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To Train or Not to Train During a Recession
By Mike Phillips on 12/19/2008 @ 3:22 AM
669 Views | 5 Comments | 2 Ratings |Article Rating
The Financial MazeDay after day we are treated to an ever-spiraling barrage of bad news from the financial sector; companies are actively laying off thousands, taxes and “fees” are going through the roof, employment is reported at 8% (although some put it as high as 12.5%), and there do not seem to be any lights at the end of the tunnel. By all accounts, now seems like the worst time to invest in your workforce, in computer training, soft-skills, or any other facet! After all, you need to keep the ship afloat, and navigating through this crazy maze of mass financial problems can be tricky.
Yet allow me to present why, in fact, now is probably one of the best times to secure quality training at affordable prices. This article is a follow-up to the first article in the series, Computer Training in a Troubled Economy, which you may wish to read before continuing.
1.       You’re only as strong as your workforce.
This is self-evident, right? Well, how strong is your workforce? You may have endured rounds of layoffs, as many have, yet this only puts additional stress on fewer and fewer people to get the job done. The margin for error is slimmer than ever before, and if your present people are not as strong as they should be, your bottom line is suffering even as you read these words.
Therefore it only makes sense to ensure that your top people, at the least, are working as efficiently as they could be, doesn’t it?
2.       Get it Done Right the First Time
If your employees are “making it happen” using  their own methods, this often leads to errors which multiply to the point of critical mass. Case in point, if someone develops a database in Access, yet is not competent at how to do it correctly, in the end large chunks of it have to be redone, or worse, the whole thing scrapped and started over. The result is lost productivity, time, and the creation of fun little emergencies you get to pay overtime to fix, or even big-bucks to outside contractors. Little problems have a way of innocently growing up to be big hairy monster problems when you aren’t looking, so don’t feed them.
Another analogy to consider is building a house. Would you just start digging a hole for the foundation, and mix the cement and slap it in place and hope for the best? Of course not, how silly! Yet this is exactly how many of your top people get things done. Not because they are poor thinkers, but because they have to meet tight business deadlines and there is simply no other way for them to proceed. In fact they are often to be commended for their ingenuity in creating stop-gap solutions.
Yet stop-gap solutions are just that: something temporary to fill the gap until a more permanent solution is found. But if you never give them the training, or the time, to create those permanent solutions, those stop-gap solutions are destined to fail. Or become monster problems.
3.       You Save Money Training People Up Front
Does it cost more to train your workers how to use software correctly, or to improve their soft-skills? Certainly, initially. But the payback over time grows and grows, and it is a seemingly silent payback, so it makes it hard to justify without some intelligent examination. Yet every job your employees do, when trained properly, will be set up correctly, and pave the way for smoother operations day after day, month after month, year after year. Everything they do for you will be that much better, and those monster emergencies I mentioned in the last point will be far more infrequent or even nonexistent.
Going back to the house analogy, wouldn’t it make more sense to hire an actual architect, draw up plans, and get approvals before breaking ground? Of course, how silly, right! It’s exactly the same with your employees and their skills. Unless they are trained correctly, they are simply not going to be able to develop effective solutions long-term, and it is a certainty that a business built on seat-of-the-pants solutions will experience great hardship, or even fail.
4.       Investing in Training Pays You Now, and Later
Nobody likes to open their wallets and shell out for training that may, or may not, be helpful. Yet with the right training organization and effective training solutions, your money is more than well-spent; it’s an investment in your business that will pay you dividends now, and further on down the road.
You can decide you will not train right now, and simply hire talent that is already proficient in the software and soft-skills you need, but you would be fooling yourself to think that this is a real solution. Sure, they may be sharp right now, but for how long? Would you buy an expensive kitchen knife and expect it to be sharp forever?

Even if you do opt to hire the talent, ready-to-go, you can only afford so many superstars (and you will pay much more for their talent). Like that kitchen knife, eventually even their skill sets will need updating. In the long run, securing quality training is probably one of the smartest things you can do to keep your business on-track in these stormy financial waters.

I would be remiss not to mention that we at PC Training Experts offer cutting-edge corporate computer and soft-skills training for fantastic prices! We have the trainers, technology, patience and know-how to get you and your folks up and running in a hurry! And WE DO WINDOWS! (aha!)...

Take a Poll...

Let's get a shared sense of where everyone is. To the right of this article is a poll where you can share what you are doing with your computer and soft-skills training; it takes 3 seconds (click - done!). Then you can see everyone else's results too.

After hundreds of views, everyone seems shy to do the poll. I'm not collecting your email or any other data here (except your answers, which I suppose should be obvious!) Be generous; share for a moment please! Then go post something interesting in the forums.

Until next time, we’ll solve our problems Bit by Bit!
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Comments
comment By Gina @ Friday, December 19, 2008 10:18 PM
This isle and it is so a great article snd it so needed in our times. I will pass on to people I know
comment By Mike Phillips @ Saturday, December 20, 2008 1:36 AM
Thanks very much.
comment By PC Training Experts @ Monday, December 22, 2008 3:33 AM
Comments from the following blog entry: 9 tips to Ensure Your Next Rollout Fails, located at: http://pctrainingexperts.com/hot-articles/trainingtalk/articletype/articleview/articleid/20/9-tips-to-ensure-your-next-rollout-fails.aspx
comment By karROX @ Monday, March 16, 2009 11:09 AM
Thats an intersting article. The 4 th points is something to stress upon. great
comment By Mike Phillips @ Monday, March 16, 2009 12:01 PM
Thanks karRox. May I ask, what do you do? And why is training of interest for you?

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