¿Cuáles son las formas más efectivas de alinear los programas de capacitación con la cultura organizacional?

Defining the organisational culture of a company is not a straight-forward process, you need to invest time and have the expert advice of HR/Organisational Psychologists and consultants. Once the culture is defined, you need to design relevant training programmes that closely match those values and attributes that your org.culture is based on, in order to enhance its strenght in all levels across the organisation and also find gaps that currently exist and works towards closing these gaps through the relevant training courses. The training providers need to be informed in advance on the organisational culture of the company, how you want to enhance it further through these trainings and what the current gaps are that you want to close.

Aligning training programs with organizational culture is crucial for fostering a positive learning environment. Here are some effective strategies- 1-Build Critical Components of a Learning Culture into All the Offerings, for example, ensure management and leadership programs teach leaders - cultivate a growth mindset, create psychological safety, provide effective coaching, give and receive constructive feedback, and demonstrate qualities of emotional intelligence. 2-Align Your Systems and Processes to a Positive Culture of Learning- performance management process 3-Involve the Entire Organization-Leadership buy-in is essential. Leadership buy-in is essential, champion the learning culture.

Years ago I had the pleasure of participating in an organizational culture project. Our biggest challenge at that time was to identify our Culture, using climate research, focus groups and other tools, we identified that the team saw the company's culture in one way, senior leadership wanted another culture and the company's shareholders had other goals such as culture. So the first step we took at that time was to identify what organizational culture we really wanted, as an existing culture is not so easy to change. So, my advice as HRBP is, before starting any project related to culture, start by listening to your employees, your leadership and the C-level, thus getting to know your current culture and then designing the desired culture.

My experience says that correlated training programs must be customized to bridge the existing culture with the desired culture. So, any organization has to assess the core values, beliefs, and norms that guide their employees. Then, the next step is to ensure the employees get trained on the missing elements to resonate with the desired culture the management wishes for the corporation. The policies, rewards, and practices must be aligned with the future roadmap. This will have a positive impact on corporate performance and outcomes.

Training programs can go bust if they are not contextualised to the organization culture and its people. Many organizations invite trainers/ facilititators to conduct programs and don't give access to the stakeholders or the participants. When the pre work is robust and the organizational reality is considered in the design of a training program, it is far more impactful. So it is important that if you are getting external trainers to come in for the training, 1) they are given a detailed brief about the organization and the need for the training 2) they are allowed to understand the life and challenges of the participants 3)they are given access to business leaders to understand expectations.

Defining the desired culture of your organisation begins with your people. "Those who plan the battle rarely battle the plan." Engage them in defining a culture that takes deep root and lasts. But how? Identifying culture champions across levels and departments of the organisation will give everyone the chance to have a voice and buy in. Engagement throughout the organisation via culture champions can also help to align the desired culture with the vision, mission and values through ongoing dialogue. The culture champions model trumps top-down instruction in organisation culture change since it leverages collective wisdom. Empowering those culture champions is key to successful culture change. That is where expert help is priceless.

In my experience anchoring your training initiatives around the core values and mission of your organization will foster a sense of purpose and reinforces the importance of organizational culture. Establish a feedback loop to continuously assess the effectiveness of training in reinforcing cultural alignment.

When it comes to defining your desired culture, it all depends on where you want to take the organization. The organization is an aggregate of individuals. And individuals have emotions. So, in a nutshell, emotions drive individuals, and individuals drive organizations. Cultural champions are the catalysts at the mid-management levels. They have their ears on both sides of the organization - the junior staff and the top management. The top management can work closely with the mid-managers to define the desired culture.

Recent favorite example I heard of culture meets leadership development from a leadership development professional: Called "teaching at scale." 1) She based her approach on her company's existing culture of transparency. 2) She leverages this transparency to “collect mistakes” from leaders. Leaders reach out to her to share recent mistakes they made. 3) She chooses one mistake and builds a session around it. She selects one mistake based on frequency & relevance. Then, she prepares to facilitate. She weaves in relevant leadership skills. For example, she may present on “accountability.” 4) She then conducts a live post-mortem with all leaders. 5) She records the session to repurpose as course material.

There are countless strategies and models for designing training programs, but almost all of them focus on behavior modifications, not transformation. Behavior asks "What do I want people to do?" Transformation asks, "Who do people need to become?" If your program is not focused on growing people it will eventually fail, wasting time, money, and quality employees who start looking elsewhere, where they will be developed. I wish there was more space to expound, but one last thought. The gap between where people are currently and where you want them to be is often a leadership issue more than a training issue.

Designing an effective training program focuses on skill development and creating a supportive ecosystem for continuous learning. Tailored to individual and organisational goals, it should emphasize experiential learning and leadership involvement. Measurement of outcomes and adaptive learning should look at relevance and efficacy while fostering a culture that values growth and practical application of skills taught. Monitoring should look at the gap between current capabilities and desired outcomes, preventing waste of resources and talent attrition.

Human-centered training design is always the best IMO. Regardless of what you are doing, for a culture change I strongly encourage using adult transformative learning, which basically says that if you first let people explore how they feel about something, and why they think the way they do. Then, amazingly if you spend the time doing that, they will be several times more likely to accept/adopt a new perspective/process, compared to just coming in and showing them the new perspective/process cold.

Account for the fact that individuals have different learning styles and to align training accordingly. There are also essential components that are universal, such as with social learning. In my experience, these are best performed in small peer cohorts of 3-4 learners with discussion guides and, when warranted, a separate facilitator.

Strategically aligning training programs with desired culture is key to organizational success. We must hand-pick teachers who walk the talk when it comes to values. These facilitators will weave culture into engaging sessions. Choose trainers who create supportive spaces where people can comfortably develop new skills. Blend art and science in the training approach for optimal learner outcomes. The goal is integrated training that mirrors real work experiences. With the right teachers, standout methods, and coordination across initiatives, we build a high-performing organization. Learners gain more than practical expertise - they adopt new mindsets. By selecting trainers who reflect the culture the workforce is propelled forward as a team.

Training evaluation is at the heart of sustained success. It is the key to knowing how effective a program was, but also to future opportunity. Understanding the results of the training, not only immediately after delivery but also in the longer term, provides valuable information. 1. It points out strengths and weaknesses of the training, and hence areas for improvement. 2. Transparency about evaluation results demonstrates good ethics and gives the client an indication of ROI. 3. Evaluation can provide statistics and testimonial quotes demonstrating the value of your work. Bonus: Sharing results with clients builds the relationship and trust, opening up future training and referral opportunities. Evaluating training has value.

Any work we do in the organization should have an evaluation component—especially when it comes to training. Without proper evaluation, it’s impossible to know if the training is having the desired effect. I like the tools mentioned above but also it can be as simple as having periodic check-ins with those that are participating in the training. Center the check-ins around learning more about the staff’s needs and wants during the training process. Ask them what is their perception of the training process and if they feel as though each meeting/module/workshop has been beneficial and a good use of their time. Training new staff and building a proper foundation of knowledge is essential to employee success and retention.

Often, organisations stumble at this hurdle as they view training as a one-off event rather than an ongoing experience and journey toward ensuring sustained change beyond the "classroom". Changing culture, which is essentially changing behaviour and practises, takes time and even longer to make it stick. It requires continuous reinforcement as well as changing the organisational system so that the desired culture can be realised. Look at leadership role-modelling, the ongoing communication and messaging that reinforces the desired culture, the policies, procedures, structures, and incentives that encourage the desired behaviour and decision-making.

Avoid the hit-and-run training trap! Far too many internal and external programs lose their impact because they fail to sustain and follow up on training programs. This is an amateurish mistake that diminishes the return on investment, not only of financial costs but time and human energy. If you have evaluated your training programs, you will have plenty of data to guide follow-up initiatives. These can include training, but also more agile small-group sessions, individual coaching and links to performance reviews. Sustaining and following up on your training can multiply the results over time. It means targeted, needs-based, data-driven training that builds cohesion and a culture of continuous improvement. Don't miss this trick.

Training programs are only as effective as their leadership is willing to make them. That's to say that if you're running a training program for mid-level leaders, expecting a change in behaviour and culture, the change needs to be reflected throughout the organization and senior leaders should also demonstrate the same behaviours. The most successful programs in my experience, are those where senior leaders are bought in (and even better, when they have gone through the course themselves) to know what is being discussed, to adopt the concepts and vocabulary themselves and to lead by example.

A training program can not change culture on its own. So an effective training program either aligns with existing culture or is part of a leader-led integral program to change culture. Initiatives to change culture through training alone tend to fizzle out and not deliver the required results.

What is the culture? Do employees understand and know what is the culture. Because culture can be rather fluid. Culture begins with the leaders. Do they reflect the culture, in leading? Personally, leaders are the ones who should be trained firstly on organisational culture, which will be transmitted from the way they carry their leadership style. From this, employees will follow, and if they don't, then, there are flaws in the leaders and how they reflect the culture. This is a simple training, compared to having specified training. Of course, there is much room for improvement, and that's when training comes into the picture? How about training in one? Leaders and employees together? This will be fun for testing leaders culture.

I have good experiences with (tooling to support) interviewing multiple people throughout the organization and then analyzing language used to inform about current culture, adjust learning targets & formats.

Training the new employee after hiring involves investment in terms of money and time. IF the employee proves to be not fitting in the culture of organization, both employee and organization will be at lose. It is therefore imperative that right hiring process be developed which will help in filtering the employees who are most likely to get aligned with organization culture. This will further help in future because as employee is fitting in the culture, then he or she will be able to absorb the training readily and start contributing at faster rate

In my humble observation, many companies have systemic gaps, particularly in areas of development and skill-building to support well-being needs. For example, workplace burnout is rampant, including among executives. The business case for these programs couldn’t be stronger and yet most companies, at best, are box-checking and scratching the surface rather than getting to the root of this problem. Employees must know their companies care by putting their actions where their interests lie. In this example with burnout, there are also likely adjustments to be made systematically to reduce stress on individuals while maintaining or, more likely, improving work productivity.