When it gets down to training your staff you can waste a lot of money if your don’t think it through carefully. More than once I would overhear my staff complaining over the time consumed in training whcih took them away from their day to day tasks. Often they would come out of a training session questioning the purpose, quietly ridiculing – even despising – the program. (I know this because even as the manager, I was well wired in to the sub-cultures). No matter how good the intentions of the management and HR strategy, staff will judge it harshly. If the training helps them get through their job more effectively they’ll participate with enthusiasm. If isn’t meaningful in the context of day to day activities then it could be doing more harm than good to productivity.
At one company I was working with not long ago, they were sending all the staff through a training program to improve teamwork and cooperation. Some nutter manager had convinced the CEO that this was going to add value and everyone was being force fed through the arduous four hour program. Though it was supposed to be exciting and invigorating you couldn’t help notice the constant reference to watches as participants tried to hurry the time passing and get back to their customers. Whats more, when we surveyed the staff, their real concern was the absence of a quality induction program. They thought their teams were working fine.
There is an opportunity cost to training. If you take staff out of their job to train them, that’s time they could be doing something else – their work or some other type of training or productive activity. With any training strategy, you should ask the question – is this time and money that could be better spent on some other activity? Only proceed if the answer is no.
There are a a number of types of training. ‘Hard skills’ training focuses on skills which are required to conduct specific tasks required to do the job. Hard skills are the basic building blocks of productivity. One class of hard skills concern technical knowledge about the job – computer programming knowledge, engineering skills etc.. Most often you hire staff on the basis of their the hard skills unless they have been promoted to a new position or are trainees where they may need some training. The second class of hard skills concern those required to operate within the company – administrative processes and procedures etc.. Everyone needs to be trained in these – preferably through an induction program at the time they start with a company. At times you need to conduct training to implement new procedures, but only for those who are impacted by them. Also, refresher courses may be necessary, especially for procedures which have legal consequences ( eg. health and safety, privacy etc.).
‘Soft skills’ training concerns training which impacts on the behaviour and beliefs of staff to effect culture and attitudes. Soft skills training involves areas such as teamwork, leadership, customer service, and problem solving which can have a critical impact on performance and productivity. But beware – it can go awfully wrong and as I suggested earlier – if conducted poorly or innapropriately, can be more detrimental than positive. Again a critical condition for success is wether there is staff perceive a need for the training and whether they believe that the training will add value (solve a perceived problem). To find this out you need to ask them – through a survey or focus group perhaps.
Generally it needs to be consultative and participative ensuring that as far as possible it addresses the issues percieved by all staff. Reaching a shared understanding about the nature of the problem or goal and what everyone can do about it is a pre-condition to action. In most cases its not about a top-down command or instruction (which merely precipitates inaudible mutters and anguish).
In some instances, soft skills are better disseminated through examplary behaviour by those in leadership positions. For example, by encouraging participation and consultation in meetings , or informally through modelling behaviour or reiforcement by the manager. In this case formal training must be directed at the manager responsible for the culture and behaviour of their staff.
Training is an important component for a productive company but you should think carefully about what your trying to achieve. The aim is to improve performance but its easy to miss the mark with the wrong strategy.
