Why You Shouldn't Train All Your Employees

When the corporate learning process is intelligent and streamlined, every individual counts and there is no need to invest in standardized actions for the entire team. Who is performing above expectations, for example, can (and should) receive another type of guidance.

One of the main advantages of the diagnosis and training methodology created and used by the ReFrame Learning team in its corporate learning processes, called "Learning Analytics", resides precisely in the fact that it uses highly accurate data and metrics to determine when training is in fact necessary and the current stage of the work teams that will possibly participate in the training activities.

The word "possibly" is not written by chance in the previous paragraph. That's exactly what you read: it is possible (if not probable) that not all the people will be part of the same proposed activities. In fact, it's not even advisable that some of these professionals are trained.

We explain: as shown in this post, Learning Analytics is made up of four well-defined steps and each of them exists to ensure that professionals' learning happens in the most efficient and optimized way possible. They are (1) Establishing correlations, (2) Individualized Analysis, (3) Optimized Instructional Actions, and (4) Follow-up of results. And as you can see, if we are going to invest time and energy (and money, of course) in the individualized analysis of the skills that each professional does or does not have in their "skills portfolio", the ideal is to address training actions according to these evaluations.

It is understandable that this approach conflicts with a very common premise in organizations of offering the same training and content to all team members so that there is no noise in internal communication and no room left for someone to feel neglected in the face of actions of organization development.

But it is necessary to remember not to treat professionals in different stages of development in a standardized way under the risk of seeing the turnover rate increase. Professionals with high-level performance are easily disengaged and tend to feel that there is no room for them to develop and grow in the hierarchical structure of the company.

Training or a new career plan?

Not treating dissimilar professionals equally is very valuable advice for anyone looking to work engagement consistently within the company. Numerous recent surveys prove that a corporate environment favorable to professional and self-knowledge development is the main antidote to deal with talent evasion, especially the youngest and so-called "high potential".

Therefore, after running the diagnostic sessions that will help to understand the current state of things, that is, which skills each team member already has or needs to develop, it is time to direct the contingent that is performing below expectations (always according to the selected KPIs, as explained here) for certain types of training/content, as well as those who are on average, who should be targeted for updating and recycling activities, depending on the nature of the training in question.

As for those with high-performance rates, they should have contact with a career plan, taking into account the organizational structure, succession processes, and development of new leaders. These professionals may be in need of coaching or mentoring sessions to develop specific skills, or they should start thinking about more significant flights in terms of positions and professional ambition within the company. In any case, it is very likely that they do not need to have contact with the same activities as those who could be doing better in terms of performance.

And this is something that needs the attention of business managers and people.

The price of disengagement is often too high.