Getting Your Money's Worth (W\

by Roy V.H. Pollock, Calhoun W. Wick, Andrew McK. Jefferson

Book Overview

Corporate Learning and Development programs represent a significant investment of both time and resources for the company, the individual participant, and his or her department. Competitive market... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470411120
• ISBN13: 9780470411124
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.4" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

Perfect Addition to Your Organizational Learning Toolkit

Getting your Money's Worth is a treasure chest full of practical tools that are well-grounded in the authors' research and experience. I strongly recommend Getting Your Money's Worth because it recognizes that in order to contribute to sustained organizational improvement, training needs to occur in a much larger context that provides clearly defined business and individual outcomes, well-aligned organizational systems, supportive leadership and culture, and mechanisms for measuring, communicating, and learning from results.

Required Reading for Workplace Learning Excellence

For years, Nancy Maresh and I have promoted two essential concepts with our corporate and government clients: start engagement with adult students well upstream and continue follow through long after training in order to extend the impact of learning events. And, fully exploit the relationship of each learner with their own supervisor, since the quality of that involvement around training and development is the number #1 indicator of successful transfer from learning to improved job performance. With great intuition and solid research as to brain function processes and workplace realities, the authors of Getting Your Money's Worth have created a handy and easy to use guide for both elements of the effectiveness tandem: the learner and the supervisor. In tough economic times, training and development budgets can all too easily be cut, but I have a hunch this book will produce such great value and tangible results, executives will require the use of this two part tool to fully substantiate their sustainment of learning and performance efforts. Judith Blair, CEO, Brains at Work

Finally! Practical tools for getting real business results from training

Business leaders are accountable for allocating funds to improve business performance. But when it comes to training dollars, leaders question if they can really leverage these costs. Is training just something done away from the job, out of their control, and is over when the event ends? "Getting Your Money's Worth" candidly answers these questions. Business leaders are accountable for getting value from training dollars, and their targeted involvement will exponentially affect the business results achieved through the learning process. This book not only holds leaders accountable, but also provides practical information and tools to use each step of the way. I found the format clever and intuitive. Half the book is for managers, and it issues a strong call for managers to take responsibility for learning's value. Flip the book over and you have targeted guidance for participants of training, helping them to truly own the outcomes of their learning. Both sections contain shaded text boxes throughout, with background information such as research findings and FAQs, making it easy to dig into details if you want, or skip over the nonessentials without losing continuity. The font sizes are easy on the eyes, pages stay open like a workbook, and the content has a straightforward flow. In the manager section, the authors remind us that accountability for learning investments isn't new work for managers. They're already accountable for getting results through people - they just might not be getting the results they need. The book suggests a three-stage approach to leveraging training: Be More Up-Front, Be More Engaged, and Be More Results-Driven. After reading this section, I believe managers will have the process and tools to deepen their expectations and involvement in learning initiatives. They'll also have the confidence to hold meaningful conversations with learners about driving business value. The participant portion of the book jumpstarts learner accountability with this statement: "Whenever you attend a training program, performance expectations go up." The authors present three keys for getting training value: Get Ready, Get Engaged, and Get Results. Here, the participant learns there's much more to do than just showing up for a training event. In fact, they will personally perform better and be more engaged by following the recommended process. After reading the Participants portion, I had a much broader view of the opportunities for personal growth from learning events. The worksheets are concise and help keep the process propelling forward. This is not a book to keep on a shelf - you'll find yourself marking up the worksheets, bending pages, having "aha!" moments and (most importantly) taking action. The book provides a link and password to a website for premium content. I just checked it out and found a good selection of job aids and sample worksheets, as well as case studies and additional content. The authors of "Getting Your Mo