Andrew Jefferson
President and CEO
Fort Hill Company

Training and development are essential to both individual and organizational success and they make a significant contribution to competitiveness. But they can and should deliver even greater value than they do today.

From its inception, the Fort Hill Company has focused on helping organizations realize the greatest possible return on their training investments through our award-winning Follow-Through Management Systems®, our best-selling book, The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning, and our consulting and know-how.

Most recently, our clients asked us to help them address a key challenge for all training programs: how to get managers more actively engaged in training and development. The result is our newest book, Getting Your Money's Worth from Training and Development. We have been pleased by response to the book and look forward to hearing from you.

Andrew Jefferson is the President and CEO of the Fort Hill Company, who delights in helping companies maximize the value they realize from their investments in learning and development.

Andy is an accomplished business executive who understands the challenges of running a company and the importance of making every investment count.

Prior to joining Fort Hill, he served as the chief executive officer of Vital Home Services and chief operating officer and general counsel of AmeriStar Technologies, Inc.

Andy is a graduate of the University of Delaware and graduated with honors from the Widener University School of Law, where he currently serves on the school’s Board of Overseers.

He can be reached at:
jefferson@forthillcompany.com

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Getting Your Money's Worth
from Training and Development

Andrew McK. Jefferson
President and CEO
Fort Hill Company

In the current economic climate, it is more important than ever to ensure that training's business partners and sponsors "get their money's worth."

Fundamental to achieving that goal is making sure that what gets taught in training programs gets used on the job. That is, that learning transfer takes place, because it is only through transfer and application that learning is converted to improved performance and the ultimate goals of business impact and competitive advantage.

Manager Engagement is Key

Numerous studies have shown that managers have a profound effect on whether or not training is used and produces results. Recent studies at Pfizer, for example, found that "Those coached by their supervisor clearly had greater change over time." (1) And an American Express Study concluded: "an immediate leader has the potential to either make or break any training effort." (2)

Even before the current economic downturn, AmEx went on to say, "the importance of understanding and creating a high transfer climate should swiftly move to the forefront of any training initiative or strategy." And well it should since training that does not get applied is "learning scrap"— wasted time, money, and opportunity.

Give Them the Tools They Need

One barrier that keeps managers from being more actively engaged is unclear expectations and the lack of a practical guide on how to extract maximum value from training and development.

While no manager would ever voluntarily request such a guide, Bill Amaxopoulos at Chubb Insurance discovered that when he provided a clear process and instructions, they were used to good effect.

So Getting Your Money's Worth from Training and Development was born. It's a no-nonsense guide to the key actions that managers and participants must take if they want to get the full value from the time and money invested in training.

As the introduction to managers says: "Someone who reports to you is scheduled to attend a training and development program. You might be enthusiastic about their attendance, skeptical about its value, or even irritated about the time it will require. It doesn't matter. You need to make the most of it. It is up to you, as manager, to make sure that the training pays a dividend."

A unique aspect of Getting Your Money's Worth is that it is really two books in one. The publisher (Pfeiffer) creatively bound the manager's version and the participant's version back to back to ensure "full disclosure" and cooperation.

The book includes worksheets, step-by-step instructions, completed examples, reference materials, and even cartoons. Jim Kouzes, author of The Leadership Challenge, called it: "Indispensable."

The key to giving your customers and sponsors their money's worth from training and development is to ensure learning transfer. That requires getting managers more engaged and a process for driving post-program follow-through. In a time of unprecedented economic challenge, we cannot allow any learning to go unused.

Ideas Into Action

• Invest in driving learning transfer. In a time of scarce resources, nothing is worse than to waste them. Your overall contribution to the business will be greater if you teach fewer people and use the saved resources to ensure learning transfer and application for those you do train.
• Provide your managers with clear expectations, an easy-to-follow process, and data on how much they contribute (or detract) from the company getting its money's worth from training and development.
• Ensure that managers are encouraged to spend the time necessary to support their direct reports and that they are evaluated on how well they performed their critical role in developing others.
• Get a free copy of Getting Your Money's Worth to review and test the fit for your programs. Contact info@forthillcompany.com and set up a time to speak to one of our specialists.

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