Not Just Any Training Will Do…

To this point, we’ve looked at a number of profitability killers that are affecting nearly every business. Through this process, I’ve been intentional about making a case for how effective leadership - while often viewed as something soft or intangible - can make an immediate and measurable impact on each. And while I’ve provided some practical steps that we can each take individually to begin capturing the profit that’s being killed, we can’t afford to stop with just what we do personally; we need to be able to train each key team member with any level of leadership responsibility to get the same kind of results as we do if we want to achieve sustainable gains on our bottom line.

Over the course of my career, I’ve been involved with filling more than a thousand positions. Many of those were positions where we hired external candidates to become part of an organization but quite a few were done through internal job postings. The one constant I’ve seen, across organizations and industries, has been how rarely the individual filling the role already has all of the skills they’ll need to be successful long term. I realize that’s a strong statement, but let’s take it one step farther by making it a bit more personal… I’m confident that YOU don’t have all the skills you need to be as successful as you could be in your role - and neither do I!!!

Just in case I haven’t offended you enough, I’ll also add that I’m not sure we ever really will. I heard that the only thing we can count on to stay the same is that there will be constant change around us. If we have any hope of keeping up with that change and avoiding lost profitability in the process, ongoing and focused development has to happen; for our new teams members to get up to speed, for our existing team members to keep up with the industry we’re a part of, as well as for ourselves to ensure we can continue leading effectively.

When we build training and development into our business model, we send a very specific message to anyone we provide that for. That said, talking about providing that training but never doing it sends a very clear message too… When we invest our time and resources into helping someone develop a skill, they generally feel more valued. This can imply that we believe enough in their ability that they’re worth this investment - and who doesn’t want to feel valued? And whether it was when I was in a human resources role or now through the work that Cindy and I do for organizations across the United States, I’ve never been willing to allow this message to only be implied. I’ve told each individual I’ve helped access training and every group we’ve provided training for that it’s an investment into them, and I’ve also been very clear about the measurable return the organization should be receiving on that investment.

I’ve always believed that investing into a team member by providing them with the training and development they need to become more effective in their role yields multiple benefits. In fact, I’ve heard John Maxwell say that the only thing worse than training someone that may someday leave the organization is not training someone and they stay! To confirm my own theory though, I found an article from Ottawa University called Why is Training and Development Important? that detailed what the author referred to as “the 5 benefits of training and development.” I won’t go into each here but they suggested that training our team members impacts each of the following areas:

• Employee Retention
• Developing Future Leaders
• Empowering Employees
• Boosting Workplace Engagement
• Building Workplace Relationship

I don’t think I have to ask you how closely these tie to the profitability killers we’ve been working to address… That said, we can’t start throwing mud against the wall and hope some will stick. To get real, measurable results that produce long term profitability, not just any training will do! We’ll need to take the approach of a specialist rather than that of a general practitioner so let’s dig into how much money is wasted by doing this wrong…

The Cost of Using the Wrong Tool

As I just mentioned, painting the picture of the tools you can provide a potential team member to grow within the organization once they come onboard can play a significant role in the recruiting process. Failing to make good on those promises though, sooner than later, will be a direct contributor to the profitability that’s killed through high turnover and low employee engagement. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t want to work for someone who doesn’t live up to their word so we can’t really expect anyone else to - regardless of how “good” the reasons are… But even when we do invest in training our team members, we can’t just do it blindly and expect to get measurable results!

An article from BusinessWire, a Berkshire Hathaway Company, called Employers Wasting Billions on the Wrong Training shared this:

Across the world, $130 billion is spent on learning and development programs. Research shows that only 25% of it is judged to be effective. The waste is attributed to a range of factors including the quality of delivery and uninspiring content. It is also likely that many staff are being trained to develop skills they already possess. Other training may be on areas that are not critical to performance.

If that’s even close to correct, close to $100 billion is wasted. I won’t speak for you, but that makes me think back to being told to clean my plate when I was a kid because there were starving kids in other countries! Well, maybe that reference is a bit of a stretch but $100 billion seems like a ton of money - especially when that likely doesn’t come close to all the profitability that could truly be captured if the right training is provided instead!

If you think back to some of the thoughts I challenged you to consider related to promotions and succession planning, it’s not hard to recognize how needs for different types of training can vary from role to role. Some of those variances are clear; I can’t imagine a company sending someone starting in an entry level position through an executive level course on business operations. But even when we have a relatively clear idea of the specific skills a team member needs to develop to grow in their current role or to grow into the next role, attending a training session and developing a skill are two VERY different things! And we still haven’t guaranteed that it translates into changed behavior…

Doing nothing has its own costs and doing the wrong thing kills plenty of profitability too! If we’re going to realize a measurable return on investment - earning engagement, increasing retention, and driving productivity - we need to be sure we’re providing not just the type of training each team member needs, we also need to be sure that training is delivered in a way that they can absorb it and apply it. And that’s rarely something we can pull straight off a shelf…

Training That Can Be Absorbed…

Several years ago while working with a group of extremely skilled employees in a construction company, one of the most senior guys was grumbling about some of the most recent folks that had been hired. He was frustrated because they didn’t know everything he expected them to know right away and shared that “when I started, they showed you once and you’d better do it right from there on!” I proceeded to call BS and asked if he really thought that he came from the womb knowing everything he did after 20 years in the trade. He didn’t necessarily like my reply but that didn’t mean my point was invalid. All too often, the folks who are the most seasoned within our companies - also the ones who are likely responsible for training new employees on the X’s and O’s of the job - follow this approach; “I told you how to do it and it’s up to you to figure out from there…”

I won’t bother detailing how much profitability that can kill in any organization! I will share the second point I made in that conversation though… Once the group stopped laughing at my comment, I followed up by asking how many potentially great employees did the organization lose in that 20 year time period simply because no one provided them with a training approach that they could absorb. The silence was deafening…

If we’re going to have any real hope of capturing that lost profitability that occurs when we’ve used the wrong tool (type of training) for the job, we need to be just as intentional about making sure the tool is being used correctly - meaning it won’t matter how accurate the training is if the individual being trained doesn’t receive the message!

I also remember a conversation fairly early in my career where someone who had a much larger ego than they had earned, and was filling a role where they thought they had eminent authority over basically anything I ever did, explained to me that I should never have more than one mentor. They said that any input coming from another source could be confusing and contradictory to what they expected me to achieve. I’ll fight the urge to detail how incredibly self-absorbed that individual was in every other aspect of their life; I’m sure that one comment provides you with more than enough perspective. However, I will share how that idea, if applied to how we approach training team members for any role in our organization, could kill just as much profitability as expecting someone to be told something once and know all they’d ever need to know… Since then, I’ve been blessed with several outstanding mentors - all of which had very different experiences and provided me with advice on equally different levels - and each played a critical role in helping me grow throughout my career. Just in case you’re wondering, I was quick to distance myself in every way possible from the fellow who was trying to play God…

So let’s tie all that back to how effective training can yield significant returns to the employer and to every employee involved in the process. When we provide the type of training a team member needs to grow in their current or their next role, we’re not only helping them become more productive, we’re also showing them that we truly value the potential they bring to the organization. When we make sure that training is provided in a way that they can absorb it, retain it, and apply it, we greatly improve the odds of being able to measure the return. To do either of those things well though, we need to have a solid understanding of exactly who our team members are and where each of them hope to go. We’ll pick up there soon…