Creating a training and development strategy

Citation

(1999), "Creating a training and development strategy", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 23 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.1999.00323aae.003

Creating a training and development strategy

Creating a training and development strategy

Andrew MayoInstitute of Personnel and Development (IPD)1998ISBN 0 85292 732 0216 pp.£13.95 Paperback, (£12.56 IPD members), can be obtained direct from Plymbridge Distributors on 01752 202301

Keywords Capital, Development, Employees, Learning, Skills, Training

Growing interest in the concept of intellectual capital will give training and development professionals an unprecedented opportunity to shape business strategy, according to this book.

Author, Andrew Mayo, argues that the real value of an organization lies in its intellectual capital. The key to creating value is to develop that capital which depends on people, their potential and the way they are led and managed.

"One could have no greater strategic impact on an organization than to be instrumental in this growth", he writes.

The latest in the IPD's "Training Essentials" series, this book examines the link between business needs and training and development. Its aim is to enable personnel and training professionals to make sure that everything they do contributes to the achievement of their organization's business goals.

The book also looks at the strategic decisions and choices facing personnel and training professionals in managing learning processes effectively. Practical exercises are suggested throughout for the reader to apply to individual circumstances.

At the core of the book is a practical, eight-step blueprint for creating a training and development strategy driven by an organization's business needs. This focuses on the importance of quantifying performance gaps, understanding the goals of the business and encouraging clear definitions of capability levels as learning goals.

The "eight-step method" also recognizes that not everyone can achieve the desired level of capability and that training is not necessarily the solution to every problem and performance gap.

As well as linking the learning process to business goals, personnel and training professionals need to develop mechanisms for measuring the impact of their work according to Mayo who is a consultant in people and organizational development, and former director of human resource development for the ICL Group. Warning that as an overhead, personnel and training is always vulnerable, he says: "It needs to have measures of its contribution and achievement and these should include some assessment of whether learning has taken place as planned and whether the added value and return from investment of personnel and training is positive."

Personnel and training professionals should also consider whether learning has been applied back in the workplace and how far it has been shared with others. Both these aspects of "knowledge management" ­ which all too often are left to chance ­ need to be built into the overall design of learning programmes.

But, however well designed these programmes are, personnel and training professionals will not succeed in influencing business strategy unless they have real credibility within their organizations. The final chapter of Creating a Training and Development Strategy discusses how they can increase their credibility, and hone the political and influencing skills needed to demonstrate that personnel and training is about much more than putting on courses. It is, as Andrew Mayo explains, essentially about change, performance improvement and value creation.