Are Companies Ignoring IT Training Programs?
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Many companies have training programs in place. But do they go the distance? |
At the risk of repeating ourselves, there's a shortage of qualified IT executives out there, making it all the more crucial that companies work hard to train future leaders from within. There are plenty of ways to do this, but, at least in one reader's eyes, it's not happening.
Responding to a recent blog post on how tech tools are helping companies train emerging executives, Rob said his company has a formal training program, but it's little more than window dressing:
Once the training is over, there is no follow-up program to assist the employee to attain the next level of success. It is a waste of employee effort and organizational resources. Personally, anyone would attain much more knowledge in an MBA program as compared with an internally developed program such as ours.
It's a scary thought, but not a hugely surprising one, given many of the comments we've received lately on issues of training and grooming the next generation of IT leaders.
But how widespread is it? We don't have concrete evidence of many successful corporate training programs. Plenty of companies have them—FedEx is one notable example—but not all are successful.
Has your company made a concerted, thorough effort to train future IT leaders? Have you heard of other companies that are doing it right or wrong?
Comments (3)
What's to train?
If they know Excel, and how to shout "OUTSOURCE!" and "OFFSHORE!!" as the answer to every problem, real or imagined, they're set.
Posted by Riposte_ | September 10, 2008 9:52 AM
What about end-user training? The more we train our end users to be more aware of how to navigate their computer, use corporate software and use the Internet without downloading every spyware app on the planet, then we can deduce burdens on the IT department AND increase productivity. I don't think there is enough end-user training and enough quality end-user training and this should be addressed more as well.
Posted by Steve | September 11, 2008 9:47 AM
Sadly, we've cut nearly all our training and mentoring programs, because management perceives that it's a wasted investment - they've been burned by high turnover and a generation of workers that climbs by jumping from ship to ship, and so they think, "Why should we even bother? We're not running a university here."
It's a really frustrating state of affairs. On the one hand, they're absolutely right. We have literally poured money into training people for middle management, who left the minute they got what they needed to hop to another company and add another $10k to their salary. On the other hand, if we stop creating an active learning environment, we will retain people for an even shorter time period and we'll have potentially unskilled people working on key projects.
I have no answers, just whining really. Do you think that workers will commit to pay back costs of training if they quit within a certain time period? Is that even enforceable?
Posted by Sad State of Affairs | September 12, 2008 11:22 AM