Introduction
This document contains some reflections that can undoubtedly contribute to the process of structuring and formalizing a business training, education and training program, focusing above all on the conceptual component, since in other writings I have addressed the administrative and logistical aspects required in this type of processes.
Business training is a key element in the management and performance consolidation processes, it is the way to incorporate the capabilities of people into the task and create spaces for the development of the skills required for the operationalization of the strategic desideratum of the organization.
In many organizations, training, as a key management process, is supported and promoted by management and its executives strive to include in the structure the training areas that ensure the key factors of organizational development. For other companies, training is still an accidental topic of little value and is carried out only in cases of extreme need, such as the obligation to update on legislative, labor, accounting or tax issues. that if not done can lead to fines for the company, in other cases it is assumed only for specific technical issues that are required for the development of the operation, in such a way that talking about an articulated training or training process consistent with the The mission and vision of the company is nothing more than a chimera that frightens those who are convinced that training is an expense and not an investment.
Having a Master Training Plan is the opportunity to integrate in a single effort all the training and training initiatives that arise from different areas of the organization and that on many occasions collide with each other, duplicate efforts or simply leave evidence before collaborators that managers do not communicate when defining the topics and people who will attend these events.
The reflection that I propose will mention some alternatives to enhance training in the company and the best way to take advantage of the increasingly numerous offer, which at low cost or free, is offered by government, union, academic or private entities.. The aim is to unite efforts and, above all, to coordinate and control the hours and costs of the training, the registration of attendees and the topics seen, the intensity by topic and the providers that participated.
The Master Training Plan must also be supported in the legal framework that each country has been developing and that allows companies to consolidate initiatives aimed at developing models such as the "Corporate University" that has been successfully implemented in many large companies. size but that undoubtedly are an invitation to take advantage of the organization's talent and internal knowledge resources and for this reason, training programs for trainers have been started to attend training needs in specific and company-specific topics, in such a way that it is the internal talent that integrates the training team according to the training plans established for the period.
The Master Training Plan becomes a guide that incorporates and articulates the different training actions of the organization and recognizes the required taxonomy in such a way that it can include all levels of the organization in the processes aimed at contributing to closing the gaps. identified between the indicators desired by the company in the management and those that the collaborators currently have.
1. Purposes of a master training plan
We are in a world where it is easy to recognize globalization as an opportunity but also as a threat and to know that competitiveness ceased to be local to become global, which encourages us and forces us to visualize the future of the organization in innovative contexts taking As a point of support for collaborators who will be responsible for making the dreams of the organization come true, who will be able to create new paradigms that expand the frontiers of productivity.
In this sense, the intention with which the training is structured must be born from the decision to attend, among others, the following purposes:
to. Facing the competition:The improvement of the products offered to the public, the quality and warmth of the service and the agility in internal procedures will undoubtedly be some of the components that will make the difference to make us have preference over competitors who offer the same as our business. Facing competition with new technologies, with investment in infrastructure and with strategies aimed at having a greater presence will undoubtedly be invaluable, but they will be more so if the people who are at the forefront of each of these issues have incorporated the personal and organizational competences capable of allows them to contribute significantly to the overall result of the company. To face the competition, permanence strategies and loyalty of the internal client are also required,of endomarketing and all those that ensure the talents necessary to offer differentiated products and services to a market that strives every day to demonstrate that what is innovative today will be obsolete tomorrow.
b. Covering the gaps for superior performance: The application of diagnostic instruments capable of recognizing the current state of the competencies of our collaborators in each of the areas requires that we be able to propose alternatives for action that turn the people of the work teams into productive and capable of delivering superior results, individually but also collectively. As expressed by the ILO, performance has two components that emanate from performance, they are the task and the result, which makes the one complementary to the other but also a consequenceIt is there where the task of the training specialist resides, to understand and integrate the assigned task with the expected results and to be able to measure them on a performance scale that allows recognizing if there is a coincidence between the results obtained and the expected ones. The training will then be designed with the intention of finding the potential of the collaborators and turning them into action, in such a way that each one feels that their management is not above their capabilities but neither below them.
c. Attract, retain and develop the best talent:It is common to find in social situations where information circulates about the importance that companies give to training, there are also awards from unions and public and private entities that value the efforts of companies for the human development of their collaborators and finally there is the voice A voice that allows many professionals to express one of the three statements proposed by Kaplan and Norton that says "this is a company where it is worth working". Training becomes a valuable contribution for many people who have no other opportunity to train, to train their skills or to get to know and deepen their area of expertise.Companies that promote training events among their collaborators become desired by talents who are looking for work spaces to contribute but also to continue growing. Many professionals complain about their companies because they feel that the knowledge curve has stagnated and is even declining, they have not been able to complete a diploma, a master's degree or even a refresher course. The own talent of the collaborators needs to find sources where they can maintain and increase their knowledge that contribute to the realization of organizational and professional purposes.a master's degree and not even a refresher course. The own talent of the collaborators needs to find sources where they can maintain and increase their knowledge that contribute to the realization of organizational and professional purposes.a master's degree and not even a refresher course. The own talent of the collaborators needs to find sources where they can maintain and increase their knowledge that contribute to the realization of organizational and professional purposes.
d. Building a culture of service for the organization: In the Jesuit community and inspired by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the use of the phrase "our way of proceeding" is frequently resorted to as a manifestation of that certain uniformity that belongs to a group to association, it is the character that the organization gives to those who participate in it, creating culture is an intentional action of the company management, it is a proposal that is born from the recognition of the values that they want to promote in the behaviors of the work teams, it is the promotion of our “own style” as an organization, it is the series of events and inventions that lead to building a day to day full of symbols, routines, events and visual signs that allow us to recognize the spaces as friendly and own.The service culture is the horizon of action of what we do in the company, recognizing that the client is our ally, our reason and our reason for being, that is why we work "with him" not only "for him", he is our source of inspiration in daily work. Service ceases to be an empty concept that is used when we want to label what we do in work teams and becomes the excuse, as K. Blanchard would say, for us to be caught doing things well. Creating a service-oriented training program implies recognizing that action is a vocation and not just a contractual management of monetary recognition.
and. Contribute to the development of the country.The latest trends that have favored the environmental issue, social responsibility and business reputation have led companies to increase their efforts to support the community through plans and programs aimed at showing the kind and friendly face of the communities to which It is directly or indirectly impacted, community work occupies a significant percentage of the budgets, the quest to integrate into sustainability reports and to have ISO certifications and others of wide international recognition has allowed internal training to be benefited by carrying So to fulfill the purposes that the IDB proposed in its document on human development for Latin America a few years ago. The processes of certification of labor competencies have become,among others, in the valuable contributions that companies make to their collaborators because it offers them the opportunity to increase employability in an increasingly demanding market in their selection and engagement processes.
These purposes can be adjusted, improved, changed or appropriate depending on the sector to which the company belongs, the number of collaborators, the headquarters it has and the budget assigned for its development.
2. Objectives of the master training plan
Business training must be of mutual benefit, both for the company and for the collaborator, therefore the design and structure of the same must contemplate that the deliverables or expected results are aimed at increasing and improving the key aspects of the organization but also the teams and the people participating in this process. It is possible that when planning the corporate training program other horizons of results appear, however, I would like to offer you the following that I hope will contribute to the exercise of comprehensively visualizing the contribution that training makes to the development of key competencies for professional and business productivity.
Firstly, I propose that the objectives of the training be aimed at increasing and improving the following aspects for employees:
to. Motivation: Offer plans and programs that are interesting for the participants in terms of personal growth, strengthening the specific skills of their tasks. It is about incorporating participatory methodologies that suggest learning processes based on constructivist theories, for example, that encourage participants to mobilize their interests in search of new learning that goes beyond conceptual updating. The motivation in the training processes must be evidenced in the recognition they make of each of the alternatives offered by the company and its active participation in them.
b. Commitment: The perception that the collaborators have about what matters to the organization also goes through the recognition they make of the interest in keeping the work teams updated and prepared to successfully face the challenges that day-to-day management implies in the company. The commitment increases as the collaborator values what he receives in training from the company, in wanting to return in time, management and results what he perceives as a genuine interest on the part of the company so that his professional growth will lead to greater responsibilities and perhaps better charges.
c. Performance: As we announced above, what is involved is not only to improve the task being performed or to fulfill the established functions, but also the expected results, what is obtained with what is done. The training plan should offer the opportunity to do what each collaborator knows how to do best, to enhance their specific skills and knowledge, increase innovation in the task and thus exceed the expectations set for the work they do.
Secondly, I propose that the objectives of the training be aimed at increasing and improving the following aspects in the company:
d. Profitability: Every training initiative in the organization has a horizon of benefit for the organization and the economic one is one of the main ones because it represents the evidence of permanence over time, so the training and development processes must show tangible results. and quantifiable, in such a way that the economic resources assigned to these events can be measured and obtain the return on investment from the perspective in which it decides to be measured by the company. Training should become an opportunity for improvement not only from personal ability but also in the real increase in company incomeAs suggested by Kaplan and Norton, improving processes and sales increases revenues as a result of a talent whose knowledge and expertise is at the service of the organization.
and. Productivity: When developing business training plans and programs, we focus on promoting, among other things, innovation in service provision and the development of processes, the creation of better products and the implementation of new technological models that improve quality and the value of what we offer to customers. Increasing productivity leads us to have management systems that allow us to optimize the resources we use compared to the results we obtain, and it will then be an ideal team of people who will lead us to consolidate work teams that generate results that offer efficiency and effectiveness to starting from his talent applied to the daily development of the organizational task.
F. Competitiveness: The expectation of any organization is not only inspired by the desire to remain in an increasingly competitive market and offer products that are attractive to the potential consumer and customers, but especially to reach levels of preference that allow them to generate such a level of remembrance. that it manages to position the brand among the first when making the purchase decision. Being competitive implies having left a mark on the customer who wants to buy from this company and not from another. Training is undoubtedly a key element in the construction of the key aspects of customer recall, for example service, product quality, opportunity in the office, the required quantity, among others.
A Master Training Plan interprets and articulates the interests and motives that both the person and the company may have to design and participate in a training plan that requires the allocation of time and resources to a process whose results are distributed between the short to medium and the long-term.
3. Training axes for the training master plan
Each organization prioritizes the topics and contents required for the processes of education and training of its collaborators depending on their focus and productive orientation, however I dare to suggest the following axes that seek to incorporate the major concerns that training management addresses due to that in each one of them the themes oriented to fulfill both the purposes and the objectives that we have talked about above are addressed. It is possible that there are other axes or dimensions of training, but for the moment I will dedicate a few reflections to each of these elements, which undoubtedly suggest a process that integrates and involves all the collaborators of the company. The proposed axes are in:
to. Commercial and service management: The commercial force of an organization is made up of ALL collaborators, each one has in his management the moments of truth through which current or potential clients may or may not maintain the commercial relationship with the company, however It is the sales and customer service areas that in one way or another generate these links in a particular way, for this reason the Master Training Plan must focus on the development of topics that enhance the knowledge, skills and attitudes that represent a strengthening this relationship. Among the topics that can be addressed in this axis of training, I suggest, for example, the following:
- Principles of Customer Service and Quality Importance of Commercial skills Effective and Impact Presentations Conversational Skills Effective Management of Objections Customer Loyalty Persuasion in business management Keys to telephone service Moments of Truth Introduction to CRM Customer Service Management Consultative selling
It is clear that the duration, taxonomic depth and conceptual scope will be determined according to the real need of those who are called to participate in the development of these issues.
b. Managerial and administrative development: In other writings, I have mentioned that being a manager is not only having a position that certifies it, but it is the management that you carry out that will demonstrate the quality of manager that is, whether or not you have the skills required to contribute and contribute significantly to business management, so I suggest as specific topics for management training the following:
- Training of the Management team. Time Management Management Effective management of managerial meetings. Introduction to managerial competences Management Coach Effectiveness in Decision Making Organizational Planning and Management NLP Basic Course Leadership for Executives RSE towards ISO 26,000 Innovation and creativity Enneagram and productivity
These themes suggest that management training is not an individual process but that it integrates team members as well, recognizing that company managers are a team, they must learn to recognize themselves as such and establish a plan where they are the first to accept and recognize that they need to be trained in order to establish a leadership position that is not imposed but recognized.
c. Specific training in positions:This axis is of great impact and importance due to the fact that it addresses the specific topics of the training required for each of the areas, it refers to the specific technical knowledge and skills in the manipulation of the proper elements for the proper development of the tasks. Each of the topics will have to do with the way in which the operation or the service provided is executed. Many of these trainings turn out to be specialized, which requires collaborators to be sent out of the country to receive such training; in other cases, internal training schools are used, which include specific simulation spaces to carry out the inductions and re-trainings required for training. good performance of the function for which the collaborators were hired.It is important to include in this training process topics that are certifiable by the entities approved by the state and in this way it supports employability because it not only generates personal motivation but also gives the collaborator the opportunity to compete in a qualified way in other spaces. work.
d. Support for personal and family growth: The family context in which our collaborators move is of great importance when designing the TRAINING MASTER PLANSince the company's concern for training must transcend organizational boundaries and include the people who are part of the collaborator's family nucleus, finally a good part of their interests and motivations stem from the desire to offer well-being and quality of life to those who work. part of their affections, for this reason it is suggested to establish plans, supported by allies such as compensation funds, health entities and others of similar function, that allow proposing programs that integrate the couple, children and other people from the circle family. It is about going beyond the classic wellness activities and proposing learning and reflection spaces that favor union and commitment.
and. Development of environmental competencies: Beyond fashion, the environmental issue must be addressed as a responsibility that arises from the imperative of favoring conditions of sustainability in an increasingly deteriorated environment, offering spaces for awareness and recognition that it is not a issue whose responsibility is purely governmental or foreign to our daily lives. In this axis of training I propose to include among other topics the following:
- Awareness on environmental issues Water and Energy Savings Comprehensive waste management plan Hazardous waste management plan
Environmental responsibility issues should go beyond the theoretical reference and should include the aspects necessary to develop environmental competence as a behavioral experience that transforms everyday life and that goes beyond intention and goes to the real and evaluable proposal in the organizational culture.
Each one of these training axes will be designed and structured to attend to the different levels of the organization and to include the topics resulting from the diagnosis of training needs. It is then a matter of identifying a curriculum mesh that integrates the managerial, administrative and operational aspects of the company and at the same time recognizes the importance of linking the personal and the work in the content offered.
4. DICE model
The Master Training Plan is designed and administered by the training or human management management according to the decision of the company, the responsibility for the results of the same cannot be outsourced, the consulting companies that offer corporate training plans, the universities Formal programs that promote continuing education programs and all the other training providers that we find in the market DO NOT ensure a result, these are companies that offer solutions that meet the training expectations set by the company, their result will then be according to the requirement posed in terms of methodology and facilitators. The responsibility for the result of the training process will then be the responsibility of the person who designed, programmed and prepared the training work plan for the company.In this sense, I summarize the model that you will find extensively at http://modelodice.blogspot.com/ and that in essence allows training management to take the process from identifying training needs to evidence of the impact on training. business productivity. Its components are:
to. Diagnosis:by means of tools that allow identifying the company's training needs, using alternatives such as surveys, interviews, consultations for the DNC (training needs diagnosis) or using technological tools such as the DISC or the results of other instruments such as Climate, culture, performance, etc. surveys, then, are about finding the topics required to close performance gaps but also to propose plans and programs that anticipate future training needs. The diagnosis makes it possible to ensure that the route to be followed corresponds to the real need of the company and its areas and not only to a perception of the managers or those responsible for business training.Many companies are working on diagnostic models that include customers and, at their first approach, retrieve and enforce the comments and observations they leave in mailboxes designed for this purpose.
b. Intervention:Once the areas, themes, depth and providers of the training have been identified, the work plan is designed that allows the plan to be structured in terms of time and participants, so that each of the collaborators can know their training plan in advance. Annual, this does not imply that there are conjunctural processes that appear during the year, however the programming ensures that the budgets are made on certain expectations and not only on possible actions that do not arise from the diagnosis on which to respond. The training plan then ensures that there is also equity in the process and that everyone benefits.In many organizations programs are developed that allow taking advantage of the financing offered by the state as a return of the parafiscal contributions it has made, in others it has the support of provider entities or their own budgets. The intervention ranges from virtual to face-to-face, from individual to group and always according to a model that pursues the result in terms of learning and not in number of hours and participants.
c. Verification:Experience has shown that many financial resources allocated to training processes end up being spent, not only in the p & g but in the corporate reality. To follow up on the training plan is to ensure that the measurement indicators go beyond efficiency and approach effectiveness, it is about accompanying the training process in all aspects that it includes, from logistics to transfer from learning from the classroom to the workplace, following up on the commitments that are generated in the intervention and controlling the results set for each program or scheduled event. This phase of the process is final since it allows us to check if the business training plan is proceeding according to the schedule made,if the programmed collaborators are attending, if the number of hours corresponds or not, etc., it is important to validate the impact of the content, the perception of the assistants on the programs and consider the adjustments required for its development.
d. Evaluation: Every end is a new beginning, so when we finish a business training program we will find new inputs that will lead us to generate a new training program, but we cannot ignore the importance of recognizing the impact in terms of management and of information that allows us to visualize the result obtainedin the process. The evaluation must include the levels proposed by D. Kilpatrick, which will undoubtedly be a key reference when it comes to showing the organization's managers the results obtained in the process. It is about having a training indicator board that solves the question of the impacts, not only for the actions carried out but also for the contribution of the training to the business results.
It is important to mention that this whole process may not be successful if we do not also make it participatory. In many companies there is opposition and resistance from managers and area managers for whom training programming is an imposition that interrupts work routine, in a Participatory action model integrates the training committee made up precisely of managers and bosses who are the best able to collaborate when making the training diagnosis and motivating employees to participate in scheduled events.
The DICE model offers us the possibility to control the entire cycle of business training, to recognize and prioritize needs, to define the required methodologies and to accompany the process in all its components.
5. Final thoughts
Finally, I would like to suggest, for the construction of a Master Training Plan for the organization, that the following aspects be taken into account:
- Receive the support of the senior management for the structuring and development of the business training plan. Have a budget that allows the fulfillment of the proposed themes. Establish a team of internal trainers that develop specific themes and that enhance internal knowledge and talent. Develop a participatory learning route that encourages employees to register and / or attend scheduled events. Link attendance, participation and training results with other aspects of the employment relationship such as performance management, induction and salary issues between others.
Surely you can talk much more about these topics and so I want to do it in subsequent documents, for now I hope that these reflections contribute to the exercise of planning training in your organization and are an invitation to continue strengthening training as a strategic factor that turns action employees in a significant contribution to the achievement of corporate goals.
