Choosing the right course for you
5 tips to help you get it right
"With
so many other demands on valuable resources,
why should training be a priority?"
It's a fair question, and one which any responsible person with control over tight budgets would be wise to consider. After all, training is a significant cost to business, and every business knows that reducing costs whilst maintaining or improving productivity is the best way to maximise profits.
Overall, companies in Europe spent €364 million on training courses in 1999, accounting for 2.4% of their total labour costs. The average expenditure on training courses per person was €1450. (Source: "Company Training in Ireland", FAS, December 1999.)
With that level of expenditure, you'd expect some significant benefits. So why do businesses spend money on training? Here's a summary of some of the most important benefits of training given by those businesses that do train.
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Computers don't replace skilled workers: they create a demand for workers with different skills
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ISO 9000/Excellence through People/Investor in People standards
The
question is not "Can we afford to train?",
but "Can we afford not to train?"
Training actually reduces your business costs
Enlightened companies don't regard training as a cost, but as an investment. Most businesses have invested heavily in computer based technology in the work-place. In order to maximise their return on that investment, they need to invest in the people who are expected to use the technology as well.
A well-trained user will complete most tasks more quickly and more efficiently than someone who has to work it out on their own, or constantly ask colleagues for assistance. Moreover, their work will tend to be of a higher standard at the first draft stage, requiring less time to be spent on proofing corrections later. In working environments where increasingly, time is money, a competent and well-trained user actually saves your business money by saving time.
Training increases productivity
Because well trained users are more efficient, they can get more done in the time available, thereby increasing productivity.
Computers don't replace skilled workers: they create a demand for workers with different skills
Contrary to popular belief, computers don't replace skilled workers. They create a demand for workers with different skills. Computers loaded with appropriate software can be used to produce marketing and communications literature of the highest possible standard, incorporating images and effects that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago.
Computers are used in almost every single aspect of most businesses, from production control to financial analysis, and from day to day correspondence to the all important payroll management. But they don't do it on their own. When it comes to desktop publishing software for example, a computer is not some kind of magical melting pot, into which can be thrown all kinds of garbled text and graphic images, and out of which will mysteriously arise beautifully composed and well laid-out documents. If that's your perception of how computers work, you need to get real!
The assumption that anyone who can use a computer can perform any task that is computer-based is as absurd as assuming that anyone who can write can produce a best-selling novel. It just doesn't work like that!
Someone who uses desktop publishing software for example, is taking on the tasks that previously would have been undertaken by designers, copy-writers, photographers, graphic illustrators, typesetters, paste-up artists and printers – not a skill-set you would associate with someone who has done a Mavis Beacon typing class! Keyboard skills are useful here, but if you want your marketing literature to impress as well as inform, you'd better be sure that the person using the software can do more than just type fast.
ISO 9000/Excellence through People/Investor in People standards
Training programmes that deliver quality training according to the needs of the business underpin ISO 9000, Excellence through People and Investor in People standards. If your business is serious about quality, it needs to be serious about making sure that the people who work for you are properly trained to do the job you expect – and need – them to do.
Well trained workers are happy workers!
A person who has been properly trained to do the job that is expected of them is more confident about meeting expectations than one who hasn't. They experience less stress in the work place and take less time off due to stress-related illness.
Businesses that invest in their people are more successful at recruiting high calibre workers, and are more successful at retaining them. A worker in whom a business has invested is an asset and feels valued.
or
click here to view a list of training courses offered by PPA
Chris
O'Shea
Proprietor, PPA Education & Training
November 2007.