Courtenay HR

What's in a Name?

We were recently involved in a dialogue with the CIPD discussing their latest research in the field of training, learning and development and, as a specialist resourcer in this field, were able to throw up some interesting insights.

What we are finding is that there are a significant number of HR professionals who are not able to meet the new demands of the current shift from ‘training’ to ‘learning’. It seems that the move away from a design and delivery role in the light of the growth of mentoring and coaching is, for some, proving to be a significant challenge. For many organisations the change is simply a matter of using a different title, but for those who are more progressive it represents a step change in what is required from the individual. Whilst it would be easy to spend the next few paragraphs lamenting this change and its impact on our business, the more important issue is the challenge it presents for the HR population in general.

Firstly, many training and development professionals, even senior ones, within organisations have traditionally been 'facilitators' or organisers of development activity. While there are many people working in the management development field who do actually design ‘programmes’, this activity still predominantly involves engaging with external third party specialists, typically working together with them to mould their offerings into something that ‘fits’ the organisations requirements. This offering has then typically been delivered in a closely monitored and managed way, usually in groups that share a common ground, either by level within the organisation or by functional or cross functional group. In many cases, the content of the courses and programmes will be focused on core organisational objectives and desired outcomes, with little attention paid to what is at the ‘core’ of the individual and what drives them.

But things are changing, and despite being around for some time, the use of coaching and mentoring is really gaining momentum. What we are seeing now is the desire to create more individual, one-on-one interventions, where the development is much more self-managed (and I mean true self management - not ‘dumped in the lap’ of the participant) with the support of a coach or mentor. As a result a much more personal review of the individual is taking place, which inevitably leads to a dialogue about a broader range of topics than those that typically come up in classic development programmes.

In our own organisation, for example, one-on-one coaching has enabled our team members to bring a much wider range of influencing factors to development discussion than they would have done previously, primarily because of the perceived ‘objectivity’ of the coach. Personal objectives and goals are at the heart of the initiative, rather than on the fringes.

However such a shift in emphasis means that HR professionals must demand very different solutions from their external providers. It is no longer a question of picking a training provider who can plug a learning and development gap with an off the shelf course or consulting programme. HR must now acquire the necessary skills and understanding around this type of individual development, and be able to pull together bespoke solutions for their organisations. They must learn to wade through the ever-increasing pool of coaching, mentoring and development providers with offerings in these areas.

And selecting an appropriate provider is only the start. Another significant challenge is the ability to manage the aftermath of a coaching intervention. Coaching and mentoring are, by their nature very laser focused and can be deeply personal, which makes follow up, leveraging and, more importantly, understanding of what comes out of it a very important job. One that I fear most HR professionals are ill-equipped to deal with.

Finally and perhaps as significantly, this trend has wider implications for the organisation and its environment beyond just changing the way people are developed. The organisation and environment cannot remain unchanged whilst the development methodology does, and a much wider reaching challenge to traditional thinking needs to take place.

As we have found in our own organisation, the move to coaching (in our case for the entire team) is no easy task. It asked a lot of us, especially for those who have a management responsibility when dealing with the outputs and learning. There were moments when we had to ask ourselves if we were really ready to deal with this new form of development. But, for us, the benefits have quickly become obvious, confirming our view this shift to ‘learning’ can be regarded only as a positive thing.

However if it is to be successful, HR professionals need to address the very significant challenges it poses.