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Voice Index
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If
you are struggling to get the resources you need to develop
your people, it's time to get some confidence and use hard
data to help you present your case. Other managers within
the organisation justify their budgets and existence – so
can you! Here's how to
Be
a feisty L&D Manager - even if it's not your job!
Whether
you are responsible for company-wide L&D or just your
own team, make sure that you can get the resources that you
need and don't just accept that training gets cut. L&D
and HR people worry that because they cannot show direct causal
links between programmes and business results, they have no
hard evidence of impact or value. In fact, no one in business
ever has perfect 100% links between cause and effect, they
just have reasonable estimates.
So
when you are asked to justify your training budget, here are
6 points to keep in mind:
1.
Give the big picture not the detail
The
Board wants to hear how the organisation is delivering its
goals and building future capacity. A marketing director will
get up and talk about how marketing programmes have impacted
market share, not about how many press releases were issued.
Make
sure you focus on how your training impacts the bigger picture,
not how many training days were delivered at what cost. The
3C Activity Analytics tool creates a simple but powerful ‘big
picture' of training impact – try out our
free demo version.
2.
People make the difference
The
value of most organisations is in their people, not the plant
and equipment – and there is a lot of data available to support
this (contact us for the detailed facts and figures).
Substantially
improving people's performance through your training programmes
is usually the single best way to raise the value of an organisation.
3.
No-one is ever 100% accurate
No
manager, not even a sales person, can ever say that one action
or programme was 100% responsible for a particular outcome.
For example, very few sales people realise the contribution
that branding, product quality, distribution strategy etc
make to a sales outcome.
You
don't need to prove your training programme is 100% responsible
for a change in performance. Focus on the key areas of impact
and use the visible improvements in these areas to show the
value of your training.
4.
Productivity is a good measure
In
general, the better people perform, the more revenue there
is per employee. Profits per employee are one of the key factors
in determining share price.
By
training your people to be better and more productive workers,
you can make a significant difference to this number.
5.
Stand up for yourself (and for investing in people)
The
training budget is usually the first to be cut, because senior
managers think it won't make any difference to business performance.
You KNOW this is wrong! But, you may not be able to show a
causal link between a specific programme and a specific cost
saving or revenue (although often you can in practice).
By linking
your training programme outcomes to your organisational goals,
you can indicate what the organisation RISKS by not training.
The Line of Sight Wizard
tool can easily help you make these links and produce
reports that will help give you a voice in the Boardroom.
6. Challenge
the sceptics
Often
sceptics are basing their assumptions on opinion and prejudice,
rather than fact.
When
someone asks you to prove that a training programme made a
difference, a good estimate with supporting hard data is all
you need. If you are challenged, ask the sceptics to produce
data supporting their theory that training makes no difference.
You
do a good job, you know you do. So be confident and stand
up for yourself in business terms.
Management
Voice Index
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