Maybe there are changes in laws and regulations that affect your business. Or maybe the technology you use is evolving. Or maybe you want to expand your business or shift focus. The list goes on.
The point: each change requires employees to develop or enhance their knowledge and skills. How are you going to make sure that happens?
If you had expertise in all the areas people need to know, you could train everyone yourself. Perhaps, you think coaching would do the trick. Either approach assumes you have the time, desire, and capability to train or coach your staff. But chances are you don’t—and it’s just as unlikely that the other managers in your organization have the resources to train and coach their workers.
Traditional solutions
There are two traditional approaches to this challenge, each of which is really just a partial solution:
- send employees to a workshop or class on the topic
- tell them to figure it out on their own.
Having employees figure everything out for themselves may be too targeted. The employee doesn’t know what they don’t know, and the next problem could be right around the corner. In contrast, unless you have a workshop designed to meet your specific needs, only some of the information it provides will be directly applicable to what you need.
This doesn’t mean that these are poor solutions. Workshops, for example, are a terrific way to orient workers on a new subject or to transmit necessary knowledge. But often, it’s not enough.
Enter project management
Here’s a suggestion: Treat learning and development the same way you would treat any other project.
First, establish a goal—what needs to be learned. Then, put together a plan for accomplishing that goal. Ensure there are enough resources to accomplish the goal, and meet periodically to status the plan and take appropriate action to make sure things are on track.
You don’t have to learn how to train or coach anyone. You don’t have to become a subject matter expert. But you do have to manage. Specifically, you have to manage a project. Chances are you already know how to do that.
Here’s how to view training and development within a project management framework:
- The project is the development plan.
- The employee is the project implementer—responsible for developing and implementing the plan.
- The manager is the project manager—responsible for providing necessary resources and managing the overall project.
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Both the employee and the manager are accountable for results.
Part of the employee’s job is to take the lead in figuring out what needs to be learned and how to do that. But taking the lead does not mean that the employee has to do this without help. Managing includes providing direction and input and support as needed.
Managing also includes helping the employee to turn knowledge into skill by arranging for or providing assignments in which the employee can apply what he or she has learned. In the end, though, it’s up to the employee to learn. That’s why the employee has to take the lead: no one can learn for the employee except the employee.
Using a systematic approach like project management is useful for both the manager and the employee. It provides a familiar framework in which each person knows what they are supposed to do. Beyond that, by focusing on achievement of the learning goal and the steps to achieving that goal, this approach can aid the employee and manager to consider more complete solutions that include workshops or classes as well as essential on the job application.
