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STOP WASTING THOSE TRAINING DOLLARS!

Todd Dewett, Ph.D.

The wonderful world of training.  Work-life balance, conflict, group dynamics, leadership, communication skills, diversity, software applications training, advanced technical training in every imaginable functional area and even in a few that don’t exist!  Two grand per head and you’re in.  But what do you have when you’re done other than the bill?  Not as much as you should have in my opinion.  Most of you would probably agree, so why do we do all of this training?  The most basic reason is that managers have hope.  They believe that sending a few people away to hang out with strangers for a day or two somehow changes them in a meaningful way.  Fast forward six months, not much has changed, but they fall prey to the same thinking again and again.  Another few grand down the drain.

Another reason managers send people to training is because there are policies, or at least pressures, to provide every employee with so many hours of training or educational credits per year.  If they are formal, they are often bad policies.  Great for the consultants, bad for the firm.  But managers feel pressed to do it out of the fear of having their training budget cut.  Budgets are like muscles – use them or lose them.  Once we get a dollar we sure as hell don’t want to give it back even if it means sending folks to a basket weaving class they don’t need.  In addition, we send people to training out of the need to keep up with the Joneses in the face of new trends and fashionable ideas.  Thus we send our people to learn about the latest guru’s ideas or even to throw fish back and forth for crying out loud (a huge fad a few years back believe it or not).  Typically, our training dollars are wasted.

Good training involves the right people at the right time getting the right content from the right source combined with a meaningful opportunity to use the training once back at work.  I promise you that understanding this one sentence will help you get more value out of your training budget immediately.

The right people at the right time

The right people include employees with skill deficiencies or employees who would benefit from gaining new skills.  Not simply the employee who is next in the rotation to attend some inane class that everyone else has already taken.  Many times we give people training they don’t need.  Say, let’s give a paper pushing clerk in Accounts Payable training in conflict management.  Why?  He never interacts with anyone!  Let’s promise leadership training to every high potential new hire!  But why?  They aren’t leaders, not for years to come!  Ideally, people are to be trained on skills they need when they need them.  Not when it’s their turn, not when the next class rolls around, but when they need them.

The right content

There is no shortage of energetic people out there attempting to sell training.  There is a distinct shortage of qualified people selling good training – particularly on the soft-side skills.  Ideally, your vendor will have a clear statement of their expertise.  This might include a founder or team with interesting and appropriate advanced degrees.  This might include a track record with well known and satisfied clients.  Who knows – but if they simply assert they are “experts” or are “the best” and / or their sample materials are no better than simple MS Word creations – run for the hills.   Next issue, format – is it all just lecture?  All but the very greatest speakers will lose an audience after a few minutes if it’s straight lecture.  Make sure your vendor relies heavily on active learning whenever appropriate.   Active learning through activities and exercises is not only more fun for the learner, but actually works better in terms of embedding learning in the learner’s brain.

The right source

This refers to who is actually delivering the content.  In terms of not wasting dollars you want good content that is delivered effectively.  Finding someone capable of good delivery is often more difficult than finding good content.  The ins and outs of SarBox or EEO laws, project management, conflict management, motivating employees, you name it – these are “knowns.”  Finding good information usually isn’t the hard part.  Finding good delivery is.  A poor trainer, teacher, facilitator, or instructor can take the world’s best content and make it about as much fun as scrubbing the bathtub.  Conversely, a world-class instructor can take mediocre content and make it feel like pure divine genius.  A great instructor is:  an expert in the targeted area, an above average speaker, respected, and skilled in group facilitation.  Internal versus external trainer is not as important as ensuring he or she has these characteristics.  Choose wisely.

Transfer of learning

Even if you have done all of the above correctly, it’s still not guaranteed that you’re getting real value for your dollar unless what was learned is applied back in cubeland.  Two big challenges here.  The first is that we sometimes train people, for all of the aforementioned reasons, in areas they don’t need or at least don’t need very much right now.  The second is that you got the right people and content but there is a big time lapse between training and application.  You sent William to training on SAP since the class was open but you won’t implement the system for another nine months.  William won’t remember much, sorry.  The time lapse had better be no more than a few days, a couple weeks at the outside.  If you don’t think the person will be able to quickly apply what it is they are to be trained to do, don’t send them.

Here is a challenging assertion.  Right now, you’re wasting 50%-80% of your training dollars.  Now go back to your office and think about whether you’re consistently and effectively getting the right people at the right time the right content from the right source with solid transfer of learning.  Find the weakest link in that chain and you have identified the very place to begin improving your training efforts.