What Drives Training Decisions?
We mentioned in Who’s Training You that most organizations do not have full time in-house trainers. And amongst those that have had, or do have trainers on their payrolls, there is a trend towards outsourcing training.
So if there’s no in-house training team, who or what is driving the training decisions within organizations? Is training introduced to address problems, as we discussed
in our Choosing Executive Training by Function or Dysfunction Series (Part 2, Part 3
and Part 4). Or is it chosen on the basis of apparent analysis? Could it be even more random that that? Corporate executives and managers admit that the training trends within their organizations sometimes seem more “flavour of the month” than pro-
active or corrective.
Here’s the scoop. Training is NOT considered a priority in most corporations.
The “big five” priorities in the corporate jungle are:
- Hitting revenue targets
- Increasing profitability
- Growing market share
- Keeping shareholders happy
- Staying ahead of the competition
Training doesn’t make that list. But it IS critical to the achievement of the “big five” list’s objectives. And it’s interesting to note that even a seasoned hunter would not attempt to go after a lion without the trackers and guide who have the training and equipment to support him in making a clean and humane kill. But would an American company wanting to penetrate an emerging market try to do so without a team trained in the special skills required to achieve that goal?
Could it be that organizations, even in this era of global and economic change, are overlooking the value of specific skills training? It could. In the average corporation, sales training gets 80% of the training dollars. Other training decisions are driven by time. Time? Yes!
Once every three or so years, “the powers that be” will realize that they haven’t implemented a broad scale training program for some time. So the budget will be made available for them to “do something.” After taking a cursory look at what’s “hot” in the training world, they will chose a few selections that they feel will create a tasty training menu. As training is an infrequent occurrence, the organization will see likely it as a “big deal” and add in other enticing elements, such as an opening keynote from the CEO on the how well the company is doing on achieving its vision. Heck, while everyone’s gathered together, they might also decide to give out some employee awards and spring for a celebratory dinner, since cost cutting measures eliminated corporate Christmas parties for the past 4 years.
Here’s the actual breakdown:
- Companies with less than 50 employees offer no formal training at all
- Companies with 200 - 500 employees send a few specific individuals off to training programs and requires them to deliver what they learned to other employees. This opportunistic approach is delivered on an “as available” basis. It may even be that what is presented as “training programs” is a calendar of in-house speakers who talk about their newest books or trends within the business environment or a specific market sector.
- Companies with 500 - 2000 employees (and forward thinking smaller companies) offer higher calibre training programs that are more logically structured, sequenced and frequent. Their trainers that have organizational development backgrounds and ASTD credentials. More thought goes into who gets what training.
- Companies with more than 2000 employees typically have well developed in-house training and may even boast a “corporate university.”
What do world’s most productive and profitable companies do? They have a different approach entirely. Read our article “The Best of the Best” to learn more. And if you have any other insights on what drives corporate training decision making, please add a comment.
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