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Training Dollars Are Too Scarce to Waste Chip Andrews Reprinted with permission from the FMI Management Letter, January, 1996. Contractors and engineers in Western Europe might spend two to three percent of their compensation cost annually on training for their management and staff. Manufacturers in the United States might spend two, three or even five percent on skill development for their employees. Most are convinced that their investment in learning yield high short-term returns. In contrast, medium-sized and larger contractors in the U.S. spend about one percent of their compensation cost on training. A contractor with a staff of 100 foremen, superintendents, project managers, estimators, office staff and senior managers could have a total compensation cost of seven million dollars. A one percent training budget of $70,000, or $700 per person, requires thrifty cost control to accomplish any skill development. Consider the cost of attending a typical seminar at a location 750 miles from home: Seminar Tuition$ 695 TOTAL......$ 1,700 That's $700 for the seminar and $1,000 for the trip...if costs are reasonably controlled. One person can use up the training budget for two or three individuals by attending a two-day program. To get maximum results from your training budget, take a hard look at your current training resources and suppliers. Here are some suggestions for effective investments in training for contractors: Buy lots of books. The right $25 book or $95 videotape can be very effective for individual learners. Build a company library, and pass training materials around. You can make plenty of mistakes as you buy publications that miss the mark, but your expenditures are low in total. Use local resources. Your regional community college offers a host of potentially beneficial classes, and many college short courses are excellent. Local training firms often do an outstanding job in building computer skills. Use internal resources. Some of the best trainers in the country for your people are your people. They know your market, your strengths, your customers, your suppliers and your competitors. Many of your highly skilled employees can share their expertise with several others. In addition to on-the-job training, a classroom environment can be structured to take advantage of the capabilities of your very talented people. Share the knowledge equity within the firm. Send teams to seminars - Require solutions in return. One person sitting in a program may have dozens of ideas--some good, some not so good- about how the new seminar concepts could be implemented in the company. Too often, however, the best concepts die when the attendee gets home to his or her "real job." On the other hand, three seminar participants from the same company can have a continuing dialog over several days to focus a seminar's content. In ongoing conversations, they can determine just how the techniques presented could best be used by their firm. Many firms require that their participants come back from seminars with a written outline containing a recommended action plan. What did you learn? What should we learn to do differently? Bring the program to your place. When you go to a program and develop a new understanding or build better skills, come home as a teacher. You learn and retain more when you are going to teach your new knowledge to others. That's an effective way to spread the cost for a few attendees over a dozen others in the company. Or bring the seminar program to your location. If the tuition costs were the same, the travel bill might be for two instructors instead of twenty attendees. Also, the instructors should be able to focus the session to achieve your specific goals. You might even get the seminar tailored with examples that are directly related to your situation. Train your best producers to be trainers. An excellent student may not automatically be an excellent teacher--your best project manager with top scheduling skills may not be a seasoned instructor. One of the most cost-effective expenditures for learning is training the trainers. Instead of always using outside trainers, hire a consultant for help in designing an instructional program, setting learning objectives, establishing a learning measurement process, coaching your instructors and building presentation skills. Cost-effective training within reach-and within budget. With a database of capable trainers and areas of needed instruction identified, you can develop a long-term cost-effective program using internal and external resources. In some cases, you might satisfy a two or three-person skill requirement with a videotape or participation in a local educational program. In other instances with large demand, the company might present multiple internal sessions. A professional training process can pay big dividends, and a well-designed training budget gets the most out of each dollar. Training expenditures are too costly to waste. Adapted from The Project Manager Winter 1996. Chip Andrews is Chairman and CEO of the FMI Corporation. FMI may be reached a' (919) 787- 8400. Return to Training Project Managers Monograph Return to the Association for Project Managers Main Page Email the Association for Project Managers
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