Is Training The Answer?
What to Do Before You Rush Into Organising Training
I remember a day some years ago, when I was the Training Manager in an office in Birmingham, when one of the Partners came up to me and said, " Alan, do you have any time next week? "
Of course, the answer in my head was, " It depends, what are you going to ask me to do? " but it didn't come out quite like that ( this was one of the Partners, after all ).
Anyway, he continued, " Our Assistants need a course on how to complete Tax Estimate forms, they're not doing it properly. "
Now, you don't need to know what Tax Estimate forms are ( believe me, you don't want to ). The point is, this is how lots of conversations start which lead to people running training courses. Someone ( who may be quite senior ) thinks they've spotted a training need and they go to someone ( who may be less senior ) and tell them to organise some training.
Now that I am self - employed, I am further down the chain. Someone goes to someone else and says, " We need some training " and that person may contact me and say, " We need some training. "
The problem is still the same, though - is training the answer?
In the situation I've described above, there hasn't been what you would call a thorough training needs analysis, it's just one person who has seen something they think is a problem and they assume that training is the solution. This is what a friend of mine calls " magic wand training ". Send them on a course and, the next day, everything will be fine.
If you're a Training Manager, HR Manager or someone in a similar position, I'm sure you have come across this.
But training is not the only solution. Of course, it depends on what is really causing the problem.
When the Partner asked me to run a course, I looked into it a bit further. I asked some of the Managers about the work the Assistants were doing. I asked some of the Assistants.
The problem was actually that some of the more experienced Assistants were out of the office at the time and newer ones, who were not really experienced enough to do the work, were having to fill in. They would, in fact, be getting some relevant training a few months later, when they had been around longer and it would be timely and make sense. Giving them one day's training now wouldn't solve the problem.
The answer was to work with the Managers to rearrange some of the work schedules and get some other people to cover this work temporarily until the usual Assistants were back. This was quite simple to do and achieved what was needed.
A lot of training is organised because someone decides that someone else isn't doing something well enough. They may not even have discussed this with those people. I get phone calls like this sometimes, " We need a course because our Managers aren't doing X ".
My first thought is usually, " Who has decided this and do the Managers know about it? "
It's partly a question of self - preservation. The last thing I want to do is walk into a room full of Managers who have been sent on a course they didn't want because someone thinks they're not doing something well enough!
But the real point is that, even if people are underperforming, lack of training may not be the reason. It could be due to:
- lack of resources
- the way things are organised
- management practices or attitudes
- low morale or lack of motivation
- lack of clarity about what they are expected to do
- lack of time
- understaffing
None of these things will necessarily be addressed by training.
Even where there is a need to develop skills or knowledge, this might be achieved by other means than a training course, such as individual coaching or mentoring, giving someone more experience at a task, sending someone on secondment to another department, distance learning or e-learning.
I may be talking myself out of work here, but the call for training is sometimes a knee - jerk reaction to a perceived problem which hasn't arisen from any real analysis of needs. There may be other solutions which are more appropriate and which would have more impact and, to be honest, as a consultant I would rather help you find out what the real needs are and see what the best approach would be than come in, run a course, take the money and disappear.
So, if someone comes along and says to you, " I think we need some training..." ask yourself whether that's really true.
( Of course, if you DO need some training, my number is 0121 249 1306 )
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