1:15 PM Tue Feb 13 . .. 075%O ORedShelf. eReader Q TT : 4. How would you measure the success of this program? What results criteria would you try to measure? Case Study 2 People Development Strategies at Credit Union Central of Saskatchewan PROGRESS com/Shutter stock.com There are 128 credit unions in Saskatchewan, with assets ranging from less than $1 million to more than $1 billion. All of these are affiliated with Credit Union Central of Saskatchewan, which facilitates cooperation among credit unions and provides consulting services, trade association functions, and liquidity management. Credit Union Central, together with the four largest Saskatchewan credit unions, developed a plan to implement a comprehensive HRM system to produce, first, a better alignment of employee performance to organizational objectives and, second, more focused training to produce desired business results and an enhanced ability to retain employees through opportunities for professional development. Working with Hay Management Consultants, the first step was to develop a competency glossary, followed by performance management processes and tools, selection and staffing tools, and then succession planning. Competencies can be defined as attitudes, skills, knowledge, or behaviours that are essential to perform at work and that differentiate superior performers. The competency glossary defines core competencies, which apply to all roles within the organization, and role-specific competencies. Competency target levels indicating superior performance are set for each role. An example of a core competency, based on the key values and strategies of the organization, is "results orientation": When your employee tried to improve their own performance, they 1. identified areas of waste or inefficiency but did not take any action 2. made some changes to work methods to reach particular goals that had been set for them 3. made specific changes in the system and their work methods to improve performance beyond goals set 4. set challenging goals that were accomplished with a significant amount of planning, analysis, and effort 5. set individual goals by thinking through the costs and benefits and explicitly considered potential profits, risks, and ROI to make decisions that ended up having a positive organizational impact 6. took a calculated entrepreneurial risk and committed significant organizational resources to act on an idea that ended up significantly improving performance A role-specific competency might be "concern for order, quality, and compliance," defined as follows: When your employee demonstrated attention to detail in their work, they 1. checked on the work to ensure that it was accurate, complied with all relevant regulations, and followed all standard practices and procedures 2. monitored the accuracy and quality of their work and others' work consistently and systematically and kept a detailed record of work when it was necessary 3. during the project, monitored the progress of the project against milestones and deliverables, took action to ensure that the procedures put in place were effective, and quickly corrected any weaknesses or deficiencies 4. established and used a procedure and/or system to facilitate work efficiency and ensure high-quality output and modified and improved the procedure and/or system when a weakness was identified to ensure that high-quality work was being produced Managers work with employees to assess competency levels. The competency glossary and a competency assessment questionnaire enable managers and employees to discuss skills, abilities, and behaviours using a common framework. Training and development plans are based on gaps between target performance and actual performance. A developmental resource kit, which includes training courses, seminars, books, and work opportunities, all classified by competency, assists with building development plans. This approach has resulted in clear direction on performance and development plans to move employees toward optimum performance levels. Questions 1. Describe the advantages of the approach used to identify performance gaps. 2. Why would managers resist or support this approach? 3. Describe methods that you would use to evaluate the effectiveness of this approach by levels of learning, behaviour, and results. 291 GoCheck In If you were launching a new business, what factors would you look at to conduct a negra might ma assessment for your new venture? training a anticipate make this Learning Outcome 3 Phase 2: Designing the Training Program mance an Describe the factors that must be how trans considered when designing a training variable i program. Once you have assessed your firm's training needs, the next step is to design the valency, a training program. Experts believe that the design of training programs should an individ focus on at least four related issues: (1) the training's instructional objectives. a promot (2) readiness of trainees and their motivation, (3) principles of learning, and (4) characteristics of instructors. which is Incor Developing Instructional Objectives What m After conducting organization, task, and person analyses, managers should have build a a more complete picture of their firms' training needs. On the basis of this in this instructional objectives information, they can more formally state the desired outcomes of training via learning Desired outcomes of a training program written instructional objectives, which describe the skills or knowledge to be acquired and/or the attitudes to be changed. The objectives should be perfor grasp n their jo mance centred. Performance-centred objectives typically include precise terms, 264 Part 3: Developing Effectiveness in Human Resources if theyh as "to calculate, to repair," "to adjust," "to construct." "to assemble," SUClassify."2 For example, the stated objective for one training program mig be , " "employees trained in team methods will be able to perform the different jobs of their team members within six months." Trainees Assessing the Readiness and Motivation Of miners often debate whether training should be mandatory or voluntary. Trainer Who consider mandatory training as necessary may think in terms of organizational Mange goals. Alternatively, trainers who say training should be voluntary typically Link in terms of self-development goals.25 Whether the training is mandatory or vor Intary, it is important to assess the readiness and motivation of trainees. Two precon "ions for learning affect the success of those who are to receive training: readiness and motivation. Trainee readiness refers to whether or not the experience and know- edge of trainees have made them ready to absorb the training. Do they have the back- Ground knowledge and the skills necessary to absorb what will be presented to them: It is often desirable to group individuals according to their readiness, as determined by test scores or other assessment information, and to provide alter- native types of instruction for those who need it. The receptiveness and readiness of participants in training programs can be increased by having them complete questionnaires about why they are attending training and what they hope to accomplish as a result of it. The other precondition for learning is trainee motivation. The organization needs to help employees understand the link between the effort they put into training and the payoff. Why is the training important? What will happen if it does not occur? Moreover, what is in it for the individual employee? By focusing on the trainees themselves, managers can create a training environment that is conducive to learning. It is helpful to consider the expectancy theory of motivation to explain why employees may or may not be motivated to engage in and put effort into learning. According to the theory, behaviour is determined by making a conscious choice from multiple potential alternative behaviours. The behaviour employees select will be that which maximizes their pleasure and minimizes their pain. There are three variables to consider: expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. Expectancy is the feeling that if the employee puts in an effort, they will be able to perform. Employees might make this judgment based on previous experience, confidence level, and the training and target difficulty. Instrumentality is an employee's judgments on the anticipated reward for partaking or engaging in the training. Employees would make this assessment by determining how transparent the path is between perfor- mance and reward, the employee's trust in the individual providing the reward, and how transparent the process is in deciding who gets what reward. Finally, the last variable is valence, which is how much the employee values the reward. In terms of valency, an employee will determine the pros and cons of the reward. For example, an individual might gain new knowledge that would give them the opportunity for a promotion.24 The individual must determine whether they want this promotion, which is more money, but more responsibility and less time with family. Incorporating the Principles of Learning What makes some types of training more effective than others? Training has to build a bridge between employees and the organization. One important step In this transition is giving full consideration to the psychological principles of learning-that is, the characteristics of training programs that help employees grasp new material, make sense of it in their own lives, and transfer it back to Their jobs. All things considered, training programs are likely to be more effective if they incorporate the principles of learning shown in Figure 7.3. Chapter 7: Training aOF LEARNING learning Individual Whole-versus- learning part learning differences Experiential Active practice learning and repetition Goal Setting When trainers take the time to explain the training's goals and objectives to trainees-or when trainees are encouraged to set goals on their own-the level of interest, understanding, and effort directed toward the training is likely to increase. In some cases, goal setting can simply take the form of a "road map" of the course or program, its objectives, and its learning points. 25 Meaningfulness of Presentation Quite simply, trainees will be better able to learn new information if it is pre- sented using terminology they can understand, and the training connects with things already familiar to them. This is the reason why trainers frequently use colourful examples to which trainees can relate. The examples make the mate- rial meaningful. In addition, material should be arranged so that each experience builds on preceding ones. In this way, trainees can integrate the experiences into a usable pattern of knowledge and skills. Modelling Just as examples increase the meaningfulness of factual material or new knowl- edge in a training environment, modelling increases the salience of behavioural training. In other words, people learn by mimicking other people.26 Modelling can take many forms. Real-life demonstrations and recorded dem- onstrations, visual aids, pictures, and drawings can get the message across. In some cases, modelling the wrong behaviour can even be helpful if it shows trainees what not to do and then clarifies the appropriate behaviour. in Human ResourcesIndividual Learning Differences wople learn at different rates and in different ways. Visual learners absorb infor Petion best through pictures, diagrams, and demonstrations. Verbal learned hsorb information best through spoken or written words. miners can help accommodate different learning styles in a variety of ways. e key is to avoid deliv delivering the material in only one way. So, for example, Thread of delivering a monologue, trainers should incorporate variety into insir presentations. They should use visualization aids, encourage the participa " of learners by including them in demonstrations, and ask them questions out their own experiences. Hands-on activities and breaking large groups into learning styles . 27 "baller groups for specific activities can also help trainers accommodate different Active Practice and Repetition Those things we do daily become a part of our repertoire of skills. Trainees should be given frequent opportunities to practise their job tasks in the way they will ultimately be expected to perform them. An individual who is being raught how to operate a machine should have an opportunity to practise on it. A manager who is being taught how to train should be given supervised practice in training. The value of practice is that it causes behaviours to become second nature. For example, when you first learned to drive a car, you focused a great deal on the mechanics: "Where are my hands, where are my feet, and how fast am I going?" As you practised driving, you began to think less about the mechanics and more about the road, the weather, and the traffic. Other forms of learning are no different-by practising, a trainee can forget about distinct behaviours and concentrate on the subtleties of how they are used. Experiential Learning Experiential learning refers to the process of learning by experience or "doing," experiential learn often outside the classroom and without traditional ready-made learning content. The process of learnin Experiential learning might sound like hands-on learning, which can be a part reflecting on it, critica of experiential learning, but it is more than that. It involves not only engaging in applying it in new situ an activity, but reflecting on it, critically analyzing it-and potentially improving upon it-and then applying it in new situations or settings. Simulations, games, and special assignments, which we will discuss later in the chapter, fall into the category of experiential learning. Whole-versus-Part Learning Most jobs and tasks can be broken down into parts that lend themselves to fur- ther analysis. Learning to sell a product is an example. The process can essen- tially be broken down into a few discrete steps: finding customer opportunities, eliciting a prospective customer's needs by learning the proper questions to ask presenting the firm's product in a way that meets customer needs, and learning how and when to ask the customer to buy the product (closing the deal ). Programmed instruction, which is also referred to as self-paced learning, is often used to break down learning into sequences for employees to learn at their own pace. After being presented with a small segment of information, the trainee Chapter 7: Training an