Make a plan
Members of the corporate training firm arrived the next day and talked with as many employees as possible at the technology company, from executives to engineers to those slumping sales representatives and everyone else in between. They prodded and probed and asked questions. They were curious about what, exactly, had happened.
They wanted to know, before they embarked on another training session, whether another training session was actually necessary.
This is what you should do when you’re in the process of determining whether to invest in training and development for your employees. You should prod and probe and plan, because just as you shouldn’t approach a new business venture without a model and a solid idea of what you want to accomplish, neither should you approach training without thoughts of what you need to tackle.
“Typically, businesses start by looking at their goals and their objectives for a period of time, usually the coming year,” Galagan says. “Some companies will do what’s called a skills audit to see if they have the skills to support the direction. Then if they don’t, they will try to train to fill any gaps that they find.
“It’s a very comprehensive process of looking at the skills that employees have in key areas and matching that against the skills you feel you need.”
And even though those needs will vary from business to business, from industry to industry, there are a number of common training areas on which almost all businesses should focus. Leadership development, project management and team building are all increasingly important because of the changing demographics and economy and because general communication and technology skills are as important now as always.
“If you don’t have an understanding for where your operation is — what skills sets you’ve developed, your culture, the environment and industry in which you work — you might have a different focus,” says Charles Squires, director of executive programs, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. “We try to get a sense for what companies know about themselves, self-examination. The first step always has to be self-examination.
“This is the intellectual capital of your organization, one of the most important raw materials. How are you going to develop that?”
