By Jim Hopkins
August 5, 2010
I asked a training manager at a small bank why they were postponing, for the second year now, the skill development of supervisors and managers. She said that although it is still a priority, it is not “something we can do this year.” By the way, that was back in February. They threw in the towel two months into the year. I’ve known this training manager for a long time, so I asked her why the bank did not have a future? There was silence on the line, and then she asked me what I meant by that comment.
If we remember that the basic function of any training department within a company is to prepare employees for the jobs they perform, then what we train for each year spells out what employees need to be able to do. If the skills being developed are all new hire oriented, then the focus is on growth and/or turnover. If the skills being developed are in addition to basic job functions, then the company is focused on career development and employee retention.
When I answered my friend’s concern over the future of her company, I had to ask why managers, who did not have basic supervisory and management communication skills, would not need them in the coming months. She had no valid response, but I did. If the company was not going to need people with management skills in the future, it begs to ask the question of whether the company planned to be around. Could they be planning to close doors, merge with another company or downsize their employee population? It turns out it was none of the above, and the company is now training their managers.
You see, my friend went back to her training plan, and noticed that the reason supervisory skills and management development was in the plan, was to build a missing skill set in their managers. The goal was to prevent having to hire external talent and instead develop existing people to assume promotional opportunities. So, when she went back to the management team that had postponed this skill development, she asked them a simple question. If these skills are needed to prepare us for the future, are we no longer planning to have a future? Oh, I would have given anything to have been a fly on the wall that day! With a little further explanation from her on that question, the decision was reversed, and last month they began supervisory and management development training.
So I encourage any size organization to examine the list of skills they are training employees to perform as well as the list of skills being postponed. Ask yourself how long your company is planning to exist, and does your training plan match that goal. There’s no doubt that you could save a ton of cash if you stopped training because you plan to go out of business. However, what a shame it would be if your plan was to stay in business and your lack of readiness closed the doors for you.
Jim Hopkins is the president and CEO of JK Hopkins Consulting. For more information, visit www.jkhopkinsconsulting.com or contact him at jim@jkhopkinsconsulting.com.