Corporate Universities: Developing Innovative Corporate Training Programs

I have often wondered if the incumbent practices employed in corporate training programs really provide the desired benefits for organizations for both the short and long term. Have you ever participated or enrolled in any of these programs?

Over the past few years I have casually observed how corporate training programs have been conducted, and have, on occasion, been a customer myself (sending employees for training). The program pretty much follows a template: printed courseware materials, case studies, and Power Point slides. The length of the training program depends on the scope of the subject at hand. But most of the time, it takes up about three days of productivity from each participant on the average.

The session begins by the instructor’s posture—certifications, years of experience as a trainer, subject matter (courseware) knowledge, and so forth. The objective of course, is to establish subject matter authority by dumbfounding their students with “academic credentials” to deflect from the reality that most of these young instructors have little to no real world experience.

If you look at the age group of participants, the range will vary. For technical courses, the majority will be under 30, but with management courses the age range spans between 33 to 50 years old. The irony in this setup is that the very people who should be teaching are usually the very people enrolled in the program. Most of them possess first hand, real world experience on the subject matter but had to endure the grueling few days just to receive a sheet of paper saying they have completed the course. Most of the attendees have to go through this process if they ever expect to advance in the workplace. Besides this reason, especially for those with real world experience, the course was really a waste of their time and their employer’s money.

Three days are over and participants return to work. Managers expect them to produce results that demonstrate enhanced subject matter and domain knowledge. A month goes by, and then two—nothing. So, what happened? The company paid an average of $500 USD for every attendee they sent, but they have yet to realize benefit? If you’ve ever sent people on training, you know what it feels to spend on a financial “black-hole”.

Most of these generic training programs produce little by way of results that will directly benefit the paying company. It simply adds a little knowledge to make the attendees a little more dangerous. Worse, a piece of paper could mean increased cost for the company the moment the certified employee jumps ship.

Of course, a distinction has to be made for training programs that are tailor fit to specific organizational contexts. These programs provide more realizable benefits for the corporation and its people since the context of training is specific to their unique requirements. Generic programs offered commercially do not.

The obvious reason behind the choice of programs is that of cost—generic programs cost less. But what companies fail to realize is that they lose out on the intangible benefits of hosting a context specific training program. They lose out on capturing the dynamics that surface when you bring employees together (that share a common and context specific objective) to absorb new information. They lose out on the benefits of serendipity. Due to the fact that the materials are generic, client companies will have difficulty mapping the benefits of new knowledge directly with performance and quality output since they have no way of determining whether the increase or decrease in quality or performance is directly related with the training or with some unrelated event that occurred in the life of their employee. It would be equivocal to try to map benefits directly to program over which they had no control.

In the long run, it costs more for the company to avail of generic commercial programs than if they had made the initial investment to pay for context specific training programs. They either pay for it upfront, or they will end up paying a higher price in the future. Either way, it will cost them.

As a result of the KM movement, there have been several training models that have surfaced. But among these models, I like the model of a Corporate University. From an applied standpoint, most corporations feel that employing such a model would be a waste of their money—nothing could be further from the truth. This is a classic example of the dilemma of mindsets I discussed in previous posts. Corporate officers tend to look at immediate savings and would rather make investments into physical assets than into a creating a culture of learning.

The cost of transforming one’s company into a corporate university involves KM specialists, process specialists, and automation technologies. It usually involves allocating an investment that represents between one to two percent of a company’s operating expenses on the average, to begin its transformation. This share could increase to about 6% if automation technologies are implemented. When we keep matters into perspective, this amount (relative percentage) is miniscule compared to the more expensive and bold investment initiatives that companies make nowadays. The best thing about making this investment is that knowledge will continue to appreciate without having implementation costs increase. The fact is, the more companies invest in knowledge, the less it will cost them in the long run.

In simple terms a corporate university is a system designed to enhance learning within a company. Every activity becomes a learning opportunity that can be captured, stored, shared, and reused throughout the organization, and enhanced by every encounter or application of knowledge. Because it is tailor fit to the specifications and context of a company, it is designed to benefit the company and its employees.

Corporate universities also provide the framework that promotes the propagation of constructive mental models through holistic thinking which company’s that adopt a purely corporate (tangible results only) model completely miss out on. Obviously corporate universities also provide tangible benefits, but this is considered to be “fruits" of a tree planted on fertile ground, in a manner of speaking, and not the "root" itself. Corporate universities considers tangible results only as a consequence but not its primary focus (the primary focus is enhancing their most valuable asset—people). For corporate universities, placing priority on enhancing knowledge in people produces far more sustainable results and higher quality products. Companies that employ a culture of learning and an environment conducive to the creation of new knowledge enjoy much low rates of attrition and turnover and introduce more innovative solutions to market faster than their closest competitor.

If you want to know more about corporate universities or want to know how to become one, send me an email at dennis@dbreyes.com. I can help you develop context specific strategies that will give you an edge over your competition.

Until next time…