Straight Talk

I have to say I am getting tired of the words metric, measurement and return on investment.  Not because they aren’t necessary, but because they are; and in the end it’s hard to get companies to truly commit to do what they need to do, to get what they want to get. 

There is work upfront before any training program is initiated.  Where are the participants’ skills today?  Where should they be?  What has worked in the past to improve skills?  What hasn’t?  Who needs to improve?  Who doesn’t?  Have other options besides training been utilized?  If so, what?  Did they work?  If so, great… why look at this again?  If not, why not?

Sometimes an assessment is used to get measurement.  But, what assessment measures what you need measured?  Should it be very specific to one skill or measure a lot of skills for future use?

The work that is done up front will pay off in the long run.  The challenge is that many companies don’t have the internal team members to do this type of work, so…. a training program is put in place for a perceived skill shortage and everyone crosses their fingers that improvement will occur.  The truth is that sometimes this works.  Sometimes organizations get lucky, pick the right topic, the right company to work with and participants improve as a result of the training. 

At ETL we really feel that the work up front in the needs analysis phase gives companies a better chance to succeed in their training plans.  We are more than willing to help.  We suggest you get us involved early so that we know the current skill level, the expected skill level and through program customization, provide the right content.  Training dollars are always tight.  Let ETL help you to spend them wisely.

This has been straight talk by Patricia DeMers