Trident ConsultingTrident offers training, consulting and recruiting services to business professionals.

The aim of business education is to create a professional and value adding organization.  However, in a time of economic uncertainty, and intense pressure to do things faster, better and cheaper, many managers and companies are reluctant to spend the money and commit to giving their people time off to pursue continuing professional education courses.  In my view this is a symptom of short term thinking and a huge mistake.  There are tremendous benefits in spending the money and effort on developing continuing education programs (and budgets) for your key players.  Some of these include:

ü Professional development.  Most professional certification organizations require a minimum number of hours of continuing education for recertification. 

ü Interaction with professionals from other companies and industries facilitates new ideas and enthusiasm, which can significantly benefit your organization.

ü By allowing people to attend training courses and seminars you are showing an interest in their professional development.  This not only serves the company’s best interest by creating an up skilled workforce, but may contribute to a more loyal workforce.

ü Cross functional training facilitates business integration.  I encourage managers to enable their employees to participate in any training that provides them with a wider view of how the organization functions.  For instance, I have sent many of my supply chain managers to financial and project management courses over the years.  The results have been greater acceptance of these individuals by other functional areas because they speak the same language and understand how their activities impact the rest of the business.

These are just a few of the benefits of establishing a training program and budgets for your employees (please send others in your comments!). 

Of course, just throwing money and time at training is not enough to reap these and other benefits.  Training programs must be carefully constructed and delivered to have the greatest effect.  Many companies have implemented internal training programs, or have relied solely on the job training, in lieu of sending their employees to third party providers.  In many cases these approaches focus more on accomplishing a minimum number of hours of training per employee to satisfy company policy.  Such programs usually have limited feedback and quality control.  The training also rarely reflects the most current industry trends and best practices, and is rarely delivered by professional trainers.  In  house training programs and OJT are a great start, but a complete training program should include a budget for consultants and professional third party training.

The advantage of spending the money on third party training is that professional training organizations have a greater stake in ensuring the training provided meets client needs.  The best training organizations will be willing and able to tailor programs to your company needs, as well as provide high quality standard, “off the shelf,” solutions for the organization.  Organizations such as Trident Consulting LLC are flexible enough to provide training (and other services such as consulting and recruiting) on site nationwide, and even in Europe.  Courses offered by organizations such as Trident are continuously updated to reflect current best practices drawn from a wide array of industries and companies.  This is a characteristic that few in house training programs possess.

It is often difficult to measure the impact training has on the bottom line of an organization.  However, it is easy to see the impact a well trained, professional work force has on the operations of the organization.  Improved operations inevitably lead to improved financial results.  An organization must continuously grow to succeed, and in order for the organization to grow its key players must also grow.  Professional training is a key part of that growth.