What is Human Performance Improvement?
Human Performance Improvement (HPI) is a holistic approach to performance improvement that uses data from multiple factors that influence employee performance. When people think of improving the performance of employees, the first thing that generally comes to mind is training. This makes sense because most of L&D – learning and development – has been focused on training for decades. Not meeting sales goals? You need training. Can’t get all your tasks done in a day? Training will fix that.
Training is a positive part of a human performance improvement system, but not the only part. It works in conjunction with other interventions across 6 areas that have been found to influence employee performance. Human Performance Improvement analyzes every area to determine actionable items to improve performance and benefit the business.
What does this mean for my business?
Employee performance directly impacts the success of your business. Investing in performance improvement can increase worker retention, KPIs being met, customer retention, and profit. Rather than focus just on training the employee, building a comprehensive system throughout the entire business can increase the success of every initiative and provide a larger return on your investment.
Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model Overview
The “father” of HPI is considered to be Thomas F. Gilbert. He developed the Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model in 1996. Gilbert studied workplace performance extensively and identified six major factors that affect workplace performance and split them into two types: Environmental and Individual. The model has been adapted to be relevant for today’s needs by Harold Stolovitch and Erica Keeps in Training Ain’t Performance. Each factor is analyzed when developing a performance system to make the system as effective as possible (and so as beneficial to your business as possible).
Interventions are then designed to address pain points determined during the analysis. In most cases, a problem being noticed in the performance of a business’ employees will have multiple root causes from one or more of these categories and will have multiple possible interventions to address the root cause. Taking this multi angled response helps develop an effective system and increase ROI, making your training investment go farther for your business.
