The trends from many sources say that employee development and employee training are going to be hot careers over the next ten years (Hey, cool – I have a running start!). But just by looking around we can tell that news is kind of obvious: Millions of baby boomers are going to retire. Gen X workers don’t mind changing careers. And whenever someone retires, shifts companies, or takes a promotion, someone has to be there, training employees to do the work someone else just left behind.

So is there a problem with that? If untrained managers are doing the training, there is. I hear from so many people that managers in their organizations don’t have a clue about training. In fact, yesterday a retired gentleman signed up for my Manager as Trainer class (yes, I’m on top of this trend already) [ ] saying he was a retired technician, and he wanted to learn how to be a trainer. Why? So he could go out and teach other techs how to be better techs – because he’s observed their own managers just aren’t doing it.

Sometimes even the trainers can’t train

Then there was the conversation I had this morning with the manager of a restaurant. She said, “Our regional HR guy does a lot of the training, but he is the worst trainer I’ve ever seen.”

With all due respect to my SHRM colleagues, some people are great at labor relations, company policy, and such—but a tad light when it comes to the training side of the spectrum.

So here’s how to waste time and money: Have managers who don’t know how to train do the training.

“How does that waste time and money?”  Glad you asked.

Lower levels of employee enthusiasm is a result of poor training. So is lower productivity. So is higher turnover. Take a moment – really – and count up how much all that costs. Tens of thousands of dollars—per employee.

Bottom line, companies may say they can’t afford to train their managers in how to train, but the truth is they can’t afford NOT to.  And I’m not saying that just because I’m in the training profession. I’m saying it because it’s true. 

Do it right—get managers trained in how to train.
 

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Filed in Work, Business, Training, Motivation, Management, Leadership, Team Building, Workplace, Train the Trainer, Corporate Culture