| By Dr. Paul Pierpoint, Dean, Community Education
(Continued from Front Page) The problem is not that training takes employees away from work. It is that too few employers see training and continuous skills development as an integral part of work . It is a mistake to view the work hours spent learning new skills as “time away from work.” Employers that recognize this have staffing patterns that include training and learning as some quantifiable portion of the workload and are therefore much more able to continually invest in upgrading the abilities of their workforce than are those companies with sparser staffs.
CBI understands that very often even government-funded “free” training is too expensive if it takes people away from their primary work for too long. That is why we have invested so much over the years to be able to provide training on-site (thereby eliminating travel time). That is why we design instructional time to be a densely packed learning experience while recognizing the human need to absorb information over time. That is why we developed our own on-line self-paced training programs and partnered with many of the world's best on-line training providers to allow people to learn at the pace that best suits their individual learning rates.
But at some point learning requires an investment of time. Employers who see training time as an integral part of the work their people do make sure that it used as efficiently and effectively as any other component of the work day. And they set their staffing levels accordingly. They are deliberate in their choice of training provider and they hold them accountable for effective learning. Employers who see training as “extra-curricular” are likely to keep their staffing levels too low and postpone, cancel or never even plan for the investment in their employees that is that is necessary to ensure they are competitive and productive in the future.
Employers have a clear choice: They have to find a way to afford to train their people to be a first-class team, or they have to find a way to afford to have a second-class workforce. Which company would you invest in?
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