Business Services Industry

Training reinvented: at Rockwell Collins, a three-year learning-program overhaul cut costs by nearly 40 percent annually, and delivered more training to more employees. Here's how it was done

Workforce, Oct, 2002 by Carroll Lachnit

When Cliff Purington arrived in 1998 as manager of learning and development at Rockwell Collins, a manufacturer of communication and aviation electronics, he checked into the company's training-history database. "I thought it would be rich with core competencies, and all I had to do was find the repeat courses to see what they were," he says.

But only 22 percent of the 1,400 individually titled classes had been repeated. Most of the course materials, developed in-house at a cost of $120 million, were unused. "We're not talking small change," Purington says. "It also told me that we didn't have a good connection back to the business, or a good needs analysis to see if training really was the issue."

He said the situation was not unusual for a large organization. "It was one of these cases where the folks in training were getting calls from line management, requesting very specific training." Often, he said, training wasn't really the fix that was needed.

It might have been unclear roles and responsibilities or any number of other problems. But managers tended to identify training as the solution, even if it really wasn't. Since then, Purington has put in place a new cost-saving, business-driven learning strategy, based on six objectives:

* Link learning directly to business objectives. The training staff's job now is to work with the business groups to evaluate their training needs, make sure they're tied with the company's business objectives, and, if training is the solution or would be of benefit, work with outside vendors to develop training programs.

* Locate classes close to the work environment to provide students with easier access. When Purington began working at Rockwell Collins, all training for the company's 17,500 employees, who work at 26 locations around the world, was done in classrooms at the company's headquarters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The result was a lot of expensive travel and layer upon layer of scheduling difficulties.

* Make learning accessible worldwide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

* Deliver the highest quality learning.

* Reduce the cost of training by 40 percent.

* Increase available curriculum by 40 percent.

An example of a business-driven program that provides more learning in a more accessible form at lower cost is the course the company offers to engineers in electromagnetic interference. Previously, when courses were held only in Cedar Rapids, it would have taken 13 years to train all the engineers who needed the information, Purington says. Working with outside vendors, Purington and his staff created a Web-based course that delivered in 9 hours what took 22 hours to present in a classroom. "It has more content, and it's available 24/7 in the work environment, because it's online," he says.

Now, in the second year of the three-year learning-program overhaul, 80 percent of the company's training is available in alternative formats, including the Web and CD-ROMs. There are 450 online courses, such as ethics training, data processing, computer programming, diversity, and interpersonal skills, an increase since 1998 of 250 percent. There are still 50 courses taught in the classroom, all complex engineering classes in which student-instructor interaction is crucial. In the first year of the new learning program, the company saved $6.37 million in training costs--or 38 percent. This year, it's on target to save 56.79 million--or 39 percent.

Here is Purington's formula for training success: "Get connected to the business groups as quickly as possible. Service the people you're there to service. Find out their needs, and how best you can deliver. Develop rapport and trust with the business groups, and then deliver what you say you're going to deliver. That's how you keep your budget from being cut."

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