From the course: Your L&D Organization as a Competitive Advantage

Build capability via organizational learning

From the course: Your L&D Organization as a Competitive Advantage

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Build capability via organizational learning

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- Organizational leaders view improving and expanding corporate capabilities as a top 10 priority. This, according to the global consultancy firm, McKinsey. How much can training and development do to build those capabilities? It turns out, plenty. Capability building can be accomplished in several areas through a focus on training and development. The first is improvement in the ability of the organization to produce its products and services. Properly trained employees are more productive and the research backs this up. A study by the American Society for Training and Development, now the Association for Talent Development, show that companies that invest the most in workplace learning yielded higher net sales per employee and higher gross profits per employee than companies that invested less. Additionally, a study published in the International Journal of Science and Research found that training greatly benefits both employers and employees. It also leads to greater efficiency and productivity. But productivity is not the only capability that's improved through training and development. Organizations that have regular and systematic training programs have uniformity of processes and procedures. The variability of the products they make and the services they offer is reduced, and reduced variability leads to improved quality and consistency. This helps with achieving and maintaining regulatory compliance. Uniformity of processes and procedures helps with quality control issues. It reduces waste, and ensures that new employees are productive in a short timeframe. It also means that human resource or operational issues are all handled consistently, which provides a sense of fairness and evenhandedness throughout the organization. And this, in turn, improves morale. When policies and procedures are approached and handled consistently, it builds another capability, which is self-supervision. Organizations that have a high investment in training and developing their employees spend less on employee supervision. Now training doesn't eliminate the need for supervision, but it does reduce the demand for detailed and consistent supervision. It allows employees to be more autonomous and to make more meaningful decisions. Empowered employees then have an impact on improved customer experiences. Improved customer experience is yet another capability that has grown through a focus on corporate training. When employees are able to solve customer problems without having to refer to a supervisor, when they can troubleshoot issues on their own, and when they understand the needs of the customer, they can provide a great customer experience. In today's modern economy, gaining a competitive advantage through excellent customer service is becoming more and more important. The learning and development function can help organizations achieve their goal of building corporate capabilities, by helping to improve productivity, create consistent processes and policies, reduce the need for supervision, and to increase customer service. There is no other way to achieve all these goals within an organization, other than building a complete and effective training program.

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