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| Why Invest in Training During an Economical Downturn? By David Lumley, Director of Revolution Learning and Development.
Let me start by saying that it’s a tough question. Many businesses over the past six months have closed their doors whilst many others are trying their very best to weather the current downturn. It seems organisations are doing this in many ways, mass redundancies and slashing budgets left right and centre. Top of the list of budget cuts tend to be Training and Marketing. Its an easy decision to make. Thinking we’ll only deliver training when its needed, for example when new people join the organisation and lets cut everything else out. But, what is the impact on ‘cutting out the rest’? Maybe there’s a different way to think about this. During tough times, people who work in businesses will need very different tools to do the job that they are doing. This is especially true if cut backs are being made. The purpose of these cut backs is to save money, but what impact will they have on quality and the service that is delivered to the customer? If people are taken away from positions, lead times may become longer. If that work is given to others, people are going to reach burn out a lot quicker leading to higher sick rates. People will be scared to phone in sick if they are worn out so come to work leading to tired employees making mistakes. All of these things will be to the detriment of the business leading to loss of customers and ultimately loss of revenue. What other impacts could there be? Lets think about the benefits of training and why organisations invest in it in the first place. Training and development not only provides people with the skills necessary to do their jobs, but also demonstrates the employer’s commitment to developing and improving their staff. In fact, this in most cases is part of an employer’s proposition to employees, or is classed as a benefit. What if its something that has been promised but then is taken away. I guess it would be a similar feeling to an employer telling employees that they are no longer going to pay into their pension, all that could lead to reduced morale and motivation. OK, so lack of motivation won’t be enough to stop people coming to work or leaving. Lets be honest, hardly no one is going to give up their job with little prospects of a new one, but will this lack of motivation impact on their work? Probably a hard call to make. But, why still invest in training? Well, maybe cutting the training budget isn’t the right thing to do, but maybe investing in different types of training is. So for example, equipping the Management Team with new Leadership and Coaching skills to better support and motivate their teams. Helping the Management Team identify how processes can be cleaned up and made smoother without impacting on quality. How Leaders in teams can coach their own teams to be more productive. How can everyone in the organisation manage their time better and create more time to do other things. If you think about it there is so much you could do. The business could also look on the current climate as an opportunity. If we are being more careful about where we spend our money, then we will probably only spend it where we feel comfortable. This usually means returning to somewhere that we know provides good products and more importantly good service. Why doesn’t the business think about what they can do to ensure those customers who are still spending money spend it with them? Again, an investment in customer service training could be very advantageous to your organisation. Not only this, but similar thoughts around keeping existing clients and customers spring to mind to. Not only does the investment need to be made in the correct areas, but also the business will need to ensure that the learning is transferred back to the workplace. So many times I have seen a business invest in training but done nothing to ensure that the learning is utilised. Surely if this is the case, then the business was throwing money away to start with? Having clear personal development plans that back up the need for training are now essential. Businesses should be thinking about the direction they are now going in and chose training carefully – whether this be in house or looking for external providers. They should also be sure that they maximise the investment by offering the correct support to implement the learning after the learning event. Does this mean that Training Providers should re-think what they are offering? Probably yes. If businesses need to re-think about what training their staff need, then training providers should be trying to second guess that and offer what businesses need. I guess what I’m trying to say here is there needs to be a coherent approach to training and development during the downturn. Training Providers should be thinking ‘what can I do to support businesses and not having such a wide scope of products and services that makes it difficult for businesses to find what they are looking for. The Government seem to think that investing in training is a great idea. They are providing smaller businesses with funds through their Rescue Package for employers to invest in skills training. They are also providing training to the unemployed to re-train in new areas and gain new skills. But, what about existing employees? Surely businesses should be thinking about re-training, up-skilling and retaining their talent as this will help during the current difficult climate. So, maybe the question businesses should be asking themselves is not ‘how can I afford to invest in training?’ but ‘how can I afford not to invest in training?’ Not ‘ how do I stretch my budget to cover all of the areas that have been asked for?’ but ‘what investment will have the biggest impact?’ I would love to hear your comments about my thoughts on Trainer Portal. The article is here
David Director Revolution Learning and Development
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