Train- Not Drain Them!

Real Life scenario

HR department in XYZ ltd had a separate Training Division to cater to the needs of the training and development of such a large work force. Under the supervision of their HR Director, the Sr. Manager Training started doing the Training need identification for all the managers, as at that point they just wanted to cover the Manager level only, which itself had more than 60 managers for a 2500 workforce.

The Sr. Manager who was working with the organization for the past 7 years once asked the Director HR that, what was the need of TNA, they could just go through the appraisal forms of the previous year and plan the training calendar accordingly, which was not such a bad idea but while going through the forms they all realized that it was a waste of time, the better option was to get the questionnaire filled from the Managers and their seniors for TNA.

That is how all the steps were followed properly to organize the training for the managers for that particular year.

During the process, the newly appointed Director HR faced a lot of problems and aversions from many people, including the training division. And the reason was, that the trainings will be planned and delivered, but the requirement need not matter…

This is the situation in many organization now, training for them is just a status function, which means that if a competitor is providing training, so even we should do it and more so from the same vendor… amusing, isn’t it?

And if this is not enough, most organizations have nothing to do with calculating ROI on training and finding out how effective the training had been for their employees. It is just a way to utilize the budget not really investing.

And if you speak to the employees in such organizations, most of them like to attend trainings as it saves them from day to day work, some attend to pass their time and for the food they get, some don’t attend at all and take leaves, some make excuses that training is just a formality, their work is more important. But have you guys as an HR professional ever thought why people think like that for trainings?

Reason lies in the paragraphs narrated above, yes; we actually do not train them but Drain them to never come back again.

Training being such an important function needs to be taken very seriously, it is one function which if methodically done can bring lot of benefits not only in productivity/performance but also in a person’s outlook and attitude. What can be done to make training more effective and employee friendly? read on….

Training can be effectively measured and the ROI can be calculated with just a little bit more time by the HR department and the line managers in coordination.

Evaluating training can make it more fruitful and yes you can design better programs in future for the employees, once you know how much they have benefited from such programs already.

# Obtain a feedback session after at least 3 weeks from the date of finishing the training program. Bring them back, ask questions, evaluate their performance and always tell their Line Managers to send their pre training performance ratings and post training. No, no, my dear friends, the results will not show so early but the symptoms will. :)

# Give them a clear cut action plan while in training so that they all can learn about their own shortcomings and how to overcome them after returning to their jobs. The action plan will showcase to them their future course of action which can be discussed with their immediate superiors and who can help them in initiating the changes and make the training worth.

# May be for the next 6 months to one year depending upon what kind of training is being provided, the review meetings at regular intervals need to be organized with the Immediate Senior, Trainer and the Department Head to achieve the desired results accompanied by the supervisor’s observation.

# Compare the findings of training need analysis and identification and the effectiveness, and this actually works as a factual report not just for the candidate who attended the training but also for the trainer, who can boast of his/her achievements in the next program.

Training is such vast topic that it may need many more articles to complete the entire procedure, process and methodology and of course the effectiveness…but for starters or for people finding difficulty in evaluating training, this write up can help.

So guys…HAPPY TRAINING AND HAPPY LEARNING

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Employee Education Program (MDPs) – Opportunities and Hurdles

Training and development the least thought of area of Human resource Department, which makes me write experiences through this editorial. Investing in Employee education program would enrich and improve employee productivity and performance moreover directly affecting the company’s own efficiency and profitability. A coin has two sides- positive and negative, hence we will discuss the hurdles that come in the way of Employee education programs in organizations; what an employee perceives and what is the employer’s side of the story and then gradually we will share the opportunities that can be tapped through organizing such programs in firms. So here we go:

Flip side story- Employee opinion

# The absence will create a gap: many employees feel that once they are absent for a longer duration from day to day work, their absence will actually cause more gaps in terms of team building, office politics and sometimes it’s a belief that employers also do not support them.

# The acting team leader takes over the team and then the difference in personality type and techniques of team handling often causes a rift between two individuals. Sometimes to the extent that the person who has just returned is given an altogether new area and team to work on and someone else bears the fruits of their efforts.

# Without the management’s support the learning of many months or days goes waste if the employees are not given a chance to utilize these skills and knowledge in the organization as it may require changes in the system or offering of some new projects. Sometimes the management looks at this initiative as an expense without realizing that in the long run such investments can bring many benefits.

# Managing work and education side by side creates hurdles, there is less time for studies, no option for flexible timings, lack of support from the team leaders for studies, all this and more can create a mind block for the employees to opt for such benefits.

Miffed employer

# Many employers assume that once employees are trained they are more likely to leave the company for greener pastures, but actually, the opposite is true: trained staff are happier and more likely to stay put.

# The cost is high, and these expenses actually will bring in more complications, lets not waste our money on something like that, where there is no guarantee if the employee will stay with us or leave for better opportunities.

# Employers feel that absence from work for a long duration may result in less productivity, which indeed is the case in many companies where the employees have to go for full time courses or university/institute courses and their absence does cause less productivity – but isn’t that a short term drawback?

Opportunities:

# Team Work: Employees who take part in workplace education programs are better equipped and motivated to work successfully with others. They gain a clearer appreciation of how teamwork is essential for workplace success and how they can contribute to the performance of the team. At the same time, they gain skills that they feel would make them better team players who can perform at the same level as their colleagues.

# Latest development: Such programmes often enhance the knowledge in latest developments and technologies. It is a useful tool to keep employees up to date with what’s new and can benefit the organizations. Keeping abreast with new and improved techniques and technologies- is important to fight competition and overcome monotony.

# Succession Planning: This is one tool which can help you in succession planning, once you have identified the resources (human resources) who can take up a larger role with bigger teams then you can invest in them. Sending them for MDPs bridges the gaps that are currently there and equip them with the required skills and makes them capable of handling enhanced new roles.

# Individual development: Good way to enhance their capabilities. Not only is the company giving the employee added skills, attributes or a value addition to their resume, it is also investing in something that would reap a lot of benefits in the long run. Employees are able to train themselves and acquire new abilities for company expansion. It should be used as a tool to transform its human resources into agents of development.

# Retention: It is one way of retaining your employees, contrary to the common myth that people will leave once they are well equipped with such skills and knowledge; whereas the people becomes more loyal and would like to stay for longer durations to apply their newly learned skills.

# Less employee turnover: Once you sponsor their education, they are more likely to stay with your company. If their education is paid and they are learning while earning what better things they can ask for, especially for employees who have to leave their studies to take up family responsibility.

Cisco is one such company and surely the retention problems are fairly low apart from other benefits. Coca Cola is another example for initiating such programs. Punjab National Bank is another name.

Share with us for the benefit of other members; your story of such programs, their success ratio and benefits!

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Internship - Campus to Corporate

An internship or/and summer training results in full time employment when the student completes his/her course or in some cases well before that. Why do you think institutes like the IIMs, IITs and other top 50 institutes take equal interest in placing their candidates for summer internship? The reason being, that most of them are acquired by the companies for future jobs as well. Most employers feel that there is a huge gap which students have to cover from the campus to the corporate; they are not empowered with the practical skills that are required in companies.

Then why not take summer placements seriously, when your best bet is to treat your internship as seriously as you would a job, and treat your internship provider as you would an employer. While you are there to learn as much as you can about the field of study you’re interested in, you’re also there to be helpful to your internship provider and other staff who depend on interns, which in turn can open a plethora of openings for you.

Don’t agree?? Read more to understand how a seriously done internship can benefit your career in the long run, even if you are not placed in the same company for a job, the experience gained can actually help you in designing your future course of action and change you as a person.

What an internship can do for you?

With a tsunami of such institutions in every line, and availability of project reports on sale, the seriousness of summer placements is weakening, and every day we see many queries on “Help for my project” on the forum. A seriously done internship can do wonders for you, here is how:

Deciding your career interest: Internship is a great tool to help you define your career goals and it also helps the students in getting clarity of thought by helping them identify their field of interest. By picking projects that lie in their area of interest, students can evaluate if their current interest area excites them. Being in the real work environment will allow you to determine what role suits your skill set, and thus will help you to apply for jobs later.

For example, if you’re majoring in HR, but have an eye on IT as well, you might consider an internship with some IT/ITES company in their HR department. Or another example could be, if you’re planning to major in marketing but not sure whether you want to go into advertising or digital marketing, you should consider getting knowledge in both areas to help you decide which is best for you.

Gateway to full-time jobs: By working with a firm closely during the internship period, a PG student gets an opportunity to understand the working culture of the company. The company, in turn, gets an opportunity to evaluate the student for a potential full-time job offer. This way the student gets a fantastic opportunity to convince employers to hire them, by displaying their skills.

Develop practical skills: Reading course books and term assignments only helps to understand the basics, but what goes on in real life work situations in your field is different from that. As an intern in an organization, you stand to benefit immensely by observing how veterans from various fields tackle projects and also gives you a chance to apply the theory learnt in classroom into practice. Hands-on experience is very important!

Networking: Your first step in the corporate world, an internship programme will immensely help you create a professional network and bring you in contact with people from your field. This will be valuable in the coming years and also if you land in a job with the same company. As a trainee, colleagues around you will be open to sharing their experiences which will surely help you get your final placements. So network, learn and get placed.

Value addition to your resume: There are companies willing to take in freshers and train them; an internship adds value to your CV before you go for the final placement/ or after completing your graduation. An experience of a few months – where you have learnt some basic facts of bridging the gap from campus to corporate will surely take you a long way with newly acquired skills and knowledge added to your resume.

Learn!! don’t waste your energy on getting a project report for free/ or for money, this would not benefit you in any way, place your best efforts to grab an opportunity to work during that golden period of “8 weeks” in a company which adds value to your career path and helps you design your future  (not just a compromise)

Members please pour your thoughts here and add more points which can help students to understand the value of an internship and make them work towards their project reports instead of focusing on copy-paste and/or purchasing of reports. Look forward to a tremendous response…

Here’s – for the next Generation!! Gen Next..:)

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Mentor Mentor – Cure me!!

Tolerance towards mistakes and especially towards repeating the same mistakes is very less in the contemporary times. Companies can’t afford to have employees who don’t learn from the experiences of others. A steep learning curve calls for a good mentor-ship programme.

A mentor must ideally possess adequate experience in the domain(s) one is planning to move into or wishes to explore as a career option. The mentor must have the requisite domain expertise, industry exposure and industry contacts.

Mentoring is an intensive OD intervention. It focuses on the development of a high potential junior under the continuous auspices of a senior leader. Their relationship is voluntary and not from the same chain of command. It is a long programme – typically ranging from three months to a year.

The qualities of a good mentoring programme should be:

Discussion around the protégé’s goals – both professional and personal. Goal-setting leads to the mentor assessing the protégé’s developmental needs. Then the rigour of regular meetings, face-to-face discussions, home assignments. Action learning begins then and is mainly aimed at bridging the developmental gaps of the protégé. Documenting of the action plan is empirical to ensure tracking since the timeline is short and specified.

No personal Matters – The mentor should act like an advisor and not as a friend or boss and the communication between the mentor and the protégé should be informal but it should be kept in mind that personal matters should always be avoided unless they are harming the performance of the protégé.

Confidentiality  – Matters discussed in mentoring program-mes, weaknesses and development areas of the participants should be kept confidential. Mentoring can happen in companies where the culture is driven by trust and respect between team members, where ever that would be lacking no matter how Informal or formal culture would be development , succession planning, career pathing would just be Jargon without adding any values. 

Managers are not made in class rooms, instead,  practical, on-the-job exposure coupled with a blend of the churn and rigor enforced by a mentor enhances the growth potential and shortens the time frame of transition of an executive into a manager.

What should mentors possess?

We may not necessarily need a supervisor as  mentor. Instead,  looking for a person who has richer experiences and exemplifies the qualities that can be adapted . Find the smartest person who can help in particular needs. It is the individual’s responsibility to work hard to not only find the right mentor, but also maintain an ongoing mentor-mentee relationship. The best way to find a mentor is to be a part of as many forums and attend as many industry events as possible. In such events, you can make contacts and explore possibilities.

Suggestions and counseling: Mentors help in exploring various career options so as to find the best suited path, as per one’s skills and interests. With an in-depth domain knowledge, experience and industry exposure, a mentor can help the mentee in deciding the career path best suited for him/her. For instance, if a professional needs mentoring, the mentor can enable the person to list out all options clearly and evaluate the same. A good mentor can suggest the pros and cons of all options, based on the individual’s interests, experience, education, attitude and the market trends, both current and future.

Mutual Learning: The contemporary mentoring style is different from the traditional in the sense that now it is a two way process.

Conventional Mentoring → Protégé

Contemporary Mentoring ↔ protégé

Through mentorship, one gets an exposure into the decision-making and leadership styles of the seniors. Additionally, it provides an access to organisational knowledge and networking opportunities, expansion of knowledge of skills and practices, an increased sense of safety while learning and a more focused development.

Feedback management: Mentors are an effective sounding board for venting emotions, views and feelings. Since it is on a one-to-one basis, there is a scope for personalized learning owing to an honest and constructive feedback. Overall, it leads to increased self-confidence and heightened career aspirations.

Listening Skills: Whenever we talk about listening skills, these lines of Ginny Barnes comes to my mind

“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” Ginny Barnes.

One must ensure that they are reading the words but not missing out on the gestures, body language and reading between the lines is also important.

Art of problem solving: A mentor should explore what kind of problem a protégé is facing, is it more of ability –skill lacking related problem or motivational – where the mentee lacks willingness to do something. The solution then depends upon the kind of personality, behaviour and aptitude.

The concept of mentorship does not apply only to organisations as a whole, but to the micro units as well, the individual employees themselves. Hence, care must be taken to carefully select and approach the right person as your mentor, specific qualities must be looked into for a Mentor. All this will surely result into a successful mentoring program.

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