Focus on Your Efforts - Develop Your People -
Optimise Your Results
By Jocelyn Bérard M.Ps. MBA Vice President, Leadership and
Business Solutions, International, Global Knowledge
In challenging economic times, it is critical to stay on top of
your game. Within organisations, individuals who are affected by
economic restructuring need to focus on prioritising and performing
at their absolute best. To enable these individuals to succeed,
organisations need to develop and optimise their people—and take
advantage of the results—to ensure success over the long term. Here
are some tips for achieving these goals:
Prioritise or Re-Prioritise. Organisations must
re-prioritise to weather difficult times. Each employee and leader
needs to use this focus point to effectively contribute to the
organisation’s success. Ran Charan’s book, “Know-How,” highlights
eight essentials skills that leaders need to succeed. Charan states
that the organisation must set clear goals for itself; further, the
organisation should ensure that each employee and leader is focused
with explicit priorities that are clearly aligned with the
organisation’s goals. Effective performance management practices
are now more important than ever, but don’t put the emphasis on the
performance review. Instead, focus on the critical contributions
from each employee. Consider a contribution management system.
Support Urgent Business Priorities. Identify
how organisational development actions support specific and urgent
business priorities such as increasing or maintaining sales,
retaining customers, cross-selling, improving customer service,
maintaining gross profit margins, and reducing operational costs.
During difficult times, employee development actions aligned with
these types of business priorities will have more clout in the eyes
of senior executives. In addition to the obvious functional impact,
the development of employees can also maintain or boost morale in a
period of uncertainty. Executives know that good morale is key to
maintaining productivity and avoiding water cooler conversations
proclaiming “the sky is falling.” Providing development solutions
is an effective way for an organisation to send a strong message
that it believes in its people and is willing to invest in their
growth.
Develop the “Survivors.” The reality is
inevitable; some organisations will have to layoff employees. And
often, as a consequence, the “survivors”—the employees still on the
job—will have to perform at a higher output and take on the work of
employees who have left. These are the employees that organisations
should invest in to optimise their capabilities and help them
perform at their best. Developing the “survivors” will have a
positive impact on morale and productivity. It will also keep these
employees moving forward with a future-focus and the ability to
clearly see the impact and results of their actions.
Re-Evaluate Training for New Employees. Many
organisations are still onboarding new employees, especially in
industries such as retail and hospitality, where the normal
turnover is quite high. The decision to cut the onboarding of new
employees is short-sighted, as corporate results are almost always
immediately affected. However, reducing the time it takes for new
employees to become productive is key—developing onboarding and
training activities that result in productive employees in the
shortest period of time will deliver more to the bottom line.
Retain Your “A-List Players.” Even in this
challenging economic period, this point is critical—your best
employees and leaders can be poached by your competitors. Investing
in growing and developing your best talent is a necessity. After
all, your company will not always be in a state of economic turmoil
or uncertainty and you will always need high-quality talent.
The Customer is Always Right. During these
economically challenging times, this adage is more relevant than
ever! Customers, as always, remain sensitive to price and quality;
however, they are much less patient with poor service as they are
now overly-solicited to purchase the goods and services offered by
you and your competitors. Cutting back on customer service training
could be a mistake in this time of heightened competition.
Customer-facing employees’ performance is directly linked to key
business measures such as customer retention, customer service, and
sales.
Survival of the Fittest. Tough economic times
reinforce the concept of survival of the fittest. Organisations
that maintain their focus, develop their people, and optimise their
results will survive to take market share from those organisations
that don’t make it through. Employee development and training are
essential to ensure that the best employees are retained and
continue to function at their best performance level. This doesn’t
just apply to organisations; this is also a reality at the
individual employee level where the best performers are most likely
to keep their job. Being at the top of your game as an individual
and working for a company willing to invest in employee development
are requirements during economic uncertainty.
What Method Works for You? Don’t reconsider
whether you will conduct training; rather, reconsider the method of
training delivery. Contemporary methods for delivering training
provide an alternative way to eliminate costs. Delivery modalities
such as virtual or remote classrooms, e-Learning, Live Meeting, and
podcasts can help optimise training while avoiding the costs of
travel and accommodations. However, use good judgment when
selecting these modalities as some training content, especially
interactive skills such as sales, leadership, and communications,
are difficult to deliver through online or remote methods while
assuring learning success.
Learning is More than Training. Consider the
70-20-10 rule. As an adult, if you think of everything you know and
can do today, it is likely that 70% of that was learned by
doing—when opportunities were presented to you, you jumped in and
you learned. And 20% of what you know comes from what you learned
from others. The last 10% represents what you learned from formal
training. One could argue that these numbers could be 60-30-10 or
50-30-20 and still be appropriate. Remember that the 10% to 20% of
formal learning enables you to apply new skills and knowledge and
continuously learn and grow. The key message: a vast majority of
what we learn comes from various sources. So, in challenging
economic times that may force learning and development departments
to determine how to maximise their investment, remember the 80% or
90% of learning that occurs outside formal training. Consider
high-impact formal development for your organisation such as
customised solutions that are linked to critical business
objectives. Integrate these solutions with the learning available
from other job activities and applications, such as peer coaching
and blended learning opportunities like the combination of
e-Learning with group coaching.
Develop a Succession Plan. The critical issues
of the aging workforce and the need to prepare a succession plan
for baby boomers who are nearing retirement do not disappear with
economic challenges. Even if a financial downturn causes some
people to delay their decision to retire, we are all aging! So
preparing for succession is as important today as it was before the
recent economic changes. Remember: implementing a successful
succession plan for expert or leadership positions takes time;
choosing to create a short-term gain by targeting the area of
succession management for the purpose of budget cuts will have
long-term, strategic costs that may outlast the economic downturn.
Don’t forget, recessions are short while developing strong future
leaders takes time.
For more tips and strategies on maintaining your
learning and development activities during economically challenging
times, contact:
Jocelyn Bérard, M.Ps. MBA,
Vice President,
Leadership and Business Solutions, International, Global
Knowledge
jberard@nexientlearning.com | 416-964-8688 ext 2323