Morgan Stanley, a leading global financial services firm employing more than 62,000 people globally, is a pioneer of the global expansion of the financial markets. In Hong Kong the Firm has over 1,800 employees, including 140 staff in Institutional Operations, which is one of the largest business units and provides support to the front office business units. Claire Goodchild, Vice President, Learning and Development, Morgan Stanley, shares how she ensures staff development goes beyond training.
Training and development
Goodchild believes, “Training is important to help people acquire skills, but it needs to be supplemented with on-the-job experience, coaching and ensuring that the environment is conducive to learning.” At Morgan Stanley the development of Operations staff is based on the 70-20-10 rule of learning, where 70% of learning is experiential, 20% is from coaches and mentors with the remaining 10% from formal learning. She added, “Training is all very well, but is only 10% of the story and then you need to use other methods to ensure that those skills are developed.”
Becoming a learning organisation
For Morgan Stanley Operations to achieve the goal of becoming a learning organisation, Goodchild stated, “We need to have the right people, with the right skills and training, in the right place.” To do this, Operations has partnered with Learning and Development, to define a structure and process for recruitment, training and career planning. “Whether employees follow a technical career path or managerial career path, there are defined training modules that help them to develop skills appropriate to their roles.”
Innovation through on-the-job training
Morgan Stanley overcame cultural barriers in developing a style of training different to the traditional investment bank style. Innovation has been made through On-the Job Training, or OJT. According to Goodchild it is about, “Creating a structured and comprehensive approach to knowledge transfer.” Using the OJT methodology, teams can identify the key skills and knowledge required to perform their processes. They are then able to create comprehensive training materials and performance tests for more experienced team members to deliver. Goodchild continued that, “Part of what we are teaching people is how to use different types of training skills to make OJT more effective. A key part of the process is to train the trainers and teach core delivery skills.” She added “The trainers have a clearly defined outcome they are looking for in training and are very clear on the types of methods to use to ensure the skills are developed and can be used on a day to day basis by new hires.”
To ensure the quality of the programme, teams need to be certain of their own processes. Goodchild explained, “We have made sure that the teams have very clearly defined business processes before we begin talking about training documentation. It ensures quality in, leads to quality out.” She also highlighted the importance of making the programme sustainable and cost effective, so that when processes changed, training could be updated.
Blended training solutions
The blended training approach is a combination of classroom teaching, use of online resources and coaching. Goodchild believes that this approach, “Prepares teams to create, maintain and deliver consistently high-quality training to their new team members.” Learning is initially through a series of workshops and coaching reinforces what was learned. Online resources are also made available. She added, “Classroom training is an effective and often used method of learning new skills, but it is only through continued application and practice that the skills can be perfected and ultimately deliver business results.” Goodchild continued, “In terms of benefits, we have seen that time to proficiency has reduced from six to three months through having structured OJT...Managing risk is a key driver for Operations and having structured OJT and making sure people have a thorough understanding of processes helps to manage down risk.”
First-class business
Morgan Stanley focuses on being in touch with their employees from the beginning, providing a platform for personal growth and career success. ‘First-class business in a first-class way’ has been created through an environment of open communication and a culture of respect and excellence. Goodchild added that in 2010, “There is a lot of effort going in to embrace the last 75 years of the culture. It is reinforced through our onboarding programs to ensure a thorough understanding and expectation of our culture.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
