Do You Get Value from Employee Training and Development?
Author: Eric Thompson
The requirement for training is as high as ever, yet training budgets remain under intense pressure. Eric Thompson suggests how you can make sure that you get real value from the training that is done.
Training is a topic, which, if you believe all the reports that are written, you can never get enough of. However resources are finite and it doesn't matter whether training is paid for from the public purse or by organisations themselves, there are always limits to what we can do and choices to be made. The funds from all sources that can be made available will clearly have an impact on the volume of training that can take place at any one time.
Of more direct interest to each organisation, and to each individual that is under training, is that any training which is carried out should be as effective as possible and deliver a real return on the investment. Investing the money and not getting the desired increase in capability is arguably a greater problem than the amount of investment which is available. In this article we will examine some of the issues that cause waste in the training investment and suggest a simple approach that makes it more likely that you can get value from employee training and development.
The Training Requirement
The impact of the lack of skills is felt across the board. The problem starts at recruitment. Companies that want to recruit can't always find 
the skills that they need. The Confederation of British Industry reports that half of all employers in the UK fear skill shortages as the country emerges from recession. Companies are already struggling to recruit staff with key technical skills such as science, technology, engineering and maths.
The problem persists with those in employment. "The First National Strategic Skills Audit for England" published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills reveals that the number of people in employment who were reported as "not fully proficient" in their roles had increased by 400,000 to 1.7 million between 2005 and 2009.
If you need a graphic illustration of the cost of the lack of training, consider one of the more recent industrial disasters. According to the investigation board into the 2005 Buncefield Oil Depot fire the final cost is likely to hit £1 billion. In evidence presented at the Crown Court during the prosecution of the companies concerned, the prosecution alleged that staff in the depot were "overworked and poorly trained".
The training requirement can best perhaps be summarised in a quote attributed to the late Lord Hanson; "If you think training is expensive, try doing without it."
The Response
Training is an investment in the future by any organisation. It is an investment in individual capability and individual effectiveness. Like any other investment it needs to be paid for out of profits and justified on the basis of the return that the investment will make for the organisation. At a time when the total funds that are available for investment are under pressure it is not a surprise to find that training budgets are curtailed.
A CIPD survey reveals that training budgets had been cut in more than half of the 700 organisations surveyed in 2009. Training and development budgets were reported to have fallen by one quarter with the average annual spend per employee down to £469.
Clearly, what budgets remain have to be used wisely. The issue will be compounded if the training that does go ahead is not effective. A number of things can conspire to get in the way. This makes the training less effective than it should be, and may in part explain why there is an apparent belief amongst boards of directors that training will not deliver the advertised benefits. Sending people on the wrong course or attending a course with poor quality of delivery figure amongst the issues that may contribute to a lack of effectiveness. Let's examine these issues along with some of the other factors that cause employee training and development to deliver less value than expected.
Scrutiny of the Training Proposal
"…training is an investment in individual capability and as such it should be treated with the same degree of rigour and scrutiny as any other form of investment that the organisation may make.”We have already acknowledged that training is an investment in individual capability and as such it should be treated with the same degree of rigour and scrutiny as for any other form of investment that the organisation may make. As a minimum the organisation should assure itself that the training proposed is the best possible solution to the requirement and that it will deliver the value required. If these assurances are not possible, you really need to question why the training is being done.
Will the Training Meet the Organisation's Needs?
Training will not be effective if it does not meet one of the organisation's current or future needs. Achieving value implies that the organisation should take a strategic view and become clear as to the skills that will be required. If the organisation doesn't know what it wants, it can hardly claim that training fails to deliver. Spending time training an individual on something that is not required or doesn't bring value to the organisation is hardly an effective use of resource.
The quality of training delivery is obviously important. Poor training will not be effective training and it would be foolish to suggest otherwise. However in the context of effectiveness, planning that the training offered will deliver the value 
required is perhaps the greater issue. A good quality course that delivers on the wrong issue, or realistically perhaps not enough of the right issue, will not score on the value front. This is the problem in choosing courses from catalogues. It may all be good, but it may not all be relevant. Sending an individual on a three day course when only one day of the content is really going to add value for them is not a good use of resource.
It is worth while considering options here. In-house delivery may enable all of the content to be relevant and focused on the organisation's need and provides a mechanism to allow the organisation's know-how to be passed from one generation to another. If the skills don't exist internally, consider getting one individual trained externally and then getting them to train their colleagues. Bespoke training is also possible through many external training providers. On a day rate basis it may be more costly than off the shelf courses, but one day of effective training may replace several days of partially effective training.
Training is Just One Development Option
"Training is a means to that end and not the end in itself.”The outcome that the organisation is looking for is that employees are competent to perform the roles that are required. Training is a means to that end and not the end in itself. It is also not the only means to that end. Training is just one possible way for staff to learn new skills. Skills can also be gained through experience, through coaching, through mentoring, amongst other routes. It is sensible therefore for the organisation to take a judgement about the best way to achieve a particular outcome. An employee development programme may be an appropriate way to proceed. Training may form a part of the approach, but you may decide that outcomes can be more effectively achieved in other ways.
Plan to Have the Skills Available When Required
Timing is an issue. Surveys have suggested that the average time that it takes in the UK for an individual that is appointed to a new role to become fully competent in that role is around seven months. That seven month period will have a cost, either directly through mistakes that are made or through provision of additional monitoring of the individual to ensure that mistakes are not made. Effective training would mean that the individual will have achieved the appropriate level of competence when that competence is required. That means anticipating the need and training people in advance, rather than waiting till they have a problem, then trying to do something to sort it out.
Skills Need to Become Second Nature
"Make sure that your plan delivers competent individuals before they cost you money by demonstrating their incompetence.”The effectiveness of training can often be diluted when the individual gets back to the workplace. In spite of best intentions, the individual becomes immersed in the latest crisis or just as probably the backlog caused by them being absent from the workplace on their training course. Training can only provide value, if the skills gained are put into action. The return to the workplace needs to be accompanied by a plan that has been agreed beforehand between the individual and their manager that will cause the new skills to be put into action and reinforce the learning. Reinforcement will be required until the new skills become a natural part of the individual's repertoire. Without this, the value of the training will be lost.
Is Everyone Committed?
One straightforward loss of effectiveness came home to me a few years ago when we were arranging training delivery for other organisations. A significant number of people that have been nominated to attend training courses simply do not show up for the training that has been arranged and paid for. Here the organisation suffers a double blow. The organisation has to pay for the training that is not received and then most probably will have to pay for it again at some point in the future if the individual is not to remain ineffective.
"The return to the workplace needs to be accompanied by a plan...”Now of course there are genuine reasons for absence from the workplace, but the level of "no shows" suggested that something different was happening. Some individuals didn't appear to want to attend the training. Perhaps attendance didn't suit their personal circumstances, perhaps they felt that they would make a fool of themselves. Whatever the reason, the investment was wasted.
The goals of the organisation and the individual must match. If they don't both parties are wasting their time. Creating an explicit development plan for each individual, which is agreed by both manager and individual, states the development issue and how it is to be addressed and spells out the commitments of both parties helps them to keep individual and organisation on the same wavelength and helps to avoid this form of waste.
Measure the Value Achieved
The value delivered from employee training and development should of course be checked after the event. In the same way that we would check that an investment in new equipment delivers what was asked for in productivity terms, we should check that the training has brought the value we expected to the organisation. If it has, that is fine. If not maybe further activity is required to ensure that the skills are actually used or maybe the course didn't meet the need.
Measuring the value that training brings may not be easy, but by simply asking the question you move the whole expectation of the organisation and the individuals being trained forward.
Effective Training – A Checklist
Addressing these issues should mean that you achieve the expected value from the employee training and development that you undertake. This checklist summarises the seven action points that you can apply.
• Subject a proposal to train to the same degree of scrutiny as for any other investment proposal.
• Plan to develop individuals against the future need.
• See training as one of a number of means of delivering the required outcome. Choose the most effective means of developing it.
• Make sure that your plan delivers competent individuals before they cost you money by demonstrating their incompetence.
• Training needs to be reinforced in the workplace if new skills are to be applied and sustained.
• Make sure individuals and organisation are jointly committed to the outcomes.
• Make sure that each piece of training delivers the expected value through measurement.
In Summary
"It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you are properly trained."
HM Queen Elizabeth II
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