Insider

Learning and Training Join the HR Fold in Workforce Performance

June 8, 2006—As learning and training, performance, and knowledge management systems have improved, the capability to link these disciplines and formulate integrated workforce performance strategies has taken shape. This capability has modified the expectations executives have of their organizations’ learning and training functions.

“Learning and training solutions must be more closely tied to an organization’s goals and drive its business execution,” said Suzanne Graf, event director for Workforce Performance 2006. “Learning and training can no longer be an independent organization, but must integrate into the overall performance services.” Workforce Performance 2006 is produced by Questex Media Group, parent organization of this website.

Until recently, organizations have not had the opportunity, nor the capability, to link workforce development processes and procedures, said Graf. This left the practices of human resources, learning and training, performance management, and knowledge management separated and non-centralized within most organizations.

Now, however, the technology to link these initiatives has developed at the same time that executives have shifted their perception of workforce performance to strategically important rather than a tactical necessity.

Graf pointed to a conference keynote presentation as an example of how the perception is changing.

The presentation, to be delivered by Josh Bersin, president at research company Bersin & Associates, is based on a study of the emerging performance management market. Bersin will describe the internal drivers of performance management initiatives and how they impact learning. He will discuss the pros and cons of technology solutions specific to performance management and suites that integrate performance management with learning management and other processes.    

Graf said she believes that every learning professional needs to learn about the workforce performance market—especially those planning to integrate a learning management system with a performance management solution.

Workforce Performance 2006, however, does not abandon its learning and training technology roots. Graf said the conference program is rich in case histories and guidance from industry experts on learning and training technology, tools, strategies and solutions.

Among the case histories to be presented is one from Larry Engel, instructional designer at Cisco. He will describe how the networking technology company builds reuse into its training content. Cisco recognized the commonality between first-exposure product training and field support reference materials (just-in-time training). As a result, Cisco’s e-service training team created swappable HTML templates that allow content to be authored once and then easily reused.  Previously, subject matter experts created virtually identical content twice for use in differing contexts. Concepts are documented once for use by training support personnel, and then reused by swapping templates.

Graf also pointed to a session on the topic of linking learning, performance and knowledge management. In the session, co-presenters from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, IBM’s learning strategy & design group, and Human Technology Inc. will describe how they used a rapid job task analysis to analyze and re-engineer core job processes for the new FAA/AIR Safety Management System. The goal was to get the proper level of detail for developing learning solutions and promoting standardization in task performance.

Workforce Performance takes place September 9 to 13, 2006, at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.