"Managing a Small HRD Department: You Can Do More Than You Think."

Carol P. McCoy (editor) This book is a hands-on tool kit to help managers of one-to five-person HRD departments who are expected to provide significant training and other human resource support, often with severely limited resources. It shows how to maximize scarce resources and adapt success strategies used by large training departments. The book's valuable examples, numerous checklists, and fifteen reproducible worksheets will help managers directly apply these proven techniques for marketing, program development, evaluation and more.

Preface

    Audience
    Purpose
    Overview of Contents

Part One: Setting the Stage for Success

    1. Small Department, Big Impact: Establishing Credibility
    2. Assessing Your Company's Business Priorities and HRD Needs
    3. Creating a Business-Focused HRD Plan
    4. Developing a Cost-Effective Delivery Strategy
    5. Building and Negotiating a Budget

Part Two: Turning Your Vision into Reality

    6. Managing Program Development
    7. Attracting Your Customers
    8. Mastering the Art of Program Logistics
    9. Ensuring and Evaluating Program Effectiveness

Part Three: Keeping the Department on Track

    10. Managing Your Budget
    11. Making Time for Your Own Learning
    12. Preparing to Address Future Challenges

Resources: Fifteen Worksheets for Planning and Evaluation

Preface (p. xix-xxv)

Increasing competition, cost consciousness, and a desire to serve customers better have persuaded many organizations to form small training or human resource development departments. According to Leonard and Zeace Nadler (1989, p. 6), human resource development involves training, educating, and developing employees. In this book, I will use the term human resource development, or HRD, to refer primarily to these learning activities. Training refers to planned learning that is focused on improving current job performance. Education refers to planned learning that is focused on preparing an individual for a future job. Development refers to learning that is broader than education and not specifically job related, that is, to learning that pertains to personal growth. All of these HRD learning activities may be directed at improving managerial, technical, or personal competence and thereby contribute to improving the performance of the organization.

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This book is a tool kit for HRD and training managers, trainers, and administrative assistants in small HRD departments. It is also for human resource generalists with responsibility for training along with such other human resource functions as staffing, recruitment, compensation, and employee relations. The book will be especially helpful to the novice trainer and to the human resource manager who has had little formal training experience but has now assumed increased responsibilities for human resource development. It can help anyone who is considering moving to a small HRD department decide whether working in such a department is an appropriate choice. In addition, this book is for line managers who want to learn how to work effectively with a small HRD department so that human resource development makes a significant contribution to the organization’s success.

By small, I mean a one-,two-, or three-person department, which usually consists of a training manager and a full- or part-time secretary, administrative assistant, or training specialist. Small companies may create a one-person training department when their business expands or changes significantly. Large diversified companies may form small training departments as part of the growing trend toward decentralizing lines of business and staff functions or as a result of downsizing a large HRD department into a smaller unit.

By small, I also refer to the size of the HRD budget. While large corporations may spend more than $60 million annually on training, small training departments usually have budgets ranging from $50,000 to $500,000. Many have less than $100,000 to spend on training annually. Nevertheless, this small shop is expected to provide adequate training support to the organization.

The principles presented here apply to any small HRD department. Whether you work in a small organization or in a small, decentralized department in a large corporation, you face unique challenges. Managing a small HRD department requires a special perspective and special competencies. With only limited resources, it is particularly important to focus your efforts on business priorities. You need to build your credibility with senior management and within the organization. You must also develop and implement a resource strategy that provides HRD support without the benefit of a large staff. And you must be skillful in marketing your HRD programs and services so that employees will know clearly what you can and cannot do. If you are creating a department from scratch, you face additional pressures because some people may want you to meet their HRD needs before you have had adequate time to plan your strategy.

Whether you are starting up or taking over an HRD function, there is much planning to be done: you have to determine the company’s business priorities and HRD needs, create a mission and formulate goals, project a budget, develop programs, find instructors, develop a marketing strategy, and set up procedures. When you are in the throes of managing, it is sometimes difficult to identify priorities, develop a sound strategy, or implement a plan. How will you know which strategies work best and what pitfalls to avoid? How can you adapt the strategies used by large training departments for use on a smaller scale? Finding the answers to these and other questions is crucial. Luckily, you do not have to do it all on your own.

Managing a Small HRD Department will help you set up and manage a small HRD department, build credibility, and make the most of your resources. In reading the book, you will benefit from the experiences of other managers. You will find out what a small HRD department can contribute to the success of an organization and the strategies that will help ensure your training department’s effectiveness. Here you will find tools and checklists that will enable you to run a small, efficient, business-focused HRD department that directly contributes to accomplishment of business goals. It will help you do the following:

1. Address critical business issues and avoid common pitfalls involved in creating and managing a small training department
2. Create a realistic plan that supports your company’s business goals and enhances your credibility within the organization
3. Forecast, negotiate, and manage a training budget
4. Effectively marshal resources to design and deliver HRD programs
5. Market human resource development to build company involvement in the function
6. Identify the skills and qualities essential to being an effective training manager or assistant
7. Plan appropriate developmental activities for the training staff
8. Evaluate the effectiveness of your HRD function

This book draws on the author’s experiences in creating and managing a two-person HRD department in a new business unit at a large bank and in directing a small corporate HRD department at an insurance company. Included are the results of the author’s research about other managers of small training departments in a wide range of fields, including financial services, health care, city government, pharmaceuticals, the restaurant business, the fur industry, and publishing. The results of the research and the author’s experiences suggest several basic success strategies for running small training departments effectively:

• Build a partnership with the organization by assessing what its business priorities are and how a training department can contribute to meeting them, and agree on mutual expectations to gain management’s sponsorship and support of human resource development
• Create a vision and a realistic plan based on sound needs analysis, to ensure that your programs will address business-focused HRD needs and help enhance your credibility
• Be creative in finding internal and external resources to design and deliver programs and services so that HRD has an impact far beyond the direct staff power of your department
• Market human resource development so that employees understand how your department supports the company and how they are expected to participate in HRD activities to ensure that the organization gets the most out of any HRD effort
• Manage time wisely so that you stick to priorities and avoid getting bogged down in insignificant activities or projects
• Manage the budget carefully by knowing what HRD costs and what the return on investment in HRD will be
• Develop your staff and network so that you and your staff with grow professionally, remain energized, and stay on top of changes in the organization, the business world, and the professional community
• Track your effectiveness and make adjustments to keep pace with changing demands of the organization and make sure that your programs are meeting its needs

These success strategies are closely interrelated: your results in one area tend to influence your effectiveness in others. Managing a Small HRD Department will contribute to your understanding of how other training managers have used these strategies and how you can apply them in your own training department.

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Part One deals with the challenges and opportunities of managing a small HRD department and with planning your strategy. It will help you create your mission and plan so that you gain management sponsorship and set the stage for success.

Chapter One gives you a sense of the workings of small HRD departments—what companies expect from them and what they can contribute to a company’s success. Several cases illustrate both the excitement and the difficulty of managing a small HRD department. Reading this chapter will provide you with a better understanding of what successful managers of small HRD departments do to build their credibility.

Chapter Two discusses how to build a partnership with senior management. It explains how to assess the organization’s business priorities and HRD needs so that you can formulate a mission and gain senior management’s commitment to human resource development.

Chapter Three explains how to create and develop a business-focused HRD plan. It will help you set realistic goals and say no to inappropriate requests for training. Because the first program or activity you offer is crucial in either establishing or destroying your reputation, this chapter offers guidelines for selecting a successful first program to get you off to the right start and begin to build your credibility.

Having created a plan, you need to decide how you are going to deliver your HRD programs and services so that they best meet the business needs of your organization. Chapter Four presents the advantages and disadvantages of various delivery methods, so that you can make educated decisions about whether to offer classroom training, individual study programs, or other delivery vehicles. Once you have selected your method of delivery, you must decide whether to get resources to develop and teach your programs from inside or outside the company. This chapter will help you decide whether to buy an off-the-shelf HRD program from a vendor, use a program offered by a college or university, hire a consultant to design a customized program, or develop the program yourself, using resources within the organization.

Once you have set your goals and chosen a delivery strategy, you need to project and negotiate a budget that is sufficient to accommodate your plan. Because new HRD managers frequently are not aware of the costs of HRD, Chapter Five deals with the budget implications of different resource strategies and reviews the elements of a sound HRD budget. It will help you determine the costs of different HRD strategies, select the best option for your organization, and prepare to negotiate your budget with senior management.

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Part Two deals with issues involved in implementing your plan. Effectively marshaling resources may be the most difficult challenge in a small HRD department because you must implement your plan with few or no staff resources. As manager of a small department, you must understand how to find and work effectively with both internal and external resources to develop and deliver HRD programs.

Chapter Six will help you manage program development so that you build up the credibility of the HRD function and create a sense of partnership with the organization. The chapter describes the program development process and the HRD manager’s role in it. It shows how to develop and implement HRD programs by building a resource network and learning to work effectively with internal subject-matter-experts as well as external consultants.

Chapter Seven will help you effectively market HRD programs and services to other managers and employees within the organization. Once they understand what human resource development can contribute to the organization’s business, they can gain greater benefit from your programs and services.

Running a small HRD department involves managing a great number of logistical tasks with very few resources. If you become bogged down in details, you can lose track of what is happening within the organization. Chapter Eight discusses the roles of the HRD manager and administrative assistant in the delivery and administration of HRD programs and services. This chapter advocates sensible division of tasks: if your assistant can handle administration effectively, you will be free to focus on other priorities.

Chapter Nine discusses the benefits of tracking the effectiveness of your programs and suggests how you can do this. By tracking program effectiveness, you can determine whether or department is accomplishing its mission and make necessary improvements. The chapter will also assist you in finding ways to reinforce the positive effects of your programs and increase the chances that employees will actually apply the new behaviors they have learned in your programs to their work situations.

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Part Three summarizes ongoing management issues in a small department. It deals with managing a budget, developing your own and your staff’s skills, and preparing for the future.

Chapter Ten discusses the management of a training budget. The chapter gives advice on monitoring expenses. You need to know that money is being well spent and that there is an adequate return on investment in training. Even if you do not have control of the budget, understanding how to manage a training budget will help you in efforts to gain control of the budget in the future and to secure adequate funding for your department.

Chapter Eleven provides ideas to help you and your assistant develop professionally. Staying connected to the organization and networking within the professional community are highlighted as ways of developing skills, finding resources, and avoiding burnout, a constant danger in a small department.

Chapter Twelve describes key organizational trends that have a potential impact on small HRD departments, such as trends toward empowerment, decentralization, and the use of technology. It also summarizes strategies discussed earlier for managing a successful small HRD department and suggests an action plan for future success.

The Resources section includes a detailed action plan and other worksheets to help you plan, produce, deliver, and evaluate your training activities in a systematic way. You may reproduce these worksheets and use them to manage your department more effectively.

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