Better Learning Starts With Clearer Goals | Jackie Baxley of HRP Associates

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Jackie Baxley, Principal and Practice Leader for Environmental Health, Safety, and Sustainability at HRP Associates. Jackie has spent years helping HRP evolve from a more organic, apprenticeship-driven learning culture into a more intentional learning organization that thinks carefully about competency, capability, incentives, mentorship, and organizational performance. Her perspective is shaped by the realities of consulting work, where the product is ultimately the people themselves.One of the central ideas Jackie returns to throughout this conversation is that not every learning experience is trying to accomplish the same thing. Organizations often get into trouble when they fail to define the actual goal upfront. Is the goal simply communication? Awareness? Skills development? Demonstrated competency? Different goals require different approaches, different investments, and different ways of evaluating success.Jackie walks through the practical frameworks HRP uses to think more intentionally about learning design, including her “inverted pyramid” model of communication, awareness, training, and competency, as well as the EDGE framework: Educate, Demonstrate, Guide, and Evaluate. We explore why awareness is not the same thing as competency, why repetition matters, how HRP approaches skills validation and quality audits, and why some learning experiences work best asynchronously while others must remain in person.The conversation also explores the operational and economic realities of learning inside consulting firms. Jackie discusses how HRP has worked to remove the stigma around training and development by redesigning incentives, rethinking billability, and treating learning as a strategic investment rather than overhead. We also discuss HRP’s evolving employee lifecycle programs, their growing focus on soft skills and management development, and the challenge of building deeper organizational capability without turning learning into bureaucracy.If you lead an AEC firm, manage teams, oversee operations, or are thinking about how to scale expertise more intentionally inside your organization, this episode offers a thoughtful and highly practical conversation about designing learning around real outcomes. A conversation about clearer goals, stronger capability development, and building modern learning organizations that keep getting smarter, by design.GuestJackie Baxley, EHS&S Practice Leader, HRP AssociatesJackie Baxley, a professional engineer in several states, has over 28 years of experience as an environmental engineering and risk management consultant specializing in the areas of environmental health and safety (EHS) compliance and management systems. As the EHS&S Practice Leader for HRP Associates, Inc, her responsibilities include fostering operational performance to a project and management staff of engineers and scientist. Throughout her career, Jackie has developed a strong working knowledge of the principle federal and state EHS laws and regulations, the principals of management systems and the application of sustainable practices and policies. Jackie is well known as a compliance trainer and has developed training courses delivered in person and online. She has managed or performed hundreds of site EH&S audits for a multitude of clients. CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsEpisode ResourcesPeople & ExpertsKent Jonasen — CEO, Leadership Pipeline Institutehttps://www.leadershippipeline.comBooksThe Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company — Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, James NoelThe Specialist Pipeline: Career Development for Technical and Professional Specialists — Kent Jonasen, Stephen Drotter, Aigerim EdwardsChapters(00:00) Welcome and Episode Overview(02:49) Introduction to Jackie Baxley, HRP, and HIKE(10:16) Inverse Pyramid Framework: Communication, Awareness, Training, Competency(24:06) Building Skills with the EDGE Method(34:07) Reframing Training as a Strategic Investment: Time Tracking, Overtime, Stigma(43:54) Defining and Measuring Competencies(