Design lowers cost and raises company performance

Companies invest so much money in training, not just for the trainers’ salaries, but also for the time the employees spend attending training rather than working. But how do these companies know for sure that the people being trained are actually learning what the company needs them to learn?” asks Armi Trenas, a former professor at the Asian Institute of Management, specializing in Human Resources and Learning Methodologies.

Answering her own questions, she says, “Much of the time, the companies don’t know. Some of them presume that just because people are attending training, they are learning something.”

Any of us who have attended school would know that sitting in a classroom and learning are completely different.

That’s where instructional design comes in.

Instructional design, Trenas explains, shows you how to prepare your training programs so that people can effectively learn what you want them to learn. It also lets you evaluate the quality of the training programs prepared by your trainers.

This is the service that Learning & Performance Partners, Inc. (LPPI), provides to its clients.

This company, which  Trenas heads, has done instructional design for some of the biggest companies in the Philippines and abroad—and it is changing the landscape of how training is designed, implemented and evaluated.

“Frequently, when a trainer plans what to teach, the content is based on what he wants to share, which may not match what the target audience needs. The contents of a training program should be based on:

(1) what the trainees already know,

(2) what sort of performance you want to see in the trainees after the program, and

(3) what the trainees need to learn to attain that performance level.”

Trenas amusedly recounts that after she had trained companies in instructional design, their rate of rejection of training program proposals ballooned. This is because training staffs are more knowledgeable in identifying what their company needs and how to evaluate training proposals.

Through this more-active partnership with trainers, the companies ended up with much more effective and engaging training sessions.

Trenas emphasizes the word: effective. “How many of us have attended seminars that were very engaging but, at the end, left us asking ourselves, ‘So what exactly did I learn, and how can I use it to improve my work and life?’” Trenas asks. Engagement while important is not the end-all of a training program. Instructional design ensures that even before training begins, the participants already know what will be taught, why it is being taught, and what new things they are expected to be able to do after the training is over.

But there is one last important consideration for corporate instructional design.

“The truth is, instructional design is an old educational concept,” Trenas says, “but there is one thing that makes our work different from the instructional design that is found in the academe: Learning & Performance puts special emphasis on the benefits for the company, and on how learning should help the trainees perform better. We work with the companies to understand their unique situation and determine their needs.”

For bigger companies who need a more structured and systematic approach to talent development, Trenas describes the concept of a corporate university.

“You have different courses for employees with different goals and needs. The corporate university is not just a laundry list of courses. It is designed and organized based on the learning requirements of employees, such as competencies. And because time is money, the training programs are designed in a manner that establishes smooth progression, minimizes overlaps, and assesses what employees have learned,” she says.

Trenas admits that designing such courses take time; it could take as much as six to twelve months to establish a corporate university.

“But companies who have corporate universities have far-reaching visions. They realize that it is a worthwhile long-term investment if you design your program well right at the start rather than muddle through for years, spending time and effort that result in very little returns performance-wise,” she says.

This is where Trenas’ years of experience and expertise in her field can be of help. Although her company has support staff, she ensures her clients that it is Armi Trenas herself who will be dealing with them and working with them to help them reach their corporate training goals.

To learn more about Trenas and her company, Learning & Performance, Inc., visit www.learnperformance .com. E-mail her at atrenas@ learnperformance.com.