Reading the comments on a recent Telegraph article (via RateMyPlacement’s tweet) someone mentioned that many companies either cutting back training or do not spend any meaningful amount on training at all.
It struck me as being very true, yet something I find quite staggering really. I know of a fairly small business consultancy but with major multi-national clients, who you’d think would practice what they preach to clients and invest time and money in ensuring their non-consulting staff are trained up in the latest techniques (especially for things like creating training materials/books etc. which require specialist knowledge and the latest software) but they don’t…
I’m sure many would ask “why waste money on training someone up for them to just walk out the door?”, to which I would say well they might… but surely by demonstrating your commitment to them (through training) they are more likely to stay and once trained should be more productive and produce higher quality work.
Companies may also say they are perfectly able to import the skills needed, through hiring people who are already trained and have X years experience. But doesn’t this lead to more people jumping ship? If you see a possible career advancement (if you were trained up) that kept getting filled by those from outside the business you are likely to leave. Probably costing more to the company through disruption and lost productivity than any training!
I could see it leadig to an endemic problem within the employment market, where eventually nobody will be able to join a company (especially at the slightly lower end) without so many years experience yet have no way to actually get that experience because no companies are willing to give people the opportunity to advance themselves. (It was nigh-on impossible for me to get an accounts assistant role as I had no relevant experience, apart from my degree and a non-relevavnt year-long industrial placement).
I firmly believe training of staff should be a key objective of all managers, start looking further than the upfront cost.