One of the interesting phenomena I observed in my many years as an employer was the number of people who professed that they wanted to get ahead, but weren't prepared to invest a single nickel into doing anything about it! In their world, all the investment was to be borne by someone else, such as their employer.
This brings us back to that whole issue of: For whose benefit is training undertaken and who should pay for it? In Parts 1 and 2 of my blog posts on the subject of training, I had suggested that smaller employers are well justified in placing some restrictions on how they pay for training. If your small company only has $500 or $1000 per year to invest in training, if you do send somebody on a course and, three weeks later, the person quits, there goes your training budget for the whole year! Most small companies cannot afford to operate this way.
That's why, in those first two posts on training, I had suggested that reimbursing people once they've taken the training and remained with the company for a certain amount of time was a perfectly valid policy.
Another approach, of course, is to list educational programs and training courses that the company considers important for people who want to be promoted. After all, if someone wants to get promoted, meaning they would get increased compensation, it's not unreasonable to expect them to invest in the training program themselves, assuming the financial investment is relatively modest. The important thing then, for the company - once the person has taken the training - is to follow through with the appropriate promotions or increases in responsibility that will bring the employee a higher compensation level.
For more details about the fallout from training in a small company and other topics, read my book, which is currently available via this link http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/other_peoples_problems/9268001
Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer
To contact the author go to www.deborahcsawyer.com/dcs_005.htm
