Human Performance Technology

Much of the world of industry and education is in the business of doing. Getting employees and students to perform is not always easy. Although instructional technology and human performance technology may both look to training as a way of improving performance the latter also takes a larger view. HPT understands that the lack of skills and knowledge is only one cause of the lack of performance. However, they also see six others including incentives, tools, physical environment, and organizational systems. Although many companies will first try to implement training as a cure of poor performance it is not always the best solution. Training can be extremely expensive to do and in many cases is ineffective because the lack of skills or knowledge was not the root of the problem. It may be the equipment is faulty or the temperature is too high both of which are much less expensive to fix. As a result the solutions that a HPT is willing to consider will include just about anything. They do however look at the cost and benefit of a solution. If it is not cost efficient they will not do it.

One thing HPT examines that really caught my attention is incentives. It reminded me of something that I read years ago. It described a daycare in Tel Aviv that tried to stop parents from picking up their kids late by fining them $3.00 every time they did. What they found was that instead of late pickups declining they went up. This was the case because by paying the fine they were removing the moral incentive to do the right thing. This just shows how complex human behavior can be and how difficult the job of HPT can be but it can have dramatic improvements in productivity is implemented correctly.

I also thought of cash for grades programs and I wounder what a human performance technologist would say about the program.