After twenty one years, in 2010 the annual Award for Excellence in Training is being renamed the Award for Excellence in Training and Development. This move reflects the evolution of the training industry itself and the progression means the awards now recognise outstanding development as well as training programmes and distinguished trainers in Hong Kong. We look at the relevance of the awards to HR, what it means for companies that take part in them, and how those companies achieve training excellence.
Evolution
John Allison, Vice President of HR in the Asia Pacific Division of FedEx Express and Chairman of the organising committee for the awards explained how the HKMA Awards had evolved over time to embrace ‘staff development’ as well as the more traditional ‘staff training’ aspect of T&D programmes. He added that the awards now cover, “programmes that are not just specifically training in skills but also those developing staff through intervention and more extended programmes.”
Significance
To further gauge the significance of the awards for HR and T&D managers in the region, HR Magazine recently interviewed Michael Fraccaro, Head of Learning, Talent, Resourcing and Organisation Development, Asia Pacific, HSBC and Margaret Chiu, Senior VP, Group HR, AIA. Both HSBC and AIA, along with twelve other companies, have representatives on the organising committee for the awards.
Fraccaro cited three factors that made the awards significant. “Firstly, we believe in the importance and quality of the awards and what it does for the training profession throughout Hong Kong. Secondly, it provides trainers with recognition for the work that they are doing within their profession. Thirdly, HKMA and the awards are closely aligned with the values of HSBC, especially regarding the importance placed on training and development.
Chiu explained the objective of the awards was to put focus on the development of people on a continuous basis. She added, “By encouraging, nurturing and developing the knowledge, experience and wisdom of our staff, we are able to cater to and anticipate the needs of our customers. As such, we place a great emphasis on not only the recruitment and retention of talents but also their training and development on an ongoing basis.”
Fraccaro added that by participating as an examiner, he was also able to learn about other industries and to appreciate best practises and alternative ways of designing and delivering training beyond the banking and finance sector. While there may be different organisational contexts, many of the issues that companies are facing such as: employee engagement, engaging different generations and issues around bottom-line performance tend to be common to all organisations across all industries. The difference, Fraccaro explained, lies in how organisations approach these and what their solutions are.
Judging criteria
On the subject of what makes an award-wining T&D programme, Allison pointed out that one of the areas the judges will look at this year is programme design. He said, “We’re looking for a robust programme—be it training or development. We’re also looking for engagement of stakeholders in the programmes.” Allison also pointed out the importance of originations tying T&D programmes to business results, “We’re looking for outcomes that are measurable. We’re looking for innovation and creativity …Putting on a training or development programme that doesn’t tie to the business is not going to be award winning. We’re looking for a direct tie to business results.”
Benefits of T&D recognition
Allison points out that the benefits of running a race come from competing. He explains, “If you’re competing for one of these awards—you’re looking at yourself and challenging yourself and presenting yourself for public scrutiny.” By competing, this helps companies look more objectively at their T&D programmmes and how they might improve them.
Recognition at the awards certainly allows staff to increase their professional standards and become role models for other training professionals, sharing best practises with their colleagues. On this point Fraccaro said, “For the individual themselves it also gives them motivation to continue to further their career, good recognition, and we are just very proud of anyone who puts the effort in because the whole selection process actually requires a lot of time from the individual.”
Fraccaro added, “It is important because it continues to look at and question how we can raise the bar in the professionalism of training and development. It is about best practice and sharing of best practice between industries, and I think it’s very dangerous for any industry to just look within itself, it’s important to start looking beyond and how other organisations approach different aspects.” He added, “…it [also] provides individuals within the training profession motivation because they have an opportunity to showcase their particular programme and what they have done and it gives them an inspiration on how to better themselves in the training profession.”
These sentiments were echoed by Chiu who said, “We strongly believe that people who performed well deserve proper recognition. In this regard, the awards provide an ideal platform to recognise those who are very good in what they do and have made valuable contributions to training and development. This helps underscore the importance of creating a ‘learning’ organisation.”
A further benefit is that the recognition really helps with employer branding, Fraccaro pointed out that it demonstrates that, “We as an organisation do invest in our people, and when I talk about brand, it’s equally important to promote our brand externally to potential candidates that want to work for HSBC and also for our internal staff, that we are really investing in our people.”
Advice on conducting T&D programmes
Often the focus on training is programme specific, such as a training programme on customer service skills. Fraccaro shared his experiences from HSBC, explaining that when looking at development HSBC looks at the longer term benefits for the organisation and for the individual. From a customer service perspective, he explained this would mean training programmes would be linked into the business strategy perspective, as customer service is extremely important in terms of repeat business and maintaining the brand in the marketplace.
He added, “The development aspect is also aiming towards looking for ways of making sure the solution you’re designing is sustainable.”
Chiu also highlighted the fact that by encouraging, nurturing and developing the knowledge, commitment and professionalism of staff, AIA had been able to cater to and anticipate the needs of customers—internal, external and stakeholders. Chiu added, “We trace our roots in the Asia Pacific back more than 90 years and we take best practices from all these markets to create a solid and robust training and development platform. This provides a wealth of knowledge and experience in the industry and markets in which we operate. It’s a huge advantage operating across the different markets because it affords a better understanding of customers and their expectations.”
Fraccaro explained the importance that organisations look for training that is relevant to today’s environments. He advised HR to ensure programmes are relevant for both the time when they are rolled out and the businesses they are aimed at. Moreover, they must demonstrate impact to the business objectives of the organisation. He added, “…flexibility and relevance are the key factors to the training design.”
In January 2010, HSBC launched the HSBC global induction or discovery programme, which is a globally consistent programme for on boarding new staff. The programme covers individuals, even before they start at the organisation, on what do they do on day one, buddy and mentor systems, and a checklist of what managers need to do on day one through to the first three months of their employment. Also included within the induction is a half-day discovery programme which focuses less on organisational structures and more on culture and values that exist within the organisation. Fraccaro explained that in this way, “The experience of an employee in Hong Kong and the experience of a new joiner in Brazil will be consistently the same. What will be different is that every country will have a slightly different, country-specific induction for the individuals, but the general concepts will be exactly the same for each person.”
Another important point raised by Chiu was that of diversity and its importance to the success of AIA. She went on to explain, “We recruit from a cross-section of industries...Similarly, our geographic footprint across 15 markets in Asia provides ample opportunities for our people to get on-the-job training in a cross-cultural environment to expand their exposure and perspective. Depth and breadth of experience ensures our training and development platform evolves in tandem with changing economic landscape as well as changing needs of our customers.”
Chiu concluded, “Companies should take a long-term view when formulating their training and development strategy while ensuring that it aligns closely with the vision and overall business strategy of the company. Develop an approach that leverages the strengths of your existing platform and infrastructure that is also dynamic enough to meet new needs.”
Keeping learners interested
To keep programmes interesting, Fraccaro explained, “We try to keep training short, otherwise people’s attention span will wane…All of our e-learning is connected to our HR information section, so we can track completion and monitor success rates.” He added, “We’re looking at how we can make our training more effective and move as much as possible over to our e-learning platform. Some E-learning is mandatory and for customer facing jobs there’s a clearly defined learning map that they must complete. Other staff may want to build up their skills, which is self-directed. There’s a balance between what the organisation expects and what an individual can choose to do.”
Training approach during the financial crisis
Allison pointed out that it hadn’t just been in the last year that thinking had changed, but rather there had been a gradual shift over a period of time. He said, “We’ve seen more programmes that lean towards development. During the economic downturn companies were not adding or replacing staff—so focus on training slowed down. On the other hand it was an opportunity to focus on development programmes—taking existing staff to a next level.”
At HSBC the approach to training during the financial crisis was to ensure programmes were:
- · strategic in how they developed solutions;
- · relevant to the business, and the individual;
- · leading—by looking at best practices; and
- · efficient—not duplicating effort—achieved through the one HSBC concept.
Fraccaro went on to explain how customers expectations of staff in banks and financial institutions had changed—so training for employees in customer facing roles was focused on how they can deal with issues customers are asking. The major changes have been increases in Government and regulatory intervention, particularly with the selling process, and Fraccaro explained, “We’ve had to adapt and refine our training to ensure we capture these differences in the regulatory environment. Licensing for employees selling products is more rigid; therefore before an employee sells something they must complete the training and development and then demonstrate their knowledge.
Chiu pointed out the importance of acquiring new skill sets and knowledge base from external sources to allow organisations to quickly build their own in-house capabilities during times of change. She cited the examples of AIA, who last year launched an extensive rebranding campaign in the region. Chiu pointed out, “This provides an excellent opportunity to maximise synergies across the 15 markets in all areas including consolidating our training and development efforts under one single platform.” She added, “The Strategic Initiative Office is critical to ensuring all people have strong project management skills and all changes whether macro or micro must be beneficial to the company.”
In particular during the economic crisis AIA remained committed to help develop the next generation of executives and leaders for the benefit of the industry as a whole. Therefore during the summer of 2009, AIA offered internships to 30 students from local universities to give them a better understanding of the insurance industry and core skills for the various functions.
Metrics to measure training success
Chiu pointed out that it’s always very difficult to measure training success, but that traditionally, there are four basic criteria in measuring the effectiveness of training:
- Reaction—whether the participants are happy or not
- Learning—the learning of knowledge or skills
- Application—how people can apply the knowledge or skills learnt to their work
- Results
Chiu explained that AIA focused on the ‘learning’ and ‘application’ aspects when measuring training effectiveness. She said, “We ask “Have our employees learned the required knowledge or skills?”, “Have they applied these to their work?” We do post-training assessment one, three and six months after the training, to follow-up the relationship between ‘learning’ and ‘application’ and monitoring results with a view to continually improving and enriching our training curriculum.” AIA has also recently applied the ‘net promoter score’ to help gauge training effectiveness, and participants are now asked if they would recommend the training to others—which provides a useful indication as to how participants view the quality and effectiveness of the training.
In terms of metrics that companies might adopt to help measure the success and sustainability of training programmes adopted, Fraccaro detailed three key strategies that HSBC utilised. Firstly, and most obviously, analysis of the training event itself in terms of the level of satisfaction and how individuals feel as the result of attending a particular programme. Secondly, analysis of what impact of a training and development solution has on the businesses bottom line; and whether the training solution actually met the original design objectives—both learning and business objectives. Thirdly, by conducting an annual employer attitude survey that measures the extent to which staff feel training provided by the organisation is effective in helping them do their jobs.
Attributes of a good trainer
Fraccaro detailed three key attributes of a good trainer.
- Understanding of people and business.
- Ability to connect with people—building rapport and credibility is essential.
- Commercial mindset—in the past it was about entertaining, but now there are budget, resource, staff and time limitations. The reason for attending training must be clear and have an impact.
Joseph Chan, Assistant Manager, Operation and Process Management Training, HSBC—who won a Distinguished Trainer Award last year—also shared his views on what it takes to be a good trainer. Chan explained, “To be a good trainer you need to know the subject or product well in order to communicate it to your learners. Good design of your training programme is vital, from understanding employee needs to developing the training experience and then delivering it in a meaningful way.” He added, “Equally important is a sense of humour because everyone wants a fun learning experience.” Chan also highlighted the importance of passion both for the job and for people development. He stated, “I want to help people to learn and I love interacting with people. Connectivity is important, particularly to understand their needs. Trainers are a medium, connecting the subject with the individual. I view myself as more than a learner trainer. I hope that I develop people as individuals and by doing so contribute to the company.”
Fraccaro concluded by saying that the key is passion. “The training profession is a job that requires a lot of energy. You have to have a global mindset and a passion around connecting with people—that is a key differentiator of a good trainer from a great trainer.”
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
