Daily Archives: May 24, 2004

Behavioral Impact of Training

On IHRC a member asks

“Though we have initiated the pre and post test methodology that the Model suggests and then measuring the differential gap of learning that arises. However we wouldnt like to restrict ourselves only to conducting tests as it becomes quite rudimentary after a point in time. Would request the group members to share the initiatives undertaken in their organisations to measure the transfer of learning post the feedback stage. Our primary concern at this stage is measuring “Behaviourial learnings” due to their subjective nature. All creative but implementable inputs are truly welcome as this is my KRA for the year!!!”

My response was:

Measuring “behavioural impact” of training is a very tricky issue and
really needs a lot of resources and time to sink into it.

Do you have those resources at your disposal? Is it worth the time to
measure it ? Who wants it? Senior management or your dept?

If you absolutely want to do it , my suggestion would be to select
interventions that take a lot of organizational capital in terms of
monetary and time implications. Doing it for training like
“communication skills” will not really help you.

The first point needs to be taken care before people attend the program.
1. Is the training needs analysis done in a way that makes sense for a
person to attend a certain program.
2. Who decides whether that particular training is what is required
for a team/individual?
3. Is the issue best addressed through training rather than coaching,
on the job mentoring or organizational issues like job alignment, goal
setting?

If all the answers to the above questions are yes then you could
actually go ahead with a measurement process. If not, then you are
looking at a wrong solution for the problem

The process needs to be evolved in agreement with the participant and
his/her manager.

The easiest thing would be to evolve post training action plans and
periodically review them and build it into the performance management
process

First impressions of Gmail

Ok folks, I know you’d like to know what Gmail offers which is different , so here goes:

1. It feels great to see my mailbox say 1MB occupied and then 0% of 1000MB used yeah, its a big high ! I can now get all my list serv emails as individual emails and not lose out any attachment or need to go through to the websites

2. The conversation thread is quite a life saver and keeps the emails easy on the eye

3. The reply box is situated below the mail and expands and is quite intuitive to use.

4. The ads are quite non-obtrusive and even helpful if you want more data before you reply.

5. It’s still my second active day of using so I haven’t really used the keyboard shortcuts…but I think that would be a great boon to a heavy emailer (as opposed to the person who uses it just to receive emails)…ditto to the “spell checker” facility !

6. The search function is quite fast (what do you expect of Google !) and the labeling instead of moving to folders is a great concept too

Keep watching this space… !