As the word itself suggests, ‘diagnostic’ or ‘diagnosis’ in medical terminology forms an important part of identifying an ailment before finding a cure. In the broader workplace application of the word it is a process of diagnosing shortcomings in businesses and worker acumen before initiating corrective measures to improve on organization performance, growth and development.
Striving for perfection
In any organization, the performance of the workforce is all that matters the most. Nothing or for that matter nobody is perfect. Not all organization performances lead to improved working of employees. But one has to keep striving for perfection. That is the aim of every organization and the secret of their business success.
Persistent efforts to improve
Success comes through persistent efforts. Without an effective diagnostic strategy all efforts at excellence may come a cropper. Forget about improving your workforce performance. Diagnostic strategies help reach training or learning goals more effectively by making continuous improvements in performance.
Diagnosing through e-Learning
Amid a Covid-19 hit workplace ecosystem with real time classroom learning a mostly ‘No, No’ thing, online learning or e-learning has turned out to be a great way of diagnosing and improving on performance. A tailor-made e-Learning process helps achieve better results by way of offering targeted personalized learning experiences with the help of existing assets and activities. Gathering and analyzing data helps improve performance.
Diagnosis through data
Data, in fact, gives Learning and Development in-charge in organisations insight into the working of assets and activities. More significantly, it enables them to diagnose whether a particular learning process or training is in sync with the business goals. An effective diagnostic strategy enables organizations to assess development of workers’ knowledge and behaviour at workplace on-job conditions.
Strategies to target shortcomings
Importance of diagnostic strategies is further underlined by its long term commercial ramifications. The performance data collected over a period of time adds value to learning experience. This in turn adds to the company bottom-line. This data can also be effectively used to target areas of expertise or learning in which an employee is found to be lacking.
Useful insights
For the learning and development team heads and mentors, diagnostics provide useful insights into the areas in which employees may find it difficult to manage or perform his or her responsibilities while on the job. It can also provide data that give insight into the usefulness of certain training assets. This in turn will help organizations redesign those assets to enhance the learning experience of new appointees.
Impact of learning on businesses
Diagnostic provides data on the impact of learning on various business parameters such as leadership, bottom-line and time. It also point to a link between Return on Investment [ROI] on learning and improvement in Key Performance Indicator [KPI], thus making a strong ground for the need for training.
Dealing with diagnostic information
Diagnostic data can sometimes be very massive- may appear like a bundle of confusion. This necessitates that there should be some framework in place to gather data and come to conclusion. How then one can deal with such voluminous diagnostic information? This can be achieved:
· By setting standard performance yardsticks on how top-notch organizations should go about their business.
· By setting standard performance yardsticks on quality of targeted outcomes
· By setting standard performance yardsticks on practices within organisations
· By setting standard performance yardsticks on integrating practices within organisations
· By setting standard performance yardsticks on best practices in organization
· By gathering data for comparing present performance against suggested standard performance
· By gathering data for comparing present performance against preferred performance for improving overall working of organization
Long term good of organisation
To sum up, firming up an effective diagnostic strategy is helpful in identifying lacunae in workforce learning and organization management and find appropriate solutions to deal with the problem, an essential part of improving performance. Diagnostic strategies are part of a continuous process of improvement that is good for the long-term health of organization and its workforce.