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Dear
!*FIRST_NAME*!
Here
is the latest edition of HRD Alert! to which you subscribed.
If you have trouble reading this or prefer to read an online copy,
you'll find one here.
You can load it into your browser or save and read it off line.
EDITORIAL
G'day
and I hope this finds you well. I've been very, very busy and
this edition was so late for March I decided to call this the
March-April edition. I don't expect you have been pacing up and
down in front of your computer waiting for HRD Alert! to arrive,
but if you were, I'm sorry to have let you down.
Talking
about well, I've just recently added an Herbalife distributorship
to my business activities (part of the reason for my failure to
produce the March edition). Selling goods and services online
is great, but it doesn't have much people contact. This arm of
my business means that I will be dealing with clients face-to-face.
If you haven't heard about Herbalife I'd be surprised. It's been
around since 1980 and the range of health, nutrition and skin
care products it produces are excellent. While most of it's focus
is on weight loss, it is now much more than a weight loss company.
If you visit the sites at
http://www.herbalife.com or http://www.herbalife.com.au
you'll find good coverage of the products now available and testimonials
about how successful they are. (And of course give me a call if
you wish to obtain further information or purchase anything).
After
that shameless plug, down to the real business of HRD. This issue
I thought I'd discuss the need for training and development focus
to be balanced if the expenditure is to achieve outcomes and continue
with more training ways.
I've also included what I think is a topical item by Paul Kearns
that appeared on the Training Zone site in the UK. I've discussed
the Pareto Principle before, but Paul has a different slant on
it and kindly allowed me to reprint it here.
And
last up there is an article about affiliate programs and whether
they would work for training providers like many of you who read
HRD Alert!. I'd love to know what you think about the idea.
Until next edition,
yours
in HRD
Robin
Henry
Principal Adviser/Publisher
PS:
Visit the NEW Articles of Interest topic for
some great articles.
CONTENTS IN BRIEF
Finding
Balance in Your Training Activities
While many organisations devote huge amounts of their budgets
to training and development activities, quite often the focus
is on the wrong type of training and development activity. This
article explores the need for balance in training and ensuring
that activity achieves the right objectives.
Bitesize No 8 - Using the 80/20 Rule
Some more discussion about the 80/20 rule and areas within your
business where you can look to see if it is in effect. This article
contributed by Paul Kearns also appeared in the UK Training Zone.
Would
Affiliate Programs Work for Training Providers?
Good
question. Why shouldn't they? Affiliate programs are used by thousands
of businesses online and it seems that an opportunity for training
providers to harness a similar style of business development is
being wasted. See what you think and get a free copy of the Affiliate
Masters Course by Dr Ken Evoy (a medical doctor come good!).
Worth a Look
The National Centre
for Vocational and Educational Research site has been upgraded
and is worth revisiting if you haven't explored it for a while.
One
day while surfing I came across a site called Brain Connection.
It sounded so odd that I had to have a peek. And guess what? I
found some really good content about brains and how they work.
Just the sort of thing for those of you trying to fill brains
with good skills, knowledge and attitude.
[TOP]
FINDING BALANCE IN YOUR TRAINING ACTIVITIES
The
single most wasteful activity in an organisation is, perhaps,
the failure to adequately target training activity and expenditure.
That is, to allocate funding for training (and development) that
doesn't provide outcomes that promote the organisation's aims
and objectives.
What
are these outcomes? In the public sector they are usually to provide
some type of client service eg, payment of welfare or medical
services. In the private sector it's making a profit and all that
goes with it eg, maintaining goodwill.
It's
reasonable to argue then, that the costs incurred by organisations
for anything, training included, should help the organisation
achieve it's outcomes. If they don't do that, then perhaps they
shouldn't have been spent.
One of the worst examples I have experienced of waste was in an
organisation with regional offices all round Australia. The head
office had a different agendum to the regional offices. Head
office provided a range of development programs for a specific
cohort of staff, so their efforts went almost solely into that
activity. Training budgets were provided to the regional offices,
but the training that ensued was ineffective because it wasn't
focused on what people really needed. The resources didn't exist
in regions to develop it, or to purchase it locally.
This tendency to abdicate responsibility by providing funding and
making someone else responsible ignores the opportunities that
arise from centralising some business activities. Training and
development are business activities that are best centralised (in
most cases - some of you may disagree).
Centralisation provides more resources, often including expertise,
at the one place and time and enables economies of scale simply
unattainable in regional centres.
An organisation with an efficient training and development focus
should, at least in the early stages of its development, allocate
most of it's resources to training. That is, skilling people to do
their jobs or to do them well. Maybe a 60/40 ratio is okay, or
perhaps 70/30. With 70 percent of the training effort (and by
inference the budget) going towards job-related skills and only 30
percent on development programs, real headways can be gained. From
a management point of view, doesn't it make sense to begin with a
focus on training and, as the producers of the firm's core
products become highly skilled (and hopefully highly productive),
to move the balance towards development?
In any organisation turnover of staff and new approaches to doing
work will mean that there is always a need for training. Deciding
the right mix between training for on-job success and development
for management positions or alternative employment can make the
difference between a well-tuned organisation and a Mickey Mouse
Show.
If you have influence over a training function, consider whether
the above relates to your current operation and if so, determine
that you will do something about it.
[TOP]
BITESIZE NO 8 - USING THE 80/20 RULE
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Probably one
of the oldest, simplest and yet most useful management
tools is the 80/20 rule.
Usually
known as the "Pareto Principle" (named after the Italian
economist Vilfredo Pareto 1848-1923) although probably
more accurately attributed to the quality guru Juran who
referred to the “vital few and trivial many”.
So what
does the 80/20 rule tell us and how can a business partner
use it in training? The 80/20 rule helps you to
prioritise. It suggests that you will get 80% of your
results from 20% of your effort.
Your
company probably gets 80% of its profit from 20% of its
customers, or even 80% of its complaints from 20% of its
customers. It is not always in exactly the same ratio of
80/20 but the same principle always applies - focus your
activities in the areas that will make the most
difference.
The main
practical implication is to always consider how you are
spending your time. Are you focusing on the 20% that will
get significant results, the “vital few” (i.e. the main
cause of the complaints?) or are you getting bogged down
dealing with the “trivial many”?
It’s time
to have another look at the data you collected for
Bitesize 1 (Editor's note - this has not appeared
previously in this ezine, but you'll get the drift).
* Look at
how many customers you have and what their actual spend
is? Do the top 20% provide 80% of your turnover/profit?
* Look at
scrap, error, rework or complaint rates. Do most of them
come from one or two specific areas? If so you need to be
asking whether there is a training need to be satisfied
that will help solve the problem.
* Look at
your costs. Which parts of the organisation or which
departments seem to eat up an inordinate amount of cash by
showing seriously adverse variances? Why do they require
so much cost? Is there anything they could learn that
would make a significant cost saving?
This
is all good food for thought. Paul is happy to take
questions and comments and can be contacted
here.
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[TOP]
WOULD
AFFILIATE PROGRAMS WORK
FOR TRAINING PROVIDERS?
I've
been involved with numerous affiliate programs since commencing
my online business in 1998. I earn a steady stream of money from
them each month without having to do more than a few hours work
per week. If I did more work, I'd get more money.
Many
people make a livelihood from affiliate programs. Some are making
sufficient to live very comfortable lives, working from home with
very little effort. So what are affiliate programs? Simply put,
they are programs where you sell someone else's goods or services
on a commission. The concept is nothing new, but perhaps has had
a name change.
There
are all sorts of affiliate programs on the Internet for a variety
of different goods and services. I've seen some for courses that
are sold as video, audio or in electronic book format, but never
any for attendance style training programs.
If
you are a training provider, your affiliate program would give
people a 'spotter's fee' for finding new enrolees. They could
be paid a percentage commission, get a discount off their next
enrolment, or gain some other benefit. And who better to promote
your courses than your existing students? They've tried and tested
your product and will be happy to recommend it if it's up to scratch.
(So the feedback here could be helpful too ... especially if they
are reluctant to speak highly of your courses).
Affiliates
are different from training brokers in that they market your goods
or services and don't select between several providers like a
training broker does. They sell your courses and get a commission
on every sale. The more they sell, the more they get. Brokerage
is different in that brokers sell a course to a third party, but
they look for the most suitable course among numbers of providers.
There's a subtle difference.
You
could even run say a two teir affiliate program so that your affiliates
can make a little additional income from people whom they refer
who also refer others. But I don't recommend an Multi-Level-Marketing
approach ... too complex and pushes costs up or profits down.
If
you are in the business of selling training, or anything else
for that matter, you should at least consider an affiliate program.
Do a feasibility study and see if it might add a new dimension
to your business, especially if sales are static.
Medical
practitioner turned Internet marketer, Ken Evoy has produced some
excellent free resources that discuss affiliate programs and how
to make them big money earners. His ebook Affiliate
Masters Course is highly acclaimed as the
most popular and comprehensive manual on the Internet. Although
it's written with those who intend to make money as affiliates
in mind, it's also excellent information for those considering
an affiliate program to boost their profit.
I've
place a copy of it on my site and you can download it by going
to the link below. However, I need to warn you that it's focus
really is on identifying suitable programs with which to affiliate
and how to ensure your activities attain the best exposure for
income generation. It doesn't tell you how to set up an affiliate
program for a training business ... maybe that's what my next
book should be about.
Download:
Place your mouse over this - LINK
- and press the RIGHT button. A dialogue box will appear giving
you several options. Select 'Save target as ...' and click and
your download should begin. Alternatively, to load it into your
screen, click here
and then save the file wherever you wish.
[TOP]
NCVER Site Upgraded
If you are involved with VET you've probably visited the NCVER
site previously as it's where you can find vocational education
and training research and statistics. The new site looks crisper
and cleaner and is easy to navigate with sections for students and
individuals, teachers and learning, and industry and employers. It
also provides an excellent overview of the VET system and of
course has news and events information. If you have time, call in
for a surf. More ...
Brain Connection
There is
a wealth of information about our human brain ... and more, at
the Brain Connection. If you are interested in how the brain functions,
why we see things differently from how they are and more, visit
this site.
More ...
Win
a Government Job
This
is plug for my new site set up to sell my two ebooks for job seekers,
Win a Government Job
and Writing Responses to Selection
Criteria. Both titles have been selling well as
they meet an otherwise unmet demand. More
...
[TOP]
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