Learning Costs (reply to multiple posts)
GAWNE, SEAN (gawnesm@songs.sce.com)
Mon, 06 Mar 95 09:41:17 PST
You will gain far more by focusing on measuring the benefits of
learning, especially if the benefactors of the expense are the ones
who must justify the use of resources. You can rest assured that the
people at Hamburger University (McDonald's corporate training center)
can tell you exactly how many burgers worth of value they add to each
student. It may sound silly but consider the alternative: classes
where neither the students nor the teachers are quite sure what they
are supposed to be learning or doing.
IMHO the way to have learning that really benefits the organization is
to have a dialogue amongst all the principles involved in the learning
which addresses what the parties can bring to the table, what they
hope to get out of it, and how to best support it for now and in the
future. When this happens, the results generally speak for themselves
and measuring the costs seems silly.
Organizations which feel a need to measure the costs of learning may
be having real problems connecting learning to performance. It is
possible to lose your balance and spend too much time on "learning." I
try to look at it in about the same way as I look at putting something
away for retirement, or spending for charity, or other worthwhile,
long-term developmental activities. There is a target of something
between 5 and 10% of available resources that ought to be put towards
these things, so in good times I am stowing away perhaps 30% of all I
take in, and in lean times it drops to 10-15% of the total. This is
just my personal formula, everyone can work out their own scheme.
If each person spent a few hours a week actually learning about their
business, think what would happen! Or if you hate your job and don't
want to learn about it any more, why not learn about some other part
of your life? There are so many things to explore and discover, which
many of us never take time to learn about. For example, spiritual
topics are for some reason taboo in most circles, yet we know that
most people will never be content without some sort of spiritual
fulfillment. Everyone talks about being concerned about the
environment but few understand how they influence the environment
every day. You could go on and on.
Anyway, the main point I want to make is that it will do your
organization far more good to focus on measuring the benefits of
learning than on the costs. Cost measures can be horribly misleading.
For example, in our company we spend a lot of time on training during
slack periods. We spend almost no time on training when it's busy.
What would we learn from counting all the hours spent on training?
What other options are available to fully utilize these people? Our
options are rather limited, and that doesn't really come out too
clearly in simple measures like you often see. It isn't realistic (at
least not today) to think you can simply lay a person off for a few
months and then hire them back when things pick up a bit. And expect
this person to take it upon themselves to use that "free time" to take
some classes or do some research or whatever in order to learn more
and make themselves a more valuable employee. Especially when you
don't plan to pay them any more than before.
No, I don't think I've ever heard of a company that got into trouble
by spending "too much" on learning. I have known of many organizations
that WASTED their resources, and it doesn't really matter how big your
budget is, if you're wasting it, you're in trouble.
Sean Gawne, gawnesm@songs.sce.com
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: RE Learning costs LO327
Author: learning-org@world.std.com at internet
Date: 3/5/95 9:03 AM
Replying to LO308 --
When talking about learning costs, I believe that we should concentrate a
lot more on what it could cost not to learn! Can organizations today
afford not to make sure that they are developing their intellectual
capital all the time, at all times?
Ivan
***************************************************************
R. IVAN BLANCO, Ph.D. Voice 305 899-3515
Assoc. Prof. & Director Fax 305 892-6412
International Business Programs
Andreas School of Business _________E-Mail Addresses________
Barry University Bitnet: Blanco%bu4090@Barryu
Miami Shores, FL 33161-6695 Internet: Blanco@bu4090.barry.edu
<<<<< ---------------- >>>>>
"Las naciones marchan hacia el termino de su grandeza, con
el mismo paso que camina su educacion." "The nations march
toward their greatness at the same pace as their educational
systems evolve." Simon Bolivar
===============================================================