February 20, 2025 • 34 mins
Chris Taylor, Founder and CEO of Actionable, joins us this episode to discuss why—and more importantly, how—organizations might invest in measuring behavioral change resulting from training and development initiatives.
[0:00] Introduction
- Welcome, Chris!
- Today’s Topic: How to Measure Behavioral Changes with Learning Interventions
[4:08] What behavioral change should we expect from talent development programs?
- Establishing a baseline prior to measuring behavioral change
- The pertinence of behavioral change across all training programs
[12:25] How can organizations measure engagement?
- Starting with the organization’s strategic priorities
- Lessons learned from a case study in high employee turnover
[23:51] How can organizations ensure that behavioral change lasts?
- Helping participants discover their “why” in learning
- The value of post-session facilitator-participant follow-up
[33:06] Closing
- Thanks for listening!
Quick Quote
“If we assume [an organization’s] strategic priorities involve achieving something that we’ve never achieved before, then it’s going to require some new . . . processes and/or competencies.”
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:01):
The world of business is more complex than ever. The
world of human resources andcompensation is also getting
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Listen as we explore the impactthat compensation strategy, data
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(00:24):
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consulting for compensation andbeyond. Now here are your hosts,
David Turetsky and Dwight Brown.
David Turetsky (00:38):
Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs
podcast. I'm your host, DavidTuretsky, and as always, we try
and find brilliant people insideand outside the world of HR to
bring you the latest on what'sactually happening. Today, we
have with us Chris Taylor fromActionable. Chris, how are you?
Chris Taylor (00:53):
I'm fabulous.
David, better for being here.
David Turetsky (00:55):
I'm good. I would never say fabulous,
How are you?
because I kind of, I don't wantto be, and I'm not trying to put
this on you, but I actuallydon't even know the concept of
fabulous in terms of how I amanymore! I mean, I've been to
the Rangers winning the StanleyCup. That was fabulous. I've
been there when my kids wereborn. That was fabulous. No
(01:17):
offense, dude. But this doesn'trise to that level yet, but
we'll see. Maybe at the end ofthe podcast, I will be!
Chris Taylor (01:24):
Maybe, something to aspire to.
David Turetsky (01:26):
Yeah, that's good. It's good to have
aspirations, as they say. Chris,tell us a little bit about
yourself and about Actionable!
Chris Taylor (01:32):
For sure. So I'm fabulous because I'm just back
from Lisbon, Portugal, where Idid very little but eat
incredible pastries. So I'mstill basking in the glow of
Portuguese baked goods. When I'mnot in Portugal, I run a company
called Actionable. We help shinea light on the impact of
corporate training programs. Wesupport learners in putting
ideas into practice, and bringthe reporting data back to the
(01:55):
stakeholders so they canactually see which needles have
been moved by that report or bythat program. It's sort of the,
you know, we're aspiring towardsthat holy grail, ROI of
corporate training.
David Turetsky (02:05):
Which is what every CFO asks for every time we
ask them for another dollar!
Chris Taylor (02:08):
Exactly right.
That's it!
David Turetsky (02:10):
That's really good. Well, it's really an
important thing. So we should betalking a lot about that
measurement today. But first,before we do, what's one fun
thing that no one knows aboutChris Taylor?
Chris Taylor (02:21):
So I'd actually forgotten about this, and then
my wife reminded me I am adirect descendant of Sir Francis
Drake, who was a famous pirate.
David Turetsky (02:29):
Yeah! So, wow
Chris Taylor (02:31):
Right? Take that.
David Turetsky (02:32):
Arr!
Chris Taylor (02:35):
It goes against my Canadian sensibilities, but I'll
take it.
David Turetsky (02:40):
Yeah. Well, that's actually pretty amazing!
Chris Taylor (02:42):
My mom was really into genealogy when I was a kid,
and then discovered going backfar enough that there it was a
great, great, great, great,great, great uncle.
David Turetsky (02:50):
So do you have any, is there a good bead on
where he kept the treasure, oris that all gone?
Chris Taylor (02:55):
No treasure. But you know what we actually had,
until about two generations ago,a piece of the Golden Hind,
Golden Hind, is that his, or isthat Magellan? Anyway, I think
the Golden Hind, his ship thathe was on, we had a piece of
that almost petrified wood.
David Turetsky (03:09):
Oh wow!
Chris Taylor (03:09):
I know, right? And then someone lost it in a
basement flood, as happens. So,yeah,
David Turetsky (03:14):
Wow, yeah, that kind of sucks.
Chris Taylor (03:17):
I don't know how you transition out of that,
David, but that's it.
David Turetsky (03:19):
Well, we'll do our best. But it's actually kind
of funny that pirates have beenin such a big thing in the
movies and on TV that that's abadge of honor. I am, I am
honored to be in your presence,so I'm already more fantastic
than it was at the beginning.
Chris Taylor (03:34):
Perfect. We're just inch in the north. That's
David Turetsky (03:36):
Hey, listen, an inch at a time will get us
great.
there. So it's all progress.
Chris, all progress. But nowlet's talk about our topic,
which is near and dear to a lotof people who listen to this
podcast, which is not justtrying to figure out how to make
learning work, but actuallyfiguring out how to measure
behavior changes and how tocreate what you call learning
(03:57):
interventions.
Chris, you focus on supportingand measuring behavior change,
on talent management and talentdevelopment programs. What is
the behavior change and why?
Chris Taylor (04:18):
Behavior change, for me, is the first possible
moment that we can actuallystart to measure something as
far as efficacy is concerned. Ithink as an industry, we've
gotten real good at the smilesheets, the eval forms on what
happened in the room. And Ithink that the best we can
capture on there is theintention that a participant
(04:38):
might feel towards putting ideasinto practice. And that's all
well and good, but it's notactually going to create impact
until people start doingsomething with it. So I've been
really obsessed for the last 16years on on that first step once
people leave the room, literallyas they're going home from the
session, or after they'veclicked out of zoom or teams,
(04:59):
then what? What's that firstpiece of movement that breaks
the inertia of the status quo?
So I'm just, I'm fascinated byit. I think it's really
interesting, and it works in thefavor of the participant and the
organization.
David Turetsky (05:09):
So how do you judge a baseline? Because I
think for measurement, we alwayswant to know what's the
beginning and how did it move.
So is it the efficacy of theskill, or whatever was being
trained prior to? Is it? Is itA, is it an assessment that
needs to happen at thebeginning, or is it something
that you have to observe?
Chris Taylor (05:30):
Well, this is okay, so I'm so glad we're going
here, because I get that this isthe sort of foundation of the
industry, right? We need abaseline. We need to show change
compared to something else,ideally, uh, external
measurements, right? Behaviorchange, if we go down to like,
its true nuclear core is adeeply internal, deeply personal
thing, right? In many cases,right? We're shifting mindset in
(05:53):
many cases, or even justawareness before we're actually
shifting action.
And so, withoutyou know, taking away from the
David Turetsky (05:56):
Right value of external validation.
What we focus on in behaviorchange specifically is around
the individuals self assessmentof where they're starting from
and then how they'reprogressing. We're not trying to
get to an absolute measurementon this. What we're trying to do
is just bring to the surfacesomething that was historically
invisible. So the way that we goabout this, in a really simple
(06:19):
fashion, is, at the end of thesession, participants will
commit to a behavior change, ahabit that they want to
establish something that theywant to do differently moving
forward, and then they ratethemselves one to 10. How do you
feel you're doing with thiscurrently? The number doesn't
matter. What matters is that itcreates a mental placeholder for
(06:39):
them to say, I'm at a four and Iwant to improve. Then, as they
self reflect over the comingdays, weeks, month, we'll
typically, on average, collectabout, well, 8.2 data points per
person over the following monthto be able to say the individual
believes that they are makingthis sort of progress. Is that
empirical by itself? Of coursenot, right? And on an individual
(07:01):
basis, the numbers don'tactually mean anything. But
directionally, being able to seethe self reported trend allows
us to shine a light to say,Okay, now, a month later, two
months later, if we startlooking for observable change,
asking the people around them toreview their progress on that
specific area, can we see acorrelation between the two? And
(07:21):
in our experience, theoverwhelming answer is yes, we
absolutely can see that when theindividual feels they've
improved in an area, a month ortwo later, those around them
will be able to see it as well.
Four to six months later,they'll start to see the
ramifications on externallymeasured KPIs.
I guess thequestion I'd go to is there's a
(07:43):
ton of training programs, tons,that all try and give different
types of learning. Some of itmight be required, some of it
might be licensure, some of itmight be health and safety. Some
of it might be job duties. Italso could be culture change.
You know, the company is goingthrough massive change. They do
(08:03):
change management on somethingand you know, that's that's also
in there. Is there a sweet spotwhere this is more useful than
others, or is this applicableacross the board for learning?
Chris Taylor (08:14):
Yeah, so there's, there's. Okay, so I'm going to
take that through two lenses.
One is the content, and thesecond is the audience. So from
a content standpoint, anywherethat new information is being
communicated to individuals,where there would be benefit to
the individual and theorganization in people making
regular changes to theirtypically daily practice, if we
(08:36):
can get it down to a dailypractice, then yes, there's
absolutely value in pursuingthis and this we can get into.
From an audience standpoint, thesame thing applies, but there
needs to be desire and intent. Idon't I've yet to find a piece
of tech on the planet that willtake someone who is obstinately
refusing to change and suddenly,magically, they're now taking
(08:58):
action. Right?
David Turetsky (09:00):
Sure.
Chris Taylor (09:00):
The the role of the facilitator, the
intervention itself is, in myview, to transfer the
information and to do it in away that helps the learner find
a so what for them, so they wantto change.
David Turetsky (09:12):
right
Chris Taylor (09:13):
Assuming those two things are true, then, yeah. I
mean, we had, last year, there'sabout 3000 programs that we were
involved in globally, everythingfrom health and safety, culture
change, soft skill development,I think where it doesn't work
super well is where the goal isnot behavioral change. So if
we're doing a technical trainingthat we might need to utilize in
(09:33):
case of emergency once a year,then no, we're not trying to
change any behavior. But forsomething that even you, sorry,
I'm rambling a bit here, David,but the way I think about
diversity, equity and inclusion,right? Was obviously a big focus
several years ago. It didn'twork, because not the movement,
although there could be commentson that, because we were focused
(09:55):
on exception based training,right? We were, as an industry,
focused on when you see this badthing, or when you experience
this bad thing, do this. We didfind the DEI programs that
shifted that focus fromexception based activity to
something that I can notice orplan for or be deliberate about
on a daily basis then itabsolutely worked. So that's the
(10:17):
whole trick. How do we get it toa place of daily practice?
David Turetsky (10:20):
I think when you bring up the DE&I world, the
thing that it really certainlysticks out for me in terms of
training is when you have totrain for inclusion, and you
have to make sure that we'redealing with inclusive language,
which is a very big behaviorchange. It means stop using
these words, and in manycircumstances, stop calling
(10:42):
people or things these types ofpronouns, and we can get into
the politicalization, or thepoliticization, whatever,
however it's called of thosethings. You know, I can't say
it, but that's not, that's notthe point. The point is, when
you're in a work situation, showrespect and and be respectful,
(11:03):
and this is how to do it. That'sthe one piece, or the caveat I
would take away and say that'sdefinitely behavior change, and
could show a measurabledifference in how people feel,
what their engagement scoresare.
Chris Taylor (11:15):
Yep, that's exactly it. And that's, I'm glad
you brought up engagementscores, because that's, that's
probably the soft, now I'm doingit. It's catching! the softest
of the
David Turetsky (11:25):
As long as you don't get my COVID, then you're
gonna be okay.
Chris Taylor (11:28):
Thank goodness for virtual interviews. Yeah, but
employee engagement scores, thatsense of psychological safety.
Do I trust my team, do I trustmy leader? That's a great
example where there may bespecific scores in that 76
question juggernaut that theorganization really wants to
move the needle on, if we canback out of that or extrapolate
out of that, what are thebehaviors that, if shifted,
(11:50):
should move the needle on thosespecific questions, and then we
target training around new ideasand creating the space for
people to explore why engagingthat behavior change would make
the most sense, then time andagain, like, I've lost count of
how many culture change programswe've been involved in, where
that's been the goal, right? Wewant to move the needle on this
(12:11):
employee engagement scoremetric.
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David Turetsky (12:25):
And for everybody in HR, when we're
asked for, how do I improveproductivity? How do I improve
engagement? One of the firstthings we do is to ask, what
will be the second question thatwe're going to focus on, which
is, how do I really measure it,because those engagement
surveys, no offense, but theysuck. I mean, to your point,
it's not just the 76 questions.
It's that that a lot of times,people think they're being
(12:49):
tricked into trying to answerthe same damn question five
different ways to be able to dowhat? I mean, give me a five
question survey of, Do I like mycompany? Do I like my manager?
Do I like the situation I'm in?
Do I like how I'm paid? Youknow, am I gonna leave tomorrow?
There you go! There are fivequestions you can ask me to tell
(13:09):
me whether I'm engaged or not!But still, we're trying to do
we're trying to measuresomething differently, right? I
mean, isn't that kind of whereall this is starting from? It's
trying to do some pseudoscience, org psych bullshit on,
pardon my French, on people?
Chris Taylor (13:25):
Well, I think that's exactly it. David. I
think, you know, I watch theconversations on LinkedIn, which
is my, my professional socialnesting ground, and it's
fascinating, because there's 80%I'm making up numbers now, which
is not great for a data guy, but80, 90% the majority of the
conversations just get soconvoluted around how to measure
(13:46):
this stuff. And it's, you know,and it's 18 layers removed from
reality!
David Turetsky (13:49):
right
Chris Taylor (13:49):
And, yeah, I mean, this is a major, major
challenge. So I think there'syou can approach this from one
or two directions, but not inthe messy middle. So direction
one is top down. Let's call itwhere we start from, the
strategic priorities. I've got afour circle visualization on
this, but there's strategicpriorities for the organization.
David Turetsky (14:10):
right
Chris Taylor (14:11):
If we assume that those strategic priorities
involve achieving something thatwe've never achieved before,
then it's going to require somenew stuff. Some of that might be
process. Some of that is goingto be competency at an
individual level, right? Andthen the organization can choose
to buy those competencies, hirefor it, or build those
competencies, train and developfor it, right? Like, again, I
(14:32):
appreciate this is overlysimplistic language, but that's
kind of the goal, right?
David Turetsky (14:36):
right
Chris Taylor (14:37):
So if we can identify them, what do we need
people to be competency wise,different or culturally
competency in order to achievethat strategic outcome. What are
the behaviors that we need thatmake those competencies happen?
What are the interventions thatwe need to make those behaviors
happen? So we can, we call itthe impact value chain, if we
string those together, and itcan get complicated quickly, but
(14:59):
it doesn't have to, then we canat least show the through line
of why we're doing the trainingsthat we're doing. And we could
say these are the intelligentlywhy the behaviors we're focused
on are the ones that we'refocused on. And we can start to
measure that way, where, withthe I mean, their strategic
priorities have X number ofmetrics that they're already
tracking right? And so thatbecomes our big lag. The lead
(15:21):
becomes of the behaviorshifting. And then, if we
organize the people data, so wesay, yes, all these people went
through training. But guesswhat? HR and LD folk, most
executive people don't careabout the cohorts or the modules
or the sessions or theexperiences that people were in.
What they want to see is thedata sliced by function,
geography, seniority, all thisstuff they measure everything
(15:43):
else by.
David Turetsky (15:44):
right
Chris Taylor (15:44):
They want to see the leading indicator data of,
can we see which behaviors areshifting for which clusters
within that, and then can we mapthat to any movement in the
KPIs? Do you want me to makethis real, or is this still too,
this is pretty theoretical,right?
David Turetsky (15:59):
To me, this is perfect, because I live and
breathe everything you justsaid. But to the listeners, I
mean, all those things makesense, because that's what the
leaders want. But when it comesdown to HR, actually executing
against that.
Chris Taylor (16:14):
yep.
David Turetsky (16:15):
How do you do it?
Chris Taylor (16:16):
Yeah. So here's an example. We worked with a casino
just before the pandemic, and Ikeep using it even though it's
five years old now, because it'ssuch a clean example. So the
casino had very high voluntaryturnover. The industry has high
turnover, but they were, like,an order of magnitude beyond the
industry norm. They had figuredthat it was costing them about 7
(16:38):
million bucks a year inreplacement fees on their
frontline staff at the casino,so they were investing in a
frontline Leadership Program.
The core metric that they werelooking for was retention on
this piece, right? You'reshaking your head, David, I
don't know if people arelistening. Tell me!
David Turetsky (16:55):
Well, that's one way of going at it, but okay,
because I'm a I'm an analyticsguy, and retention? Yeah,
management and leadershiptraining is great, but is that,
is that really the issue?
Chris Taylor (17:06):
Right? Yeah, no, absolutely. And this is, I think
this is where we can gettangled, right? Because, of
course, it's not in isolation,right? There's so many external
factors! What we wanted to do,though, was to see what
percentage, not even whatpercentage. But does working on
leadership and managementactually move the needle on the
retention side. And so what theydid was they took 176 frontline
(17:26):
leaders that were going in thisprogram. They were split. This
is why I love it. It's so clean.
They were either food andbeverage or gaming. They were
the am shift, pm shift orgraveyard shift.
David Turetsky (17:35):
Oh, it's perfect.
Chris Taylor (17:36):
Right? So every manager neatly clusters into one
of those six boxes.
David Turetsky (17:40):
Right
Chris Taylor (17:41):
They'd done the impact value chain and said,
what are the capabilities wewant developed? What are the
behaviors related to that?
What's the content that's goingto drive those behaviors? Then
they start running them throughthe program each month, not
based on when the sessions tookplace, but each month, being
able to say, cluster A, the AMfood and bev group,
disproportionately self assessedprogress in this particular
(18:02):
behavioral area. Are you seeingany correlation on voluntary
turnover? And of course, theanswer is no, because it just
happened, right?
David Turetsky (18:12):
right
Chris Taylor (18:13):
And month two, no, month three, no, month four is
where they started to see, intheir words, enough correlation
that they could say,interestingly, we're seeing an
improvement in retention in thefood and bev am shift. Let's
look back to see what behaviorswe were working on at the
beginning four months ago, andcan we replicate that now across
(18:35):
the other groups? So they usedit, not as an empirical
causality like this is whatcaused this, but to say, is
there a potential role that thisis playing? Yes or no? And I
think this is where the ROI oflearning falls down. Is that
we're trying to get to a blackand white, this equals this.
David Turetsky (18:53):
Right
Chris Taylor (18:54):
When instead, if we can simply shine a light, not
simply, but shine a light andsay, here's some stuff that
happened as we move throughtime, some positive
ramifications of potentiallythat happened, but positive
things happen is there enoughcorrelation that we can double
down on this? It makes ourprogram smarter when we can at
least look at what were thebehaviors that were shifting
(19:14):
earlier?
David Turetsky (19:15):
And for those of you who were reading my mind as
Chris was talking, one of thethings I was going to ask him,
was for that group A was acausation or correlation?
Chris Taylor (19:24):
exactly
David Turetsky (19:24):
And and so there's lots of ramifications of
just the training. But did theychange how they hire? Did they
change who they hire? Did theyget a better job description?
Did they improve pay at all? Youcan't just say everything else
held equal, because the worlddoes not work like that. But I
(19:45):
guess the question I wanted toask you in all of what you were
saying, did they measure forthose things as well, or at
least hold them as a control tobe able to make those
determinations along the way?
Chris Taylor (19:56):
I certainly hope so, David, I didn't see. I mean,
it's interesting, because wework mostly with consulting
firms that work with theirclients, so we're a couple
layers removed. And and thenthis is where you get, you know,
the internal culture, like weare working with the L and D
team, are they actually exposedto some of these other pieces? I
don't know, right? I think theway I see it is, can we
(20:17):
incrementally, coming back toour earlier point about progress
and interest, can weincrementally increase the level
of awareness and intelligencethat's going into design of
learning programs?
David Turetsky (20:27):
Sure, well, but it's important to at least be
able to have something, becausethe CFO is gonna ask, How do I
know it's working? You know,give me something. And to your
point, this gives themsomething, right? You've got to
be able to say everything elsehe held equal, at least for
(20:47):
them, and be able to make somesort of hypothesis that I'm
making some progress, becauseI'm trying to change these
skills, these behaviors, and I'mseeing something, at least in
these types of groups. So in thegroups where we didn't see it,
we're going to do somethingelse, but I'm not going to
change the fact that I invested,or will invest in this for those
(21:09):
groups that it did work for toat least see that those are
carrying through. I mean, to me,that just makes HR better,
smarter and trying to be betterpartners with the CFOs office
because you give a damn that isactually working or not?
Chris Taylor (21:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's two pieces Iwant to build off there, if I
can.
The first being.
And I think it's so critical
David Turetsky (21:27):
Sure that HR folks, when they have
this data for the first time,sometimes over exuberance can
lead to statement of causality,right? And I think, really
important for your owncredibility and for the
industry's credibility, thatwe're not stating causality.
This is a correlation piece. AsDavid, as you were saying.
(21:49):
Absolutely.
Chris Taylor (21:50):
The second thing that sort of building off your
point about now we havesomething. I mentioned there's
sort of two ways to go aboutthis. The ideal is to start at
the strategic priority and workbackwards. And there's a whole
bunch of L and D folks that areasked to go out and find a
leadership program. Why? Well,because we need a leadership
program. Okay, so because wehave budget, we need to spend
(22:14):
it's like, oh, okay?
David Turetsky (22:16):
yeah, that would be a great problem to have!
Chris Taylor (22:18):
uh huh, even in that case, if, for some reason,
you're stonewalled towardsunderstanding how the program
connects to the strategicpriorities of the organization,
being able to start from thecontent and show the behavior
changes that it's drivinginvites the conversation from
the leadership team, becauseyou're bringing data that's
different than what you've shownin the past around completion
(22:38):
rates and how much people likethe sandwiches. We're now able
to say self reported, and thenideally externally, like third
party validated. Here's thebehaviors that are shifting in
the month following the deliveryof this session. What I find
interesting with that approach,and again, it's if you can't get
you know, strategic alignmentearly, when you bring that data
(23:00):
forward, people will startasking questions that actually
shows what some of the strategicdrivers are in the organization.
David Turetsky (23:06):
Absolutely, yeah. And then invite different
new training that get themsimilar behaviors. And people
start going, Wow, this shitworks!
Chris Taylor (23:15):
Turns out, yeah.
David Turetsky (23:17):
Yay! Our investments paid off!
Chris Taylor (23:21):
Perfect, job secured for another year.
David Turetsky (23:25):
Hey, are you listening to this and thinking
to yourself, Man, I wish I couldtalk to David about this. Well,
you're in luck. We have aspecial offer for listeners of
the HR Data Labs podcast, a freehalf hour call with me about any
of the topics we cover on thepodcast or whatever is on your
mind. Go tosalary.com/hrdlconsulting to
(23:47):
schedule your free 30 minutecall today.
This gets to our third question,which is, how do you make sure
that this stuff sticks? Becauseyou can't just do training once
and expect it to be forever.
People change. Jobs change. Theworld changes. Requirements
change, and we hire new people.
(24:09):
People leave. So how do you makesure that these things continue?
Do you have to just keep doingthese trainings over and over
again to the same people or tothe different cohorts now? Or
how do you make it stick?
Chris Taylor (24:21):
Yeah, so I think there's, there's sort of the
micro and the macro on this,because the the first piece that
I look at is, how do we makesure that people leaving the
room actually put anything theytook from the room into practice
right afterwards, right? Andthen the second, I think, from
sort of a quote, unquotecultural level, whether that's
on a team level, or departmentor organization, how do we make
(24:42):
sure that this becomes more of asort of a new normal moving
forward? So one of the thingsthat I that I love is that,
because Actionable is at thecenter of all of these or is
involved in all of theseprograms, so it's a little
little bit of hubris to saywe're at the center of it, but
involved in. In so manyprograms, we're sitting now on
about 4 million data pointsaround what works and what
(25:06):
doesn't in helping peopleactually drive behavior change
following a session. And thatincludes a number of the factors
that that exist after thesession, but also what happens
in the room itself. So one ofthe things that we stumbled upon
last year was this three to oneratio. And again, I appreciate
this sounds trite, but I alsowant to give some some practical
(25:26):
stuff that people can apply.
What we have found is that whenthe content of the session is
complemented by three times theamount of air space of
contextualization, ie not newcontent, but giving people space
to turn it over. Figure out, doI give a shit about this? You'll
you'll fairly dramaticallyincrease the likelihood that
(25:47):
they'll actually follow throughafterwards, because you're
helping them find the why. Thatwill break the inertia of status
quo, right?
David Turetsky (25:55):
So does that mean use cases and practice and
like so I get taught something,and then I do three activities,
right there? Is that? What youmean?
Chris Taylor (26:06):
Yeah, at least three, three times the amount of
time. So if I've just taught 10minutes of content, giving them
half an hour to do, you know,sort of current state, future
state consideration, how wouldthis impact me? How does this
impact us? How does this impactthem? Types of exercises, most,
most most facilitators wouldhave sort of their, their bag of
tricks around, what are some ofthe exercises to to
contextualize, but that, that'swhat we're talking about, even
(26:27):
just journaling, right? As youknow, non high tech as that
sounds, taking down to figureout, why would I care about
this? How does this make my lifebetter, though? Anyway, so
that's a that's a key piece. Andthen the two things, there's a
bunch. And if anybody wants it,I can make sure, David, you have
the we do an annual Insightsreport free that's got all of
(26:49):
this stuff in it.
David Turetsky (26:49):
Yeah, it'd be lovely. If you can give me a
link. I'll put it in the shownotes.
Chris Taylor (26:53):
Yeah, for sure, post session, it's the social
reinforcement. So can we havethe team normalize the fact that
we're going to be engaging inbehavior change and that it's
going to be awkward for a bit.
Can we have that conversation inthe room bridging out of the
room? Can we bring a specificaccountability partner in? We
see, you know, we're talkingabout those self reported
(27:14):
changes between beginning andend of? Yeah, there's a I should
have these numbers in front ofme, but it's, it's more than 40%
improvement between first andsecond if I have an
accountability partner who'sactively engaged in the process.
David Turetsky (27:30):
That's not your boss?
Chris Taylor (27:31):
That's not your boss. This is someone you chose
to invite into your commitmentto actually see and support you
on that.
David Turetsky (27:38):
Sounds like a 12 step process. No, I'm being
serious, because that person'sthere to support you throughout,
making sure that you're livingup to the commitments you've
made. So I was not necessarilybeing tongue in cheek. I was
being serious.
Chris Taylor (27:52):
Yeah, that's really good. I'm Canadian,
David. My default reaction is tolaugh at everything. It's like
my grandmother died, oh sorry tohear that! Oh, wait, no, I'm
actually sorry to hear that.
That's terrible.
David Turetsky (28:03):
I'm a hockey player, so I appreciate that.
Chris Taylor (28:04):
Perfect, kindred spirits! The other piece that's
been interesting, and this is amental shift for a number of HR
groups, is the facilitatorcontinuing their relationship
with the participants postsession is actually even more
impactful than an accountabilitybuddy that I chose percentage
(28:24):
wise. What that looks like isthe facilitator having
visibility into what eachparticipant is working towards
and being able to providecommentary. Whether it's just
celebrating or encouraging theirprogress, whether it's around
probing to understand likedigital coaching or just
reminding them of the thing thatmattered to them, why they chose
that commitment in the firstplace.
David Turetsky (28:45):
But does that mean that that person needs to
be internal to the organization,or does that mean there's an
added expense to that, to havethat person who may be external,
an external resource, continuethe relationship?
Chris Taylor (28:57):
Yeah, so it would be an added expense, if all
things being equal. And I thinkthere's that question to ask
with the program to say, is thepurpose of this training to
deliver content, or is it todrive change?
David Turetsky (29:09):
Right.
Chris Taylor (29:10):
If it's to drive change, maybe we should put some
emphasis on what happens afterpeople leave the room! Having
said that, it doesn't need to bemuch. We typically see it's a 10
to 15% premium over what theevent costs, and usually that
premium can actually just be dugout of the extra pastries, or
the VR experience that we addedin
David Turetsky (29:28):
Hey! Leave my donuts alone! Well, I'll liken
it to this. You know, I need toget my car painted. Am I going
to get acrylic or enamel paint,right? Because the acrylic will
wash off for the first rain. Buthey, listen, I got my car
painted, but if you reallywanted to, sorry, this is where
I was going with that. If youreally wanted to stick and to
look good and to actuallychange, but, but no, seriously,
(29:54):
you're right. This is not evenjust about ROI anymore. It's
about, are you just trying tocheck a box of saying, Yeah, we
did the training. Or are youreally trying to make sure that
there's stickiness in thisbehavior change? And if there's
that much change in theeffectiveness of a training,
gosh, you know, I'd write thatcheck every day!
Chris Taylor (30:13):
Well, I mean, this is the thing that blows my mind,
right? You're spending,including the actual hourly rate
on the participants in the room,the cost of that session is is
quite high to then do nothing tosupport it afterwards, and
pushing content of people is notsupporting the learning, right?
Like, and that's where we getlike, well, we have a
sustainment strategy. We're justgonna blast them with 12 emails.
(30:33):
Like, nobody needs more emails.
David Turetsky (30:36):
Oh, let's send them a freaking book!
Chris Taylor (30:37):
right
David Turetsky (30:38):
Yeah, that'll get read
Chris Taylor (30:39):
100%. Not, not.
David Turetsky (30:41):
Let's just test the measurement on that one.
Hey, did anybody open thepackage? What package? The thing
we sent you last week! Oh, I wassupposed to read that?
Chris Taylor (30:50):
Yeah, and supposed to, too. I think this is the
whole thing. So if we can, if wecan shift the conversation in
the room, allow more breathingroom, less content, more
context, we increase thelikelihood of people wanting to
change. Then if we support themthrough a couple people around
them, checking in with them andseeing how they're doing, and
there's efficiency tools forthis too, right? Like the very,
very not so subtle plug foractionable is that part of what
(31:11):
we can do is make it reallyefficient for facilitators to do
it. We're not the only ones.
There's other stuff. But just ifyou think about that primary
question of is the purpose theexperience or the impact of the
experience, and invite everyoneto explicitly state their
response to it. One or twothings happens. Either we start
to think about how to solve forimpact, or we go, yeah, no, the
point of this was theexperience, so now we can just
(31:33):
ignore everything afterwards.
And you know, I used to Davidthink like, well, that's
ridiculous. What a waste themoney! I'm I'm coming around,
there's a time and a place wherejust being in the space with
their colleagues is the point,and that's okay!
David Turetsky (31:47):
right
Chris Taylor (31:47):
Most of the time it's around impact.
David Turetsky (31:49):
And for everybody who's in HR, who's
tried to prove to their bossesthat not only are these things,
these trainings, these behaviorchanges, are important, and
sometimes they're required fromby law,
Chris Taylor (32:01):
yeah
David Turetsky (32:02):
You know, like sexual harassment training, but
there are some things that we'retrying to do, like, right now
it's really popular to do paytransparency training, and have
managers and employeesunderstand what it all means.
Why are we doing it, and howdoes it impact them? Those
things are critical, because ifwe don't train them and there's
(32:23):
no behavior change, then we'regoing to A, get sued or get
fined, and we're also going tolose our people. And so it
really matters. So we'reactually on the front lines of
this, Chris, and we're tellingpeople, you need to do really,
you know, really comprehensivetraining for managers and
employees so they understandwhat all this stuff means. It
(32:44):
can't be an in one ear and outthe other, because they're going
to lose people, and it's goingto be the wrong person, and it's
going to lead to, you know,really bad things. So
Chris Taylor (32:52):
yeah, and expensive things. We're with
you. Power to the hockeyplayers!
David Turetsky (32:56):
Exactly, and the Canadians.
Chris, thank you very much. Thishas been really cool. I actually
would probably like to bring youback to talk a little bit more
about measurement of programs,because one of the things that
our listeners love is toactually hear actionable advice
(33:18):
on how things can work better,and so I love discussing the ROI
of programs. So we'll have youback again if you don't mind!
Chris Taylor (33:26):
I'll bring some case studies! We can have, make
it a lunch.
David Turetsky (33:28):
and I'll bring Molson.
Chris Taylor (33:30):
Please don't do that. I mean no offense to your
sponsor.
David Turetsky (33:33):
I'm kidding, no, and we're sponsored by Molson
breweries. No, we're not. We'renot. We're sponsored by
Salary.com. Again, Chris, thankyou very much. You're awesome
and phenomenal insights. Ireally, I learned a lot today.
Chris Taylor (33:45):
Thank you, David.
I appreciate the conversation.
David Turetsky (33:47):
My pleasure.
Take care and everybody staysafe.
Announcer (33:51):
That was the HR Data Labs podcast. If you liked the
episode, please subscribe. Andif you know anyone that might
like to hear it, please send ittheir way. Thank you for joining
us this week, and stay tuned forour next episode. Stay safe.
The world of business is more complex than ever. The
world of human resources andcompensation is also getting
more complex. Welcome to the HRData Labs podcast, your direct
source for the latest trendsfrom experts inside and outside
the world of human resources.
Listen as we explore the impactthat compensation strategy, data
and people analytics can have onyour organization. This podcast
(00:24):
is sponsored by Salary.com, yoursource for data, technology and
consulting for compensation andbeyond. Now here are your hosts,
David Turetsky and Dwight Brown.
David Turetsky (00:38):
Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs
podcast. I'm your host, DavidTuretsky, and as always, we try
and find brilliant people insideand outside the world of HR to
bring you the latest on what'sactually happening. Today, we
have with us Chris Taylor fromActionable. Chris, how are you?
Chris Taylor (00:53):
I'm fabulous.
David, better for being here.
David Turetsky (00:55):
I'm good. I would never say fabulous,
How are you?
because I kind of, I don't wantto be, and I'm not trying to put
this on you, but I actuallydon't even know the concept of
fabulous in terms of how I amanymore! I mean, I've been to
the Rangers winning the StanleyCup. That was fabulous. I've
been there when my kids wereborn. That was fabulous. No
(01:17):
offense, dude. But this doesn'trise to that level yet, but
we'll see. Maybe at the end ofthe podcast, I will be!
Chris Taylor (01:24):
Maybe, something to aspire to.
David Turetsky (01:26):
Yeah, that's good. It's good to have
aspirations, as they say. Chris,tell us a little bit about
yourself and about Actionable!
Chris Taylor (01:32):
For sure. So I'm fabulous because I'm just back
from Lisbon, Portugal, where Idid very little but eat
incredible pastries. So I'mstill basking in the glow of
Portuguese baked goods. When I'mnot in Portugal, I run a company
called Actionable. We help shinea light on the impact of
corporate training programs. Wesupport learners in putting
ideas into practice, and bringthe reporting data back to the
(01:55):
stakeholders so they canactually see which needles have
been moved by that report or bythat program. It's sort of the,
you know, we're aspiring towardsthat holy grail, ROI of
corporate training.
David Turetsky (02:05):
Which is what every CFO asks for every time we
ask them for another dollar!
Chris Taylor (02:08):
Exactly right.
That's it!
David Turetsky (02:10):
That's really good. Well, it's really an
important thing. So we should betalking a lot about that
measurement today. But first,before we do, what's one fun
thing that no one knows aboutChris Taylor?
Chris Taylor (02:21):
So I'd actually forgotten about this, and then
my wife reminded me I am adirect descendant of Sir Francis
Drake, who was a famous pirate.
David Turetsky (02:29):
Yeah! So, wow
Chris Taylor (02:31):
Right? Take that.
David Turetsky (02:32):
Arr!
Chris Taylor (02:35):
It goes against my Canadian sensibilities, but I'll
take it.
David Turetsky (02:40):
Yeah. Well, that's actually pretty amazing!
Chris Taylor (02:42):
My mom was really into genealogy when I was a kid,
and then discovered going backfar enough that there it was a
great, great, great, great,great, great uncle.
David Turetsky (02:50):
So do you have any, is there a good bead on
where he kept the treasure, oris that all gone?
Chris Taylor (02:55):
No treasure. But you know what we actually had,
until about two generations ago,a piece of the Golden Hind,
Golden Hind, is that his, or isthat Magellan? Anyway, I think
the Golden Hind, his ship thathe was on, we had a piece of
that almost petrified wood.
David Turetsky (03:09):
Oh wow!
Chris Taylor (03:09):
I know, right? And then someone lost it in a
basement flood, as happens. So,yeah,
David Turetsky (03:14):
Wow, yeah, that kind of sucks.
Chris Taylor (03:17):
I don't know how you transition out of that,
David, but that's it.
David Turetsky (03:19):
Well, we'll do our best. But it's actually kind
of funny that pirates have beenin such a big thing in the
movies and on TV that that's abadge of honor. I am, I am
honored to be in your presence,so I'm already more fantastic
than it was at the beginning.
Chris Taylor (03:34):
Perfect. We're just inch in the north. That's
David Turetsky (03:36):
Hey, listen, an inch at a time will get us
great.
there. So it's all progress.
Chris, all progress. But nowlet's talk about our topic,
which is near and dear to a lotof people who listen to this
podcast, which is not justtrying to figure out how to make
learning work, but actuallyfiguring out how to measure
behavior changes and how tocreate what you call learning
(03:57):
interventions.
Chris, you focus on supportingand measuring behavior change,
on talent management and talentdevelopment programs. What is
the behavior change and why?
Chris Taylor (04:18):
Behavior change, for me, is the first possible
moment that we can actuallystart to measure something as
far as efficacy is concerned. Ithink as an industry, we've
gotten real good at the smilesheets, the eval forms on what
happened in the room. And Ithink that the best we can
capture on there is theintention that a participant
(04:38):
might feel towards putting ideasinto practice. And that's all
well and good, but it's notactually going to create impact
until people start doingsomething with it. So I've been
really obsessed for the last 16years on on that first step once
people leave the room, literallyas they're going home from the
session, or after they'veclicked out of zoom or teams,
(04:59):
then what? What's that firstpiece of movement that breaks
the inertia of the status quo?
So I'm just, I'm fascinated byit. I think it's really
interesting, and it works in thefavor of the participant and the
organization.
David Turetsky (05:09):
So how do you judge a baseline? Because I
think for measurement, we alwayswant to know what's the
beginning and how did it move.
So is it the efficacy of theskill, or whatever was being
trained prior to? Is it? Is itA, is it an assessment that
needs to happen at thebeginning, or is it something
that you have to observe?
Chris Taylor (05:30):
Well, this is okay, so I'm so glad we're going
here, because I get that this isthe sort of foundation of the
industry, right? We need abaseline. We need to show change
compared to something else,ideally, uh, external
measurements, right? Behaviorchange, if we go down to like,
its true nuclear core is adeeply internal, deeply personal
thing, right? In many cases,right? We're shifting mindset in
(05:53):
many cases, or even justawareness before we're actually
shifting action.
And so, withoutyou know, taking away from the
David Turetsky (05:56):
Right value of external validation.
What we focus on in behaviorchange specifically is around
the individuals self assessmentof where they're starting from
and then how they'reprogressing. We're not trying to
get to an absolute measurementon this. What we're trying to do
is just bring to the surfacesomething that was historically
invisible. So the way that we goabout this, in a really simple
(06:19):
fashion, is, at the end of thesession, participants will
commit to a behavior change, ahabit that they want to
establish something that theywant to do differently moving
forward, and then they ratethemselves one to 10. How do you
feel you're doing with thiscurrently? The number doesn't
matter. What matters is that itcreates a mental placeholder for
(06:39):
them to say, I'm at a four and Iwant to improve. Then, as they
self reflect over the comingdays, weeks, month, we'll
typically, on average, collectabout, well, 8.2 data points per
person over the following monthto be able to say the individual
believes that they are makingthis sort of progress. Is that
empirical by itself? Of coursenot, right? And on an individual
(07:01):
basis, the numbers don'tactually mean anything. But
directionally, being able to seethe self reported trend allows
us to shine a light to say,Okay, now, a month later, two
months later, if we startlooking for observable change,
asking the people around them toreview their progress on that
specific area, can we see acorrelation between the two? And
(07:21):
in our experience, theoverwhelming answer is yes, we
absolutely can see that when theindividual feels they've
improved in an area, a month ortwo later, those around them
will be able to see it as well.
Four to six months later,they'll start to see the
ramifications on externallymeasured KPIs.
I guess thequestion I'd go to is there's a
(07:43):
ton of training programs, tons,that all try and give different
types of learning. Some of itmight be required, some of it
might be licensure, some of itmight be health and safety. Some
of it might be job duties. Italso could be culture change.
You know, the company is goingthrough massive change. They do
(08:03):
change management on somethingand you know, that's that's also
in there. Is there a sweet spotwhere this is more useful than
others, or is this applicableacross the board for learning?
Chris Taylor (08:14):
Yeah, so there's, there's. Okay, so I'm going to
take that through two lenses.
One is the content, and thesecond is the audience. So from
a content standpoint, anywherethat new information is being
communicated to individuals,where there would be benefit to
the individual and theorganization in people making
regular changes to theirtypically daily practice, if we
(08:36):
can get it down to a dailypractice, then yes, there's
absolutely value in pursuingthis and this we can get into.
From an audience standpoint, thesame thing applies, but there
needs to be desire and intent. Idon't I've yet to find a piece
of tech on the planet that willtake someone who is obstinately
refusing to change and suddenly,magically, they're now taking
(08:58):
action. Right?
David Turetsky (09:00):
Sure.
Chris Taylor (09:00):
The the role of the facilitator, the
intervention itself is, in myview, to transfer the
information and to do it in away that helps the learner find
a so what for them, so they wantto change.
David Turetsky (09:12):
right
Chris Taylor (09:13):
Assuming those two things are true, then, yeah. I
mean, we had, last year, there'sabout 3000 programs that we were
involved in globally, everythingfrom health and safety, culture
change, soft skill development,I think where it doesn't work
super well is where the goal isnot behavioral change. So if
we're doing a technical trainingthat we might need to utilize in
(09:33):
case of emergency once a year,then no, we're not trying to
change any behavior. But forsomething that even you, sorry,
I'm rambling a bit here, David,but the way I think about
diversity, equity and inclusion,right? Was obviously a big focus
several years ago. It didn'twork, because not the movement,
although there could be commentson that, because we were focused
(09:55):
on exception based training,right? We were, as an industry,
focused on when you see this badthing, or when you experience
this bad thing, do this. We didfind the DEI programs that
shifted that focus fromexception based activity to
something that I can notice orplan for or be deliberate about
on a daily basis then itabsolutely worked. So that's the
(10:17):
whole trick. How do we get it toa place of daily practice?
David Turetsky (10:20):
I think when you bring up the DE&I world, the
thing that it really certainlysticks out for me in terms of
training is when you have totrain for inclusion, and you
have to make sure that we'redealing with inclusive language,
which is a very big behaviorchange. It means stop using
these words, and in manycircumstances, stop calling
(10:42):
people or things these types ofpronouns, and we can get into
the politicalization, or thepoliticization, whatever,
however it's called of thosethings. You know, I can't say
it, but that's not, that's notthe point. The point is, when
you're in a work situation, showrespect and and be respectful,
(11:03):
and this is how to do it. That'sthe one piece, or the caveat I
would take away and say that'sdefinitely behavior change, and
could show a measurabledifference in how people feel,
what their engagement scoresare.
Chris Taylor (11:15):
Yep, that's exactly it. And that's, I'm glad
you brought up engagementscores, because that's, that's
probably the soft, now I'm doingit. It's catching! the softest
of the
David Turetsky (11:25):
As long as you don't get my COVID, then you're
gonna be okay.
Chris Taylor (11:28):
Thank goodness for virtual interviews. Yeah, but
employee engagement scores, thatsense of psychological safety.
Do I trust my team, do I trustmy leader? That's a great
example where there may bespecific scores in that 76
question juggernaut that theorganization really wants to
move the needle on, if we canback out of that or extrapolate
out of that, what are thebehaviors that, if shifted,
(11:50):
should move the needle on thosespecific questions, and then we
target training around new ideasand creating the space for
people to explore why engagingthat behavior change would make
the most sense, then time andagain, like, I've lost count of
how many culture change programswe've been involved in, where
that's been the goal, right? Wewant to move the needle on this
(12:11):
employee engagement scoremetric.
Announcer (12:15):
Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a
show by clicking subscribe. Thispodcast is made possible by
Salary.com. Now back to theshow.
David Turetsky (12:25):
And for everybody in HR, when we're
asked for, how do I improveproductivity? How do I improve
engagement? One of the firstthings we do is to ask, what
will be the second question thatwe're going to focus on, which
is, how do I really measure it,because those engagement
surveys, no offense, but theysuck. I mean, to your point,
it's not just the 76 questions.
It's that that a lot of times,people think they're being
(12:49):
tricked into trying to answerthe same damn question five
different ways to be able to dowhat? I mean, give me a five
question survey of, Do I like mycompany? Do I like my manager?
Do I like the situation I'm in?
Do I like how I'm paid? Youknow, am I gonna leave tomorrow?
There you go! There are fivequestions you can ask me to tell
(13:09):
me whether I'm engaged or not!But still, we're trying to do
we're trying to measuresomething differently, right? I
mean, isn't that kind of whereall this is starting from? It's
trying to do some pseudoscience, org psych bullshit on,
pardon my French, on people?
Chris Taylor (13:25):
Well, I think that's exactly it. David. I
think, you know, I watch theconversations on LinkedIn, which
is my, my professional socialnesting ground, and it's
fascinating, because there's 80%I'm making up numbers now, which
is not great for a data guy, but80, 90% the majority of the
conversations just get soconvoluted around how to measure
(13:46):
this stuff. And it's, you know,and it's 18 layers removed from
reality!
David Turetsky (13:49):
right
Chris Taylor (13:49):
And, yeah, I mean, this is a major, major
challenge. So I think there'syou can approach this from one
or two directions, but not inthe messy middle. So direction
one is top down. Let's call itwhere we start from, the
strategic priorities. I've got afour circle visualization on
this, but there's strategicpriorities for the organization.
David Turetsky (14:10):
right
Chris Taylor (14:11):
If we assume that those strategic priorities
involve achieving something thatwe've never achieved before,
then it's going to require somenew stuff. Some of that might be
process. Some of that is goingto be competency at an
individual level, right? Andthen the organization can choose
to buy those competencies, hirefor it, or build those
competencies, train and developfor it, right? Like, again, I
(14:32):
appreciate this is overlysimplistic language, but that's
kind of the goal, right?
David Turetsky (14:36):
right
Chris Taylor (14:37):
So if we can identify them, what do we need
people to be competency wise,different or culturally
competency in order to achievethat strategic outcome. What are
the behaviors that we need thatmake those competencies happen?
What are the interventions thatwe need to make those behaviors
happen? So we can, we call itthe impact value chain, if we
string those together, and itcan get complicated quickly, but
(14:59):
it doesn't have to, then we canat least show the through line
of why we're doing the trainingsthat we're doing. And we could
say these are the intelligentlywhy the behaviors we're focused
on are the ones that we'refocused on. And we can start to
measure that way, where, withthe I mean, their strategic
priorities have X number ofmetrics that they're already
tracking right? And so thatbecomes our big lag. The lead
(15:21):
becomes of the behaviorshifting. And then, if we
organize the people data, so wesay, yes, all these people went
through training. But guesswhat? HR and LD folk, most
executive people don't careabout the cohorts or the modules
or the sessions or theexperiences that people were in.
What they want to see is thedata sliced by function,
geography, seniority, all thisstuff they measure everything
(15:43):
else by.
David Turetsky (15:44):
right
Chris Taylor (15:44):
They want to see the leading indicator data of,
can we see which behaviors areshifting for which clusters
within that, and then can we mapthat to any movement in the
KPIs? Do you want me to makethis real, or is this still too,
this is pretty theoretical,right?
David Turetsky (15:59):
To me, this is perfect, because I live and
breathe everything you justsaid. But to the listeners, I
mean, all those things makesense, because that's what the
leaders want. But when it comesdown to HR, actually executing
against that.
Chris Taylor (16:14):
yep.
David Turetsky (16:15):
How do you do it?
Chris Taylor (16:16):
Yeah. So here's an example. We worked with a casino
just before the pandemic, and Ikeep using it even though it's
five years old now, because it'ssuch a clean example. So the
casino had very high voluntaryturnover. The industry has high
turnover, but they were, like,an order of magnitude beyond the
industry norm. They had figuredthat it was costing them about 7
(16:38):
million bucks a year inreplacement fees on their
frontline staff at the casino,so they were investing in a
frontline Leadership Program.
The core metric that they werelooking for was retention on
this piece, right? You'reshaking your head, David, I
don't know if people arelistening. Tell me!
David Turetsky (16:55):
Well, that's one way of going at it, but okay,
because I'm a I'm an analyticsguy, and retention? Yeah,
management and leadershiptraining is great, but is that,
is that really the issue?
Chris Taylor (17:06):
Right? Yeah, no, absolutely. And this is, I think
this is where we can gettangled, right? Because, of
course, it's not in isolation,right? There's so many external
factors! What we wanted to do,though, was to see what
percentage, not even whatpercentage. But does working on
leadership and managementactually move the needle on the
retention side. And so what theydid was they took 176 frontline
(17:26):
leaders that were going in thisprogram. They were split. This
is why I love it. It's so clean.
They were either food andbeverage or gaming. They were
the am shift, pm shift orgraveyard shift.
David Turetsky (17:35):
Oh, it's perfect.
Chris Taylor (17:36):
Right? So every manager neatly clusters into one
of those six boxes.
David Turetsky (17:40):
Right
Chris Taylor (17:41):
They'd done the impact value chain and said,
what are the capabilities wewant developed? What are the
behaviors related to that?
What's the content that's goingto drive those behaviors? Then
they start running them throughthe program each month, not
based on when the sessions tookplace, but each month, being
able to say, cluster A, the AMfood and bev group,
disproportionately self assessedprogress in this particular
(18:02):
behavioral area. Are you seeingany correlation on voluntary
turnover? And of course, theanswer is no, because it just
happened, right?
David Turetsky (18:12):
right
Chris Taylor (18:13):
And month two, no, month three, no, month four is
where they started to see, intheir words, enough correlation
that they could say,interestingly, we're seeing an
improvement in retention in thefood and bev am shift. Let's
look back to see what behaviorswe were working on at the
beginning four months ago, andcan we replicate that now across
(18:35):
the other groups? So they usedit, not as an empirical
causality like this is whatcaused this, but to say, is
there a potential role that thisis playing? Yes or no? And I
think this is where the ROI oflearning falls down. Is that
we're trying to get to a blackand white, this equals this.
David Turetsky (18:53):
Right
Chris Taylor (18:54):
When instead, if we can simply shine a light, not
simply, but shine a light andsay, here's some stuff that
happened as we move throughtime, some positive
ramifications of potentiallythat happened, but positive
things happen is there enoughcorrelation that we can double
down on this? It makes ourprogram smarter when we can at
least look at what were thebehaviors that were shifting
(19:14):
earlier?
David Turetsky (19:15):
And for those of you who were reading my mind as
Chris was talking, one of thethings I was going to ask him,
was for that group A was acausation or correlation?
Chris Taylor (19:24):
exactly
David Turetsky (19:24):
And and so there's lots of ramifications of
just the training. But did theychange how they hire? Did they
change who they hire? Did theyget a better job description?
Did they improve pay at all? Youcan't just say everything else
held equal, because the worlddoes not work like that. But I
(19:45):
guess the question I wanted toask you in all of what you were
saying, did they measure forthose things as well, or at
least hold them as a control tobe able to make those
determinations along the way?
Chris Taylor (19:56):
I certainly hope so, David, I didn't see. I mean,
it's interesting, because wework mostly with consulting
firms that work with theirclients, so we're a couple
layers removed. And and thenthis is where you get, you know,
the internal culture, like weare working with the L and D
team, are they actually exposedto some of these other pieces? I
don't know, right? I think theway I see it is, can we
(20:17):
incrementally, coming back toour earlier point about progress
and interest, can weincrementally increase the level
of awareness and intelligencethat's going into design of
learning programs?
David Turetsky (20:27):
Sure, well, but it's important to at least be
able to have something, becausethe CFO is gonna ask, How do I
know it's working? You know,give me something. And to your
point, this gives themsomething, right? You've got to
be able to say everything elsehe held equal, at least for
(20:47):
them, and be able to make somesort of hypothesis that I'm
making some progress, becauseI'm trying to change these
skills, these behaviors, and I'mseeing something, at least in
these types of groups. So in thegroups where we didn't see it,
we're going to do somethingelse, but I'm not going to
change the fact that I invested,or will invest in this for those
(21:09):
groups that it did work for toat least see that those are
carrying through. I mean, to me,that just makes HR better,
smarter and trying to be betterpartners with the CFOs office
because you give a damn that isactually working or not?
Chris Taylor (21:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's two pieces Iwant to build off there, if I
can.
The first being.
And I think it's so critical
David Turetsky (21:27):
Sure that HR folks, when they have
this data for the first time,sometimes over exuberance can
lead to statement of causality,right? And I think, really
important for your owncredibility and for the
industry's credibility, thatwe're not stating causality.
This is a correlation piece. AsDavid, as you were saying.
(21:49):
Absolutely.
Chris Taylor (21:50):
The second thing that sort of building off your
point about now we havesomething. I mentioned there's
sort of two ways to go aboutthis. The ideal is to start at
the strategic priority and workbackwards. And there's a whole
bunch of L and D folks that areasked to go out and find a
leadership program. Why? Well,because we need a leadership
program. Okay, so because wehave budget, we need to spend
(22:14):
it's like, oh, okay?
David Turetsky (22:16):
yeah, that would be a great problem to have!
Chris Taylor (22:18):
uh huh, even in that case, if, for some reason,
you're stonewalled towardsunderstanding how the program
connects to the strategicpriorities of the organization,
being able to start from thecontent and show the behavior
changes that it's drivinginvites the conversation from
the leadership team, becauseyou're bringing data that's
different than what you've shownin the past around completion
(22:38):
rates and how much people likethe sandwiches. We're now able
to say self reported, and thenideally externally, like third
party validated. Here's thebehaviors that are shifting in
the month following the deliveryof this session. What I find
interesting with that approach,and again, it's if you can't get
you know, strategic alignmentearly, when you bring that data
(23:00):
forward, people will startasking questions that actually
shows what some of the strategicdrivers are in the organization.
David Turetsky (23:06):
Absolutely, yeah. And then invite different
new training that get themsimilar behaviors. And people
start going, Wow, this shitworks!
Chris Taylor (23:15):
Turns out, yeah.
David Turetsky (23:17):
Yay! Our investments paid off!
Chris Taylor (23:21):
Perfect, job secured for another year.
David Turetsky (23:25):
Hey, are you listening to this and thinking
to yourself, Man, I wish I couldtalk to David about this. Well,
you're in luck. We have aspecial offer for listeners of
the HR Data Labs podcast, a freehalf hour call with me about any
of the topics we cover on thepodcast or whatever is on your
mind. Go tosalary.com/hrdlconsulting to
(23:47):
schedule your free 30 minutecall today.
This gets to our third question,which is, how do you make sure
that this stuff sticks? Becauseyou can't just do training once
and expect it to be forever.
People change. Jobs change. Theworld changes. Requirements
change, and we hire new people.
(24:09):
People leave. So how do you makesure that these things continue?
Do you have to just keep doingthese trainings over and over
again to the same people or tothe different cohorts now? Or
how do you make it stick?
Chris Taylor (24:21):
Yeah, so I think there's, there's sort of the
micro and the macro on this,because the the first piece that
I look at is, how do we makesure that people leaving the
room actually put anything theytook from the room into practice
right afterwards, right? Andthen the second, I think, from
sort of a quote, unquotecultural level, whether that's
on a team level, or departmentor organization, how do we make
(24:42):
sure that this becomes more of asort of a new normal moving
forward? So one of the thingsthat I that I love is that,
because Actionable is at thecenter of all of these or is
involved in all of theseprograms, so it's a little
little bit of hubris to saywe're at the center of it, but
involved in. In so manyprograms, we're sitting now on
about 4 million data pointsaround what works and what
(25:06):
doesn't in helping peopleactually drive behavior change
following a session. And thatincludes a number of the factors
that that exist after thesession, but also what happens
in the room itself. So one ofthe things that we stumbled upon
last year was this three to oneratio. And again, I appreciate
this sounds trite, but I alsowant to give some some practical
(25:26):
stuff that people can apply.
What we have found is that whenthe content of the session is
complemented by three times theamount of air space of
contextualization, ie not newcontent, but giving people space
to turn it over. Figure out, doI give a shit about this? You'll
you'll fairly dramaticallyincrease the likelihood that
(25:47):
they'll actually follow throughafterwards, because you're
helping them find the why. Thatwill break the inertia of status
quo, right?
David Turetsky (25:55):
So does that mean use cases and practice and
like so I get taught something,and then I do three activities,
right there? Is that? What youmean?
Chris Taylor (26:06):
Yeah, at least three, three times the amount of
time. So if I've just taught 10minutes of content, giving them
half an hour to do, you know,sort of current state, future
state consideration, how wouldthis impact me? How does this
impact us? How does this impactthem? Types of exercises, most,
most most facilitators wouldhave sort of their, their bag of
tricks around, what are some ofthe exercises to to
contextualize, but that, that'swhat we're talking about, even
(26:27):
just journaling, right? As youknow, non high tech as that
sounds, taking down to figureout, why would I care about
this? How does this make my lifebetter, though? Anyway, so
that's a that's a key piece. Andthen the two things, there's a
bunch. And if anybody wants it,I can make sure, David, you have
the we do an annual Insightsreport free that's got all of
(26:49):
this stuff in it.
David Turetsky (26:49):
Yeah, it'd be lovely. If you can give me a
link. I'll put it in the shownotes.
Chris Taylor (26:53):
Yeah, for sure, post session, it's the social
reinforcement. So can we havethe team normalize the fact that
we're going to be engaging inbehavior change and that it's
going to be awkward for a bit.
Can we have that conversation inthe room bridging out of the
room? Can we bring a specificaccountability partner in? We
see, you know, we're talkingabout those self reported
(27:14):
changes between beginning andend of? Yeah, there's a I should
have these numbers in front ofme, but it's, it's more than 40%
improvement between first andsecond if I have an
accountability partner who'sactively engaged in the process.
David Turetsky (27:30):
That's not your boss?
Chris Taylor (27:31):
That's not your boss. This is someone you chose
to invite into your commitmentto actually see and support you
on that.
David Turetsky (27:38):
Sounds like a 12 step process. No, I'm being
serious, because that person'sthere to support you throughout,
making sure that you're livingup to the commitments you've
made. So I was not necessarilybeing tongue in cheek. I was
being serious.
Chris Taylor (27:52):
Yeah, that's really good. I'm Canadian,
David. My default reaction is tolaugh at everything. It's like
my grandmother died, oh sorry tohear that! Oh, wait, no, I'm
actually sorry to hear that.
That's terrible.
David Turetsky (28:03):
I'm a hockey player, so I appreciate that.
Chris Taylor (28:04):
Perfect, kindred spirits! The other piece that's
been interesting, and this is amental shift for a number of HR
groups, is the facilitatorcontinuing their relationship
with the participants postsession is actually even more
impactful than an accountabilitybuddy that I chose percentage
(28:24):
wise. What that looks like isthe facilitator having
visibility into what eachparticipant is working towards
and being able to providecommentary. Whether it's just
celebrating or encouraging theirprogress, whether it's around
probing to understand likedigital coaching or just
reminding them of the thing thatmattered to them, why they chose
that commitment in the firstplace.
David Turetsky (28:45):
But does that mean that that person needs to
be internal to the organization,or does that mean there's an
added expense to that, to havethat person who may be external,
an external resource, continuethe relationship?
Chris Taylor (28:57):
Yeah, so it would be an added expense, if all
things being equal. And I thinkthere's that question to ask
with the program to say, is thepurpose of this training to
deliver content, or is it todrive change?
David Turetsky (29:09):
Right.
Chris Taylor (29:10):
If it's to drive change, maybe we should put some
emphasis on what happens afterpeople leave the room! Having
said that, it doesn't need to bemuch. We typically see it's a 10
to 15% premium over what theevent costs, and usually that
premium can actually just be dugout of the extra pastries, or
the VR experience that we addedin
David Turetsky (29:28):
Hey! Leave my donuts alone! Well, I'll liken
it to this. You know, I need toget my car painted. Am I going
to get acrylic or enamel paint,right? Because the acrylic will
wash off for the first rain. Buthey, listen, I got my car
painted, but if you reallywanted to, sorry, this is where
I was going with that. If youreally wanted to stick and to
look good and to actuallychange, but, but no, seriously,
(29:54):
you're right. This is not evenjust about ROI anymore. It's
about, are you just trying tocheck a box of saying, Yeah, we
did the training. Or are youreally trying to make sure that
there's stickiness in thisbehavior change? And if there's
that much change in theeffectiveness of a training,
gosh, you know, I'd write thatcheck every day!
Chris Taylor (30:13):
Well, I mean, this is the thing that blows my mind,
right? You're spending,including the actual hourly rate
on the participants in the room,the cost of that session is is
quite high to then do nothing tosupport it afterwards, and
pushing content of people is notsupporting the learning, right?
Like, and that's where we getlike, well, we have a
sustainment strategy. We're justgonna blast them with 12 emails.
(30:33):
Like, nobody needs more emails.
David Turetsky (30:36):
Oh, let's send them a freaking book!
Chris Taylor (30:37):
right
David Turetsky (30:38):
Yeah, that'll get read
Chris Taylor (30:39):
100%. Not, not.
David Turetsky (30:41):
Let's just test the measurement on that one.
Hey, did anybody open thepackage? What package? The thing
we sent you last week! Oh, I wassupposed to read that?
Chris Taylor (30:50):
Yeah, and supposed to, too. I think this is the
whole thing. So if we can, if wecan shift the conversation in
the room, allow more breathingroom, less content, more
context, we increase thelikelihood of people wanting to
change. Then if we support themthrough a couple people around
them, checking in with them andseeing how they're doing, and
there's efficiency tools forthis too, right? Like the very,
very not so subtle plug foractionable is that part of what
(31:11):
we can do is make it reallyefficient for facilitators to do
it. We're not the only ones.
There's other stuff. But just ifyou think about that primary
question of is the purpose theexperience or the impact of the
experience, and invite everyoneto explicitly state their
response to it. One or twothings happens. Either we start
to think about how to solve forimpact, or we go, yeah, no, the
point of this was theexperience, so now we can just
(31:33):
ignore everything afterwards.
And you know, I used to Davidthink like, well, that's
ridiculous. What a waste themoney! I'm I'm coming around,
there's a time and a place wherejust being in the space with
their colleagues is the point,and that's okay!
David Turetsky (31:47):
right
Chris Taylor (31:47):
Most of the time it's around impact.
David Turetsky (31:49):
And for everybody who's in HR, who's
tried to prove to their bossesthat not only are these things,
these trainings, these behaviorchanges, are important, and
sometimes they're required fromby law,
Chris Taylor (32:01):
yeah
David Turetsky (32:02):
You know, like sexual harassment training, but
there are some things that we'retrying to do, like, right now
it's really popular to do paytransparency training, and have
managers and employeesunderstand what it all means.
Why are we doing it, and howdoes it impact them? Those
things are critical, because ifwe don't train them and there's
(32:23):
no behavior change, then we'regoing to A, get sued or get
fined, and we're also going tolose our people. And so it
really matters. So we'reactually on the front lines of
this, Chris, and we're tellingpeople, you need to do really,
you know, really comprehensivetraining for managers and
employees so they understandwhat all this stuff means. It
(32:44):
can't be an in one ear and outthe other, because they're going
to lose people, and it's goingto be the wrong person, and it's
going to lead to, you know,really bad things. So
Chris Taylor (32:52):
yeah, and expensive things. We're with
you. Power to the hockeyplayers!
David Turetsky (32:56):
Exactly, and the Canadians.
Chris, thank you very much. Thishas been really cool. I actually
would probably like to bring youback to talk a little bit more
about measurement of programs,because one of the things that
our listeners love is toactually hear actionable advice
(33:18):
on how things can work better,and so I love discussing the ROI
of programs. So we'll have youback again if you don't mind!
Chris Taylor (33:26):
I'll bring some case studies! We can have, make
it a lunch.
David Turetsky (33:28):
and I'll bring Molson.
Chris Taylor (33:30):
Please don't do that. I mean no offense to your
sponsor.
David Turetsky (33:33):
I'm kidding, no, and we're sponsored by Molson
breweries. No, we're not. We'renot. We're sponsored by
Salary.com. Again, Chris, thankyou very much. You're awesome
and phenomenal insights. Ireally, I learned a lot today.
Chris Taylor (33:45):
Thank you, David.
I appreciate the conversation.
David Turetsky (33:47):
My pleasure.
Take care and everybody staysafe.
Announcer (33:51):
That was the HR Data Labs podcast. If you liked the
episode, please subscribe. Andif you know anyone that might
like to hear it, please send ittheir way. Thank you for joining
us this week, and stay tuned forour next episode. Stay safe.
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