Perspectives
President's
Pen - ASTD
State of the Industry
by
Deborah Avrin
Each
year ASTD publishes a State of the Industry report and the 2007 report ( 2006
statistics) has just been released. Where
does your organization stand in dollars and hours spent on training compared
to the ASTD Benchmarking Form and from the ASTD BEST Award winning
organizations? If you are
currently a national ASTD member you already received this important research
document. If you aren’t a
member, I thought I would “whet your appetite” to learn more.
The
data is reported by information supplied by the Benchmarking Forum and
organizations winning the BEST Awards. Several
trends:
•
Continued embrace of e-learning, reduced classroom learning
•
An increase in direct expenditure per employee up from prior years
•
The average number of hours of formal learning declined except
in BEST organizations
•
The leading learning content area was industry specific skills
followed by process and procedures and managerial topics
•
Some aspects of the learning function have been targeted as suitable
candidates for outsourcing
•
A large percent of the BEST organization link organizational and
individual performance
Interested
in learning more? Maybe it is
time to add a National Membership to your Dallas ASTD membership.
They complement each other by National ASTD offering research,
certification, publications, etc. and Dallas ASTD offering local educational
and networking opportunities. To join, click on: http://store.astd.org/Default.aspx?tabid=87
How
can you participate in next year’s State of the Industry Report?
ASTD has several methods:
•
You can utilize the new online benchmarking tool, the WLP
Scorecardâ.
You are able to choose from two types of reports:
a customizable scorecard and an index report.
You will have the opportunity to directly benchmark your organizational
figures against those from the companies which provided data for the report.
For more information visit: www.wlpscorecard.astd.org
•
Join the ASTD Benchmarking Forum, a consortium of private and public
sector organizations from around the world.
Members have the opportunity to benchmark learning and performance
improvement. For more information
send an email to BenchmarkingForum@astd.org
•
Apply for an ASTD BEST Award which recognizes organizations that
create, support, and champion learning opportunities and a learning culture.
For more information go to www.astd.org/BEST_Awards
Next
Month:
Carol Glynn, our 2008 Dallas ASTD President, will begin “penning”
the President’s Pen. I’ll
provide the final results of our 2007 Balanced Scorecard Goals
About the Author: Deborah Avrin, SPHR, has been a human resources professional for over 18 years and holds a BBA in Human Resources and an MS in Organizational Behavior. Her company, Management Skills Resource Inc., works with organizations that want to build the confidence, competence and courage of their management teams through creative training workshops. Ms. Avrin holds a lifetime Senior Professional in Human Resources certification and keeps current in training and human resources trends by her affiliation with the Dallas Human Resources Association and teaching the SHRM Learning Systems through the University of Dallas. She is the 2007 President of Dallas ASTD.