Seneca College

Human Performance Improvement

Recognition of Achievement

Prepare for a change of focus in human resources development, management practices and job training - a shift to performance solutions that last the lifetime of the job, not just the employment term of the individual. Of all the factors that affect individual performance, 75% are environmental.

Of all the performance improvement options, training is the most frequently and inappropriately used resort. It is also among the most expensive, and without performance support in the workplace, is a highly perishable investment.

The number one workplace complaint, flagged by 94% of employees surveyed, is poor systems and processes. By contrast, training and professional development solutions address skill and knowledge gaps almost exclusively. Even high-quality training is subject to rapid deterioration of the expected job behaviours soon after the intervention is implemented. At its simplest level, Human Performance Improvement is about turning training programs into the blended solutions of strategic performance systems.

What is HPI?

Human Performance Improvement (HPI) or Human Performance Technology (HPT) is a discipline is based on a systemic approach to identifying and designing the appropriate work, worker and workplace interventions that go beyond correcting individual knowledge or skill gaps. A systemic approach to all factors enhancing or compromising human performance, HPI anticipates positive outcomes at the individual, departmental, and organizational levels.

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Who needs HPI skills?

Leaders and change agents know that success in the competency-based organization depends on getting the right support to the right people, at the right time, in the right format. Progressive staff in learning and development departments measure their success by the performance problems solved, not the number of instructional programs delivered. Systematic approaches to HR demand integration across organizational lines of the standards, processes and measurements used to select, support and evaluate employees. Progressive management links professional development and training to the business strategy, and adjusts to the different needs of those doing prefigured and configured work. The core capabilities promoted by our programs are instrumental to performance or OD consultants supporting their clients in becoming competency-based organizations.

Instructors

The curriculum is designed and taught by seasoned, practicing consultants with teaching experience, and a minimum of 20 years experience in a variety of corporate, governmental, institutional and business contexts.

Penelope Colville MA

HPI 101 Performance Challenges in the Workplace
HPI 102 Content-Mapping for Competency-based Organizations

Penelope Colville has been a practicing human performance specialist for 18 years, was a Charter Member of the Montreal Chapter of the International Society for Performance Improvement (1988), and served on the Executive of the Toronto Chapter (1989). She studied Human Performance Technology formally in her Master of Arts in Educational Technology program at Concordia University, and kept her practice current with professional development from such HPT leaders as Peter Dean, Harold Stolovitch and Bill Coscarelli. She is the principle architect of the Human Performance Improvement curriculum for Seneca and Fanshawe Colleges.

Penelope studied management cybernetics with systems guru Stafford Beer, and worked with his Toronto office (1989). HPI 101 is largely devoted to what the HPT field calls "front end analysis", which is a key part of a systems approach to organizational and HR development. Her commitment to leading edge practice in instructional design was fostered in project work with educational cybernetician Gordon Pask (1986-1987). This introduced her to systemic models of learning that have enhanced her approaches to interactive and adaptive learning system design.

Clients/Employers. Her clients and employers have included government (BC ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Transportation, Skills, Training and Labour), Crown corporations (Ontario Training Corporation), telecommunications (Nortel Networks), transportation (Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railways), IT (Digital Equipment), manufacturing, colleges and universities (Calgary, Memorial), specialized and larger consulting firms (PriceWaterhouse Coopers) and e-learning houses in Montreal and Newfoundland.

Allenna Leonard PhD

Risk Assessment for the Competency-based Organization is this year's HPI 104 Hot Skill and Special Topic, designed and taught by Dr. Leonard, President of the American Society for Cybernetics (ASC), and an international lecturer and management consultant whose work in governance has taken her to three continents during her 25-year practice.

Dr. Leonard worked with the late Stafford Beer, who introduced management cybernetics to Canada. She assisted the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, producing publications on applying Beer's Viable System Model to accounting and improving audit enquiry practices.

She also contributed to other CICA initiatives including their "Seven Models of Risk". HPI 104 introduces the seven models of risk focused on organizational competence and human capital development.

Clients/Employers. Dr. Leonard has lectured, consulted and facilitated for clients in the non-profit, government and business sectors. She has taught a variety of courses relating to the improvement of management in organizations in several Schools at York University, at the University of Toronto, St. Gallen University in Switzerland, the Universidad Central de Venezuela and Howard County Community College in the USA and co-supervised post-graduate research in the University of Sunderland and Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. She has engaged in research and facilitation of group processes for Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, the University of Maryland and Los Andes University in Bogota Colombia. As a licensee of Team Syntegrity, she has facilitated groups in Canada, the USA, the UK, Switzerland, Colombia and South Africa. Her consultancy clients include the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the United Nations Development Programme in Uruguay, the Disability Federation of Ireland and the Hershey Medical Centre in Pennsylvania.

Connie Karlsson and Atena Bishka, Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group

HPI 103 Evaluating Performance Improvement in the Workplace

Connie Karlsson

Connie Karlsson steers Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Groups's Corporate instructional design, measurement and evaluation strategies, expanding her role in 2004 from a focus on measurement and evaluation only for the banking giant. Connie brings eight years measurement and evaluation experience to the job and offers much startling empirical data on the use of training versus human performance improvement interventions. Connie was nominated to both the ASTD and CSTD ROI Networks' Advisory Committees for her work in the field of measurement and evaluation.

Connie co-authored "Implementing ROI: Creating a Strategic Framework to Link Training to Business Results," for the In Action Series Implementing Evaluation Systems and Processes, 1998. She is a member of the ASTD and CSTD's ROI Advisory Committees, Treasurer Peel/Halton CSTD Chapter and an ISPI member. Connie received her Training and Development Certificate, Ryerson University, 1995, Courseware Design and Production Certificate, Sheridan College1990, and Applied Social Research Diploma, Sheridan College, 1989.

Clients/Employers. Connie has worked with TDBFG for 11 years with a previous primary role in instructional design for new technologies. Prior to working with TDBFG Connie worked for an educational software house as an instructional designer.

Atena Bishka

Connie's teaching and design partner Atena Bishka earned her Master of Business Administration (1997) and Master of Instructional Design (2000) from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois/USA.

Atena has led major projects featuring the design of criterion referenced tests to measure mastery of learning, construction of evaluation instruments integrating all or several of the Kirkpatrick's levels of evaluation to effectively measure business, performance and learning objectives of training programs; conduct of evaluation and reports to determine learning effectiveness through analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected from learning participants; evaluation of instructional quality of print based and e-learning materials based on industry-approved standards; and research to identify best practices and benchmarks.

Clients/Employers. They include TD Bank Financial Group, Marsh Canada Limited, CIBC Retail University, Amicus Financial, Mayne Logistics Loomis, Inc., TVOntario; Ryerson Polytechnic University (Canada); Southern Illinois University (USA), Dunn-Richmond Economic Development Center (USA), Nutrition Headquarters, (USA).