{"id":56548,"date":"2020-08-19T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trainingindustry.com\/?post_type=articles&p=56548"},"modified":"2020-08-19T14:16:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T18:16:01","slug":"training-diagnostics-listening-identifying-problems-and-recommending-solutions","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/trainingindustry.com\/articles\/measurement-and-analytics\/training-diagnostics-listening-identifying-problems-and-recommending-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Training Diagnostics in Great Training Organizations: Listening, Identifying Problems and Recommending Solutions"},"author":52,"featured_media":56549,"template":"","tags":[1363,4976,3319,4770,4977,14932],"class_list":["post-56548","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-diagnostics","tag-great-training-organizations","tag-learning-measurement","tag-measurement-and-analytics","tag-process-capabilities","tag-training-diagnostics","global_topic_tax-content-development","global_topic_tax-measurement-and-analytics"],"acf":{"sponsored":false,"gated":false,"gated_content_type":"","file_attachment":null,"gated_content":"","form_instruction_header":"To access the full article, please fill out the form below:","pardot_html_embed":"","author_override":true,"author_name":"Taryn Oesch ","author_image":42036,"author_bio":"Taryn Oesch, CPTM, is the award-winning managing editor for digital content at Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of \u201cThe Business of Learning\u201d<\/a>, the Training Industry podcast.","excerpt":"The role of the training manager involves, among other responsibilities, identifying performance issues and determining whether training can address them.","main_content":"The role of the training manager involves, among other responsibilities, identifying performance issues and determining whether training can address them. This process is known as diagnostics, and longitudinal research has found that it is one of the most important process capabilities in great training organizations<\/a>.\r\n

What Is Diagnostics?<\/h2>\r\n\u201cDiagnostics is the intersection between listening to the needs and examining possible root causes,\u201d says Dr. Theresa Horne, CPTM, a senior program manager working in leadership and talent development at the National Labor Relations Board.\r\n\r\nTraining Industry\u2019s research identified several key practices involved in diagnostics, the most important of which are listening to uncover real business problems; identifying competency gaps; and recommending a variety of solutions beyond training, when it\u2019s relevant to do so. As Kathryn Connolly, CPTM, director of global talent development at WEX Inc., says, \u201cListen to uncover the underlying needs, provide a systematic analysis to identify key objectives and metrics to prove success, talk to the front line \u2026 and develop recommendations that may or may not include training.\u201d\r\n

Why Is It So Difficult?<\/h2>\r\n\u201cJust as a doctor must diagnose a patient\u2019s mysterious ailment, learning leaders must have the knowledge of various barriers and root issues to properly diagnose the organization\u2019s needs,\u201d says Horne. A medical diagnosis can make or break a person\u2019s health, and a performance diagnosis can make or break an organization\u2019s health, she adds.\r\n\r\nToo often, Connolly says, business leaders immediately assume that the cause of a performance problem is a lack of training or a lack of a formal process. Many times, though, it\u2019s behavioral. \u201cIt is difficult for some people to change their ways and modify how they do things, because it is comfortable for them. If we conduct a thorough diagnostic at the beginning, we may be able to modify or simplify a process or practice to improve performance.\u201d\r\n

Diagnosing Cultural Barriers and Boosting Outcomes<\/h2>\r\nWhile working for a large federal agency in Japan, Horne was asked to diagnose the root problem behind the low results from a culture survey. \u201cThere was a unique culture dynamic in Japan,\u201d she says, \u201cthat involved Japanese nationals, military personnel and civilian employees. Each group had their own culture and operated singularly from the other, which caused communication issues when tasks required joint efforts. These issues affected productivity, engagement and job satisfaction, which are all linked to retention problems, grievances and complaints.\u201d\r\n\r\nHorne examined the data, hosted listening sessions, met with unofficial leaders from each culture and adapted training models, a process that helped her \u201cdiagnose the real root causes of the cultural barriers and devise a multilayered plan to fix core issues.\u201d Notably, the plan was not solely focused on training, but many of the items were aligned with the same goal: boosting cultural outcomes.\r\n\r\n\u201cBy collaborating with other departments on the same goal as well as supporting the change through training and other engagement tactics,\u201d Horne says, \u201cI was able to effectively raise the culture survey scores by a whopping 47% in the first year.\u201d","full_width":false,"content_band":[{"acf_fc_layout":"social_callout","blockquote":"A medical diagnosis can make or break a person\u2019s health, and a performance diagnosis can make or break an organization\u2019s health."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_area","wysiwyg":"

Diagnosis: Habits Are Hard to Break<\/h2>\r\nConnolly offers an example demonstrating the importance of good diagnostics in a very different context. Wex\u2019s contact center implemented artificial intelligence (AI) \u201cto conduct basic common customer service requests,\u201d she says. \u201cIn order for this technology to be successful, we needed the agents to follow new processes so we could capture the reasons the customer was calling in and to help \u2018train\u2019 the robot.\u201d\r\n\r\nWex trained the entire workforce and organized a group of \u201cchampions\u201d to support the agents. However, not all of the teams adopted the new process, the leadership team wasn\u2019t seeing the reductions in average handle time and the number of calls that reached \u201clive\u201d agents, and Connolly and her team had to \u201ctake a step back and rethink our approach.\u201d\r\n\r\nThey conducted one-on-one job observations in which they documented the reasons agents weren\u2019t following the new process, recorded calls, reviewed the instructions and returned \u201cto the original scope of the project to review key performance metrics to ensure they still made sense.\u201d They also created surveys and a quality assurance process for each agent.\r\n\r\nTheir conclusion was that it wasn\u2019t the process or the technology that the agents were having difficulty with; it was changing old habits. The solution they devised was a new coaching model. Each team lead would meet with each of his or her agents weekly to observe actions and provide immediate coaching feedback. The leadership team also implemented a reward system and started including a dashboard review during each of the team lead\u2019s staff meetings to highlight top performers. Connolly and her team also recommended refresher training for the agents who were having the most difficulty using the new process.\r\n\r\nThe results, Connolly says, were \u201creduced calls to live agents, [the] ability to build out automatic processes for additional high-volume types of calls.\u201d They are also able to provide a summary of customer problems to the product development team.\r\n

Scaling With the Company<\/h2>\r\nTraining Industry\u2019s research found that training departments inside organizations with a large number of employees are not as good at diagnosis as teams in smaller organizations. This negative association, Horne says, may be attributable to a lack of effective change management: \u201cWhen learning leaders are not brought into a change early, many times, the ability to diagnose an issue is lessened. Entering a conversation without background knowledge will undoubtedly put the learning leader at a disadvantage in providing the best response and impactful training.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe are working in an agile world,\u201d says Connolly, \u201cand, in many scenarios, moving lightning-fast to keep up with competition. Diagnostic practices take time, and the pressure to deliver doesn\u2019t always allow for time.\u201d Training professionals in large organizations must \u201cthink more broadly and strategically\u201d and align their strategies \u201cholistically to a human capital model\u201d \u2014 one in which the training team partners with the talent acquisition team, human resources (HR) partners and the business to maintain alignment to the organization\u2019s strategic plan<\/a>.\r\n

The Role of Technology<\/h2>\r\nTraining Industry\u2019s research also found that training organizations that excel at integrating learning technologies also typically excel at diagnostics. Horne believes that this relationship is due to the fact that learning technology integration is typically done through small sprints that create products quickly and efficiently through techniques such as agile<\/a> methodologies like Scrum<\/a>. Training teams that are accustomed to using these types of sprints, she says, tend to \u201chave a diagnostics process that is much faster and lean.\u201d\r\n\r\nFurthermore, technology enables quantitative, analytical diagnostics using data such as retention numbers, assessment scores, and correlations between career stage or tenure and content access. \u201cData can explain so many root causes when you have accurate and reliable data collection tools,\u201d Horne says.\r\n\r\nOne final tip from Connolly is to \u201cbuild a framework and stick with it,\u201d whether it\u2019s a template that you use for conversations, job analysis or a job observation process. \u201cKeep in mind that [your] recommendation may not always be training,\u201d she adds. Regardless of whether your team can deliver the solution or can make recommendations and referrals to people who can, your job is to diagnose the problem \u2014 which is one big step toward finding a solution."},{"acf_fc_layout":"social_callout","blockquote":"Training managers' job is to diagnose the problem \u2014 which is one big step toward finding a solution."},{"acf_fc_layout":"content_area","wysiwyg":"[hubspot type=\"form\" portal=\"47185625\" id=\"a4646b39-7619-4495-85fb-a740879fc15c\" version=\"v4\"]\r\n\r\n