Leadership Essential: goals and expectations

I CAN'T SAY THAT!! - Tackling Sensitive Subjects

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Set Up To Succeed: Setting Clear Expectation and Goals

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Workplace Trust Explored with the Army Guys

The many challenges associated with the changing nature of work and the workplace environment are very real for every organization.
Rapid change requires a skilled, knowledgeable workforce with employees who are adaptive, flexible and focused on the future. But high-performing organizations share several characteristics when it comes to how they think about and approach employee
training and development. Specifically, here are six key areas of
commonality:

1. Shared Service Model
A shared services model draws upon training resources from the central human resources or training department, as well as individual business units.  Competency models play a key role in defining desired skills and abilities for which individual business units may require employee
training and development. These models allow the business unit to determine which critical skills are needed to meet business goals, and then the central learning and development or HR department can provide potential solutions or vendors with whom the business
unit may engage.

2. Leverage Online Systems
Leveraging online systems can enable the deployment of common training needs to a wider audience. This is particularly true for Best Practices in Employee Development.
High-performing organizations share several characteristics when it comes to how they think about and approach employee training and development.
Having the flexibility to engage in training via an intranet or Internet connection helps reduce overall costs, improves access to learning resources, and improve consistency of
messaging. Online training can also improve the results and efficiency of face-to-face training because participants are better prepared with a baseline of knowledge.

3. Formalized Leadership Development Program
High-performing organizations typically have a formal leadership
development program in place to prepare the next generation of leaders. The identification and development of competent supervisors and managers is crucial to the achievement
of many business goals. Having a common executive-level management training program helps to ensure that all business units are following common strategic objectives and leads to the sharing of best practices. Identification of high-potential employees is typically accomplished through a nomination process, a 360-degree process or other purposeful method to ensure that the best and brightest are identified and given an opportunity to participate.

4. Augment & Adjust
No business is static. It must respond to market forces, adjust and change—or be left dead in the water. Training and development programs must be augmented, adjusted and changed. If your company has a successful track record with leadership and
management training, great. But keep your eyes toward the horizon
and be mindful that the agile business will grow and face new
challenges better than the monolith. Maintain ties with your training providers and ask questions: What are other high-performing companies doing? What’s new in
leadership and management training? Perhaps there is something new or different out there that is right for your latest challenges.

5. Comprehensive Career Development
High-performing organizations typically provide comprehensive career development services to employees, integrating the process into the overall performance management system. Work with employees to develop individual career development plans that provide opportunities for professional advancement. A clear plan for employees’ long-term development helps to ensure that personnel remain at your company rather than look for other job opportunities.
Some organizations offer a career center for employees, using a Web-based portal or intranet to post internal positions, maintain a library of resources and job descriptions for current roles within the organization. Some go as far as defining career paths within the
organization. If an individual is seeking to transition to a new role within the company, she can clearly see which competencies are needed and strive toward attaining the skills for that desired position/path.

6. Manage Knowledge…and Keep It!
High-performing organizations create a culture that facilitates the retention and sharing of organizational knowledge. It can start with something as simple as a company wiki where people go to find and share knowledge, or as comprehensive as team members addressing
specific company issues throughout their training experience and then presenting their solutions to top management. An added bonus: ROI can be assessed by the success of these projects. Harnessing and sharing the knowledge of workers is also critical to
the long-term success of operations. Knowledge management encompasses two areas: i) the sharing of knowledge within the organization to identify best practices and find synergies among operating departments and business units, and ii) the retention of
organizational knowledge, which is increasingly important in the face of impending retirements.
Here again we find the Internet playing a large role in providing a place for “Communities of Practice” to emerge and grow. These communities are not bound by location and time differences, as people can post whenever they want and get answers later.
Knowledge sharing can also be done using more formal tools and social networks. Different groups or departments can share what they learned in training that may have applications elsewhere in the company, thereby encouraging cross-departmental dialogue and
solution creation.

Achieving & Maintaining High Performance
High-performing organizations share several characteristics when it
comes to how they think about and approach employee training
and development. Becoming (or continuing to function as) a highperforming
organization requires that the leaders of several
groups—including HR, training and business units—work together
with a common understanding about business goals, how to
achieve them, and the importance of everyone involved in
employee development.