Susan Cherches has served as the Director of the Center for Management Development in the W. Frank Barton School of Business at Wichita State University since February of 1993. Since she became the Director, the CMD has grown substantially, won two international awards for innovations in programming and promotion, and successfully launched the innovative, award-winning Mini MBA Certificate program. Founded in 1968, the CMD is the largest training organization of its kind in Kansas with annual revenues in excess of $1 million. Each year CMD provides training for several thousand participants representing more than 300 organizations. CMD offers over 75 public seminars on topics ranging from leadership and management to customer service and training; certificate programs in Supervision, Human Resource Management, Marketing Management, and Finance; and customized on-site training.

Prior to her position with CMD, Cherches was on the faculty of the Management Department at WSU where she received the Educator Appreciation Award for outstanding achievement and student support from the WSU Chapter of Mortar Board. In addition, she served as faculty advisor to the Alpha Kappa Psi student business organization.

Ms. Cherches received her undergraduate degree in Microbiology from North Dakota State University and a Master of Science in Environmental Health from the University of Minnesota. She received her MBA from Wichita State University where she was the American Marketing Association Scholar of the Year.

Ms. Cherches has served on the Planning Committee of the National Conference on Management and Executive Development and is a frequent presenter at this national conference which is attended by representatives from top universities in the United States and Canada that offer continuing professional development training.

You can reach Susan at susan.cherches@wichita.edu with your questions and check back later in the week for updated answers.

Also, there are many helpful scenarios shown in this CMD website link - http://cmd.wichita.edu/dilemmas/

Q - How do I know if training is the answer to my employee's problem?
A - The goal of training is to change an employee's behavior. If an employee (or manager/supervisor) is having problems communicating with other employees, or an employee needs skills to work more effectively with customers, or if an employee needs skills to work better on a team, those are all behaviors that can be improved through training. What training usually cannot do is change an employee's attitude. One of the truisms we always remind managers is...you get what you hire. So, hiring the right person, then training them to improve on the skills they already have, is the best advice I can give you.

Q - How can I make the results of training more effective?
A - According to industry research, individuals who create an action plan to implement skills learned in training, AND execute their plan increase their productivity by an average of 86 percent as compared to 22 percent with training alone.  Before you send an employee to training, let them know that when they return you will ask them to write a brief action plan on how they plan to implement the skills they learned in training. Then you, as their supervisor/manager, need to continue to ask them how the new behaviors they learned are making them more effective, monitor their progress and coach them when they need guidance.

Q - How will I, as a manager, be able to measure the effect the training has had on the individual that has attended the training?
A - Creating objective measures of training effectiveness is much more difficult than creating measures for many of the other activities in our organizations. ROI from training is the most recent innovation in measuring training effectiveness. However, measuring ROI is expensive and time consuming, and controlling for other variables is extremely difficult. Some measures that may be more readily and easily available include turnover, number of grievances, number of customer complaints, etc. One of the best ways to monitor the effectiveness of training is to have an open, trusting relationship with your subordinate(s) where you can observe their actions on the job and see the results for yourself. One way to do that well is called MBWA...Management by Walking Around. Unfortunately, that is one thing most of us managers don't do enough.