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by Lou Wetherbee and Suzanne Beckett
According to a recent issue of Library Personnel News1, American businesses spend an average of 1.4% of payroll on training, while public and academic libraries spend an average of only 1.04%. In contrast, the American Society for Training and Development recommends that this figure should be 1.5%, and companies with a strong commitment to staff development should spend a median of 3.2% of payroll. In many libraries, professional staff receive most or all of the training dollars, with fewer chances for support staff to develop skills beyond the most basic, on-the-job training.
Tom Peters, in his landmark book Thriving on Chaos2, describes the nation's current investment in training as a disgrace. He identifies several elements of a good training program. For example, all staff members should be treated as "potential career employees;" regular retraining is a must; organizations must provide adequate time and money for training; and training is important as a tool in teaching the organization's vision and values. Library leaders should heed his advice by rethinking library training programs and allocating more funding to them. New ways to address this training gap must be found in order to help all staff members gain the high level skills needed to manage information in the networked environment.
In 1995, the library staff of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas evaluated the training needs of the entire library staff. As part of a strategic plan for the library, the staff identified training and development opportunities as essential to delivering first class biomedical information services to the library's primary clients educators, clinicians, and researchers. A team composed of seven staff members from all units and levels worked together to create a staff-development program which would meet several criteria. The program should be open to all staff and voluntary. It should address both staff interests and the library's strategic goals. Managers and peers would support staff in their learning goals, and staff members would act as trainers and learners simultaneously.
The resulting program, Career Express, has now been in operation for two years. This article describes the program, the outcomes, and the lessons learned.
The library uses work teams widely to identify and address library customer needs. Teams form around issues and develop their own methods of operation. The Staff Development Team identified the following strategies as critical to the development of a staff training program:
The team members created a detailed action plan and divided responsibilities among all members. The team spent several months exploring topics, training delivery methods, and possible trainers. The team wanted to create an exciting, innovative program that would touch the maximum number of staff and address critical training needs. In the past, the library had not used an overall training plan. Most staff training was limited to campus opportunities or, for professional staff, library conferences and seminars. To reach the largest number of staff members, the team determined that an in-house program would be most affordable.
In 1995, the library conducted a needs-assessment survey which found that most staff favored hands-on, off-campus training. The preference for off-campus training may be due to the perception that off-campus, extra-library training is better quality training. Therefore, the team realized that the best chance to gain high staff participation would be to create a variety of classes, with at least some outside trainers and some hands-on classes. It would be too expensive to have only outside trainers, so the team settled on a mix of training options that included:
To provide a strong focus for individual training goals, the Career Express program was organized into broad themes or "tracks." The tracks reflected both staff interests and the needs of the library as expressed in the Strategic Plan. Not surprisingly, technology training was a central theme in the program. Each staff member chose a primary track of classes and also was able to select additional classes from other tracks.
The curriculum for the second year was modified substantially based on participant evaluations and suggestions. The team dropped the concept of required courses in favor of a set of designated core (basic skills) courses. Program participation was simplified by giving participants more latitude in selecting courses. The goal of participation for each staff member was increased from 12 to 16 hours.
The team also dropped courses that lacked appeal or did not need to be offered every year. More self-paced options were added to better accommodate night and weekend staff members. Breaking the year into two "semesters" facilitated timely completion of courses. More technology-related courses were added by popular request.
The chart outlines
the tracks and classes for the first two years of the program.
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First
Year (1996-1997)
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Second
Year (1997-1998)
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In the first year of the program, a total of 34 staff members (from a total of 58) completed their training plan. This included 14 professionals and 20 support staffers. Completion meant receiving at least eight to 12 hours of training in any combination of hands-on, classroom, or self-paced instruction. In addition to those who completed the full training program, another 23 staff members registered or attended at least one of the training classes offered through Career Express. In the second year of the program, 36 staff members completed the full program and vitually every other member of the staff completed at least one course for a total of approximately 1,500 hours of training.
The team realized in planning the program that some staff members would need encouragement and support to make training selections. At the beginning of the program, the team invited all managers and supervisors to a meeting to explain the program and to encourage them to work individually with each staff member to devise a suitable training plan. Some supervisors used the Career Express program to supplement other training opportunities which were required for specific job performance. Evaluations at the conclusion of the first year showed that staff members felt the program structure was too complicated and somewhat difficult to understand.
In response to the lack of a high quality computer workstation for self-paced computer training modules, the team worked with the Information Systems unit to put together a PC training workstation which included a Pentium PC with a CD-ROM drive, videotape monitor, cassette player, and headphones.
Finding a good location for the training workstation in an accessible, convenient, and relatively private location proved difficult. Several locations throughout the library were considered, and a location in a low-traffic area was selected. There was minimal disruption of the staff in the immediate area.
Another problem participants mentioned was the uneven training quality resulting from a mix of experienced and novice library trainers, campus trainers and outside trainers. The team learned that it would be useful to provide skill-building opportunities for potential staff trainers and included Career Express classes on basic presentation skills. In year two, this approach continued with classes on instructional development. Several staff members with teaching experience came forward to offer training to colleagues who previously had not served as trainers. One of the positive but unexpected outcomes of Career Express is the identification of "hidden" trainers on the staff.
Although measurement of actual learning was unstructured, for self-paced training in the area of office applications the team provided a competencies list that each trainee was expected to master. No formal testing or verification occurred since the program was designed to be voluntary and self-managed. Some trainers used in-class tests or exercises to reinforce the learning. Some classes also required both a pre-class assignment and a follow-up homework assignment to emphasize the immediate use of new skills.
The Team organized a comprehensive
evaluation of the first year of the program. The evaluation included individual
class evaluations offered at each training session and individual staff member
interviews at the conclusion of the program. The team compiled, reviewed, and
discussed the evaluative data, using it to refine the program for the
second year.
The comments about the program were generally very positive. Some commented that
the registration process was difficult to understand and so modifications were
made. Though many anecdotal comments were made about scheduling conflicts, a majority
of people agreed that the courses were scheduled at convenient times. Most respondents
agreed the courses offered were appropriate and their suggestions for future courses
continued to reflect a significant interest in the technology area. Surprisingly,
however, when asked about which courses were useful in their present job, participants
overwhelmingly mentioned courses with an emphasis on customer service or interpersonal
skills.
One of the underlying principles of the Career Express program is that it be completely voluntary, an "on-your-honor" program. Because of this approach, the evaluation of both actual learning outcomes of the courses, as well as the overall program, has been somewhat difficult. Though the evaluation of the 1996-97 program did ask whether the courses were useful in the participant's present job, the answers provided were mainly anecdotal or a simple yes or no response. The team needs to create a better way to measure actual learning. For long-term program success, it is important to be able to document program outcomes both individually and across the Library.
Another advantage of the program is also, ironically, one of its disadvantages. While the team brings in outside speakers or presenters, we do rely heavily on library staff to teach many of the courses and will have to continue to do so for economic reasons. Some staff have experience in public speaking or education; however, many do not, and this makes for lack of consistency in instructional quality. Additionally, we find ourselves relying on those people who have experience to teach the bulk of the courses. To remedy this problem, the team plans to provide more courses on presentation skills and develop a "train the trainer" course.
Experience suggests that some disparity may exist between a staff member's interest in the subject matter and his or her actual willingness to attend training on that subject. The needs assessment survey conducted assessed only interest in the program, not willingness to participate. However, according to the author of an article in College and Research Libraries "indicators of both interest and willingness to participate were valid indicators of actual participation."3 The team plans to integrate this aspect into the next needs assessment survey in order to maximize the potential of the selected courses.
The difficulty of providing the same level and consistency of training to those employees who work non-traditional hours continues to be a challenge. Though the team has succeeded in providing more self-paced, self-directed learning opportunities in the area of technology, the more participatory, interactive courses are still unavailable to these staff during their work hours. The team has attempted to rectify this by scheduling more of these courses later in the day, but this solution is only partially satisfactory.
Overall, the Career Express program demonstrates that internal training, if it is well-planned, based on actual needs, and consistently supported with adequate resources and administrative commitment, can make a substantial contribution to skills enhancement across all staff levels.
Notes
1. "Library Staff
Development Funds Average Less than American Businesses," Library Personnel
News 9 (Nov/Dec 1995): 1-2.
2. Tom Peters, Thriving
on Chaos: A Passion for Excellence, New York: Wing Books, 333-339.
3. Virginia Baldwin,
W. Gibbs and M. Slough. "Initiating an Effective Personnel Development
Program," College and Research Libraries 58 (1997): 3, 267-277.
Lou Wetherbee, a library management consultant in Dallas, was the associate director of libraries at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas when this article was written. Suzanne Beckett was the weekday manager of the Information Resource Center and the team leader of the Staff Development Team at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas when this article was written. She is now health sciences library coordinator at St. Paul Medical Center in Dallas.
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