BTSR guidebook ~ Training & skills self-evaluation

What provision at this level looks like and feels like

For the organisation

In 2008, 24% of broadcasters evaluated at this level. None were lower and 76% were higher.

Organisations at this level are apt to take a “will this do?” approach to training, providing it for no stronger reason than that they feel they should. But that’s not all bad. If in-house and/or external off-job training is available, some people who need it will get it (along with some who want it but don’t necessarily need it for business purposes). And if the organisation doesn’t evaluate the effectiveness of training anyway, it’s fairly easy for management to feel content.

Employees are a different matter. When there is no transparent business purpose to training, it is handed out on some other basis. Depending on the culture, it could be seen as a reward – for either merit or obsequiousness – and it could be seen as a punishment. Either way, there is potential – among both the trained and the untrained – to feel that the system is unfair; this rarely has positive results for the organisation.

But there is another type of organisation that fits the description. One that has taken a deliberate decision to prioritise its training on a handful of key skills. If it does that well – and it picks the skills that are truly crucial to the business – then it ought to get a big bang for its buck. Of course there could be a negative impact on the other employees, the ones whose skills are categorically designated as non-key.

For the training function

An organisation at this level is only likely to have a trainer at all if much of the off-job provision is in-house.

This could be a fairly cosy billet for a trainer who is not out to set the world afire. Low volumes of training, no evaluation of outcomes… it sounds like an easy life. And it can be, as long as the trainer is not required to arbitrate between competing claims on the training budget: any decision is hard to justify when the business purpose is defined vaguely or not at all.

But when times get tough, and the spotlight falls on the cost and achievements of the training function, the lack of any evaluation – and therefore of any demonstrable achievement – will make the trainer’s situation precarious at best.

Benefits & risks of provision at this level

Benefits

An organisation that deliberately restricts off-job training to business-critical skills can hope for several benefits, including:

• Competitive advantage from superior key skills
• Sharp focus throughout the organisation – everybody knows what the key skills are, and many will direct their own efforts towards supporting (and being associated with) those areas of the operation
• Good return on the investment in training – relatively little is spent, all of it on stuff that’s really important.

The benefits to other organisations at this level are likely to be uncertain and dimly perceived. They could include:

• Some improved performance resulting from some suitable training for some of the people who need it
• Improved recruitment and retention of those who want (and get) training that helps their careers… who might or might not prove to be key contributors to the organisation’s success.

Risks

The biggest risks at this level arise from not evaluating the effectiveness of the off-job training:

• Nobody knows whether some, most or all of the training is wasted… so the risk of waste is very high
• Employees might perceive training as a skive, since the organisation appears to treat the outcome as irrelevant – the inverse of “what gets measured gets done”
• Trainers and others involved in delivering training might not give their all for similar reasons
• Senior management has no basis for deciding whether to increase, reduce or redirect the training budget each year, and is therefore more likely to get the decision wrong than right.

Beyond that, there are other risks too:

• A decision not to use training to communicate the needs and expectations of the organisation is itself a communication… one that is more likely to depress performance than raise it
• Without a habit of pervasive off-job training, the organisation that finds itself in a skills or performance crisis will have to work much harder to overcome it.

Processes & benchmarks for evaluating provision at this level

Distinguishing from »medium» provision

The differences between base and medium provision are mainly to do with the scope and extent of off-job training, the formality with which it is planned for (or with) employees, and the fact that its effectiveness is evaluated. At this level:

• Off-job training doesn’t extend to all employees or to all business-related knowledge and skill areas
• Off-job training is largely driven by factors other than the needs of the organisation and the business needs of individuals
• There is no evaluation of the effectiveness of off-job training.

Processes

Here are some diagnostic questions:

• Do some employees receive off-job training rarely (or not at all)?
• Do some business-related knowledge and skill areas fall outside the scope of the organisation’s off-job training provision?
• Is it possible for employees to receive training that has no identified business purpose?
• Can an employee’s chances of receiving off-job training be greatly affected by the disposition of their line manager, their own wider ambitions or other factors not directly related to the needs of the organisation?
• Does senior management take only a mild interest in off-job training? Are trainers pretty much left to get on with it?
• Does the organisation provide off-job training mainly to meet internal demands (rather than to address external imperatives)?
• For in-house off-job training, are senior practitioners unenthusiastic about acting as instructors or facilitators?
• Does the impact of off-job training – either in-house or external or both – go largely unevaluated? Or, if evaluated, is this done mainly by those who deliver the training?

If the answers are mostly Yes, that’s a fairly strong indication that the organisation is providing at this level.

Reference material relevant to this strand and level

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Examples of provision at this level

Here are some examples of evidence used by broadcasters, in previous years, to demonstrate provision at this level:

• Evidence of internal and external training offered to employees in the year
• Course materials for in-house off-job training
• Course attendance records
• Email confirmations of course attendance, completion and feedback
• Employees able to demonstrate value obtained from off-job training when asked
• Statement of commitment to staff training, outlining the company’s commitment to allowing staff to pursue external training and education outside the workplace during working hours
• Course evaluation forms
• Training needs survey; Training Needs Analysis document
• Training request form.

The wording is broadcasters’ own, and does not necessarily follow our usage preferences

What it takes to get to the next level

In order to move up, the biggest single step is to get the needs of the organisation into the driving seat (see also Strand 1). This should provide a basis for:

• Perpetuating and extending relevant training
• Terminating irrelevant training.

A necessary, but not sufficient, step is to bring off-job training within the scope of the organisation’s business planning cycle.

A good way to begin the step up is to undertake – with senior management support – a training needs analysis (TNA). (While regular TNAs are not a characteristic of Level C, a one-off TNA can be very effective at getting everybody onto the same page.) If the TNA is done well, any proposal to increase the volume and reach of off-job training should be firmly anchored in the needs and goals of the organisation… and the potential return on the investment should be clearly delineated.

The trouble is, the skills required to carry out a TNA to this level of quality are generally not available within a Level B organisation. So consider bringing those skills into the project, using either consultants or peer networks.

Beyond that, most of the other steps will be evident from the material on Level C.