Back to School: 4 Questions for Your Organization’s Learning & Development Program

As August closes and September begins, summer holidays wrap up and, if you’re lucky, you have one last vacation ahead before returning to regularly scheduled programming. For some, the 2018-2019 school year means sending a child off to kindergarten or college. Others are embarking on their own educational path, returning to school to finish a degree or pick up a new credential for career advancement.

Still, others look toward the waning of this calendar year as an opportune time to evaluate their organization’s professional development offerings and plan future learning and growth opportunities. This can evoke questions regarding best practices for implementing or optimizing organizational training practices.

At The Clearing, we celebrate and believe in the idea that learning and development are lifelong pursuits. As the lead for the firm’s Learning and Development (L&D) efforts, this belief is a key component of why I joined the firm and is a major reason for my continued happiness and professional growth.

Throughout the course of my career as both an educator and a consultant, I’ve learned the importance of asking oneself some baseline questions before starting, improving, or reimagining a firm’s L&D practice:

• What are your shared training needs?
  • What does your current training program look like and what are some gaps you’re seeing? Are you able to make your staff client-ready with your existing program? Are you offering attractive options to retain and grow your best employees? What are the outcomes you want for your training program?
• How will you develop and design your curriculum?
  • Will your training sessions satisfy the variety of ways individuals learn? What does your curriculum schedule look like; how will you grow employees and teams intentionally and provide them the knowledge to develop professionally and personally?
• How and who will deliver the training?
  • What are your resources for delivering training? Are there elements of your current training program that can be served through e-learning opportunities?
• What will be your evaluation plan?
  • How do you assess whether your training program outcomes are being met?

If you want to talk through any of these questions and your answers, or want more information about how to create a training program that will benefit your firm’s employees, please reach out to me directly.