Pragmatic Dongling College

Corporate University, an imported product introduced to China by Motorola in 1993, is fascinating domestic companies. Since the establishment of Haier University in 1999, by the end of 2007, more than 200 corporate universities have been established in China. This means that the list of domestic corporate universities is growing at a rate of more than 20 new ones every year.

Although more and more domestic enterprises have begun to tailor the talents they need through the highest form of human resources training - corporate universities, according to research by professional institutions, among many domestic corporate universities, except for forty or fifty Except for the more active, the rest are all silent. Although this is related to the lack of resources and experience of Chinese enterprises, Wang Yue, an expert in professional research and system construction of corporate universities, believes that impetuous emotions such as pursuing short-term interests and comparing with each other are the fatal injuries of domestic corporate universities.

Li Yaping, Deputy Dean of Guangdong Dongling College, was deeply touched by this: "In a corporate university, only training based on corporate strategy is beneficial and effective. Impatient progress and emphasis on short-term investment returns will hinder the corporate university from fulfilling its The real mission." The Dongling Kaiqin Group, a subsidiary of Dongling College, is located in Shunde, an important manufacturing town in the Pearl River Delta. The group has more than 20,000 employees, and its main products are small western-style kitchen appliances. Among them, the electric kettles produced have ranked first in the world for several consecutive years, and have won the reputation of "the king of electric kettles in the world".

Dongling Academy has been established for four years. Although its measures in employee training are remarkable, it is still unknown to most people because of its low-key behavior. The college is located on the second floor of the staff canteen. There is only one library, one reading room and several training classrooms. Compared with the small bridges and flowing water of multinational corporations, universities, and campus buildings that combine Chinese and Western styles, Dongling College looks quite simple and unadorned. . In this regard, Wei Xiaobin, the training manager of Dongling College, is not embarrassed: "In China, manufacturing is not a lucrative industry, so we also strive to be pragmatic in the construction of the college, and accomplish big things with small investment." It also reflects the fact that Made in China is stubbornly surviving in the face of adversity.

Closely aligning with the company's strategy

Different from the hurried follow-up behavior of many domestic companies renaming their original training center as a corporate university, the establishment of Dongling College has been carefully considered and closely coordinated with the company's strategy.

Dongling Kaiqin Group started as an OEM. Although it has a great reputation in overseas markets and its customers include international distribution giants such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour, it still cannot escape the curse of China's manufacturing industry. At the same time of growth, up to 95% of the profits are captured by brand owners. In 2003, Dongling Kaiqin Group, unwilling to be content with the status quo, began to plan its own brand strategy and focus on expanding the domestic market. A year later, the Group fully introduced the Six Sigma project. Under this series of major measures, the talent gap was clearly exposed, and the training section originally set up in the Human Resources Department with only two or three people was somewhat overwhelmed. Finally, Dongling Academy was announced as a solution to this problem.

Dongling College is not an upgraded version of the training department, but is born out of the group's strategy and always serves the group's strategy. Whenever there is an adjustment of corporate strategy or strategy, Dongling College will plan corresponding training programs and training measures, and provide targeted training to relevant employees. For example: At present, Dongling Kaiqin Group is mulling a division system, which requires managers of all departments to be "all-rounders" and stand alone when necessary. The college has carried out a systematic review of the abilities of managers and supervisors of various departments, and is currently conducting financial training at the general manager level.

Although many trainings are "future-based and cannot achieve immediate results", there are still some data that directly prove that the training work of Dongling Academy is fruitful. For example, after the establishment of the academy, it has organized a large-scale safety management training, the content of which is as detailed as how to do safety inspections and how to hold safety meetings. The accident rate was reduced by ten percent that year.

“In the past, the focus of safety production was placed on safety inspection, and employees had no autonomy. After this systematic training, everyone realized that inspection work is not the most important thing, but the production personnel and management on site. Personnel, only the improvement of their safety awareness can ensure the safety of production." Li Yaping believes that the training has turned safety production into an active management system, and he is quite satisfied with the effect of this.

The reason why the academy cares so much about safety training is because the group is promoting a culture of quality management. This strategy not only imposes higher requirements on the employees in the production line, but also the senior management of all companies must pass the Six Sigma Black Belt exam of Dongling College to keep their positions. Li Yaping joked that this was a "barbaric" request, but it was necessary.

Compared with this "barbaric" requirement, Dongling Academy appears to be a little "freedom" in other aspects. For example, the college sends several senior executives of companies to accept the MBA program every year, but it does not stipulate that they must obtain a degree. "There are some 'MBA-like' courses - such as the MBA crash course - which actually contain all the content of MBA, so that students can really learn useful knowledge, even if they don't have a degree, it is worth it." Whether Ling College has the name of a corporate university. Wei Xiaobin is quite open-minded about this. "Even if you call it a training center, we are willing. The important thing is not the name, but whether it can really supply talents for the company at the strategic level." It is only a follower of the group's strategy, and cannot take the initiative to promote corporate changes like some well-known corporate universities. And this also reflects its down-to-earth style, not lofty. In the impetuous atmosphere of domestic corporate universities, this is particularly valuable.

Opening the channel for employee growth

The subject of corporate university training has always been a controversial issue. Some people think that the middle and senior managers of the enterprise are the original and purest training objects of the enterprise university. The corporate universities of multinational companies are also initially aimed at training potential senior managers. For example, when GE Croton Village was established, it positioned itself as "meeting the needs of potential company managers", and Motorola University also started with training middle and senior managers. The construction of the training system of Dongling College is from the most basic key positions to the team leader, then to the middle-level section chiefs, managers, and then to the high-level directors. On the first level, Dongling College pays more attention. Wei Xiaobin called it "the sinking of training objects".

This is because Dongling Kaiqin is mainly OEM, and this background determines that a large number of skilled workers are its most valuable wealth. Therefore, the course survey of Dongling College at the beginning of each year will be extended to the team leader and the leader level, and it is repeatedly emphasized that the training needs filled in by the team leader must first represent his team members.

Many companies understand the importance of grassroots employee training and have great ideas about it. However, the work on the production line is extremely heavy, and employees are basically put into production around the clock, and the training issue is naturally put on hold. In order to avoid this situation, Dongling Academy has made strict regulations, requiring each employee to guarantee two hours of training time per month. For grassroots employees, most of this time is spent on production skills and quality management. The grass-roots cadres, such as chiefs and team leaders, have to take part of the two hours to receive management training.

This training also tends to push ordinary employees to higher positions. The college has built a talent echelon platform for the group. Although the opportunity to enter the echelon is open to all employees, generally speaking, those employees who have a high degree of identification with the company and are conscientious and responsible for their work will be given priority to be nominated. For those on the list, Dongling College will also organize a selection test with the Human Resources Department. Only those who pass the exam can be included in the company's talent system and participate in training for higher positions. "Once the training is qualified, you can directly transfer to this position in the future." Wei Xiaobin believes that through the talent echelon training of various positions in Dongling College, the growth channel of employees has been opened up.

In Dongling Kaiqin Group, there are many employees who have been promoted to management positions through the training of the growth channel mechanism. The first time Fu Jianping entered Dongling College was to receive the quality management training organized by the college. At that time, he was just an ordinary quality management personnel, and his work task was to throw away substandard products on the production line from time to time. By participating in the systematic training of different levels of the talent echelon of Dongling College, he has grown from an ordinary quality control officer to a qualified engineer, and now he has been promoted to a middle-level management cadre, leading a team of more than a dozen people. His salary also went up, double what it was before.

"I have also participated in some courses organized by the company before, but they are all scattered, often 'headache, foot pain, foot pain'." Fu Jianping just explained the drawbacks of the company's training work before the establishment of Dongling College , this kind of emergency training is not beneficial to the growth of employees.

Now, in addition to setting up courses related to employee career planning, the college also organizes discussions on personal career issues to guide him to bring out his best side. Then, according to the personal wishes of employees and the needs of the company, the academy provides them with corresponding training. For key technical backbones, the college will also provide specialized career planning guidance. This not only optimizes the organization's human resource allocation structure, enabling employees to develop synchronously with the organization, but also improves employee satisfaction and reduces employee turnover. At the same time, this proactive development of the organization has also brought great benefits to employees. It allows employees to better understand themselves, develop their potential, help improve their professional skills and comprehensive abilities, and meet their personal belonging needs.

In Dongling Kaiqin, as long as employees go to participate in the training of Dongling College, they will receive strong support from the leaders. Fu Jianping attributed this to the company's good learning culture, while Li Yaping went deeper: "The training work of Dongling College has cultivated the company's learning atmosphere, which is very important to the company's development." This is similar to Peter Senge (Peter Senge) This management guru thinks: "To be competitive, a company not only needs to have the ability to learn, but also needs to learn continuously, continuously, and attentively."

Building a team of internal lecturers

As Dongling The vice president of the college, Li Yaping's other identity is a part-time lecturer of the college. Because of his love for human resources work, Li studied in the north and south in his early years. In addition, he has accumulated rich experience in the field of human resources with many years of experience as a company manager. The original intention of becoming a lecturer is to pass on these experiences to other students. This devout Christian is the monitor of the choir in the church. When he is standing on the podium, he is more like a preacher. He even shares the insights of life with the students. "If this little bit of knowledge I have can inspire my employees a little bit, so that they can avoid detours, I am very satisfied." Christian humility is reflected in him.

Different from Li Yaping, Xiao Wenjun of the Human Resources Department of Xinbao Electric Resource Support Center, the largest wholly-owned subsidiary of the Group, had his own "small abacus" when he became a lecturer. He did not set his goal on "preaching, teaching, and solving doubts", but wanted to use the opportunity of being a lecturer to exercise his language skills and communication skills. Li Yaping also believes that while teaching students, he is also growing. Because before teaching, lecturers must sort out and refine their knowledge, which is actually a second degree of learning. Now, Xiao Wenjun, who is already an old teacher of the college, speaks slowly and clearly, his thinking is very clear, and his status as a lecturer has greatly benefited him.

At Dongling College, there are about 50 lecturers like Li Yaping and Xiao Wenjun. In addition to self-registration and department recommendation, part of it comes from the "discovery" work of the college. Wei Xiaobin is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the entire academy. This serious young man sometimes turns into a "star scout" to discover potential "rising stars". If he finds that someone has the potential to become a lecturer during the usual training, he will suggest that this employee sign up, and then conduct intensive training for this part of the staff. Fu Jianping was chosen by Dongling College as a lecturer when he was still a quality management officer because of his good oral expression skills and mature professionalism.

Dongling College is very strict in the selection of lecturers. In addition to the requirements for education level, as well as the years of work in the industry and the major, they must pass the college's trial lectures. Xiao Wenjun still remembers the situation during the trial lecture: he was asked to perform an impromptu performance to prove his resilience and motivation.

"It's relatively stiff." This is Xiao Wenjun's comment on the trial lecture. Despite being quite frustrated with the effectiveness of his trial lectures, he was unexpectedly included in the reserve lecturer team as a "prospective lecturer". Wei Xiaobin's explanation for this is that his "professionalism has reached the requirements", and "skills can be trained". During his time as a "quasi lecturer", Xiao Wenjun received a lot of training in teaching skills, from grooming to various methods of teaching, and also obtained some quite valuable "practical exercises" opportunities. When Xiao Wenjun finally got the opportunity to "regularize", some "comrades" who had been trained with him had to accept the fact that they were eliminated because the teaching effect was still not good.

Lin Haiqing, the senior training specialist of the college, has a white baby face and is a little shy when he smiles, but when he is standing on the podium, he is not afraid at all in the face of students with higher positions than him. This is largely due to the teaching skills he received at the academy. For example, he speaks very fast when talking to people, but deliberately controls his rhythm when he lectures. In his class, two-way communication, case analysis, group discussion, simulation training and other forms are widely used. He believes that this is determined by the cognitive laws of adults: "My students are adults, they have their own knowledge background, life experience and experience, so I can't simply instill knowledge into them, but guide them Find out for yourself."

Lecturer motivation is always an issue for corporate universities. The lecturer team of Dongling College is also rolling. Those lecturers who are too busy to teach, or who are less and less motivated will gradually be eliminated, and fresh blood will be added.

Building a team of in-house trainers is not as easy as it sounds. Wei Xiaobin often gets advice from his colleagues, and his answer is always: "I suggest you don't build a team of internal trainers." This is of course a joke, but it is full of seriousness. Because he has a bold vision: "Our future direction is to make every supervisor and person in charge become an internal trainer. Let the entire company become a training organizational structure, and Dongling College is in this large training structure. It is responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the platform. This not only saves a lot of the cost of maintaining the internal trainer team, but also makes training work everywhere." In order to achieve this great goal, Dongling College is gradually increasing the number of management personnel of the group. Create your own courses.

Developing a series of course content

Jeanne C. Meister, a research expert at corporate universities in the United States, believes that "when individual students take a course, the whole work team turns to be a group of learners and helps The raw material of this learner group is no longer the case of Harvard Business School, but the operational problems faced by the team in their daily work."

During the first two years of its establishment, almost all of the funds and time of Dongling College were devoted to the curriculum. development. Conduct a systematic analysis of each position to obtain the capabilities required for the position, and then derive a list of courses, and then develop corresponding courses. Two years have passed, and Wei Xiaobin still remembers the "painful" process: "We not only have to compile the content and produce test questions, but also find a teacher who can teach this course. The most important thing is to make this textbook close to the company's. Practical and suitable for students to learn by themselves. This is a very high requirement, and the people involved in the development are busy, and many of them squeezed out time to develop." But Wei is gratified that every kick-off meeting for the revision of the training materials, there are The senior management of the company participated in person to show attention.

The work of Dongling College is first of all to analyze the ability of each position, and to build a framework for the entire curriculum system. The main body of curriculum development is professionals with considerable experience in the company, and the college plays a coordinating role in it. After the course is compiled, it will be summarized to the college for discussion and integration. So far, Dongling College has published six books, including "How to Be an Excellent Team Leader", "How to Be an Excellent Quality Control Officer", "How to Be an Excellent Injection Molding Foreman", etc. The college has always emphasized the concept of "sinking training to the bottom", first of all, to build appropriate training resources.

More teaching materials and books, including those suitable for middle management cadres, are also under preparation. The goal of the college is to have a standardized teaching material for each position, and the heads of various departments can train employees according to the teaching materials and some cases encountered in actual work. In this way, the training work can be distributed to various departments, and the lofty goal of "every manager is a trainer" can be realized.

The courses prepared by the college cannot cover the training needs of all employees. The college also encourages employees to learn by themselves. There are more than 10,000 books on display in the library of Dongling College, including classical masterpieces such as "Fengshen Bang" and "Official Affairs Xingji", as well as best-selling books such as "Chicken Soup for the Soul", but more are related to production. Contents, such as "On-site Management", "Lean Enterprise", "Excellent Merchandiser", etc. Books related to foreign languages also accounted for a considerable part. Although the collection of this library is not rich, for many employees, it is tantamount to a treasure trove of knowledge. Fu Jianping's job is product testing, and he often has to come into contact with some foreign technical standards, which requires quite high foreign language requirements. But the college did not organize foreign language training, and Fu Jianping became a frequent visitor to the library. Now, he can memorize various technical standards, and his English level has also improved a lot.

Cisco CEO John Chambers once predicted that "the third wave of Internet applications is e-learning". In the United States, 60% of enterprises have used the network to train employees, and the number of people learning through the network is increasing at a rate of 300% every year. In this wave of informatization, local corporate universities are also scrambling to introduce e-learning courses. There are many successful examples, such as the Flextronics Academy in Zhuhai. Employees can complete all courses on the Internet, and the system will automatically generate scores and submit them to the college and human resources department. Unqualified studies need to be "returned". This greatly reduces training costs and enables lifelong learning for employees.

Dongling College initially had such an idea, but after investigation, it was found that in Dongling College, e-learning should be delayed. Because the informatization construction of the group has not yet reached the level that can support e-learning, many staff in key positions at the grassroots level do not have their own computers. In addition, e-learning is more suitable for large companies with branches all over the country, and Dongling Kaiqin's branches are almost all located in the Leliu area of Shunde. "It is a waste of resources to use e-learning in such a recent situation."

Wei Xiaobin has another concern: many e-learning systems are basically just a fixed "menu". Even if a company orders one or two "dishes" from it, it is not necessarily very appetizing. Moreover, Dongling Kaiqin is an export-oriented enterprise, and the international market is changing, requiring enterprises to have the ability to respond quickly. Therefore, it is not possible to "learn empty theories without being practical in the company". The reason why Chuangweili Network Academy is very successful is that all its courses are developed by specialized companies, so they are quite targeted.

There were also e-learning suppliers who promised Wei Xiaobin that they could develop courses for Dongling Kaiqin in a targeted manner. But Wei Xiaobin didn't believe it. "Many suppliers only stay in the company for one or two months, and they cannot understand the actual situation at all. Every company has a lot of historical precipitation. Suppliers should not only see the present, but also the past and even the future. This It requires long-term cooperation, even three or five years."

Multi-layer evaluation of training effects

In the training field, when it comes to evaluation of training effects, it is inevitable to mention Kirkpatrick, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in the United States ( A four-level training evaluation model proposed by Donald Kirkpatrick in 1959. That is, the reaction layer, the learning layer, the behavior layer and the result layer. The evaluation of the training effect by Dongling College also revolves around these four aspects.

The response layer mainly investigates students' subjective evaluation of the courses they have learned. At this level, Dongling College has designed a set of questionnaires. The content of the survey includes the evaluation of teachers, the part that is most valuable to oneself, and the part that needs to be improved, and adjusts the curriculum according to the feedback results.

At the learning level, the academy needs to find out how well the students have mastered the knowledge through various channels. The students need to submit a report to the academy, explaining how the course is integrated with their own work, and also pass the academy's test and on-site quiz. Recently, the academy has also launched a points test. Students' labor discipline, experience reports, test results, attendance, etc. will all be quantified as credits. Students must complete a certain number of credits, just like students in school, as a basis for promotion.

At the behavioral level, the college requires students to "transfer training" and pass on the knowledge they have learned to their subordinates. Some students also use the knowledge they have learned to do "improvement projects" after class. For example, Fu Jianping has received training for some middle-level cadres. The course involves team building. The project he chooses after class is how to build an effective team. After the project had been in operation for a period of time, he submitted an evaluation report to the academy. After an examination by the academy, it was found that the mental outlook of its team members had been greatly improved, and their consciousness was unprecedentedly unified. This shows that its training effect can be fed back through behavioral changes, and the training is effective.

The fourth-level evaluation has always been a difficult point in the industry. Dongling College has also made some useful attempts in this regard: choose one or two production lines as pilots, introduce industrial engineering (IE) technology, supplemented by corresponding training in management, technology, and concepts, after a certain period, by The third party calculates the input and output of these production lines, and obtains the value of training and coaching in the entire production efficiency improvement process. 30%-40% increase in production efficiency, this result is very surprising. It also allowed the company to realize that the academy could bring measurable economic value to the company, and it also allowed the company to establish a strategy for implementing lean manufacturing and industrial engineering techniques in the coming years.

According to data, the average rate of return for corporate colleges among the Fortune 500 is 1:50. Motorola University, the originator of the corporate university, even claims that its input-output ratio is as high as 1:63, that is, for every $1 Motorola invests in corporate universities, it will bring the company a profit of $63. However, Li Yaping believes that in the early stage, it is difficult to quantify the training benefits of corporate universities, and it is more of a change of consciousness. He also clearly feels that it is easier to communicate with employees who have participated in the training, "because the training has unified thinking and language."

When the first domestic corporate university, Haier University, was established, it declared that it would become "the Harvard University of Chinese corporate circles". The ambition of Dongling College is not as lofty as that of Haier, but it is more in line with the company's reality. Li Yaping hopes that one day, when the resources of the college are integrated to a certain level and the team of internal trainers is built to a certain level, on the basis of meeting the needs of the company's internal training, all courses can be integrated and packaged for external enrollment and teaching. At present, Dongling Academy is also tentatively offering some fee-based courses for suppliers, such as Six Sigma training.

Such transformation is a trend of current corporate universities, and even Motorola University is brewing to become a strategic alliance of suppliers, customers and partners from internal to external. It seems that the pragmatic and ideal Dongling College is keeping pace with the times and moving forward all the way.