return-on-learning

by donald-vanthournout

Like most corporations at the turn of the millennium, Accenture was faced with business, economic, and operational changes affecting its renowned internal training program, which shapes and supports the work of its more than 126,000 employees in 48 countries. The company quickly reinvented its training and development capabilities through effective planning and governance, strong leadership, groundbreaking ROI methods, operational rigor, and the application of advanced technologies, as well as "phenomenal learning." This accessible book explains how it happened, and how to apply the lessons to any business.

Paperback

First published July 21, 2006

Reviews

[May Ling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: A good book on the story of Accenture's learning business and a decent model to consider when thinking about putting together a department . Failed on proving the proof of outcomes to the addition of the expense created by turning learning into a business, but likely couldn't be shared.

Vanthournout's book makes an excellent case for taking learning more seriously, but it does less on proving that turning it into a business makes it more efficient.

He sees the following stat: The American Society for Training & Development estimates a 6% return for every $658 spent on training.
He makes the case using math, but it's a bit hard to follow:
He determines that employees are 17% more chargeable or $8,400/ employee, 20% more chargeable, or $9900. Stay 14% longer. There are 50,000 employees
But then the math gets fuzzy. He says the net benefit is $1266B/$358mm.
The challenge is that these numbers likely do not include bad hires, etc.

He then moves on to other companies who are able to double sales conversion rates and also decrease overall need for training.

Employee Retention:
The average employee is willing to accept a 13% lower salary
US Airline adds back Corp training and this helps to retain employees by 10% (18.3% to 8.5% attrition) saving $1.5mm in HR expense for rehire.

He talks about the increased spend that then occurs, but the metrics on how this improved the revenues is missing. Additionally, he talks about the idea that courses should be widespread versus just in person. But there aren't really metrics that talk about the ROI of in person vs. online and what types of courses result in ROI. I mean adding "business structure" to a process is not costless. Even if a board agrees, the type of structure he is proposing isn't so small.

Likely he does know what types of courses provide what types of ROI and this is being left out for competitive reasons. That's fair. And in that regard, I think such constraints are likely what keeps this book at 3 stars. Likely Vanthournout is quite the expert and it would be interesting to meet him and pick his brain on the topic. For it's time in 2006, this is likely an exemplary work.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2001, Accenture faced a number of major challenges that are best revealed and discussed within the narrative, in context. The fact remains that, led by Donald Vanthournout, Accenture’s Capability Development team began a “journey” that had to take those challenges into full account. What they learned provides the most valuable material in this book. The story of their journey is a business story: about how one company – Accenture – advanced toward high performance through learning, knowledge management and the transformation of its workforce. By extension, however, it is about how other organizations can do the same.”

Vanthournout and the members of his team shared a business-centric perspective. They were determined to link human capital investments to business benefits, both for Accenture and for each of its clients; to put in place the governance and leadership structures that increase a learning program’s chances of success; to ensure that the actual classroom and electronic training create what the team characterized as “phenomenal” learning experiences; and to maximize the operational efficiency of learning. According to Vanthournout, he selected members to comprise a team that “was more of a team focused more on corporate education than it was an education team trying to have a business impact.”

Readers will appreciate the fact that the co-authors share dozens of key lessons they learning during the course of their collaboration, many of which were a complete surprise to them or at least forced them to reconsider many of their previous assumptions about how people learn, what can help to stimulate self-motivation, how to quantify the impact of formal training on the performance of both individuals and teams, and the interdependence of formal and informal learning.

It is worth noting that, as a result of the efforts of the Capability Development team, working closely with senior management and countless other associates throughout the firm, “for every dollar Accenture invests in learning, the company receives that dollar back plus an additional $3.25 in measurable value to its bottom line. – in other words, a 353 percent return on learning.” Literally, ROL = ROI. To repeat, Return on Learning is also about “how other organizations can do the same.” Or how they can at least “use learning programs for major business impact, and can run learning as a business.”

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great case study of how the principles of Human Resources Development, sometimes called Human Capital Management, can be used most effectively in a real corporate environment, including information on how teh CLO of Accenture was able to show quantitative value for spending money to develop people.

[Lori Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

An optional-read book on human resources for knowledge workers and entrepreneurs.

[Billy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The knowledge is how to ensure that the knowledge and experience is cascaded down in an organisation.

Understand a way to measure the result.