Malcolm C. Burson wrote:
< A few days ago, Charles Kerr wrote of a Pratt and Whitney initiative tying
> pay raises to completion of training and increased degree of responsibility
>[surely a noble goal], and Roxanne Abbas agreed.
> But a question to both, and to others: is the _quantity_ of completed
>training (implied in Charles' post) an adequate measure of learning
>outcomes? and if not, how do we assess those outcomes in a way that
>allows us to link them with an increase in compensation?
Let's not confuse education with training. While education may be
measured by quantity of information given or received, training is
normally measured by results. Most compensation systems I have read about
use education units as their measurement basis. While this is often
referred to as training, we probably need to refer to either training or
education specifically to answer this question.
Learning outcomes themselves are only a best estimate of the changes
required to produce a desired system change. It is entirely possible to
use objective measurements like the "quantity" of training to make
subjective decisions about a larger system's efficiency or direction. If
there are standards in place to insure a minimum quality standard, the
resulting training "quantities" may well be a suitable reason to reward or
compensate people who accumulate the required amounts of training or
education.
Of course, this in no way suggests that large quantities of poor training
or education will be cost effective or worthy of inclusion in a
compensation system. What I do believe, however, is that compensation is
only a small part of the entire business system and its links to
"quantity" of education or training is no more or less important than its
links to employee retention, cash flow, recruitment, quality of life,
customer service, equipment maintenance, sales, or any other aspect of the
business.
--Lon Badgett lonbadgett@aol.com
"What is the most important part of a watch? Usually we say it is the first piece that fails. Actually the watch's availability is the most important part. No one without a watch worries about componant parts - they worry about what time it is." Emil Gobersneke
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>