USA Today: Companies repeat mistake of cutting investment in workers
Alan Webber, the founding editor of Fast Company, describes what we all have intuitively known for some time -- there is a trend of human disinvestment going on in companies, despite the fact that there are more books and seminars on the need to build human capital. Even the learning and training of existing employees is treated as "non-essential" items. Those working in the e-learning content space can relate with this: "One of the easiest ways to make your numbers look better is to cut back on "non-essential" items. Training and development can be axed. So can programs that give executives -- or any workers -- new ideas, new techniques, new tactics and new approaches to winning in the workplace. Once the tyranny of the numbers sets in, almost any investment in people is an easy target."
ntl is actually not too bad at 'investing in people' - they have on occasion cut back but generally as a company they are pretty reasonable. Where they and I suspect lots of other companies fall down is actually understanding how to help themselves and their employees by target this training in the correct place and addressing whether it does make a difference to the firm o or the individual. I have rarely seen the level of training that does bring back new ideas, new techniques and innovation to the floor, and even when it does the culture of an orgnisation can mitigate against it.
The point I'm trying to make is cutting back on investment isn't necessarily the issue. Failure to build a culture that encourages learning is more of a problem than lack of money to pay for training.
Posted by Paul Goodison at November 7, 2003 10:59 PM | TrackBack