Red Green Repeat Adventures of a Spec Driven Junkie

My Thoughts On: Why Companies Give Trainings?

I wrote at the end of Investing in Knowledge Workers

With this perspective and you are a company executive, how likely are you to “invest in your knowledge workers”?? How would you invest? Why?

If I were an executive for a company of knowledge workers, I would invest as little as possible in my workers. The current trend of workers leaving 3-5 years (if that!) makes any return on investment pointless.

At the same time, there are companies that offer trainings for their workers. The job description highlights a benefit of the job is company trainings.

So, why would a company’s leadership spend money on training employees, even highlighting it as a job benefit?

Two reasons I can think of:

  1. Appeal to new employees
  2. Reaction to employee attrition

Appeal to New Employees

How can one company stand out from another in the same industry without incurring additional salary?

Benefits!

Using benefits are great because a company can ammortize the benefit’s cost for all employees, whether they use the benefit or not!

When you see a job description that brags about a company’s training benefit, look for the detail. How is the training conducted? Who conducts them? Is there just a “training budget”? A set amount? How much?

Reaction to Attrition

Imagine when you’re leaving your job and you do the “Human Resources Exit Interview” - the super confidential one that information only stays with HR (which is never the case!)

Human Resources Exit Interview

How can you answer: “Why are you leaving?” in a way that:

  1. shows you’re a good worker
  2. keeps you in good faith with your manager and teammates
  3. doesn’t make you look like you’re leaving for greener pastures
  4. ensures a door is open for you to return (because everyon in the industry knows each other!)
  5. makes your manager look good and helps out in a small way

One answer I can think that works no matter what:

There wasn’t enough training for the job.

  1. You did your best, you needed more.
  2. No blame on your manager or teammates.
  3. You
  4. You

When human resources start seeing this response pattern, what do you think their reaction will be??

WE NEED A TRAINING PROGRAM!

And that is how training programs at companies start, even though there is no real return on that investment for knowledge workers.

And when the attrition still happens and training program utilization is low… guess what shows up on the job description…

😅

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