Chapter 1

Exploring Training and Talent Development

IN THIS CHAPTER

Introducing the training and talent development profession

Assessing your skills and abilities as a training and development professional

Determining the importance of developing people

So you want to be a trainer. Or perhaps you're already in the field, and you've picked up this book to enhance your skills. In either case, this chapter helps you understand the profession and what's expected of those who develop others. This chapter gives you a brief overview of the training profession and why it's important. You're also introduced to talent development and the talent development (TD) professional. If you're wondering what the difference is between training and talent development, you're in the right place: I explore both in this chapter to help you make sense of the profession.

The timing for this book couldn't be better. Much has changed since March 2020. Organizations moved quickly to adjust operations and how to utilize a remote workforce. Likewise, training departments scrambled to determine how best to develop employees who were offsite. Some of this change has been difficult, but the results have been positive.

Employees needed training, and training departments had to rethink how to deliver their services in a matter of days, without a needs assessment or a plan to guide them. Many were completely unprepared for such an upheaval in terms of tools and competencies. Still, they rose to the challenge. It's what trainers do. Trainers switched to virtual, instructor-led training; they chunked learning into short, specific lessons; and they made it interesting for those distracted by working from home. Even better, they got creative when new technology wasn't in the budget. And they managed these innovations in days instead of months. Although the situation was atypical, the profession's response was typical: Do what needs to be done for your customers.

This chapter starts with training and what it means to be a trainer because it is likely the more well-known term. Then I introduce talent development and compare the two.

Introducing the Exciting Role of Training

Having a role in training and development is one of the most exciting careers anyone can have. Although a trainer's job has changed substantially over the past decade and is currently going through another transformation, many of the positive aspects always remain with the job. First, a trainer impacts the work of many people - not only the learners with whom you work but also supervisors, senior management, clients, vendors, and perhaps even your company's board of directors. As a trainer, you have access to many people and can develop a broader picture of your organization's needs. Trainers usually have excellent communication skills. People listen to you. Employees respect you. Leaders depend on you.

In addition, training is exciting because it serves as an integral step in an organization's efforts toward change and improvement. You may be a part of defining the organization of today, envisioning the organization of the future, and helping to incorporate the changes necessary to create the new organization. As a trainer, you have the opportunity to influence the direction your organization takes and how it gets there.

Change is here to stay. Therefore, you need to take a proactive stance in shaping your career. To be the most effective trainer, find out all you can about your organization. What are the primary issues and priorities it faces? Partner with those who lead your organization and find out how you can help them. Where are the pressure points that affect the bottom line? Identify how your work can positively impact the bottom line, given that you're in a unique position to impact others. At the same time, remember to also take the opportunity to impact your career.

Workplace changes affect how we all work, and training is about change. It's about transformation. It's all about continuous learning. Training is a process designed to assist an individual to learn new skills, knowledge, or attitudes. As a result, individuals make a change or transformation that improves or enhances their performance. These improvements ensure that people and organizations can do things better, faster, easier, and with higher quality.

As an example, consider the huge change when a large portion of the workforce started working remotely as a result of the pandemic. Training departments had to rethink how to deliver training remotely and determine which content was needed the most. They needed to figure out how to engage employees to learn while competing with children, spouses, pets, and other distractions. They needed to address both their own and their learners' technical challenges. In some cases, they had to be cautious about physical health and mental well-being, all while ensuring that they were engaging the learners. Trainers had to fast-track learning to employees who needed it while working from home. Trainers are masters at change. After all, that's what learning is all about.

Learning happens all the time

You, like everyone else, have been in training since the day you were born. You have been learning and changing into the knowledgeable, skilled adult you currently are. Everyone has both received training and developed others. If you ever demonstrated how to create a poll on Zoom to a new employee, advised your boss regarding changes in your department, or explained a shortcut for completing a task to a colleague, you were conducting training.

Learning is acquired in many forms. You may, for example, have experienced some of these situations: had a one-on-one session with your supervisor to learn the benefits of a new product that your company produces; attended a virtual class to learn new negotiating skills; or taken an asynchronous online course to learn how to use a new computer program. Or maybe you'll take a golf lesson to learn how to improve your use of long irons, or get coached by someone in your company to learn to be more politically savvy. You may register for a local university course to learn about artificial intelligence and future-proof your career. The key word in each of these examples is learn. Training is provided so that people learn something in order to make a change.

People use the words training and development as though there's a difference between the two words, and yet all professionals in the business seem to have their own definitions. This book doesn't arrive at a mutual definition that everyone can agree on, but both concepts are paths to learning and performance. In general, people view training as those learning options that include someone who facilitates the learning in a formal setting: classroom, workshop, seminar, virtual instructor-led, or synchronous online. Development, on the other hand, is viewed as more self-directed and informal: coaching, mentoring, reading, self-study, social learning, on-the-job learning, and asynchronous online learning.

Learning also occurs during water cooler discussions, in cubical conversations, during Zoom meetings, and at conferences. Trainers are involved in all these alternatives.

Read that last sentence again and remember it. It doesn't matter what your official title is or how you deliver learning. Trainers may be involved in all activities in which people acquire knowledge and develop skills. Yes, you may design or deliver training in a traditional or virtual classroom. But you may also coach supervisors about the best way to develop their employees, or advise leaders of corporate changes required to support desired performance - or even recommend budgets for social media to augment training.

Trainers, although that word may not always be their title, are necessary in every industry, from aardvark ranches to zipper manufacturers. Trainers have jobs in private industry, education, not-for-profit organizations, and government.

Trainers work with people in all positions and at all levels in an organization: executives, managers, supervisors, secretaries, production workers, scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers, security guards, salespeople, teachers, firefighters, authors, custodial workers, wait staff, and you. Even this book is a form of training - self-directed training as you learn your way through its pages.

Understanding why training is necessary

Every year, organizations budget money for training - more than $80 billion in the United States and $360 billion worldwide. And it's growing by almost 7 percent each year. Why this explosive growth? All individuals, whether internal employees or external entrepreneurs, are engaged in upskilling themselves. Everyone is recognizing the explosive changes and the requirements for new skills and are girding themselves for growth and development required in the immediate future. According to recent research, the average company spends about $1,500 on training per employee.

The volume of money and effort suggests that corporations believe training to be important. They know what justifies this much investment. For starters, training plays an important role in developing a productive workforce and finely tuning processes to increase profits. Training also helps people and organizations manage change. Prior to the pandemic, most organizations focused on training to increase efficiency, but the...