CHAPTER ONE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY Learning External Instructional Objectives Environment Design 1. Describe the elements that distribute contribute to training and Training and Internal Needs Evaluation development strategy. Development Environment Analysis and Outcomes Strategy 2. Assess the external or environment for training and development opportunities and Company Development Strategy Plan challenges. 3. Critique internal environment elements for training and development Organizations facepost, increasingly volatile and complex markets. To needs and readiness. compete, they need a business strategy that counteracts negative 4. Illustrate the forces and guides individual lines of business toward positive interrelatedness of outcomes. The strategy needs to present leaders with guidelines training and development activities with other on how to make decisions and allocate resources to accomplish human resource functions. key objectives, as well as define the actions people in the business should take and the factors they need to prioritize to achieve 5. Appraise a company copy,desired goals. training and development strategy for strategy The secret to successful strategy execution involves your alignment and contextual employees. As such, a talent and learning strategy will ensure that relevance. an organization’s workforce has the necessary skills to carry out 6. Recall the ethicalnot code for the actions laid out in the business strategy. With that in mind, it’s training and development not hard to make the case that aligning an organization’s learning professionals. strategy with its business objectives is a worthwhile exercise. 7. Recognize the importance However, less than half of companies actually align their learning Doof economic conditions strategies, according to the ATD Research Report Aligning for for global training and Success. One-third (33 percent) of leaders in the study say that development activities. their strategies are aligned to a high extent, and only 16 percent of 16 Copyright ©2020 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. companies are aligning learning and business strategies to a very high extent.The report also reveals, however, that organizations that do align learning and talent development with business strategy have better market performance compared with organizations with lower levels of alignment. Among respondents from high-performing organizations, 60 percent said their organization’s learning and business goals are aligned to a high or very high extent, contrasted to 49 percent of all organizations in the study. So, why isn’t learning aligned in more organizations with corporate strategy? Research from Bersin by Deloitte done in 2015 finds that not all organizations have an overall talent strategy, which it defines as interlocking decisions related to talent that enable an organization to most effectively execute its business strategy. “The talent strategy should provide leaders with guidance as to the critical investments—as well as some of the tactical decisions—that should be made,” explains Stacia Sherman Garr, vice president of talent and HR research for Bersin by Deloitte. But developing a talent strategy remains a challenge for many organizations. In Bersin by Deloitte’s survey of 454 organizations, just 12 percent of organizations have a clear talent strategy with advanced and integrated talent processes distributein place. The survey also reveals that of those organizations that rate themselves at the highest level of effectiveness on business outcomes, at least half have an established talent strategy with some or many advanced processes in place. or“Organizations with a talent strategy are more than four times as likely to be in the top quartile of business outcomes. These business outcomes include innovation, improving processes to maximize business efficiency, and anticipating and responding to business changes efficiently and effectively,” says Garr. Why don’t more organizations have a talent strategy? The answer may simply be that one isn’t required or expected bypost, top leaders. Talent development expert Edward E. Lawler argues that some business leaders believe their organizations can survive without top talent. No need for talent equates to no need for a talent strategy. Meanwhile, others may acknowledge that talent management is important, but not as important as other business functions such as finance or technology. “Many executives are unable to see the relationship between talent issues and the business strategy of their organization,” explains Lawler in a 2016 Forbes article. Consequently, chief talent development officerscopy, must take it upon themselves to develop a talent and learning strategy and link it to the overall business strategy. Source: Excerpted and adapted from Ryann Ellis, “All About Alignment,” CTDO Magazine, Summer 2016. Avail- able fromnot https://www.td.org/magazines/ctdo/all-about-alignment. he research results discussed in our opening vignette make an important point T about the relationship between organizational strategy and organizational success, Doand the impact employees have on both of these issues. Employees need the tools to be successful and help the organization achieve its objectives. Training and development CHAPTER 1 • TraINING AND DEVELopMENT StrateGY 17 Copyright ©2020 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. are essential tools that employees need to have a positive impact on organizational outcomes. To accomplish this, the organization’s training and development (or learn- ing) strategy must align with the corporate strategy. As noted in the introductory chapter, the human resource (HR) department must ensure the company’s training and development strategy is in alignment on three fac- tors: the internal environment of the company, the external environment within which the organization functions, and the company strategy. All have to be considered when designing and implementing training and development activities. What follows in this chapter are more in-depth descriptions of each of the key inputs to a training and devel- opment strategy. INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT The HR infrastructure represents the horizontal integration the training and devel- opment strategy has across HR functional areas, and across key dimensions in the orga- nization’s internal environment. Training and development strategydistribute does not exist in a vacuum, such that the plans made in training and development practices will have an interdependent impact on other aspects of the HR function and all aspects of the internal organizational environment. Training and developmentor programs have to be embedded in a larger system so that HR policies are supported and reinforced across the whole organization. Each department, division, and functional area is so tightly interdependent that, like a Venn diagram, you cannot make a change in part of the organization or HR system without affecting everything to which it is connected. A systematic view of the internal environment indicates four important dimensions to consider: task, people, social, and organizationpost, environments. Tasks Organizations have to consider the tasks that employees do on a regular basis. These tasks encompass the activities that are essential to the company’s business. The task environment requires us to understand what employees do, when they do it, and how often they repeat those tasks. This information provides the basis for job analysis and job descriptions. It also requires the organization to know the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) neededcopy, for employees to perform those tasks, which provides the organization with clarity on the job specifications needed for the employees to perform successfully. If an employee is not able to perform the required tasks of the job, this is the opportunity for training to help the employee obtain those skills. notPeople The people environment includes the demographics of the workforce, including the KSAs, experiences, education levels, and motivations of the employees. The task Do and people environments of the internal organization directly inform training and development because organizations have to know what tasks are needed for the job, 18 STRATEGIC TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT Copyright ©2020 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. and whether or not employees are ready, willing, and able to perform those tasks. One way the organization understands the people environment is by tracking employee records, including education, certifications, and any competency or skill training employees have undertaken. Another way to assess the people environment is through surveys to get feedback from employees on their perceptions of the organization and how it is functioning. PepsiCo, for example, regularly assesses employees for feedback on many things, includ- ing benefits, working conditions, compensation, career development, and diversity and inclusion initiatives.1 This information helps PepsiCo understand the people environ- ment and informs how the organization manages its employees strategically. Social The social environment considers the social systems within which the employees