The role of learning and development (L&D) managers encompasses a huge variety of activities and responsibilities. Indeed, the role continues to get ever more complex, encompassing such activities as nurturing talent by providing the bespoke learning interventions which meet the needs of the business, managing an L&D budget, supporting executives and the company vision with a leading edge, cost effective L&D strategy and supporting the development of the culture. The list goes on.
As a means for the L&D manager to avoid juggling multiple tasks, outsourcing various elements of an organisation’s L&D department is a an obvious choice in the current climate. As is often the case with outsourcing, it also has the added bonus of saving costs and protecting the bottom line. It frees up time for the training team to work on more strategically important tasks and projects, leaving the outsourced partner to deal with the non-core administration activities.
Heads of L&D need to approach their external providers with the intention of fostering a ‘business partnership’ where both parties are clear on the responsibilities. This can be achieved by, for example, allowing the provider to engage in internal communications, including them in management meetings or allowing them to add value by bringing new and innovative ideas for consideration and the latest thought leadership around L&D. One of the essential ingredients to ensure both parties are clear on their responsibilities is the use of a SLA and KPI’s. It’s vital that the provider understands the organisation’s business, culture, core processes and overall business objectives to ensure the best results from L&D and ultimately the most effective use of budget.
To ensure that the outsourcing business partnership actually works for the organisation it is absolutely vital to have a managed service level agreement (SLA) in place beforehand. Broadly defined, an SLA is a contract that specifies the external provider’s obligations, usually in quantifiable terms. Negotiating definite objectives and expectations with the training provider effectively lays down a blue print for the ultimate success of the project. By recording a common understanding about what the learning priorities are, the partnership can establish achievable metrics against which objectives can be assessed. The L&D supplier needs to define for itself what benchmarks are essential, which are favourable but not entirely necessary, and those which are not important.
One of the more challenging aspects to manage is ‘strategy’ – it could be argued that this responsibility lies totally with the Head of L&D and is purely communicated to the provider. On the other hand using the ‘experts’ i.e. the provider, to support the development of the L&D function divides the responsibility of strategic development between the two parties.
By forcing the training provider to translate performance into metrics, the SLA also ensures accountability and responsibility. SLAs provide a means to justify the long-term value and ultimately, the ROI of outsourcing.
A well-constructed SLA is the keystone to a true business partnership. The initial discussions to negotiate deliverables and desired outcomes lay the grounds for future dialogue and the exchange of ideas. In contrast, if the SLA does not create realistic expectations from the outset, it can potentially destroy the relationship with the training provider and may end up making the whole outsourcing project a costly mistake.
