I am on my way to California to address several groups of learning professionals on the power of SMR / Kirkpatrick four level evaluation. In the interim, I am finalizing a plan to lead a major Russian automobile manufacturing company in the launching of their corporate university. In a past life, I worked for a consulting firm that specialized in corporate universities, and now have an opportunity to draw on my expertise in that area.
Don’t Let a Good Program Go Bad
Many of you either work for an organization that has a corporate university, or you are considering launching one. The following words might help you decide to go forward. It is first important to note that there is no clear, accepted definition of a corporate university. Rather than offer a narrow definition of a building or some type of escalated training department, I like to refer to it as a “strategic learning function.” What distinguishes organizations that have a corporate university from those that do not? Most commonly, it implies that learning is organized and consistent. Many corporations that we work with have loosely connected training departments. One financial services company I know of has as many as 30 different areas that provide training of one sort or the other. The major purpose of a corporate university, then, would be to create an efficient and effective approach to learning by centralizing certain aspects of various training groups.
Over the past several years, SMR has worked with organizations to develop strategic learning communities. Though most often they were not formally called corporate universities. To be honest, I am lukewarm about the term. The term itself conveys different meanings in different parts of the world. In Europe, ‘corporate university’ is discouraged, as the academic universities there do not want there to be confusion. In North America, it is often viewed as a stuffy, ivory tower kind of place, where scholarly learning overshadows performance and results-based learning. In Asia, the term is gaining in popularity and is seen as what it is - a comprehensive and strategic approach to learning.
Now, back to the corporation in Russia. I received an email from them several months ago asking questions to see if SMR could handle the proposed task of directing the launch of their corporate university. I will present these questions as they were provided to me, so you can see the kind of thought process that needs to go into creating a corporate university:
“How will we choose candidates for being good teachers and trainers?”
“How do we best go about designing programs for groups of people with similar needs?”
“How do we develop a systematic way of evaluating the effectiveness of programs?”
“Should we actually call it a ‘corporate university’, or is ‘learning center’ a better term?”
“When is the best time to launch a corporate university from a corporate maturity standpoint?”
“How long does it take to develop and launch a corporate university?”
“What could be recourses to recover expenses with a corporate university?”
“How do we ensure a high level of effectiveness for our corporate university?”
“How do we create synergy between our corporate university and human resources?”
“How do we bring valuable and prestigious learnings to our employees?”
These questions provide a lot of insight into what goes into sustaining a successful corporate university, or any manner of strategic learning function, for that matter. The individuals who crafted these questions are well on their way to a successful venture for several reasons. First, they understand the purpose of a corporate university: to bring together splintered training units so that training and learning are:
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developed to meet the specific needs of the business, |
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streamlined so that there is an efficient use of resources, |
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consistent so that evaluation can provide targeted data to ensure effectiveness of training efforts, and |
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aligned with not only the business units of the corporation, but human resources as well, again to maximize positive impact to the bottom line. |
Second, they realize that just deciding to call ones training function a ‘corporate university’ does not make it become one. And third, they know that there is tremendous pressure on them to demonstrate to high level management that they are not a cost center, but an integral component in executing the strategy of the organization.
The final question that was asked was, “We want to use your four levels of evaluation to drive this entire process. Do you think that is possible?” As you can well imagine, my answer was an enthusiastic, “Yes!!” I am proud of and pleased to be part of a strong company like SMR. We have professionals that specialize in all of the areas that are queried above, and plan to deliver an extremely successful program for our new Russian colleagues.
I offer a final challenge to you: consider your organization. How scattered or splintered are your various training units? If they are, it is extremely important that you consider reengineering your learning function so that it is truly a strategic learning community.
