You wonder whether there is a clear path to success. And perhaps there is. If you keep things simple, every learning and development programme must contribute in a significant manner towards performance improvement. Identifying these improvements is therefore, key. Prakash brings an interesting mix to the plate with his varied educational background in human development, corporate communications and IT. Here, he shares with us, ideas on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of any learning and development programme, developing key metrics and why you need to work closely with Human Resources.

What clear line of sight means
Prakash : If you have clear line of sight between the business strategy and goals as well as the investment you want to put into your learning and development initiatives, you will be better able to demonstrate the value of the learning spend. Having clear line of sight here simply means that you need to be totally familiar with the industry you are in, understand the nature of the industry itself, its challenges and trends coupled with a basic competitor analysis. Essentially, practices and trends vary by industry but a well-built repository of knowledge in your respective industry will definitely spearhead your learning and development initiatives.

Most organisations spend considerable time developing their corporate culture as one of the supporting pillars in their organisation. Identifying, believing and applying these corporate values at work will move you towards the path of enterprise success. More importantly though, you need to be passionate and enthusiastic and practise these core values.

Learning and development initiatives are commonly derived from business goals. These initiatives are then cascaded down to the departmental and team level and may incorporate different implementation models for success. In general, the value derived from these investments is dependent on the impact these programmes have and how the business goals are served, either directly or indirectly. If you make hazy assumptions at the start or conduct vague analysis of its impact, the tendency will be for the business goals not be met, thus resulting in zero return on investment.

Three critical issues to get support
Prakash : When investing in learning and development and working on getting leadership support for these programmes, there are three critical issues you need to focus on. Firstly, recognise the immediate needs of the business. Understand the direct contribution made by learning and development initiatives in developing employees’ competency. A key question that needs to be front of mind for every learning and development professional is : 'Does my programme solve the current business issue?’

Secondly, have a clearer picture in your mind of the gap that you want to narrow between existing skills and required skills for the desired positions. The ultimate goal of any programme should be to assist employees to perform better and acquire the skills to carry out assigned tasks.

Thirdly, identify learning and development initiatives that can improve productivity and support the employee to achieve their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as well as resolve organisational issues. If you can design programmes that help bring hidden talents to the fore as well as help in talent retention, it really is a winning combination at hand.

The skills and knowledge to support your aims
Prakash : You need to identify the skills, knowledge and behaviours that will directly support the aims you are putting forward. It is important to recognise though that skills, while they can be acquired, do take time to develop. Nevertheless, there are some fundamental skills essential to learning and development professionals. These include an ability to drive management support from business leaders and persuasion skills that can be employed on the group targeted for these initiatives. While these two skills are pretty fundamental to the role, the trend for more self-initiated learning means that learning and development experts have a different sort of challenge now in creating a new mindset that encompasses a self-learning culture.

In carrying out your role, you will need regular and direct access to any knowledge that can support you. Nothing beats experience as a powerful teacher however. One of your challenges will lie in applying the knowledge you gained to the actual work setting - understanding how you can maximise output as well as increase efficiency. The conversion of knowledge into practical application is truly key here. In this regard, the proliferation of a variety of channels and platforms including social networks, virtual learning zones and online forums can be a great boon to you - make full use of it. The question is how many learning and development professionals are fully utilising these opportunities.

Behaviours you need to be on the lookout for
Prakash :These include being passionate and a genuine interest in developing people capability and improving competency at work. You also want to see people embrace self-learning as a habit as well as craft new ways to ease their organisational learning through the use of new technologies, for example. 'Initiative’ here is the magic word. This can sometimes mean that learning and development professionals occasionally wear the mediator hat as they grapple to balance the needs of the leaders and that of their employees to move the organisation forward.

A self-learning culture goes a long way towards supporting you in your learning and development initiatives
Prakash : This is however, one of the biggest challenges to face as it's like creating an automated system or designing a mechanism that can support the entire organisation. The way to explain this is to show the shift from training and development to learning and development. Your challenge is to enlighten your employees as to what self-learning entails. Learning really needs to be viewed as part of their daily work life rather than something separate and burdensome. If you have a heavy workload and you cannot commit to classroom-based learning, e-learning can be a godsend. E-books and audio-based learning tools with well-integrated electronic gadgets and technology are excellent in supporting self-learning as well. If you can furnish your people with innovative tools to ease their life and simplify the learning process, this clears the first hurdle.

As with anything though, the path to success lies in developing the metrics to measure and evaluate the business impact from your learning and development initiatives. Take care what you focus on. For example, a significant increase in sales or zero customer complaints are usually excellent indicators of the effectiveness of your learning programmes. Another sign is when you notice a shift from negative to optimistic behaviour and employees behaving and looking highly motivated. Steady incremental performance levels as well as increased efficiency at work may also appear albeit in different forms but these too show that the objectives of your learning programme are being met. If you identify the results you're after very clearly, these will help you continue to design improved programmes as time goes on.

Improving your programmes
Prakash : In my experience, you need to always improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the programmes you put forward. Identify clearly the purpose of the programme. What are the desired outcomes? Do you have any statistics you will rely on, to make a decision? Evaluating the effectiveness of the programme using the Kirkpatrick evaluation and assessment methods, and closely linking it with business and departmental goals are vital to programme improvement. You need to be meticulous, considering every aspect of the programme before and after implementation so that you can make improvements. The evaluation can involve several unique methods such as a 3-6 month post-programme assignment, presentations as well as pre and post tests.

Learning and development programmes should contribute in a significant manner towards performance improvement. You need to be able to identify the gains you are after and the link between your programme and the performance improvements. There is a clear line between performance management and learning and development programmes. Take coaching and mentoring for example. You can manage performance from the point of goal setting right up to the post appraisal stage. Coaching helps you to recognise performance improvement and the fact that assigned tasks have been accomplished. Furthermore, coaching can help employees to engage in a structured learning environment. In practice, the amalgamation of the learning and development plan with performance management is crucial to achieving organisational goals.

Learning Needs Analysis
Prakash : For me, our Learning Needs Analysis is executed using three important methods - the common practice of organisation-wide electronic surveys, feedback from departmental leaders as well as job descriptions based on the observations of the Human Resources and Learning/Development department. All these components are then blended into a skillsets spreadsheet as a guideline and design learning plan for the quarter. Every learning programme is then matched against these skillsets to ensure that it supports the daily assignment and departmental targets.

Aligning with Human Resources
Prakash : It is important to work very closely with your Human Resource lead to ensure that the various Human Resource functions are closely tied with the learning and development initiatives, particularly talent management and employee relations. Generally, learning and development has been parked under the banner of Human Resources. However, with the growing relevance and importance placed on the learning and development practice, this area has begun to grow in and stand apart from HR itself. This heightened role increases the opportunities for us professionals to show our mettle and influence especially in the areas of talent retention, succession planning, leadership development and performance management.

Uthaya Prakash Santhanam is the Regional Learning and Development Manager with Huawei Technologies Co Limited.