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Employers warned not to waste their valuable learning resources

A new book, published today, has advised UK employers that they may be wasting valuable resources on sending staff on training courses that they don't need.

The book, Learning Needs Analysis and Evaluation, by Frances & Roland Bee and published by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) says that a training course is often a knee-jerk reaction to a problem at work and there may be other more effective (and cheaper!) solutions.

They emphasise the need to look closely at the business need and identify the real issues. It may turn out not to be a performance problem with employees at all - but perhaps to do with processes and procedures or a problem with IT. Even when it is an issue of employee performance, perhaps unusually for a book on learning/training, it recommends looking at other interventions first. These could include:

• Improved methods of working - sometimes better documentation of work processes, even a simple check-list, may do the trick
• Better communication - for example, team briefings can be an informal and effective method of disseminating new information
• Redesigning the job - perhaps simplifying tasks or using a more team-based approach
• Tackling organisational obstacles - by improving reporting systems, inter-departmental working or even the physical environment, eg in terms of reducing noise and interruptions

The authors advocate a systematic process to identify and analyse the learning that is really needed in an organisation to ensure that business targets are met.

Frances Bee comments: "There are many ways of improving the performance of a workforce, and although learning interventions are extremely useful they should not be seen as the only choice. It is vital that the right people are targeted with the right learning at the right time.

The second part of our book focuses on how to measure how effective your learning interventions have been and ensure you get real value for money from those vital learning/training resources."

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