Huge amounts of precious business capital are being wasted on training. Here are two reason you should stop paying for training immediately.
1. You haven’t planned for integration
Everyone who has ever been in a training environment will have been part of a discussion that begins with a participant saying, “This is very interesting but it is a waste of time. When we get back to work we won’t be able to implement any of this.”
Let’s Assume for a moment that this is often true. What was the business thinking when it chose to throw money at training that they weren’t ready to integrate? Why would you throw precious resources in terms of time and money into training people to do things that their line manager will resist?
This is a recipe for disaster. The legacy of your investment in training will be loss of productivity and lower levels of employee engagement. Money spent on time in the training room will amount to having paid to remove valuable resource from productive work. The legacy of your investment will be skyrocketing levels of frustration when, on returning from training, they find nobody values their new skills or insights.
If you haven’t planned for the integration of the training into the daily work of the business you are investing in guaranteed loss. Stop paying for training now and buy donuts (healthy options are available).
Before you invest any more money in training ask yourself these simple questions:
- What difference do I want this training to make in the business?
- What change am I putting in place with this training?
- How will I know the training has been successful?
- Is the training suitable to deliver these outcomes?
- Is the training provider bought in to delivering these outcomes?
2. Your managers lack the skills to enable integration
What do you expect from a manger or team leader whose direct reports have just returned from a training programme? If you can’t answer this question clearly and quickly stop paying for training now.
The manager or team leader is your key resource for ensuring a R.O.I. on your training budget. Here are three key questions you should ask before spending another penny on training.
- Has the manager/team leader bought into the business objective of the training?
- Have you given them permission/ space to invest time in enabling people to integrate their new skills/ knowledge/ insight?
- Have you equipped your managers/ team leaders with the skills they need to be enablers?
If the answer to any one of these questions is “no” then your balance sheet on training is already in loss.
Your training budget should deliver you a clear and positive return on investment. That return should be visible and measurable in terms of productivity and profitability. The claim that training is not about the bottom line but about employee engagement is a red herring. According to research conducted by Gallup* companies with engaged employees see measurable improvements in all the following areas:
- Absenteeism
- Staff turnover
- Safety incidents
- Quality incidents (defects)
- Customer metrics
- Productivity
- Profitability
Put simply, if your training were delivering on employee engagement then it would show on your bottom line. That leads to only one conclusion. If your training budget is not delivering a measurable R.O.I. then stop paying for training now. On the other hand, if you want to see growth and higher levels of employee engagement then before signing off on your next training spend make sure two things are in place:
- You have a plan to integrate the training into daily business practice.
- You have managers/ team leaders who understand the art of enabling.
Or just buy donuts.
Find out more about the art of enabling.
[* Gallup: 2012 Q12 Meta-Analysis Summary of Findings]