So many trends we're seeing in B2B now are focused on the speed at which technology can be deployed - and we're not seeing any signs of this slowing down.
My challenge is how to justify the training need. How do you create milestones that demonstrate impact to a board - when training, well, takes time? What stages did you put in place to help the client through this transition?
Thanks Jon and great questions. In my experience it takes time to build the confidence to invest big in L&D. Starting small helps - getting a team with expertise your short in to provide some training and capturing the benefits.
To scale you show how fast benefits can come from training. Often with technical areas people can get benefits within months as they start to automate aspects of their current workload and free up capacity.
Longer term I built the business case by:
- Measuring the benefits from a sample of work done by people who have been on training.
- Calculating how much money is spent on consultants and making the case for training to lead to insourcing.
- Appealing to emotion. Training your workforce just is the right thing to do. In technical areas if you do this you increase their long term employment prospects. I'd go as far as to say that not investing in your employees skills is immoral - it raises the risks they end up without the skills they need to remain employed.
Benny, this post resonates with me. I've seen so many organizations where new technology and data tools are implemented, training is roped off to 10% of the employees, if that, and no one gets any lasting value out of them beyond a few surface-level features. The solution most companies pursue? Buy more near-duplicate products. Repeat. Hope for better results! (Shocker: it doesn't work.)
Thanks Hugh - reading your comment reminds me of something that always puzzles me. Why is corporate memory on these things so poor. To poorly paraphrase Einstein - a definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
Great article Benny! and couldn't agree more.
So many trends we're seeing in B2B now are focused on the speed at which technology can be deployed - and we're not seeing any signs of this slowing down.
My challenge is how to justify the training need. How do you create milestones that demonstrate impact to a board - when training, well, takes time? What stages did you put in place to help the client through this transition?
Thanks Jon and great questions. In my experience it takes time to build the confidence to invest big in L&D. Starting small helps - getting a team with expertise your short in to provide some training and capturing the benefits.
To scale you show how fast benefits can come from training. Often with technical areas people can get benefits within months as they start to automate aspects of their current workload and free up capacity.
Longer term I built the business case by:
- Measuring the benefits from a sample of work done by people who have been on training.
- Calculating how much money is spent on consultants and making the case for training to lead to insourcing.
- Appealing to emotion. Training your workforce just is the right thing to do. In technical areas if you do this you increase their long term employment prospects. I'd go as far as to say that not investing in your employees skills is immoral - it raises the risks they end up without the skills they need to remain employed.
Benny, this post resonates with me. I've seen so many organizations where new technology and data tools are implemented, training is roped off to 10% of the employees, if that, and no one gets any lasting value out of them beyond a few surface-level features. The solution most companies pursue? Buy more near-duplicate products. Repeat. Hope for better results! (Shocker: it doesn't work.)
Thanks Hugh - reading your comment reminds me of something that always puzzles me. Why is corporate memory on these things so poor. To poorly paraphrase Einstein - a definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.