designing solutions

In the 21st century, there is no doubt that investing in employee training is beneficial AND necessary.  Compliance, skill acquisition, leadership development and succession planning are all challenges that every Organization encounters.  As Learning and Development evolve, not all training is created equal.  

Assisting stakeholders to identify when training will be effective or when it is really needed can be the difference between success and failure.  Identifying upstream and downstream costs in time and budget are often overlooked factors that impact the bottom line.  

Assessing Enterprise metrics for success assists with stakeholder reporting and future procurement.

Possessing Project Management skills to identify success, perform risk assessment, and limit scope creep are critical for bringing order into chaos and improving productivity.

In addition, possessing the soft skills to identify workplace culture and communicate with stakeholders in an inclusive and meaningful way paves the way for future success and collaboration.

These skills come from experience and focused effort that I have developed over time.

Consider this, after being consulted on updating an Organization's existing learning materials.  I found the previous Learning and Development professional did not respect the wishes of the project owner.  In addition, the module took each learner 1.5 hours to complete at an Organization with a median salary of $200,000.  A total of 350 individuals had completed the module out of 821 total employees.  The cost for training became $144 per employee.  Therefore the downstream running cost of one round of participation was over $50,000 dollars with the total projected cost being ~$118,000. 

By collaborating with the project owner I assisted in structuring the learning in self-directed, micro-learns with job aids reduced the required participation time to a little as 1.5 minutes per skill.  Not only did this respect the wishes of the project owner, but it aligned with adult learning principles and generated a metric that demonstrated significant reduction in downstream costs.