dont invest dont expect

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WHY COMP NIES F IL TO TR IN THEIR EMPLOYEES dodie ste®eo p®odu©tion ™ Pa ge 1 of 7  Training is Too Expe nsive! We frequently hear that training is too expensive. The real question is this: What is the real cost of not training your employees? Objectives get pushed back, causing costly delays in every department. “An investment in education always pays the highest returns.” Too many companies view training as an expense rather than as an investment. All jobs have a specific deadlines, revenue and service expectations. When missed, what is the real cost? Customers are frustrated and leave us. It immediately creates more time in meetings with managers to discuss the situation, provide updates and set new deadlines. Often companies don’t account for the amount of money that it costs them to hold a meeting. Given t he investment companies make in compensati on, this could cost more than a few thousand pounds per hour of meeting time. The next time you are sitting in one of these types of meetings, figure out how much each individual is paid to attend the meeting, the expense might surprise you. With the right training in place, more often objectives are met and these meeting can be minimized. High Turnover Companies are concerned that if they train their employees, the employees will leave the company. This is simply not true. Trained employees tend to stay longer with their current employers and get more gratificatio n from the work they are doing. There are many other intangibles of training. It improves employee morale and employees feel important in their roles. If training is also part of the benefits package, it will help attract stronger candidates for employment. Training Takes Too Much Time from Production Most training classes and schedules can be customized. Many companies can work around scheduling challenge s and accommodate training and productivi ty objectives. For examp le, rather than have a 5-day (8 hours per day) class, make it a 10-day (4 hours per day) class over a two-week period. The employees can attend class in the morning and then work in the afternoon. By using internal facilitators the training can also personalize training so that it is very specific and the employees can be trained on exactly what they need. When managers are involved in the training of employees, they can easily monitor the actions of those employees being trained

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Page 1: Dont Invest Dont Expect

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WHY COMP NIES F IL TO TR IN THEIR EMPLOYEES

dodie ste®eo p®odu©tion ™ Page 1 of 7

Training is Too Expensive!We frequently hear that training is too expensive. The real question is this: What is the realcost of not training your employees? Objectives get pushed back, causing costly delays inevery department.

“An investment in education always pays the highestreturns.”Too many companies view training as an expense rather than as an investment. All jobs havea specific deadlines, revenue and service expectations. When missed, what is the real cost?Customers are frustrated and leave us. It immediately creates more time in meetings withmanagers to discuss the situation, provide updates and set new deadlines.

Often companies don’t account for the amount of money that it costs them to hold ameeting. Given the investment companies make in compensation, this could cost more thana few thousand pounds per hour of meeting time. The next time you are sitting in one of these types of meetings, figure out how much each individual is paid to attend the meeting,the expense might surprise you. With the right training in place, more often objectives aremet and these meeting can be minimized.

High TurnoverCompanies are concerned that if they train their employees, the employees will leave thecompany. This is simply not true.

Trained employees tend to stay longer with their current employers and get moregratification from the work they are doing. There are many other intangibles of training. Itimproves employee morale and employees feel important in their roles. If training is also partof the benefits package, it will help attract stronger candidates for employment.

Training Takes Too Much Time from ProductionMost training classes and schedules can be customized. Many companies can work aroundscheduling challenges and accommodate training and productivity objectives. For example,rather than have a 5-day (8 hours per day) class, make it a 10-day (4 hours per day) classover a two-week period.

The employees can attend class in the morning and then work in the afternoon. By usinginternal facilitators the training can also personalize training so that it is very specific and theemployees can be trained on exactly what they need. When managers are involved in thetraining of employees, they can easily monitor the actions of those employees being trained

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WHY COMP NIES F IL TO TR IN THEIR EMPLOYEES

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Companies Don’t See the Long-term BenefitsNot only will training help improve internal processes; it will also help with externalcustomers.

Outstanding service is veryimportant for external customers.With full-time employees, itbenefits them and the company to

be timely and accurate on theirprojects. With the right training,the employees will be moreconfident, more productive and abetter employee overall.

Perhaps the best way to think about Training is like proper dentalhygiene, you only have to takecare of those teeth you want to

keep and stay healthy. The trade-off of failing to train your staff will manifest itself in productivity losses, employee turnoverand employee morale.

While investment in your staff is always a challenge, if you have a technology basedbusiness, training is essential to the health of the organization because of the rate of change.

“What’s worse than training your workers and losing them? Not training them and keeping them.”

Many companies provide some sort of introductory training or orientation for most of their

new employees. It may take the form of an older employee assigned to show the newemployee "the ropes." Or it may be left to the HR department or the individual's newsupervisor to show them where the coffee pot is and how to apply for time off. Others letyou sign hundered of forms and play silly games like skittles, musical chairs, paper planethrowing, and then call this One2One, getting to know each other, but definitely not trainedfor the job at hand.

Many organizations, especially in government and academia, have created new employeetraining that is designed, exclusively or primarily, to provide mandated safety familiarization.

Yet some companies in highly competitive industries recognize the value in New EmployeeOrientation (NEO) that goes much farther. They require several weeks or even months of training to familiarize every new employee with the company, its products, its culture andpolicies, even its competition.

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There is a measurable cost to that training, but is it worth it? Let's look at some of theissues.

Some Background FactsThe technology in the workplace is changing very rapidly and companies that can't keep upwill drop out of competition. A survey by a Skills Development Office found 63% of therespondents planned to "introduce new technology into the workplace that would require

staff training." A third of the respondents included "improving employee job performance"and "keeping the best employees" as desired outcomes.

The BRITISH Society for Training and Development (BSTD) reports that less than ~ UK£750per employee was spent for training in 1996. The largest part of that (49 percent) was spentfor technical and professional training. Only two percent was spent for New EmployeeOrientation and three percent on quality, competition and business practices training.

Reasons To Not Do New Employee TrainingEven at the less than ~ UK£750 per year for training an employee I reported above, it is still

a cost. For some companies, especially those with traditionally high turnover, it can be amajor expense. If your profit per employee is less than ~ UK£750, it would be difficult toconvince the stakeholders that training is justified.

Besides, we all know it is the responsibility of the school system to train people to beworkers. And it is the worker's responsibility to learn how to do a job so they can get hired.

Why Do New Employee TrainingNot surprisingly, all the reasons not to train new employees(except cost itself) are actually reasons to do that training. If

you have high turnover, training new employees will make themmore productive. They will feel better about themselves and the

job. They will stick around longer.

If your profit per employee is less than ~ UK£750 per year, youhave major problems. You need to start training all youremployees, not just your new employees, right away. Show yourstakeholders the potential ROI of the training as we will discussbelow.

And if you still believe that our schools provide adequate training to make students labour-ready you are living in a dream world. Yes, some job seekers make the effort to learn ontheir own the skills needed for a new job, but most get that training on the job.

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Managers were the surprise losers, with only 45% of managers receiving any training. Twoout of every five employers had provided no training at all of their employees in the past 12months.

The most common reason for not training was found to be that employers considered theirstaff to be proficient and/or did not need training. But the main barrier for training wasshown to be the financial cost.

A lack of proper training can have a disastrous impact on your career. I have seen manyinstances of employees at all levels being subjected to disciplinary action by their employersfor poor performance, but at the same time with insufficient support, training or advicehaving been provided by that employer.

If poor performance is caused by a lack of knowledge or experience, it a basic premiseof employment law that this should be addressed with training or guidance in the correctarea. By law, the employee must be given reasonable opportunity to be taught the skills andgiven the knowledge needed to carry out the job. Losing a customer because a form was notfilled in correctly, or because you were not made sufficiently aware of technical or regulatoryrequirements, is extremely unlikely to amount to a fair capability or conduct dismissal by anemployment tribunal.

But remember, what an employer may consider as suitable "training" may vary from yourown understanding and this may frustrate your ability to put up a case.

It is not always the provision of tangible training such as external courses or trainers that willapply. Many employers will incorporate training policies in their staff handbook and directyou to read it. In larger organisations, there is the company's internal intranet that will setout the appropriate polices which you will be expected to read and adhere to.

You would be hard pushed to say you were not aware of your employers’ specific trainingrequirements if you are properly directed to where the training material could be found.Conversely if your employer does not make it sufficiently clear where their training materiallies, they could lose a case.

In many cases, of course, an employer cannot hide behind written manuals, especially wherethere is a hands-on role similar to the G4S security staff. I am nevertheless always amazedhow many employees are not aware of the existence of staff handbooks or what informationtheir company's intranet holds when their employers had previously made clear where thisimportant information lies. You may want to check this out.

It should also be remembered that within the first two years of your employment, youcannot make a claim for unfair dismissal if you are dismissed for poor performance (the time

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period is one year if you started work before 06th April 2012). So despite a lack of training,you would not be able to raise a legal case.

Assuming you do have the qualifying period of employment, regardless of whether you havereceived suitable training or not, your employer would be expected to give you anopportunity to improve and if necessary implement a performance improvement plan. Atleast two written warnings should be given if a formal disciplinary route is instigated and youshould have the right to appeal a dismissal. A failure to follow this process can amount to

unfair dismissal and that's even before the lack of sufficient training argument is put forward.

Naturally a lack of management training is going to have a wider impact as the fallout willfilter down to the staff who report to that manager. The Department for Business Innovationand Skills produced a report only recently highlighting that ineffective management is costingthe UK economy UK£19bn in lost working hours, and that 43% of managers rate their ownline manager as ineffective.

G4S and their lack recruiting and training of staff are in the public eye because of thehuge importance of needing to get it rightfor the Olympic Games. But day and in andday out, other companies don't get it righteither. Remember, though, you do haveemployment rights if your employers lazilyfail to properly train you.

Have you had experience of not beingproperly trained or working for managerswho needs training themselves? I know I have!!!!!

My personal experiences in the past Has been that it is better to have less well trained,above the average wage manpower, than more untrained national minimum wageemployees.

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DON’T INVEST – DON’T EXPECT