How to Make Your Training Dollars Pay Off

By Norma Smith Davis, Senior Partner
 

"Most jobs in the nineties require skills not taught in today's schools: critical thinking, sophisticated interpersonal communications, and flexibility in the face of constant change."

We hear a lot about the fact that every organization needs to be a total learning organization in order to keep pace with today's rapidly changing knowledge base and business climate.

We hope you and your company are true believers in training your employees and in life-long learning for the entire organization. We hope that you have allocated 5-10% of your budget for training. We hope your strategic plan and goals include a plan to train your employees in those areas that will help them to serve your customers better. We hope that staff development is part of your organization's mission and vision statements.

However...

Even if all of these things are in place, training can be a waste of time and money if it is not reinforced by the organization. Here are some ways to insure that your training dollars are spent wisely and that the skills you wish to develop are actually transferred to the job.

Don't confuse training with good management practices.

Before you send that messy, disorganized, defensive employee who just missed another deadline off to training (or bring in a time management trainer for the whole department), ask yourself a few questions.

• Have I met with this employee and made my expectations about his/her disorganized behavior very clear?

• Have I set clear, concise, specific standards for how I want his/her work to look?

• Have I asked this employee what he/she needs in order to change the offending behavior and gain the skill to meet the standards?

Training may be one answer. But there are other choices such as regular coaching, setting up a mentor relationship, and making sure directions are given in the style that the employee best learns (auditory, visual, kinesthetic). It's even possible the disorganization is a symptom of a greater problem going on in this employee's life.

Separate systems problems from process problems.

There's an old adage in the consulting and training field to the effect that in some organizations or departments, doing training programs is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This refers to the fact that the department is doomed to fail, or at least to remain mired in stagnant waters, because the problem is not training related. The staff has the skill and the intelligence to do the job, but is saddled with a convoluted system, outdated equipment/technology, a physical space that doesn't work, or a supervisor/leader who insists on having things done "by the book" and the book is out of print! Once these system barriers are removed, the employees can operate effectively and efficiently.

Give training the respect it deserves.
If senior management believes that training is something only for the troops - that it's a way to "fix those people" - the training program will suffer from the beginning. To give training the respect it deserves means being actively involved in the training. Here are some ways senior management can help insure that the training dollars expended will result in improved performance.

• Get the best trainer(s) you can get. These can be internal or external, but they must know about adult learning theory as well as the subject matter.

• Secure the right training space. This often means being away from the office where employees can spread out and be free of interruptions.

• Attend the training. Senior management should go through the training themselves so they can coach and reinforce the training later. This is particularly true of all training that has to do with changed behavior, such as communications, effective meetings, customer service, supervisory or leadership skills, problem solving, etc.

• Be fully involved. Attend the kick-off or the first session of each class. Talk it up in advance. Let your direct reports know how important you think this training is. Be enthusiastic. Ask people in the hall how it is going, what they are getting out of it.

• Demonstrate your respect. Demonstrate how important training is by: insuring that people are not interrupted while in the sessions; building in follow-up activities; linking improved performance to the employee performance appraisal; checking out your staff's understanding by coaching and mentoring; and including training reminders in the agenda of future staff meetings.

• Make it practical. Many adult learners have little patience for theoretical training. Tie the learning objectives directly to the job situations your employees deal with on a daily basis.

• Set aside enough time. For training to be effective, people need time to practice, discuss, refine, and decide when and how to use it on the job.

Training is a major investment of time and money for most companies, yet it is vital to bottom line success. The fast-paced changes in the information age require greater skill with little turn around time. Most jobs in the nineties require skills not taught in today's schools: critical thinking, sophisticated interpersonal communications, and flexibility in the face of constant change. The benefits of having employees who can bring those skills to work for your organization make well-planned training expenditures very worthwhile.