Training and development for new and existing employees: Butteriss on human resources

 

Training and development are important for all businesses and are particularly critical for small organizations. Experienced, competent people contribute to both the productivity and profitability of the company. Remaining competitive depends in large measure on ensuring that your workforce is trained and up to date with ever-changing skills and knowledge, especially in today’s global economy, in which keeping up with new methods is so important. Despite the clear need to keep employees current, small organizations often show a reluctance to train. This can be due to cost or the desire not to have people away from their job for any length of time.

While training and development can be expensive—anywhere from $200 to $1,000 per day—it is still considered worthwhile in terms of achieving the long-term benefits of the company and the individual. Training expenses accrue not only from the actual cost of providing on- or off-the-job training, but also from loss of productivity while employees are away being trained. Nonetheless, it is still necessary to provide this training; otherwise, companies discover how easy it is to fall behind both in terms of competence and meeting customers’ needs.

There is another component to this reluctance, however. Many companies fear that if their employees are too well trained, they will move to another employer that pays more or offers other opportunities. In order to overcome this, some companies will train an employee so that he or she can be promoted to the next level within the organization and will want to stay with it.

Hiring experience or training

Are small businesses better off hiring experienced people or inexperienced ones who can train themselves? The sample of small business owners that I interviewed hired predominantly experienced people. Experienced people are preferred for three reasons:

1. They can be productive immediately because they have the required experience.
2. They add to the skills of the existing management team as well as the other employees.
3. They are less costly to the organization because training and development can be expensive.

In the dilemma over whether to hire trained or untrained people, successful small businesses go both ways, but there is a distinct leaning to the trained and experienced worker. They hire trained people for managerial and highly skilled positions, and allow room for hiring young and untrained workers in entry-level positions, although even there they often prefer already trained people.

InSecrets of Success from Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies, Rick Spence states that,“While many profit 100 entrepreneurs are happy hiring young and inexperienced people for production or entry-level positions, they take a different approach to filling their management needs. As their companies grow they know they need higher and higher levels of skills in operations, finance, marketing, and sales. Particularly tested is a young company’s commitment to promoting from within. But the smartest and most far-sighted of profit 100 entrepreneurs understand that the future of the company cannot be entrusted to amateurs, so they do their best to recruit high quality, professional help.”

Hiring Greenhorns
Some companies prefer to hire a mixture of experienced and less-experienced people. The reasoning behind this thinking is that greenhorns:

• are less expensive to hire
• can be trained in the particular techniques and style of the company
• can to be trained to the standards already in place

 

Training as an attraction and retention tool

If only it were as simple as hiring trained, experienced people whenever you can, and training only the new, inexperienced employees who come your way. The fact is that trained, experienced people still require and demand ongoing training. Many of them will not look at a company unless it includes training and education as a basic component of its culture and its employment offer. The provision of ongoing training and development is often a decisive feature in attracting and retaining many of today’s employees.

Many knowledge workers in the high-tech area will only join organizations in which they know they will be trained in the latest software applications or work in a highly developed and up-to-date technical environment. Others will only join a company that has a good reputation in its field because they know that they will learn specific skills and knowledge from the people in that company. In this way, knowledge workers ensure their employability in both the current organization and any others they might be interested in joining in the future. Keeping up to date often provides a guarantee of employability, so it is no surprise that the provision of training and development is such a key component in attracting people.

And there are many fields besides high-tech that require knowledge workers. The same principle always applies, particularly whenever a certain skill or function is in demand: good workers or job candidates are likely to look elsewhere if your company does not help them keep up with their field or advance to new skills.

Ongoing Training and Development
As soon as a person is hired into the firm, there is a need to begin training. Rapid changes in technology, products, and business applications make it necessary for small firms to devote time to the ongoing training and development of their staff. In other words, your company most likely will need employees whose skills are constantly upgraded because it will constantly have to adapt to new conditions and methods in order to meet new competitive challenges. Training is not only necessary to keep the skill of the creative person current; it also contributes to your company’s needs and goals.

Thus, training and development can be considered from two angles: the organization and the employee.

1. Organizational Requirements:What skills and knowledge does your organization require to keep it up to date and competitive?
2. Individual Training and Development Requirements:What are the skills and knowledge that the individual employee requires to develop and perform the job at the highest possible level?

Organizational Requirements
When thinking about their organizations’ training and development needs, small business entrepreneurs should consider how they can stay on the leading edge of the skills and knowledge required by their customers and by the business environment in general. It is even better if they can think ahead and be prepared for the ever-changing demands of the marketplace in the next few years.

This means getting back to the fundamental business plan in which you identified where you want to be and how you are positioning your company within the business areas in which you plan to excel. The next step is to define the skills required to meet current business needs and those required to achieve your future business plans.

Individual Training and Development Requirements
Assessing the training and development requirements of the individual needs to be done on an ongoing basis and is a key component of the formal performance review process. There we saw that the process’s key components are: determining the individual’s development needs and working out a plan to meet them.

This formal review and the follow-up ongoing discussions need to address:

• the level of competency required for the job and whether the individual employee has reached that level
• what the person wants to do over the coming year or so (choices might include: wanting to expand knowledge and become more proficient in his or her current job, wanting to work on special assignments or in different areas of the business)
• what the individual hopes to accomplish in terms of business results
• an assessment of the person’s current levels of competency and future requirements. This will reveal what gaps have to be filled to develop competencies to the required levels and allow the individual to meet future job requirements
• the development of a plan, mutually arranged between management and the employee, to acquire the competencies that are now seen to be needed for the present and the future. This means a concrete and detailed plan that covers the methods for development, together with the actions and schedules that will lead to the goals set

Once the training and development needs of both the organization and the individual have been determined through this process, it is time to think about how those needs are going to be filled.

Copyright© 1999 by Margaret Butteriss. All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley& Sons Canada, Inc.
http://www.amazon.ca/Help-Wanted-Complete-Resources-Entrepreneurs/dp/0471643882

 

References

Butteriss, M. (1999).Help Wanted: The Complete Guide to Human Resources for Canadian Entrepreneurs.Toronto: John Wiley& Sons. pp.159-166

Tags: retention, training