Part 3: Training - For Who's Benefit?

The title of this blog post might just as easily have been.  "Why won't people invest in themselves?"

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.

Whatever approach your company takes, the fact remains: the person taking the course is the person who gets the greatest benefit from it.  The knowledge is theirs to do with, as they please, and they can easily take it to another place of employment.  Small companies particularly need to have policies in place to protect themselves from continually being ripped off.

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

Part 2: Training - For Who's Benefit?

My last blog post, about policies around training costs and possible reimbursement by the company, prompted one entrepreneur to say to me: "Two years... that's a lot!"

As I pointed out to her, all such policies should include a phrase about management being able to waive the policy, if they want.  As a manager, you should always be aware of the difference between an employee who's been on a training course and then has to leave the company, shortly thereafter, due to some factor like a spousal job transfer, and an employee who takes the course and then, three months later, waltzes out the door to a better paying job, bolstered by the training you just paid for.

Another approach is to have a list of courses that the company recommends employees take, if they want to advance, and then have deferred reimbursement to the employee.  That is, if the employee goes ahead, takes the course and pays for it themselves, after a certain amount of time, when you can see the training has had some effect, you can then reimburse the employee.  The list of courses can include a schedule of when the company would reimburse.  Remember, again, small companies rarely have lavish amounts of funds floating around anyway and wanting to see the benefit before shelling out the bucks is perfectly reasonable.

This way, if an employee takes a course, and is quickly able to leverage the skills to get a better paying job, you will not be out of pocket if they leave before they are entitled to reimbursement.

One of the other issues to consider, with all this talk about reimbursing training, is whether or not you will have the money when the employee seeks reimbursement.  Given all the ups and downs of the economy, the best of intentions can often go awry.  Cash flow issues dog most small companies all their lives, and before you set up any policies around training and who pays for it, you may want to consider what you can afford based on your historical worst months or quarters.  That's why another good idea is to put a cap on how much the company will contribute for courses employees take.  Setting up a scale might save you a lot of anguish down the road.

Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer

Deborah C. Sawyer is the author of Other People's Problems:  Why you need to go on interviewing your employees - after you hire them!

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/other_peoples_problems/9268001

You can also purchase a digital file (e-book) via the same link.

Training - For Who's Benefit?

Criticisms are often leveled at businesses around the issue of training, that not enough companies invest in their staff via education and training programs.  But what happens if your investment in training walks out the door?

For a small business, it can mean the entire year's training budget has been wasted.  This was what happened to one small firm when Bonnie quit, three weeks after completing a training program.  The objective of sending Bonnie on the course had been to provide her with skills she needed to do her current job.  In discussions with her manager, it had been agreed that certain aspects of the job were not familiar enough to her and in order for her to perform well, a course would be a good idea.

At the time, the firm was making less than $250,000 a year and, after paying salaries for five staff people, overheads for offices, equipment and the like, insurance and benefits, and whatnot, there wasn't a substantial amount of money left over for things like training.  This is why in many companies - as 95% of businesses in America have five or fewer employees, most companies are considered small - there is no training budget.

Bonnie's employer considered that, if she quit three weeks after taking the course, she was probably more or less decided before she agreed to go on training that she wasn't going to be sticking around.  The company therefore decided to implement a policy around course-taking.  In the future, the business owner decided they would not get burned by employee behaviors such as Bonnie's.  The policy, which management could choose to waive if they wanted, allowed that if a staff member quit within three months of taking a course valued at $200 or less, the departing employee would have to reimburse the company for the training.  The greater the cost of the course, the longer the reimbursement period.  So if an employee accepted going on an out-of-town course costing $2,000 more, the company could ask for reimbursement up to 2 years later for a voluntary departure.

(Issues like this and more are covered in my book, Other People's Problems: Why You Need To Go On Interviewing Your Employees - After You Hire Them! http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/other_peoples_problems/9268001


Copyright Deborah C. Sawyer