During the opening session of American Society of Training and Development’s (ASTD) International Conference and Exposition, which took place in Washington DC in May 2004, I shared with attendees my thoughts on how workplace learning and performance professionals can not only imagine, but also realise, how to help their organisations achieve success and turn this success into an even higher level of personal growth. Imagine a day when your CEO congratulates you for the learning department’s role in a successful turnaround of your organisation. Policy makers approach learning and performance professionals to help close the skills gap. Your role is recognised across the organisation as vital to helping it sustain a competitive edge  and no organisation ever questions the value of learning.

Being a successful learning and performance professional means that you have the ability to identify and deliver meaningful and measurable results, and to communicate those results in a language that executives speak. To do so requires understanding your business and your customers – both internal and external – and having the skills to solve problems efficiently. Success is measurable.

In a recent interview for T+D magazine, Bill Swanson, CEO of Raytheon, an US$18 billion defence contractor, said the following about his chief learning officer, Don Ronchi:

Don’s an expense to the company … he generates no profit. So he better have passion, and he better have a product to sell, and that product better have a business case associated with it.¹

This is how a top executive communicates and this is how you have to communicate if you want to be understood. This is understanding the business.

So what does it take to be successful? That is a question we ask continually at ASTD. One result of that question is a new award introduced last year. It’s called the ASTD BEST Award and it recognises learning’s contribution to enterprise-wide success. As you know, great organisations measure more than just financial performance; they consider leadership, reputation, human capital, social responsibility, technological advances, innovation and more. Other BEST measures include things like customer satisfaction, employee retention and satisfaction, quality, time-to-competence, top-line growth and profitability. The BEST Award winners understand the critical link between learning and performance. They value learning and performance as they value their ledger, and they understand the connection between the two. It’s clear that connecting learning to organisational performance is a must for success.

In a report called ‘The Human Capital Challenge,’² ASTD’s Public Policy Council talked about learning as part of an overall system for recruitment and retention. Why is this so important?

* Demographic trends leading to fewer workers, combined with a growing gap between worker skills and today’s job requirements, have delivered a ‘one-two punch’ to many organisations.
* They must strengthen their recruitment, retention and employee development practices in order to survive and prosper.
* Even in a challenging economy and higher unemployment, organisations always clamour for knowledgeable, skilled workers. Want some evidence of the severity of the human capital challenge as described in the report?

Want some evidence of the severity of the human capital challenge as described in the report. Two years ago, the federal workforce in the US was 2.7 million employees. By 2005, 50 per cent will be eligible for retirement. Current projections by the Employment Policy Foundation in the US indicate that 2.3 million jobs will remain unfilled in 2004; in 2008 this number will double to 4.6 million. In the US during March 2003, unemployment was at 5.7 per cent of a labour pool of 141.8 million. This equals 8 million-plus unemployed in the US alone. Multiply that around the world and you can see the magnitude of the problem. Consider those approximately 8 million unemployed, yet there are 2.3 million unfilled jobs, and this situation is obviously getting worse each year.

Who is going to help solve this problem with succession planning and workforce training? Learning and performance professionals. Do you think your work is relevant? Absolutely – it is more relevant than ever.

During this year’s International Conference and Exposition, ASTD unveiled a landmark study called ‘Mapping the future: shaping new workplace learning and performance competencies’. The new competency model spells out what professionals in this field need to know and be able to do to succeed. Our goal for the study was to create a roadmap for the profession that identifies the competencies required to drive organisational success. Because, if we can prove that we drive organisational success, no organisation will ever question the value of learning.

When you get right down to it, what is our contribution? We help organisations achieve success through learning and we can – collectively and collaboratively – create a world that works better.

References
1. ‘At C Level’, T+D, ASTD, 2004. For further information visit www.tdmagazine.astd.org.
2. ‘The Human Capital Challenge’, ASTD Public Policy Council, 2003. For further information visit www.astd.org/ASTD/Public_Policy

Tony Bingham can be contacted at tbingham@astd.org

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