Manny Avramidis is senior vice president of global human resources for the American Management Association, where his responsibilities include strategic leadership and direction of the company’s national and international human resources function consistent with its mission, value and business goals. He also directs the development and implementation of global policies and programs for HR management.
Q. More and more companies seem to be training their employees in project management. Why is that?
As the nation has moved away from manufacturing toward a more knowledge-based economy, it hasn’t been unusual for a manager today to be asked to manage a project that spans across divisions. With today’s sophisticated technologies, there are tools and techniques that can help to manage that project better. Now if we were to think back 20 or 30 years ago, managers usually managed a staff, they knew their job very well, and they weren’t asked to manage projects or people outside of their immediate area. That’s no longer the case for many organizations. I think project management has just become a reality in every job description — and, unfortunately, not everyone’s trained to do it well.
Q. Realistically, how much should companies set aside for a training budget?
It really depends on the organization. Is it a start-up? Is it a mature organization? Has there been turnover? Are new products and new technology being introduced? There are just a slew of things that a training manager or the head of HR has to assess before they set a budget. What I have seen is somewhere in the range of $2,000 to $2,500 per person per year; not every person will spend that much. Most experienced organizations have employees participating in at least two weeks of training per year, and employees should attend at least one external training event per year — not just for newfound instructional knowledge but also for networking and benchmarking.
Q. What is the importance of corporate training in this economy?
From a corporate training standpoint, it’s simple: Well-trained employees often give organizations the edge they need to outperform the competition. It’s a corporation’s job to give their employees the tools they need to realize their full potential. Otherwise, the organization is cheating itself.
