- Highlight new e-learning features and/or new courses
- Spotlight the most frequently accessed courses
- Remind users about due dates
- Highlight course detail for mandated training courses. Emphasize why it’s important that this course is completed!
- Training tips and tricks
- Best practices for e-learning
- Internal contact information for additional resources
Is the CompanyCollege 8.0 LMS allowing your company to streamline communications or deliver training more effectively? Share your best practices with Business Training Library!
4. Course Review: Presenting Your Proposition
Course Group
Sales
Course Code
SALE0224
Media
e-Learning
Target Audience
Presenting Your Proposition is great for the high level sales team. It will prepare you for those executive presentations and how to obtain all the appropriate information before even giving the presentation. The courses will keep you one step ahead of your competitors if you listen to your client before, during and after the presentation. During this courses it takes the sales person and makes you think from the mind of the client, who initial would be making the final decision. Great Course! Highly Recommend!
Course Overview
Even the most confident sales people can feel their self-assurance dissolve when required to make a formal sales presentation. This course is about giving you the confidence, not only to present, but also to get commitment from your customer. Demonstrating a structure that can be adapted to most situations, this course will equip you with the skills needed to deal with the most intimidating circumstances with consummate ease.
Expected Duration
4 hours
Becky's Rating
5 Stars (Out of 5)
Becky's Review
Presenting Your Proposition is great for the high level sales team. It will prepare you for those executive presentations and how to obtain all the appropriate information before even giving the presentation. The courses will keep you one step ahead of your competitors if you listen to your client before, during and after the presentation. During this courses it takes the sales person and makes you think from the mind of the client, who initially would be making the final decision. Great Course! Highly Recommend!
Becky Claggett is a Training Consultant at Business Training Library.
Preview this e-learning course today!
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