The Bottom Line: Management Training Increases Manager Retention
by Betty Burr, President, NoonTime University, Inc.
Published in the ASTD Golden Gate Reporter
In today's cost-justifying business environment, linking training to the bottom line is a necessity for most training and HR professionals. Joe Schmidt, SPHR, Vice President of HR at Mylex Corporation, a Fremont-based computer-peripheral company, conclusively demonstrated that management training done at his company cut voluntary terminations among supervisory and management personnel by over 50%.
In 1997, Mylex instituted an ongoing management training program, partnering with NoonTime University, Inc.¨ (NTU), a San Francisco based onsite training company which provides 3-hour training sessions for people who can't find time to go offsite or attend longer onsite sessions. One course each month has been made available for the past two years.
The individual strategies of their program will be familiar to most T&D professionals. Because they did not have a training department or dedicated trainers in HR, Mylex, like many other companies, outsourced their training program. But unlike many, the Mylex initiative was unique in the thoroughness of their approach as well as some of their strategies. The result was a training intervention that demonstrated a positive bottom-line effect.
Hold Individuals Responsible
One strategy was open, "tell-it-like-it-is" communication with all Mylex personnel. HR explicitly stated that change - possibly including layoffs and shifts of responsibility - was inevitable in the current business environment. All individuals have been responsible for managing their own careers; they could not expect lifetime employment from the company. On the other hand, the company is responsible for making opportunities for skills development available so that people would have relevant skills to offer to another employer, if necessary. Such opportunities would be "offered," not mandated. There would be no "sending" anyone to training. Individuals who wanted to attend training were responsible for informing their managers.
Enlist Manager Support
HR contacted all managers to encourage them to support employees going to training. They asked managers to make contingency plans in advance - Should something come up at the time this person is scheduled to go to training, who else could pick up the slack?
Offer a Wide Range of Management Skills Courses
With responsibility for development explicitly placed with individuals and their managers, Mylex and NoonTime University created a list of possible course areas and Mylex conducted a needs "investigation," by circulating the list. Each 3-hour class goes in-depth on one or two skills of management, offering the participants an opportunity to practice skills application in the safe space of classes of their peers. The subjects ranged from management foundations to coaching and building relationships with employees to problem solving systems to legal issues in management. Managers could attend as many classes as they liked.
Promote and Recognize Attendance
To encourage people to sign up, HR consistently promoted the training through internal publications and email. They constantly recognized attendance (certificates for completion of a specific number of courses) and on time arrival (small prizes- some left over from marketing promotions.) They publicly awarded certificates to people who completed the required number of courses. The results were high, repeated attendance of people who were really interested in learning. Instructors reported that everyone who was there wanted to be there.
Provide Consequences for Non-Attendance
In addition, they provided negative consequences for no-shows. During executive staff meetings, names of no-shows were listed. The functional VP involved would then investigate with the person's manager why the person had not attended.
Also, no-shows created a negative impact on the department budget. While HR paid for the training out of their budget, the department was billed for any no-show.
Encourage Transfer of Training
During the training sessions, participants worked on real job situations and were encouraged to write plans for applying the skills learned to their own work. They were urged to put the plans into action in between classes. As part of the up coming 1999 training program, managers are being taught to coach employees in order to encourage the implementation of plans made in the training sessions.
Track Training Impact
Schmidt found that participants were responding to the NTU training very favorably and that people "voted with their feet" by repeatedly attending. They reported having an enjoyable, relevant experience. He also saw that managers in NTU classes got to network with others in their company, creating camaraderie and teamwork.
Demonstrate Bottom-Line Impact
During the course of the program, senior management asked for information on how the training investment was paying off. While they agreed that developing better managers would add to productivity, they wanted additional justification: "Are we getting bang for the buck?"
When the CEO wanted to see the value of training, Schmidt showed him feedback from training sessions, lists of those who attended and what training they took, as well as their performance ratings and their retention rates.
The retention rate data showed a dramatic difference in the voluntary turnover rate. Among those managers who attended the NoonTime University training, turnover was 50% lower than that of the average management population.
Skepticism about the value of training turned into a strong response that "we have the right people going to the right courses," and a request to do even more training and encourage more people to attend.
From the viewpoint of Joe Schmidt and Mylex, the management training program has been a great success, in large part a result of the proactive training orientation of the Mylex HR department. They have created a learning organization which directly impacts the bottom line.