Managing multiple forms of strategic training fit through the Balanced Scorecard

Although the literature recognizes training as an essential driver of organizational effectiveness, little is still known about how to explicitly focus and align training to organizational strategic priorities. This note proposes a model that bridges the strategic human resource management (SHRM) literature and the balanced scorecard (BSC) literature – which is one of the most widely recognized strategic performance evaluation approaches intended to foster organizational alignment by translating the firm’s strategy into a multidimensional set of financial and non-financial measures. After having briefly discussed the main differences between the return on investment (ROI) model, which represents one of the major attempt to make training strategic within the existing evaluation research, and the BSC model applied to training management, this note highlights multiple forms of strategic training fit and suggests how to manage training through various scenarios of BSC development. Specifically, the note illustrates four forms of strategic fit – the vertical fit, the horizontal inter-functional fit, the horizontal intra-functional fit, and the human capital readiness – and discusses their pursuit in terms of six scenarios of training management through the BSC. The note expands some exploratory empirical evidence on the feasibility and usefulness of training scorecards (i.e., the application of the BSC to training) in order to develop some theoretical insights and practical guidance on how they can be leveraged to foster the strategic alignment of training.