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By Knight Kiplinger

The Kiplinger Washington Editors

July 3, 2008

The largest U.S. banks are hurting badly, and the pain is starting to spread. Most small and midsize banks are still ready to lend to businesses, but they're getting nervous. This week's Kiplinger Letter examines the outlook.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Jobs, Employer Health Costs, Estate Taxes, Retail Retrenching, Legal Trends, Infrastructure Spending

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Improving Company Performance Through Work-Based Learning

Learning programs are moving out of HR and into the hands of managers, who are matching skills being taught to specific company objectives.

Worth Reading: The Quick Take from Kiplinger

May 2008

Knowledge@Wharton

Knowledge@Wharton is the electronic journal of the Wharton School, the business school at the University of Pennsylvania.

Competitive pressures, skill shortages, customer service ills, little personnel depth for key jobs. These chronic headaches for many companies have spawned a wave of enterprisewide learning programs that are as important a part of business strategy as marketing or product development.

"Our job now is directed much more at ... connecting performance to business improvements, which is considerably different than I think what HR and training used to do," Mike Barger, vice president and chief learning officer at JetBlue University, said at a roundtable discussion put on by the online business journal Knowledge@Wharton.

The discussion touches on crucial aspects of making work-based learning work: How do you measure success? Are online learning and other technology-enabled techniques effective? Should human resources departments run these programs?

The answer to that last question is decidedly "no," according to the roundtable's participants. The purpose and expertise of HR departments are assessing and understanding workers' abilities and welfare. A chief learning officer (CLO) is responsible for understanding the overall goals and strategic needs of a company and for making sure that employees have or are provided with skills to meet those goals.

A CLO is "responsible for anticipating ... the knowledge, the talents necessary next year, three years and even five years, possibly even beyond, depending on the type of organization. So, it should be just about be impossible ... to have a strategic business plan without a strong talent and talent learning element," said Ed Betof, academic director of Wharton Executive Education's Executive Program in Work-Based Learning Leadership.

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