Excellence through Learning & Development

An Introduction

Excellence Through Learning & Development

Contents

Introduction .3
The objective ......4
Focus & Scope ...4
The current practice5
Areas addressed..6
Baskets of Excellence ......7
The Process. .......8
Benefits of the initiative9
In conclusion.10
Contact Details..10

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full
potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal
excellence.
- Confucius

Introduction:
Training & Development is one area that is accorded great importance and
value by a progressive organisation like ours. Over the years, continuous
learning and people development has come to be recognised as an integral /
indispensable part of a growth process. It is considered as one of the
cornerstones, crucial for gaining a competitive edge and becoming a
sustainable and tenacious organisation.

The ultimate aim of training & development opportunities is to enable

people to reach their full potential and perform their work more
effectively by inculcating the required skills / behaviours / attitudes /
mindsets appropriate for doing so. Since organisations often make
extensive investment in offering a wide range of excellent development
opportunities, it becomes necessary to ensure that all training initiatives are
aligned to the work that people actually perform at the work-place and help
apply the learnings to their work.

Excellence through Learning & Development is all about making this possible
in a practical and effective manner. Through this initiative, training
programmes would be offered in the form of four clusters termed as Baskets
of Excellence. Each basket would aim at addressing the development of
particular sets of behaviours associated with the work / roles performed by
people in the organisation and thus making training more impactful and
relevant to work-place requirements.

Let us see what this journey is all about..

The Objective: Enabling Excellence Through Learning & Development.

Excellence at the work-place may be interpreted as achieving maximum
productivity and high quality of work through optimum and effective use of
resources as also ones own capability.
The objective of the initiative is to enable such excellence at the work-place
Thus, the processes / mechanisms developed in this initiative would enable
employees to:

Select behavioural / managerial / leadership programmes relevant to

the actual work performed by them at their work-place.

Ensure better transfer of learning to the work-place through increased

applicability of training inputs

Facilitate enhancement of performance & productivity.

Focus & Scope .

The initiative would address the selection of Behavioural / Managerial /

Leadership programmes training programmes by covenanted employees.

The initiative would be implemented in phases. Phase 1 of the initiative

covers all covenanted staff and the Phase 2 would cover Supervisors &
Executives.

Currently, Phase 1 is being implemented.

The current practice:

Currently, the behavioural / managerial / leadership programmes being
organised by Corporate Training & Development Cell and OD/OCs address
the following:
o Bridging of competency gaps,
o Imparting general management skills / knowledge
o Imparting business strategy skills
o Orientation of new recruits / trainees
o Life-style programmes (Eg. Art of Living)

In addition to the above, the OD/OCs also offer specific and specialised
technical programmes.

The competency based / behavioural / general management / leadership

programmes are designed and offered according to grades / tiers
assuming that the nature of work performed by people in the same grade /
tier is similar and hence they are required to exhibit similar set of
behaviours at the work-place.

In reality, the nature of work of people from the same grade is often quite
different and hence requires them to play widely different roles depending
upon the assignments / projects being handled by them.

Hence there is likely to be disconnect between the training inputs provided

and the actual training requirements of people who may be in the same tier
/ grade but may be handling different work profiles & performing different
types of roles.

As a result, many of the inputs provided during training programmes may

not be directly applicable / relevant to the peoples work-place atleast in
their present roles and hence only some portion of the training programme
may be found to be useful by the participants.

Also, the learnings may not get transferred to the work-place which is the
real aim of providing training & development opportunities.

This initiative is an effort at addressing the above disconnect. It is an

approach which aims at enabling alignment of Behavioural / Managerial /
Leadership programmes to the actual role that people play at their work-place
by facilitating a shift in the way we approach Learning & Development.

Areas addressed:

Establishing direct applicability to work:

In technical training programmes, this relation between inputs given
during training programmes and their direct applicability to work is
often very clear. The transfer of learning, in such programmes, is
tangible and measurable to a large extent.
However, facilitating this linkage in behavioural / managerial /
leadership programmes can become difficult. Also, measuring the
impact of such programmes in terms of direct and immediate
applicability of the inputs also becomes subjective.
Hence, prior to offering such programmes, establishing the
alignment and link between the work-place requirements and
training inputs is crucial.

Facilitating smooth transition from one organisational workassignment / role to another:

As one moves in and out of different organisational work
assignments / roles, the skill-sets & mind-sets required in each of
these assignments / role, change. Since training interventions play
a critical role in ensuring smooth transitions from one role to
another, customising them to the requirements of each role
becomes very important. This helps the persons move into their
new role / work assignment with ease and equip them with all the
necessary developmental tools.

Providing focussed and relevant training inputs:

Since different people in the same cadre may be playing
significantly different roles, it is necessary to base training
programmes on their roles. This would help in making the target
audience homogenous and hence make all training initiatives more
focused.

Details of the Four Baskets of Excellence:

Baskets of Excellence, mentioned in this document, denote the four different
clusters of behavioural / managerial / leadership training programmes
being offered at Corporate and OD/OC levels. These four clusters
address the development of behaviours associated with the different type
of work that people do / different types of roles that people play in the
organisation.

The description of each of the Basket of Excellence is as mentioned below:

(The words giving the crux / focus of each basket have been highlighted)

Individual Excellence: This Basket is a cluster of programmes

addressing the development of behaviours that are primarily required
for implementation of organizational and managerial policies,
procedures, systems and processes in an individual capacity.

Team Excellence: This Basket is a cluster of programmes addressing

the development of behaviours that are required for managing small
teams of employees / vendors / dealers, etc. and evaluating and
managing performance of team members / vendors / dealers, etc.

Operational Excellence: This Basket is a cluster of programmes

addressing the development of behaviours that are required for
managing issues and processes within and beyond their own
functional areas.

Strategic Excellence: This Basket is a cluster of programmes

addressing the development of behaviours that are required to create
strategy and drive execution of the same along with building and
sustaining organizational culture.

Excellence through Learning & Development Process:

Defining four different clusters of training programmes termed

as Baskets of Excellence: This is done in terms of addressing
the development of certain behaviours associated with each of
these baskets.

Assignment of the relevant Basket of Excellence to the

reportees by their Immediate Superiors (IS): The Immediate
Superior would be required to go through the details of behaviours
associated with each of the Basket of Excellence in his/her
Manager Self Service (MSS) login and assign the relevant basket to
his (M1A & above) reportees.

Ratification of assignment of Basket of Excellence by the

Next Superiors (NS): Once the IS assigns his/her employee to a
basket of excellence, the information flows through the system to
the NS who ratifies and confirm the same.

Selection of relevant programmes by reportees: Once the

Basket of Excellence assigned to a reportee by the IS is frozen,
the reportee is able to view the associated behaviours and select
training programmes being offered in that basket as per his/her
developmental needs.

Benefits of the initiative

Some of the most important benefits expected from this initiative are as listed
below:

Development of behaviors / qualities / mindsets aligned to the actual

work performed

Direct linkage and enhanced applicability of the content of training

programs to the work-place

Enhancement of performance at the work place

Increased efficiencies in processes, resulting in financial gain

Increased capacity to adopt new technologies and methods

Increased innovation in strategies and products

Increased job satisfaction and morale among employees

Increased employee motivation

Reduced employee turnover through better employee engagement

Process Flow in SAP:

The details of implementation of this initiative through SAP are explained
separately in a detailed user manual.

In Conclusion

Evolution of this initiative has been truly participative and has reflected in the
Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) held in L&T over the past few months for
contextualising the approach. Many L&Tites have contributed to finalisation of
the behaviours associated with each of the Baskets of Excellence and, in the
process, have also been instrumental in reinforcing the need for this
approach. Their value-adding inputs have helped progress and shape the
initiative. We hope to continue enriching and strengthening the process with
your continuous support and inputs.

Any inputs / queries on this approach would always be welcome. Kindly

contact any of our team members listed below to know more about the
initiative as also to give us your suggestions.

Contact details:
Durga Mulgaonkar (022) 67054012 email durga.mulgaonkar@larsentoubro.com
Gunjan Somaya (022) 67053942 email gunjan.somaya@larsentoubro.com
Shilpa Gandhare (022) 67051804 email shilpa.gandhare@larsentoubro.com

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