Why Your Company Will Succeed With A Learning and Performance Strategy

Organizations are in a battle to meet ever-changing market needs, client and customer demands, and internal and external pressures. This requires a clear, concise, and documented strategy for improvement of employee performance. Managing and improving the performance of employees and supporting staff is a journey rather than a destination and, as such, requires careful thought, allocation of resources, and executive support.

Performance improvement should be a part of the organizational goals. The learning strategy document should describe the system for learning and performance across the organization (Moore, 2006). This change toward the acquisition and management of learning and performance using sophisticated technology presents a tremendous challenge in today’s business, education, and government environments. It represents a necessary paradigm shift to adequately prepare our people for their future in the work environment, while preserving and leveraging the past through knowledge management.

Simply put, while we have the ability to move information and data faster, we won’t achieve true success until we can accurately target and disseminate information to the correct audience, at the right time, and in the right amount and format for performance improvement (Moore, 2007).

The learning and performance system is about the flow of knowledge and information within and between organizations, business units, and individuals (Parkin, 2006). The learning strategy document should deal specifically with the management of this system and it should raise the organizational, departmental, and individual concerns on efficiency and effectiveness of people and processes.

A learning and performance system operates at a higher level, involving culture, beliefs, and values. Although this system will have a financial impact, it represents a higher level of understanding of the knowledge processes that lead to performance improvement at the job level. Fundamentally this learning and performance system is about making better decisions at every level of the organization and increasing the organizational intelligence to proactively meet market demands.

Critical to the success of this system, of which the e-Learning strategy is one component, are solid links to business process, organizational culture, and continuous meaningful measurement. The learning and performance system is depicted below… this describes our world!

The Learning Strategy
A learning strategy describes the input, output, and measures of the system, and should have organizational, departmental, business unit, and individual references. This should be a far-reaching document that details how the organization is going to facilitate continuous improvement in its employees. It implies a focus on the development of a learning culture.

To achieve this goal, you must increase the utility of knowledge through three key components:

1. Capture and creation of data, information, and knowledge assets in support of each individual’s performance functions across the organization. Provide links to knowledge management and document management practices.
2. Intelligent storage, leveraging useful taxonomies, and search and retrieve capability that better manages and improves access to content.
3. Dissemination and access practices, including but not limited to: e-Learning, instructor-led training, documentation, mentoring and coaching, and outside sources.

Historically the three components listed above have been critical in research and practice. However, many organizations have yet to fully realize the movement and integration of knowledge within themselves. A complete system for managing information has been out of reach for many organizations, due in large part to the lack of a comprehensive strategy. The measures of any system for knowledge and learning should include the accuracy, specificity, and timely delivery of the
knowledge the user receives, and how effective that knowledge is in changing behaviors and improving performance. In addition, a key measure for success should be based on how knowledge feeds back into the system to make it a continuous, accurate, and valuable resource that meets users’ needs.

Next time we will discuss how the e-Learning strategy lives through the learning strategy, which in turn, is deeply embedded in the organizational strategy.

References
Dublin, L.(2004). Lessons on e-Learning Strategy Development from the Cheshire Cat. ASTD Learning Circuits.
Moore, K.C.(2006). Learning Across the Organization: System Based Learning. METS Learning Center, Conference, May 2006.
Moore, K.C., Kincaid, E.W., Shaw, M.A., Hoffer, D.B. (2007) Critical Use of Images in Knowledge-Based Dissemination and Learning Systems. Image Conference Proceedings, July 2007, Scottsdale, AZ.
Parkin, G. (2006) In an open letter in response to the e-Learning Hype Cycle.

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