I have been linked to the world of education, training and advice for people, teams and organizations for more than a decade. From roles within multinationals, from the public sector or as an entrepreneur in this segment, I have seen how many things have changed without touching some essential elements in the way this is carried out and that it is really a waste of effort and resources (time and money) by the handful.
Although some may tell me who “wins” from this, I personally believe that almost no one does and therefore we must learn how to end spending on training, or at least change the logic so that it is really an investment. We always talk that the center of the organization is its people, that without them nothing would be possible and that for that great reason is that we need to take care of well-being and promote continuous training that allows employees to be prepared for the world in which we are and the challenges we face today. So far I agree on almost everything about the installed speech.
However, what makes the resources put into training really an investment and not an expense. Essentially, when we talk about investing we refer to having time, material, economic resources, etc., in order to obtain a return, that is, to generate more than what was had before the act of investing. If we take this to the world of training, we have to understand that the investment would only be justifiable in the following scenarios:
- The act of training achieved an improvement in the skills and competencies of the collaborators that has an impact on those important indicators for the organization, or,
- That the act of investing allows generating a favorable asset for the organization.
Here I want to elaborate a little more. If we have more competent collaborators, they can be considered as “an asset” that helps the company to achieve its objectives. However, people change jobs, resign, get fired, etc. Therefore, it is an investment (training) that goes with the employee, the company having to invest again and again in training the new and the old each time important gaps are detected (who does not have gaps development?, nobody) But what if instead of paying each time for a training, said budget were an asset, that is, a “training” product that was permanently used by the organization? Then what would happen that with this budget that is often thrown away within companies, each year that corporate “Netflix”, the knowledge management base, would be populating with new training programs and internal knowledge capsules.
They would no longer have to pay again when they want a course for a person or a group, but they already bought that, it is an asset of continuous training.
That’s what I think about when I say how to end spending on training. But this is so simple, why is it not done? I think there are several reasons:
- Companies have annual budgets that they manage many times in the logic of “spending the assigned amounts” instead of investing these amounts in constant training.
- Providers prefer that every time there is a need they are paid again and thus make cash for their month after month.
- Tax incentives, in the case of Chile, do not favor the generation of internal capacities, but rather the use of tax exemptions (paid by all taxpayers), having a transactional and short-term perspective, instead of a real investment in human capital.
This must be stopped. Businesses need to end spending on training and become human capital investors. Suppliers must build sustained and non-transactional value and, together, we must contribute to an increasingly labor market and better prepared for the challenges of today’s world.
We at LearninGroup are doing that, and we have launched a Join Venture with other companies in the sector with a truly win-win look, because this does not require more money, but another look and more generosity in how things are done, ingenuity and innovation.
That is why we have built state-of-the-art corporate training platforms, personalized content for each entity with their own knowledge, we have trained their experts to teach other people, but permanently through technology available 24/7, we have incorporated internationally accredited competency evaluation systems, emotional intelligence evaluations and DISC behavior profiles, we are working on training and measuring the cultural fit between employees and organizations, and all this with technological integration that allows us to manage
On, make decisions and be really investors in human capabilities and not those called to spend money to meet a budget that is often pointless.
If you want to be part of this way of doing things and lead your company to learn how to end spending on training to invest in sustainable development for people and institutions, then write me and let’s talk. I will tell you something “UNICO”.