Training: What's the Point?
Dennis Gale, President-Performance by Design

Why should you bother to train your employees? How many times have your people attended a training sessions and nothing changed when they returned to work? How many times have your people attended the same training session two or three times? Then there's the issue of lost work time. This time can NOT be made up.

As if this weren't enough, there's the cost. Despite recession and the events of 9/11, ¹surveys indicate that organizations did not, on average, report any marked changes in their training investments and activities between 2000 and 2001. The bulk of any changes may yet appear in subsequent data, but projections for the future suggest that previous trends in training expenditures will continue in the near future. The spending picture is mixed. Training expenditures dropped from 2.0 percent of payroll in 2000 to 1.9 percent of payroll in 2001, which is a reversal of the upward trend found between 1999 and 2000 but still within the range of values exhibited in recent years. Training expenditures per eligible employee rose 8 percent to $761, but the share of eligible employees receiving training (78 percent) and their average hours (23.7) were both very close to last year's numbers.

These numbers might look good or they might be frightening depending on your organization's budget. Some organizations don't have a training budget at all and every penny spent is a penny taken from some other line item. For those organizations, these figures may cause sticker shock! With all this, it's no wonder some companies ask themselves "what's the point?"

First, there is only one valid reason for a company to provide training for its employees—to correct a skill deficiency or learn to do something they could not do without training. This differs considerably from traditional education. In traditional education, students were provided an opportunity to accumulate information. If information was accumulated, (as evidenced in a written exam) the educational experience was considered a success regardless of what the students did, or did not do with the information after class. In the business world, we need to see a "bang for the buck" or some type of justification. Without some justification, companies feel the money, time and energy spent on training was wasted. There are many ways to justify training. The first justification is the trainee has a new skill. That new skill may lead to:

• Becoming a better supervisor or manager
• Becoming a better operator
• Providing better customer service

A key aspect—the new skill is directly linked to and will affect the success of your company. In other words, it will affect the bottom line. The effect of the training may be reflected in:

• Increased profits
• Fewer accidents
• Reduced scrap
• Better working conditions
• Motivated employees

These effects will offset the net cost of training. Now the training cost can be seen as an investment and not as an expense.

There is one instance when training should be conducted with no current identified skill deficiency. This is the case of compliance training. The many types of compliance training include:

• OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration)
• NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
• EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

Many organizations consider compliance training a cost of doing business with no real gain. The only reason they conduct or provide the training is to avoid fines or lawsuits. Let's try a different perspective. Almost every instance of required training is based on a reaction and is the result of some past performance or skill deficiency. For instance, people have died because they did not understand the principles and procedures for handling hazardous materials, lockout or tag-out. Valuable employees have been lost because there was a lack of understanding and application of policies and laws regarding fair and equal treatment of all potential and current employees regardless of race, color, creed, gender or religious preference. These lost employees represent lost production and lost monies.

Growing technology, process changes and changing specifications are all part of doing business today. Companies, organizations and employees who are out of date will not be as productive as their progressive competitors will. Effective, skill-based training programs will increase employee effectiveness, efficiency and overall productivity. This will result in an increase in the flow of materials and put more "product" on the shipping dock on time and on budget. It will increase customer relations as customer concerns will be addressed quickly and accurately, saving time and money. Better-developed leaders will provide more guidance and development of their employees. Morale improves, retention improves and the overall work environment improves.

In the end—what's the point in providing training for your employees? Effective, skill based training will increase employee motivation; increase you employees efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. It will increase profits, decrease scrap and improve customer service. In short, training will improve your company and your organization. The only criteria are to ensure the training is:

• Skill Based
• Aligned with the organization in content and purpose.

How will your company's training programs measure up to these two criteria?

¹ American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) benchmarking survey, 2001

Dennis Gale, President-Performance by Design Consulting
As printed in the Bloomington-Normal Business Journal