There is no question that training is expensive. Depending on the type and extent of training required, it may consume significant organizational resources that could be used elsewhere. For any type of training, there are both direct and indirect costs. At least some of them will always apply when training is done. Direct costs require an outlay of funds. They must be paid for with actual money and include things like preparation, such as train the trainer programs, paying an outside party to teach one of your employees how to train others effectively, materials like workbooks, handouts, task booklets, and so forth, visual aids including equipment and materials such as professionally produced videos, fees paid to outside instructors. You may not have anyone internally who's qualified to do the training and need to hire outside consultants instead. Indirect costs include time for both and supervisors and trainees and lost productivity. You may recall the old saying, time is money, every minute spent on training is a minute not making money. Training time takes away from time spent producing. You may have heard the saying that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance is applied as training employees as well. The consequences of not training employees at all is far worse and more expensive in the long run than paying for proper training. Few companies will survive long with poorly trained or untrained workers. The costs and risks of training are by far outweighed by its benefits. Here are just a few: training allows supervisors more time for other tasks, such as scheduling work, and performance coaching. Well-trained workers require less direct super revision, scruing up supervisors for other tasks. Training provides a reserve of training personnel within departments for expansion or emergencies. This enhances the organization's ability to respond quickly to opportunities and threats. Training wins the confidence and cooperation of employees. Well trained employees justifiably feel better about their ability to do their jobs and the abilities of others. There's less concern that somebody will let everyone down by not doing their job properly. Finally, training makes supervisors, including you, prime candidates for promotion. Training workers successfully isn't an easy process. If you can pull it off, people above you in the organization will notice. Basically we've established that training is expensive and challenging, but as well worth the effort if it's successful. The question is, how do you know if it's successful? Fortunately, figuring that out is not a matter of guess work or get feelings. There are four indicators of the success of training that supervisors should be aware of: Trainee reactions, did they finish the training? Did they see value in the training? Were they satisfied with the time they spent and the materials they received? Trainee learning, did they acquire new information? Can they now explain a process or procedure that they were not aware of before training? Trainee behavior, did they acquire new skills? Did they improve existing skills? Do they now interact with customers more effectively? Results, are trainees working faster? Has quality improved? Are there fewer mistakes and customer complaints? All of these are important. One big mistake organizations make is paying for training and then not following up to see if it's put to use. All the training in the world is wasted if it isn't used. Transfer of training is the process by which trainees effectively apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills to the job. Supervisors can avoid this trap and aid in the transfer of training by doing a few simple things consistently. Discuss the objectives of training in advance, so that employees know what to expect, identify effective workers to the trainees, so they have successful role models, have skilled co-workers model or demonstrate the performance of key job skills, and keep your eyes open and monitor trainee performance in a highly visible fashion, praising successful behaviors will help trainees feel good about their developing skills. Finally, consider training to be an important supervisory function that is worth your attention, and communicate that attitude to your employees. If you take it seriously, so will they.
