From time to time my staff approach me with flyers that promote particular public training workshops and ask me if they can attend. These courses range from ‘Advanced PowerPoint’ to ‘How to Deal with Difficult People’. It’s hard to know what to say when all I have is a flyer. What’s the best way to handle these requests?
Sometimes it seems that hardly a day goes by without one of those glossy flyers landing in our in trays. Some of the events they promote are expensive, while others look like bargains. And they all sound great!
It may seem, when somebody asks to go, that ‘all you have is a flyer’, but in fact you have something of much greater value: a request to attend. This request reveals that the requester feels that something in his work life needs to be different, and he sees the training as the solution to his issue. And indeed, training is a potential solution, an answer. But what’s the problem? What’s the question? Supervisors need to probe a little to find out what the employee thinks needs to change. What you’re looking for is whether the request points to:
- a training need
- an education need
- a training or education wish
- some other kind of need/wish altogether
These distinctions matter because the return on the training investment can be positive only if it’s addressing an actual training need. I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but the word ‘training’ is used in organizations to refer to actions and events that really aren’t training at all.
Training is about doing, about performance. Listening to a presentation may be educational, but it’s not training. It’s training only if the learners practice job-related skills during the training event. As I wrote in an earlier column, employees who don’t have the opportunity during training to practice the skills that they’re supposed to use on the job won’t apply them after training. Why not? Because they never acquired them in ‘training’. They may have learned about them, but they didn’t learn how to do them.
The organizational threat is that people will leave the ‘training’ believing that they’ve been trained, when in fact they haven’t. And don’t get me started about the executive oceanside retreat that gets charged to the training line in the budget!
Training needs
If you’re a supervisor, and you haven’t had much exposure to the world of training, go immediately to two short books by Robert Mager: Analyzing Performance Problems, and What Every Manager Needs to Know About Training. You’ll discover clear and witty answers to the question of what constitutes a training need, and what doesn’t.
A training need exists when an employee lacks the knowledge and/or skill to perform an element of her job to at least a satisfactory level. If an employee’s performance does not need to be better in some respect, then the employee doesn’t have a training need. This doesn’t mean that there’s no need at all; it means that training won’t satisfy the need. The employee with the flyer is unlikely to have unearthed a training need. Providing training in the absence of a training need cannot but deliver a negative return on the training investment.
Education needs
Education needs pop up all the time, but they’re most obvious when someone is new. Professional associations offer education programs that address the need for employees to learn about their industry, for example provincial hospital associations, the Canadian Payroll Association, etc. These programs focus mainly on knowledge acquisition.
Training/education wish
If the employee with the flyer knows what she needs to know about her job and her industry, and is able to perform her tasks satisfactorily, she may be expressing a wish for development, rather than education or training. Indeed, this is the most likely motive behind the request. This is valuable information for the supervisor, because it probably sheds light on a career aspiration.
In exit interviews employees often say that they decided to leave because they couldn’t see a career path in the organization. This comes about because nobody asked what their career goals were. Supervisors who help employees to advance their careers are creating engaged and committed employees.
Some other kind of need/wish
If none of the above reasons apply to the employee’s request, then the reason may be covert, possibly unknown even to the employee herself. Here are some possibilities:
- The employee thinks it’s her turn to go on training.
- The employee wants some recognition.
- She wants to spend a day away from the workplace (a sure sign of disengagement).
- She feels underutilized, and doesn’t think she’ll be missed for a day.
- The employee wants to burnish her resume in preparation for leaving.
To get at the motivation to attend the workshop, try this question: How to do see yourself applying what you’ll be learning? The answer will go a long way toward explaining where the employee is coming from with the request.
Ultimately, of course, it’s a management decision, and yet another example of the supervisor’s responsibility to balance the wishes of employees and the needs of the organization.
To submit a question for a future column, or to comment on a previous one, please contact editor@charityvillage.com. No identifying information will appear in this column. For paid professional advice about an urgent or complex situation, contact Tim directly.
Tim Rutledge, Ph.D., is a veteran human resources consultant and publisher of Mattanie Press. You can contact him at tim_rutledge@sympatico.ca or visit www.gettingengaged.ca.
Disclaimer: Advice and recommendations are based on limited information provided and should be used as a guideline only. Neither the author nor CharityVillage.com make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability for accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in whole or in part within this article.
