A coment posted on: http://social.eyeforpharma.com/story/demonstrating-impact-training-and-development-programs-sfe

I do have a couple of comments on this interesting article, most of them actually building on Nick Pope’s (my regards for a beautiful workshop led in Barcelona SFE conference in spring 2008) ideas and insights.

One of the obstacles I see in measuring the effectiveness of T&D programs is a language conflict at the top. Senior executives (others than HR) are too much financially oriented. They want to see how much they get for how much they pay and less about others. HR executives in their attempt to comply with this and are looking for programs that have some kind of proof in this regard. In between is the sales executive who has to implement with little involvement in the equation (I am speaking about the real implementers in field). Actually there is a little room for articulating a vision about desired competences and specific processes to reach and certify them. Without such vision sales people often have the chance to witness one totally new training rollout or initiative every 2-3 years. Many of them are made to look like something totally new and are implemented as if no previous skill or training has been recorded earlier.

I appreciate the Type 1/ Type 2 split. I fully agree that we shall not spend too much energy in evaluating effectiveness of Type 1 programs. I also agree that involving line managers in the program is key to success. It is good to know that 83% of programs fail to demonstrate ROI if line manager isn’t briefed before and after the program (where did that come from? same question for the 3-10% in the first line). However, I would be curious what the percentage of failure is if they are only briefed (and not formally or, better, passionately committed to some specific development of direct report in case).

I have doubt about how much better is a 1-4 scale compared to a 1-5 scale. Wonder if eliminating the “middle ground” won’t actually encourage people to be a “slightly more positive”.

As for asking participants to rate their skills before and after the course… I think is both irrelevant and dangerous (my only true disagreement). It is irrelevant for a Medical Representative (MR) to rate his own skill - he is supposed not to be competent in that particular skill but we expect him to be competent in rating it. And it is dangerous to believe that right after a course the skill level increases. In my view skill development takes time (and different methods too!) and has to be consistently employed in practice. Don’t you happen to know about MRs who are capable of impressing managers with selling skills and role-plays but doing their own “comfortable” way when alone in the field?

There is actually a pretty simple way to evaluate the Type 2 training, in fact it is… “dangerously” simple. It can be employed easier in large organizations. What about making a sample and checking difference in results compared to the rest of the organization? This sample can be either random or designed for diversity (lines, business units, regions, big-small cities, north-south, communities…). Another idea is to make small projects with leaders who bought in the idea and would probably make extra efforts to make it successful. The advantage is that, if successful, it is more likely to spread “virally”, we can learn from the test elements of success or eventual bottlenecks and spend less in case of failure. The disadvantage is that the full rollout is likely to show fewer results than in the test period.

One more comment on measuring the impact of Type 2 programs. When you make the list of factors that contributed to some particular success do you have a line for luck? Good or bad luck happens every day and good fortune plays a bigger role than we are ready to admit. Instead, we often allocate success to how smart we are or… how good our programs seem to be.

Filed under: Field Force Managers, First Line Managers, Sales Force Effectiveness, Training & Development by admin