Want to be a performance consultant? This is how.

How to Use Microsoft Word was a required training I had to take in college at the University of Hawaii. 

While this was 2003, word processing tools had been around for at least ten years. 

“Let’s practice together how to create a new document. Click the Word icon on your PC. Next, go to ‘File’ and click ‘Create New Document’”

By the end of this 30-minute training, I learned nothing new and felt this was a waste of my time. I was annoyed because my friend Clippy, the paper clip trainer in Word, could answer the same questions covered in this training in less than 1 minute. 

For most students, How to Use Microsoft Word was a miss. 

Training should be the last solution to solving a performance-based issue. In this article, we will explore the mindset of a learning performance consultant and how to embody these skills in your job in the Learning and Development space.

Don’t Be A “Training Order Taker”

Stakeholders will come to you with all sorts of requests for training. There’s always an issue they need a fix for, but training is often the only solution they know when it comes to performance needs. Realistically, most performance interventions can be a much lighter life than full-fledged training.

Instead of going with the flow with clients, don’t let them pressure you into developing an ineffective solution that wastes time and money. As a performance consultant, you are there to analyze the situation and provide the best solution based on their needs. 

There could be a plethora of reasons why performance might be lagging. Don’t listen to the client blindly; research on your own. Ask for materials that will be helpful. Talk to front-line workers to get their perspectives on the performance gap.

Don't listen blindly.

Imagine this scenario: For a major retailer, the average call time for a customer service representative is significantly longer at one of the company’s six call centers. The client comes to you with a training request telling you the representatives need to practice answering the calls faster.

What questions could you ask to understand the problem better?

• Are there differences in the work conditions at each call center? What are they?
• What technology are the representatives using? Does this differ per location?
• What are the work outputs needed to do their job?

Every performance issue will require you to think on your feet, as there’s no list of pre-determined questions to ask. Often, performance issues can be around the users’ background experience, misaligned expectations, environmental differences, and processes. These are just a few questions applicable to this situation. 

2 Non-Training Performance Solutions

Evaluate the tools and processes of the team

The issue often lies in the processes and/or the communication of these processes to employees. Together with the client’s team, you are there to consult on setting processes that get the results they are looking for.

To do this, however, you need to have receptive clients who understand that they have made presumptions about the background knowledge of their teams. To ensure your contribution is valued, these clients must be open to non-training interventions. 

The tools provided to the employees can also hinder their performance. When the usage of the tools is confusing and has many steps to completing tasks, employees can get confused and create their own processes for whatever works for them to get the job done. The overall user experience design can make a significant difference when choosing the optimal tools for your team. 

How can you get clarity that processes are the issue?

Start with interviewing employees on the processes they follow. Something is amiss when you notice each employee is following slightly different procedures. Finding the optimal process might be a mixture of what employees are already doing. 

Your role here is to provide clarity based on your feedback and work with the management team to set a streamlined procedure. While this is not your team, nor are you a subject matter expert, you offer a unique outsider's perspective that the client does not have. Additionally, you offer performance management best practices to help guide the conversation around the optimal solutions.

Analyze whether the work outputs lead to business results

Imagine you work at a call center. A customer complained that they were incorrectly charged an overdraft fee on their bank account. To solve this problem, you must file a 3-page TPT report and send it to two teams by email. Then you need to file notes to document the case. 

What’s the purpose of this TPT report?

Does it lead to a faster result for the customer? Probably not. 

The metric the business looks at is the time it takes to resolve the situation. Could the TPT report and the documentation be collapsed into one step? You bet!

While the process is part of the problem, the ultimate issue is the outputs needed to complete the task. Siloed teams can have unneeded processes and can be solved by analyzing how other teams need to work within this framework. Not all team processes can be ineffective; the issue is around who was consulted on instituting the outputs needed to flow smoothly.

When training is the solution

Training can be a great solution when there’s a gap in skill, knowledge or ability. When employees start at a company, training is the best solution to get them onboarded as quickly as possible. 

Training is also used to standardize procedures across the team. While written communications can be a possible solution here, complex, multi-step procedures might need clarification and guidance not easy to explain via email, for example. 

What about tool training?

Training can be needed when the tools and machinery have a poor user experience. Nowadays, many tools are developed with a user experience expert who helps create an intuitive solution, not needing much outside training. For computer and web applications, in-product training can be the best solution as the training is as close to the product as possible. 

How can you get started as a performance consultant?

Many organizations provide robust training programs on human performance management. Check out Performance Thinking, which goes into much more detail than what I’ve shared here. 

While training programs can be great, I suggest embracing performance management in your current learning & development role. No matter your role, you can start advocating for both training and non-training performance interventions. This will show clients that you are a leader and quite knowledgeable of the role training can or cannot play to help solve the performance issue.