Human Capital Lab

Why today’s smart CEOs bring learning leaders to the table.

We all know the players in the traditional “C-suite”: CEO, CFO, CIO, CMO. But at today’s most evolved companies – those that recognize there is an impending wide gap in the human resource pipeline – there is a seat at the table for a “CLO,” or Chief Learning Officer – a valued, high-level employee who is able to recognize key performance gaps in the organization, trends in employment and succession, and whether or not your company is poised to compete in the coming years of this new century. Better yet, this is a person who knows how to do something about it.

Why is this important? Because if indeed “people are our greatest asset,” they individually, and as a collective line item on accounting spreadsheets, have to be valued and taken care of. They need to be trained, educated, and prepared to help the company meet its overarching strategic goals. They need to be part of the overall strategic equation of the organization. So gone are the days of traditional “training and development” programs. Today’s necessary emphasis must be on strategic corporate learning that is targeted, purposeful, and measurable. In order for this to happen, your learning officer must have a seat at the boardroom table.

Having a seat at the table is the only way for the CLO to get his or her head around mission critical areas that require the most human capital investment. This is the only way for this person to rally the support of all the other areas of the organization around learning, and to offer them support as well by providing them more capable, knowledgeable workers able to meet specific goals. The boardroom is where the learning officer will be able to report on measurement and the quantification of the return on investment (ROI) of learning so that the organization can wholly take advantage of the results and plan continued endeavors that impact the future of the organization.

Here are some examples of what a learning leader can do in your organization:

• Develop a “knowledge audit.” – This includes quantifying the knowledge demographics of the employee database. How many have degrees? Which degrees? What skills/knowledge/training does each employee have?
• Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – This includes surveying the critical areas of the organization to find out what – in human capital development – makes, or would make, the area most efficient, most productive, most profitable difference.
• Identify Gaps – This involves bouncing the KPIs against the knowledge and skill set data discovered in the audit, and identifying any “holes” in human capital on board.
• Developing Learning Programs – This involves working with internal and external subject matter experts (such as accredited universities) to bring to the employees the exact learning required to fill the KPI gaps.
• Measure and Quantify the Impact of Learning on your Organization – This involves putting measures into place to be able to report back to the C-suite, board of directors, investors, etc. how well your company’s investment in “training and development”/learning is performing.

If your company is on the leading edge of competing for the long haul in the 21st century, a Chief Learning Officer on board – and in the boardroom – is a must. CEOs who seek to recruit, retain and optimize human capital, need to consider reaching out to a Learning Leader as a partner who can guide the learning process and help create or maintain competitive advantage. Strategically planned learning initiatives are a must. Considering most company’s investment in learning today, it is wise to empower a strategic, C-level peer executive to steward that investment and imperative.

- Jennifer A. Moss, Ph.D.

Employees are free agents – how are you keeping them?

It always fascinates me when reading headlines that sports professionals like LeBron James are free agents or NFL quarterback Brett Favre has “yet to make a decision on his retirement.”

I admit, I am a huge Vikings fan, and I am there every step of the way regarding the Favre saga. For those of you who don’t know about Favre (and you should – because it involves the VIKINGS!), Favre has retired three times in the last four years. Seriously, he is 40 (considered ancient for professional football), has broken numerous records on the field and injured just as many parts of his body in recent years. Yet, he is considered one, if not the, key player to get the Vikings a championship and as an incentive to bring him back, a large salary increase has been proposed.

NBA star LeBron James, back in July, became a free agent just as so many professional athletes do every year. The news media frenzy of this event was almost humorous to me and reached its “are you kidding me?” stage when ESPN held a live special event entitled “The Decision” where James made his team choice announcement. Huge corporate sponsors forked out millions for the event.

Let’s get real.

This happens every day in the real world of organizations like yours and mine be it healthcare organizations, technology companies, non-profits, or elementary schools. Unless all your employees are under contract, each is a “free agent” that could walk out the door the next day. Retirements are the big issue right now for all of us as the baby boomers are starting to leave the workforce.
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Great CEOs Know Human Capital

There have been some recent discussions on our website and various other sites and blogs regarding what the CEO of any given organization needs to know about measuring the impact of learning and development on their organization’s performance. Conversations at the C-level generally revolve around the investment, $16.5B spent annually in the U.S. (Bersin & Associates, 2010), for the training and education of employees. Yet few executives understand the impact this investment is having on specific measures of organizational performance.

In various publications, presentations and high-level conversations with business executives, Human Capital Lab^SM Executive Vice President, Dr. Mike Echols, has stated that some organizations “get it” and some don’t (Innovation@Work, Summer 2010). But what sets these organizations apart from their competitors? What does it mean for an executive to “get it?”

There are four characteristics of organizations that “Get It”:

1.  Executives Recognize the Value of Human Capital and Know its Impact on the Business

First of all, these executives recognize that human capital is a critical component of the organization’s growth strategy. Creating an immediate competitive advantage for organizations with shrinking margins and increased competition isn’t going to come from integrating new technologies, acquisitions or radical innovation. Your competitors are trying to do the same thing. The immediate impact on the bottom line happens when an organization helps their employees do their best work.

Second, the executives who “get it” know the impact of learning on performance. But more importantly, they know the specific impact education has on organizational performance metrics. They know down to the dollar how education improves retention; increases sales volume; lowers safety incidents; improves employee engagement; creates more internal promotions; increases production; reduces costs; minimizes time to ship; shortens a patient’s length of stay; and even improves decision making.

Put it this way…if your organization invested $1M annually through tuition assistance, wouldn’t you want to know your bang for your buck? Better yet, if your organization spent $1M on education, wouldn’t you want to know what key performance indicators were being affected that improved your bottom line? Even better, wouldn’t you want to know which employees were making the biggest impact? These are the questions that executives who “get it” are asking.

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What Can BP Teach Us

BP is responsible for the most catastrophic, man-made environmental event in our history. Eleven members of the Deepwater Horizon rig were killed and 14 injured in the explosion that rocked the Gulf Coast and began spewing upwards to 40,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf waters.

So what can we learn from BP and their actions after this catastrophic event? What should BP have done to prevent it?

Looking back, BP participated in a number of learning activities that were intended to prevent accidents and improve safety conditions aboard the Deepwater Horizon and other rigs. Known as “scenario planning,” many organizations may benefit, but few attend to the insights; the warning signs of “what if?”

Scenario planning, with its origins in gaming, strategic planning and systems thinking, is a method used by many organizations to strategically plan for worst-case scenarios and the development of subsequent preventative action as a means to mitigate negative impact. In simpler terms, what’s the worst thing that can happen and how can we plan to prevent it?
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Communication, Commitment & Collaboration Critical to Success

It’s interesting how measurement studies develop at organizations and the Human Capital Lab. There’s an array of key players and departments that need to collaborate to conduct the most successful study. A series of critical steps need to be followed and questions answered. I’m sure you’ve been a part of both a smooth-moving, collaborative project and one that’s exactly opposite.

I’ll outline how the Lab sets out to conduct a research study, and then I’d be interested in hearing how your company tackles large, collaborative projects. What do you struggle with and where do you succeed? What advice can you offer other companies? What advice would you like from the Lab?

When the Lab begins a study, preliminary conversations are had between a Lab research associate and a learning leader from the client organization to develop study expectations and aspirations. Simultaneously, Lab representatives are gathering information to accurately articulate the hypotheses and study scope. Once everyone is comfortable with the proposed research and ready to move forward, Lab representatives conduct on-site meetings and launch the project.
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Why Human Capital Management & Why Now?

I’m passionate about human capital and focused on helping people and organizations perform better. Finding quantifiable results from education and training initiatives is challenging. As vice president of client services at Capital Analytics, Inc., an affiliate of The Human Capital Lab, it’s something I tackle daily trying to improve organizational and business performance.

I’m intrigued by the concept of “Learning Transfer” – looking at what happens after a learning intervention occurs. I hope to make it the focus of my doctoral thesis work.

When a student goes to class and the training is completed, what ensures the new knowledge they acquire will be applied when they get back to the job? What are the factors that inhibit as well as enhance the application of that learning? We know that achieving the desired impact, in part, depends on the individual’s manager setting good, specific expectations up front, and helping provide the right environment to apply what is learned once the intervention is completed. If organizations could quantify the value of the manager’s role, they would be likely to specifically address that role in their learning strategies.

Alignment is the key. So often, organizations don’t have course objectives aligned with performance outcomes or business results. Training needs to add value and to do that, its objectives must be specific and measurable. Without intentional alignment right up front, it will be hard for training to deliver those business results.

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Impacting Change Through Learning

The real value of Bellevue University’s Real Learning Summit, from my perspective, was witnessing a group of impactful, motivated thought leaders share ideas and feed off one another to create new perspectives and actionable approaches for dealing with real business issues. The Summit was beyond a “best practices” event – it was an extended dialogue that fostered the depth and breadth necessary to impact change, not only in individual organizations, but in the country as a whole.

Participants valued breakout sessions and keynote speakers who gave a framework for discussion that continued on in the informal environment where this group of visionaries was able to collaborate further.

Attendees heard from impactful and empowering national leaders:

• Holly McKiernan, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Lumina Foundation

• Michael Horn, author of Disrupting Class:  How Disruptive Innovation will Change the Way the World Learns and Co-Founder and Executive Director of Education of Innosight Institute

• Frank Anderson Jr., Founder and President of the Defense Acquisition University

They framed the challenges faced by the learning industry on a broad level in a way that participants were able to quickly make connections in their own organizations. All in attendance rapidly came to appreciate the magnitude of our roles in terms of being able to impact our own organizations at the strategic level to positively affect the education crisis facing our nation, namely the quality of education and workforce preparedness.

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Pining for the Future: Leaving Real Learning Summit with Mission

Bellevue University recently hosted the inaugural Real Learning Summit where learning leaders from partner organizations gathered to share ideas, best practices, and set future goals around their learning initiatives. The Real Learning Summit (twitter search: #RealLearningSummit) was an invitation-only event, held at a Torrey Pines, which provided many opportunities for sharing. Because of its exclusive nature, the group was small enough to allow development of strong relationships and promote meaningful dialogue.

Holly McKiernan, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Lumina Foundation for Education presented the opening keynote. Holly’s comments resulted in significant conversations about education in the United States. Discussions that emerged from her speech focused on the priority of education in this country, whether it is meeting current and future needs, and how we, as a group, could impact our nation through education.  Lumina’s BHAG is to have 60 percent of all citizens earn a bachelor’s degree by 2025. We are currently at 40 percent.

Reaching Lumina’s lofty 60 percent goal will be impossible without greater corporate funding in education. Hence, the story Bellevue University has to tell becomes incredibly important. What is missing in this country is the link between a high school diploma and a college degree. Unfortunately, many high school graduates between 18 and 22 are not ready for college or able to pay for it. They need clear pathways for educational attainment that are affordable and relevant to their career goals. Again, this is where Bellevue University becomes an important partner to Lumina’s goal.
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Understanding Data Basics is an Antecedent to Analysis

Determining the effectiveness of a human capital investment frequently involves correlating intervention participation to business metrics. However, prior to any analytical work we must determine the data sources and availability. The learning leader may be familiar with various systems including: the Learning Management System (LMS), Human Resource Management System (HRMS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) package that ties it all together. Having a basic understanding of database structure, data keys, and file types allows us to gather the data necessary to perform a meaningful analysis of intervention effectiveness.

A database is comprised of data tables containing horizontal rows and vertical columns. Columns or fields contain a set of data values of a particular simple type, one for each row of the table. For example, learner ID, last name, first name, store assignment, and education level are all possible column titles. In comparison, rows are referred to as records and contain a set of related data. Using our previous example, the row might contain 7889, Doe, John, 312, BS Degree.
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Embracing Uncertainty

Embracing uncertainty can serve as an asset rather than a liability. This is an intellectual stretch for most of us. When thinking about uncertainty in our professional lives, we are forced to see that it exists. Uncertainty exists in our markets, organizational structures, leadership, and internal processes. With everything changing, how do we address this fact on a daily basis?

This question was answered at this year’s Global Leadership Congress, hosted by Corporate University Xchange, which encompassed three days of discussion and learning around the event’s theme: “Embracing Uncertainty.” I grew professionally and personally while attending this conference, and I believe other participants did as well. I know that I don’t welcome uncertainty into my life, so this theme prompted new thoughts and reactions for me.

If uncertainty is an asset, then its very existence must add value. Since we cannot eliminate it completely, we need to embrace it and use it to our advantage. What could be the advantages of uncertainty?
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