HR 101 - The Basics: 2015

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Training - Needs Assessment

Training Life Cycle - Step #1 Needs Assessment

In my last post I introduced my version of the Training Life Cycle; containing 5 basic steps. In this post I will spend more time on Step #1 - Needs Assessment.

In my opinion this is the most important step in the process. It is also the step most often skipped in many organizations. Why? Because managers can sometimes be intimidating in telling the training department that they know what is needed in their department and please "make it so." How do you argue with an executive? The simple answer is that you don't. This is where relationship skills come into play. You as the training manager must find the middle ground and make use of the opportunities to educate your client by asking questions, restating understanding and making recommendations.

For example, I was once approached by an Executive Vice President with a request to deliver training to his direct reports on effective communication. "I want you to start training next week and make it about 3-4 hours." I had three choices for a response:

Sure, I will clear my busy calendar and drop everything I'm doing for you. Monday at 8:30am OK for you?

This response will put you into a tail spin. It will compromise the work you've already committed to doing for other clients and, trust me, not even that glass of red wine you have at the end of the day will help you feel better.

You can't be serious? What makes you think I've got nothing better to do?

This response will probably land you in the HR office for insubordination. I don't recommend this one - EVER!

OK, do you mind if I ask you a few questions so that I can understand what your expectations are?

This response says, "Your needs are important to me. I want to help by understanding your expectations and desired outcome." It's the perfect opening to launch into the needs assessment. It also gives your racing heart time to recover.

Below is a job tool (you'll find that I'm very visual and love quick and easy tools in my line of work) that addresses this step for trainers and managers.

There will be a lot of negotiating in this step. The manager needs a solution as quick as possible while the trainer wants to make sure that she delivers the best solution to meet the manager's expectations. I find it best to schedule a second meeting after getting the answers to the needs analysis. Part of creating a recommended solution is to talk to peers, other departments and actual team members about the needs. You have to be very careful not to make it sound like "your boss thinks you're failing - what do you say about that?" Once again, it's all about the relationships with employees at all levels of the organization.

My approach is to ask "how are things going?" I have yet to meet an employee that is unwilling to tell you what's going on - especially if they're unhappy about something. Use open ended questions like:

Tell me more.
Why do you think that is happening?
How long has it been going on?
What do you think would be a good solution?
Have you talked to your manager about this issue?

Always ask that last question. It let's the employee know that it's his responsibility to discuss issues with his manager. If he is unwilling to be part of the solution then he has no right to complain. The key is to get a feel for what's happening in the department. This insight will help in recommending an appropriate solution.

Next week I'll post examples and recommendations to be successful in presenting solutions to the client. Until then, let me know your thoughts and have a great week.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Training Life Cycle

My first experience with training took place 30+ years ago (I was very young when I started) while working as a reservations agent at a travel company. After several years as a General Manager for a large camp resort in Central Florida I was cooked. As it turns out I was not smarter than the average bear. Being an onsite manager is not lucrative at all - even with free housing! It truly is a 24X7 operation and I was plain tired of being the one where the buck stopped for any and all problems. Campers or "guests" as we called them were not always kind. They didn't care about the "picinic" baskets. Some of them were quite demanding and unrealistic. Things like, "An alligator ate my tent! Why is it so hot here? When is this rain going to stop? Your washing machine ate my clothes. The bar closes too early. Your grocery store doesn't carry the brands I like. It's just a hurricane, why do I have to leave the campground?" These and many other crazy complaints were just enough for me to want to find another job. The year I was called on Christmas Day because the lift station malfunctioned and the entire campground was soaked in several inches of raw sewage was the straw that broke the camels back. It was time for Boo-Boo to look for a new job!

I longed for a simpler job. One where I punched a clock, did my job, punched the clock to go home and let some supervisor worry about what went wrong in the operation while I enjoyed a nice glass of red wine. I had to talk the company into hiring me because I was over qualified. I assured them that this job was exactly what I wanted to do and I would be the best reservations agent ever. Three weeks into the job I realized I had made a huge mistake. What was I thinking? I was bored to death! I felt trapped. But, I made a promise. Anything less than my best would be a reflection on my integrity, something I very much valued. So, I did the only thing I knew to do - I became a hand-raiser.

Hand-raisers are those employees that are always up for anything above and beyond the scope of the job they were hired to do. For me, anything off of the phones was an opportunity to showcase my skills in hopes of getting noticed and promoted. That's how I was introduced to training.

Every year the reservations staff would be scheduled for "training" on new product offerings, in this case Travel Insurance. The content was provided by the vendor and the training manager presented the materials to the staff via several sessions over the course of a couple of weeks. I had raised my hand to help out and was selected to copy the participant materials and prepare the training room prior to each session. This entailed turning on the overhead projector (I included a photo for those of you that may be too young to know what I'm talking about) and making sure that the slides were in order for the trainer during the session. This also meant that I had to sit in on every single session to track attendance and parking lot issues. It was painful!! I heard the same presentation over and over until I had nightmares about it. Painful!!!

Towards the end of the sessions the training manager became sick. Honestly, I think she just couldn't stomach one more session. Consequently, since I had been present in every session, I was asked to cover and conduct the last few sessions. I was mortified! Speaking in front of people especially peers was not part of my plan. Now mind you, all I had to do was flip through slides and point out what had changed in the insurance coverage. Still - I was terrified!

Fortunately I didn't die as expected and received good reviews on the post-training assessments. This led to more work with the training manager and the company investing in my development by sending me to various training and facilitation workshops. Eventually I was promoted into the Training Manager position and started to learn curriculum design. I moved quickly in the organization and had the privilege of developing many training programs, both in leadership and job-specific skills as a Curriculum Designer at the Corporate University.

Having spent many years conducting learning needs assessments, developing training materials and facilitating training I've learned a couple of things that may be helpful if you currently work in training for your company or you're in operations in need of training products within your company.

First and foremost is the training life-cycle. Just like anything else in business, regardless of industry, there is a process flow for training per below:

There are many models of training steps or life-cycles available for training professionals. If you type in "training life-cycle" in Google you will get 99,000,000 results. My philosophy is to keep it simple whenever possible. Through the years I have blended many of the tools into this simple 5 step process. It's what I use when I sit down with a client to discuss training needs and educate them on the overall process. My clients don't need to know all of the details involved in each step, but if we are going to be good partners in this shared responsibility they need to understand the basics, especially as it relates to timing.

The next five posts will be dedicated to each step in the process, again, based on my personal experience as a facilitator and curriculum designer.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

HRD and HRM - What's the Difference?

HRD and HRM - is there a difference and if so, what is it? There are two distinct areas of focus within a Human Resources organization. One side deals with the development of of humans while the other manages all of the logistics of the humans working in your organization and how they contribute to the bottom line.

Most of my experience is on the HRM side but as I mentioned in my introduction I've also dabbled on the HRD side. HRM tends to appeal to those right brained folks such as myself. It's generally more creative in nature, especially in the training function. HRD on the other hand is more appealing to left brained individuals - those that like to deal with numbers, procedures and processes that don't deviate much from the norm. Of course this is just my observations based on my experience.

Human Resources Development

According to BusinessDictionary.com, Human Resources Development is "the part of Human Resource management that deals with training and development of employees." Some in the industry call this the "soft" side of HR. Personally, I think this is the 'fun' side of HR. Unfortunately, many organizations consider most if not all functions of HRD as unnecessary or "fluff." Oftentimes these functions are the first to go during budget cuts. It's interesting to note however that most employees see these functions as very important when considering applying for a job or staying with their current company. But, that's a topic for another post.

Below are the high level basic functions that fall under HRD:

Human Resources Management

BusinessDictionary.com defines Human Resources Management as "the process of hiring and developing employees so that they become more valuable to the organization." This part of HR deals with managing the logistics of finding employees, hiring them and making sure they add value to the organization. Below are the basic functions that fall under HRM:

The definitions sound very similar but the best way to tell the difference between the Ying and Yang of HR is that one is focused on the development of the individual while the other is focused on the group of employees and how they add value to the organization. In the old days, this part of HR was known as "Personnel".

Other Functions of Human Resources

There are several other functions that typically fall under the HR organization that don't necessarily fit tightly into HRD or HRM models. These include:

Organizational Development
Employee Engagement
Change Management
Employee Communication
Compliance & Legal Requirements
Workforce Planning
Payroll
Metrics and Reports
Safety
Recognition

In my experience some of these functions have been known to reside in other departments such as Finance, Marketing, Strategic Initiatives and others. In my opinion anything and everything that has to do with an employee should fall within the HR organizational strategy. This is the best way to mitigate misunderstandings, inconsistencies in administering policy and redundancies that often create frustration in employees.

There are several great sites that offer detailed information on the various functions of Human Resources including:

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) - Some information requires membership, but there is quite a bit of free information available on the site.

Compliance Tools for HR Professionals

A must to insure your company is operating fair, square and legal as it relates to employment laws.

Over the next few months I will post more detailed information on each of the functions. Until then .... let me know what you think.

Saturday, March 21, 2015

What I Know About Human Resources

After 30 years of working with people, otherwise known as human resources, I have come to the conclusion that there are no fast and proven processes, methodologies or fixes that work every single time they're applied to a human interaction. Humans are complex and unpredictable. What works one day doesn't work the next. Engaging an employee is dynamic; constantly evolving. In my experience, to successfully hire, lead, motivate, develop, discipline, interact and communicate with human resources comes down to one thing and one thing only - relationships. Yes, the "R" word - insert dramatic music here!

Building a relationship of trust and mutual respect is essential if you're going to be successful at managing human resources. This applies at all levels - up, down, sideways and diagonally. Regardless of what your position is within an organization, what industry you work in or what your title says on your business card -- one thing is certain; you have to deal with humans at some point. They may be employees, peers, vendors, customers, the boss, the person that makes your coffee on your way to the office. It doesn't matter. You must deal with humans - like it or not!

There is no way out of the dilemma of having to deal with humans, but there are several practices that over time can help you be more successful with each human interaction in your life. The exception is toddlers and teenagers. Something odd happens to humans during this part of their life cycles that makes it impossible to develop a successful relationship that is consistent. With these humans, it's truly trial and error every day along with patience and red wine. Lots and lots of red wine!

So what is HR 101 - The Basics about? It's a blog about my experiences as a Human Resources practitioner. I've worked in operations, IT and pretty much every aspect of Human Resources Development while delving into a few areas of Human Resources Management. I've managed operations of various sizes, worked in Corporate America (and survived), read countless of books on leadership, attended more conventions than I care to remember, participated in start-ups and shut-downs (these I don't recommend), and have interacted with hundreds of thousands of humans during my half century on this earth. If you really want to know all of the boring details, you can check out my profile on LinkedIn.

I hope to share my knowledge through this blog using real life examples based on my personal experiences - the good, the bad, and the ugly! I plan to touch on the basic aspects of successful human interaction including:

Communication
Conflict Management
Leadership Skills
Human Resources Development
Human Resources Management
Change Management
Organizational Development

I would love to hear your comments, experiences and/or suggestions on what you are most interested in learning about. Or, if you think I'm full of hot air -- feel free to let me know as well. I can take it!

HR 101 - The Basics