The Training Dilemma

By Josué Fernández | President and Lead Consultant, Martlet LLC

         
To understand how to effectively engage stakeholders in workplace
training let’s explore, “Why is workplace training needed?” This question
poses an interesting issue. The answer: workplace training is needed
because schools do not produce graduates that can perform all the tasks
that are required of most jobs.
Generally speaking, schools provide education in broad strokes that cover
abstract principles and they leave the specific training on the application of
those principles to the end users, i.e., employers. Therefore, employees will
always need some amount of training before they become fully proficient at
their jobs. There are very few exceptions to this rule.
One example that comes close to being a true exception is medical school.
We expect those who graduate as doctors from medical school to be fully
qualified to practice medicine once they have their licenses. Even so, new
doctors will still need training on how to fill out the forms at a particular
hospital or how to operate a particular diagnostic device to which they did
not have access while at school. Therefore, even these highly skilled
professionals need some degree of job training when they are first starting
out.
The points made in the preceding paragraphs should be obvious to most
people. Unfortunately, that’s where we get in trouble. Those points appear
so obvious that many of us “jump” to conclusions; making an error-of-logic
and assuming that a need for training—or a lack of knowledge—is at the
root of most employee performance problems. Many trainers also fall
victim to this assumption. Indeed, many trainers became practitioners of
the craft because of this assumption and, perhaps, a suppressed desire to
work as teachers. This error-of-logic is at the heart of why training
departments are the bane of many companies and perceived as a necessary
evil for conducting business.
We, trainers, seem to want to throw training at everything as the solution
that will fix what’s wrong with the organization where we work. What
happens when training does not fix the problem? The training department
gets a black eye and the training function loses credibility. We see this
paradigm repeat itself whenever companies fall on hard times. What is
commonly one of the first functions to be impacted by organizational
restructurings – the Training Department! For this reason, trainers are
traditionally among the first classification of employees to get laid-off.
With this “reputation” of failing to fix performance problems as a fact-of-
life, it’s no wonder that those of us in the field of Education, Training &
Development (ET&D) have a hard time garnering support and engagement
from stakeholders when workplace training is needed. We have failed to
show how we add value.
It is up to us to change the perception that our craft is only about
conducting training. Our craft is about improving human performance in
order to increase profits. This is how we can add value and become
indispensable to an employer. Yes, one of the tools we use to accomplish
Human Performance Improvement (HPI) is training, but it should be
reserved for use as our last line of defense, not our first resort.
Training is an expensive intervention technique that requires perpetual
renewal and investment. We should reserve its use for those occasions
when knowledge or skill gaps have been identified and validated as being
the root causes for performance problems. Even then, putting in place
robust job-aids and standard operating procedures that supplement hands-
on skills development can minimize training investments. But before we
undertake a training intervention, we should consider if there are process,
systems or engineering solutions that might negate the need for future
training investments? Such alternatives to training are normally much
more cost effective and sustainable in the long run. Our willingness to
explore non-training alternatives actually helps us gain credibility for when
training is needed.
Once we show our employers that our priority as training functions is to
serve the business in a value adding partnership, we will get invited to sit at
the decision making table more often. Instead of garnering stakeholder
support and engagement for workplace training, we will be the ones being
courted by the stakeholders to serve as consultants and advisors on human
performance concerns. Then, when we offer training as the solution, it will
be warmly received and valued.