FEATURE INSIGHT
Training and development is often the first casualty when cost-cutting occurs within organisations. Lisa Gillespie, Moorepay’s HR services director , explains why this is risky and often a false economy once you see the real value of investing in L&D
A t a regular breakfast event facing their business. One of their key challenges was finding and keeping good staff, and the contact went on to reason that the poor retention rates meant there was little point in them investing in learning and development for staff. It’s a classic example of the ‘cart before the horse’ that all of us working in human resources (HR) will have heard at some point. Another person round the table chimed in with their own tale of woe, describing the time they sent a part-qualified plumber out to fix an industrial dishwasher – and landed themselves an angry customer (and a hefty bill) when the inexperienced employee flooded their customer’s premises with dirty dishwater. Both these stories illustrate the consequences of under-investing in learning and development (L&D). What both of these contacts at the table were missing was an understanding of the consequences of not having formal training and development plans in place. I asked my contact what training he provided for new employees and he described standard processes such as logging into systems, task-based processes, and product and service training. But when I then asked about safety, security, data protection and equal opportunities, he shrugged. Some of the group were surprised and pointed out (quite rightly) that any breaches of these requirements could have huge cost and legal implications for recently a business contact was complaining about the challenges
him and the business. So we arranged a working group to look at some of his business problems over the coming weeks and to analyse how training or staff development could tackle them. ...simply understanding the causes of issues changed the perception of the value of training and development within the organisation The following week we were not surprised to see the main problems identified by a staff survey were poor recruitment practices, cultural issues (which led to attrition in certain minority groups), lack of career progression, blame, and a poor understanding of systems and processes which felt disempowering to almost 30% of his staff. Here are some of the solutions our group proposed: ● recruitment and selection training for managers and supervisors ● involving staff in interviewing, and building ‘buddying’ into the selection process ● reviewing induction processes to include areas said to be lacking, such as career opportunities and objective-setting
● running equal opportunities training with everyone in the organisation and reviewing the current policies to include confidential reporting procedures ● an incentivised staff suggestion scheme based on efficiency and continuous improvement ● a social group framework with year- round activities to get staff more engaged and breakdown cliques operating at the heart of some departments. My contact reported back that just asking about and acknowledging some of the issues had already led to better engagement, plus they had identified four individuals who were considering leaving – and these were key people in the business – because they had never been asked about (or had any interest taken in) their personal career aspirations. The group is still collecting data but I wanted to share this with you so you can see how these improvements start, and how simply understanding the causes of issues changed the perception of the value of training and development within the organisation. Already the organisation has mitigated risk by incorporating a range of training needs which cover statutory obligations, like data security and encouraging a fair and non-discriminatory workplace, but there is still a lot more work to do. The next stage is to harness the real value of development and engagement which will be the final step in demonstrating the returns on investment. At the last discussion there was even a mention of creating a formal in-house training role – watch this space! n
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | November 2016 | Issue 25 22
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