The HR manager announced a program on different people
skills like: listening, reading body language, effective communication,
business writing, negotiation skills, and many more. These were being conducted
on every Saturday for interested participants. The enterprise had a 5-day work
week and the rationale behind a weekend investment was to get the interested
participants only. The curriculum was good and participation voluntary. There
was no charge nor there was post course assessment or for that matter feedback
on faculty.
The inaugural class had 15 participants to the surprise of
those present; the expectation was that there would be at least 25-30
representing about 10% of the strength. The group was welcomed by the HR
Manager for their quest to learn; the group remarked about their
self-improvement focus and the journey started for the teacher and the
students. The course, expected to run for 20 weekends, needed strong willpower
and commitment; by week 4, the list was down to single digits and by the time
the course ended, there were only 4.
Most training programs suffer from this phenomena even when
the training program is not that long. On the penultimate day the trainees
discover urgent work or cite exigencies to escape from the clutches of
learning. The end of the program is typically seen by a few participants who
were interested in learning, the totally disinterested who had nothing else to
do, the HR representative to complete the loop and the trainer who has reached
the end of patience and wants to get out lest s/he lose their poise and temper.
The situation is no different for even a full day learning
curriculum; everyone arrives charged up for the day off from work, some look
forward to enhancing their skills. As the day progresses, phone calls start
interrupting the flow, an urgent mail that needs to go, and customer meetings
that pop up or something fails that needs their personal attention, enough to
disrupt the class. They all have genuine sounding reasons to go back to the
same work that many wanted to avoid at the beginning of the day; learning takes
a backseat.
Why is learning such a chore ? Are people not interested in
their own advancement ? What makes them such shirkers when it comes to adding
value to themselves ? Do they believe that they know everything they need for
their success as well as movement in the corporate ladder ? If that was the
case then everyone would excel in their roles and get promoted with regular
periodicity. Learning & Development would be a dead function for most corporates
(it is another matter that many play a subservient role with limited latitude
to make a difference).
Training are mostly determined during the appraisal cycle based
on the discussion between Manager and the staff member; there is a self-determined
need based on career aspirations or skills that need to be acquired to fill a
gap towards executing their work effectively. Enhancements to existing
expertise to move up the ladder to a larger role or a lateral shift to another
position also create the need. Soft skills and other seemingly non-essential
training are scheduled with published training calendar which are then
available for enrollment by everyone.
As an employee I always looked forward to training programs
even if they were just to validate existing knowledge. Complementing these with
aggressive reading helped me move across industries and roles with ease. As I
climbed the ladder, I had the task of managing teams who needed to perform at
their optimal best to keep raising the bar and enjoy associated fruits of
success. The formula that worked for me mostly was to make the team responsible
for their own training, not me, not HR, not the company, only themselves.
They were individually responsible for their career, growth
within and outside; most found it contrary to conventional wisdom, after all isn’t
the Manager expected to take care of the team ? Should HR be providing them all
kinds of training including technical skills ? Isn’t the company responsible for
taking care of the employees ? This worked quite well for me; for those who
were unable to accept this responsibility, they found themselves floundering in
their positions or out of place in the rapidly changing environment and facing
forced attrition.
One of my Managers’ had summed it quite well: “We offer
employment, we do not guarantee continued employability” !
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