CLO Corner – Learning in the Flow of Business
By Susan Burnett
Every L&D leader I have met talks to me about the importance of being a “good business partner.” All of them work hard to understand and meet the needs of their business. And then they tell me proudly about the programs they are implementing. When I ask “How do these programs accelerate the business strategy and fiscal year objectives?”, I often get blank stares or I learn more about their learning libraries. They struggle to make the business connection between what they deliver and their organization’s goals. It’s a common and major disconnect.
There is a business rhythm that is common to all businesses. Every business I have worked in, whether it’s been HP, Gap Inc., Deloitte or Yahoo! has set and launched goals (aka OKRS) and new strategies for success in Q1. Throughout the year, we’ve launched employee surveys and distilled their feedback into improvement initiatives designed to increase our employee’s engagement. We’ve had performance evaluations and conversations in Q4. And every company has a rhythm for individual development plans (IDPs) and career conversations to retain and grow their people, especially their high performing high potential employees. Given these key business activities, what can L&D leaders do to become true business partners?
They can prepare leaders and employees for these key business activities fast and at scale. Imagine that thirty days prior to goal setting and alignment, every person in the organization gets training and the performance support needed to set specific and measurable goals, aligned to the overall objectives of the business. What if this was 5-10 minutes of targeted micro learning on their mobile device every day until they mastered the habit of setting and aligning their goals? Imagine an app that helped every employee learn the new company strategies and helped them define their role in making them a reality? Imagine that every manager learned how to write and deliver an effective employee evaluation BEFORE they have to do this important management task. Imagine that both employees and managers learn how to have a great career conversation, so the outcome is positive for both people and their organization.
What does this look like in real life? At Yahoo! we learned through the employee survey that only one third of our employees “got the feedback they needed to improve their performance.” Since high performance was our goal and feedback is key to achieving it, we decided to build this management habit across our global organization. Through multiple learning “nuggets” about the importance of feedback and how to deliver it effectively, quarterly employee pulse surveys that tracked our improvement, and management accountability (we produced scorecards by organizations) we improved! 85% of our employees said they got the feedback they needed to be effective, but more importantly, overall management performance improved, as measured by our management scorecard.
All this is possible with learning in the flow of business. Providing learning that builds the habits that enable high performance on critical business activities is what separates a good L&D leader from a great one. It’s also the definition of a true business partner.
To learn more about Learning in the flow of business, register for a webinar hosted by Susan Burnett and Paul Middleton, CEO of 1st90.
About the Author
Susan Burnett has been a Chief Learning Officer for over 20 years. She was the first CLO for Hewlett Packard when they centralized all Talent and Organization Development. She was the SVP of Talent Development at Gap Inc. She was the Managing Director and CLO at Deloitte and was the driving force behind the Deloitte University strategy and campus. And she was the SVP of Talent Development at Yahoo! She is the CEO of Designing Your Life Consulting and she speaks and writes about designing strategies for individual and organizational growth.