The topic for this month’s Learning Event came from a late night work conversation in which someone bemoaned the fact that when an employee was assigned a training class, they would invariably ask: “Do I have to take this?” Even more disconcerting, they didn’t ask the Talent Development team, they asked their HR reps, who in turn asked us: “Do they have to take this class?”

If there’s anyone who oughta be repping you, it oughta be HR, right?

The course objectives were strong. The WIIFM was clear. The problem: it hadn’t been communicated well to the employees. Thus, in an era during which the demands of employee time are increasing (and time seems to be slip-sliding away even faster than before -- can you believe it’s October already?), the need for a strong communication plan to convey the benefits of any training intervention are key.

In this article, the folks at Business Performance, Ltd. share that constructing a communication plan with key stakeholders keeps everyone engaged in the success of a program. And they gave quite a list of stakeholders, from the instructional designer to the administration staff, and all the leaders and consultants in between.

In the case that prompted our event, with whom should we have communicated?

Employees to whom training was assigned would be the obvious choice, and they had received several emails about the upcoming learning requirements.

At the conclusion of our Special Interest Group conference last month, I intimated that this is a lesson our Chapter can do well to pay heed to. We’ll be there, taking notes of best practices that we’ll be following in 2019. Will you?