This is the second part of an article written by Roman Battan, a co-worker of mine at Convergence Training. If you would like to contact Roman directly, he can be emailed at: rbattan@capstonetechnology.com or give him a call at 360-834-0991 x241.
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Internal Resources or External Resources?
Allocating resources for training is not an easy decision during tough economic times. Like everything else in business, it always comes down to money. By using internal employees to develop training, you spend money indirectly on wages and if you hire an outside firm or consultant there are direct contracting costs. These may both sound bad, but keep in mind that if you don’t spend money on training now, you’re going to lose money through poor product quality and downtime and be worse off in the long-run anyway.
Internal and external training resources both have their merits and drawbacks. For example, internal employees have an intimate knowledge of production processes, but usually lack the skills to develop an effective training program with adequate instructional design. They might be able to write a manual, teach a class, or design a PowerPoint, but the transfer of knowledge may be diminished or ineffective based on their inability to appeal to the diverse learning styles of other employees.
External training providers are usually located on the other end of the spectrum. They know how to design training in general, but may not have the intimate knowledge of your manufacturing processes. This is typically where we encounter the two different kinds of trainers providing Soft-skills and Hard-skills.
Hard-skills trainers who are specialized in your industry and have a proven track record are ideal candidates as an external training provider. They require little or no guidance from internal employees, they understand essential equipment and processes, and have working knowledge of proper instructional design. Trainers with these essential qualifications are more difficult to find than Soft-skills trainers that are willing to take a crack at building training. Don’t be fooled by these unqualified characters.
Training in Context
It is not surprising to find that most training vendors in the sea of providers have based their business models on teaching Soft-skills. Why? Because – in my humble opinion - Soft-skills are easy to teach, they don’t require an in-depth technical knowledge of a particular process, and they are usually based on common sense and theories wrapped in jargon. If by now you’re thinking that I don’t care for Soft-skills training, then you would be correct…mostly.
The decision to move forward with any training company or training consultant should be solely based on the context of your business need. If you have a poor management or leadership team, then Soft-skills might be the answer. If you have poor product quality then Hard-skills training for your production workers should be your focus.
All too often the rule of ‘training context’ seems to be ignored. Almost every new client that I encounter says the same thing, “Our current training provider relied on us to write the training. Then they charged us a boatload of money to turn it into a video or PowerPoint presentation.” When pressed, clients usually reveal that the trainer was a corporate preferred, soft-skills vendor that tried to develop training when they had no understanding of the subject matter. In other words, the wrong tool was used for the job.
Choosing a Training Provider
Choosing the wrong training vendor for the job is occurring at an increasing rate everyday as the workforce turns over and demand for ‘real’ training continues to grow. Companies are desperate for quality training programs yet continue to fall prey to bogus training providers. This is when it’s important to be patient and keep a few things in mind when selecting external training resources.
Just because you or your corporate office has a preferred vendor for training doesn’t mean that you should always use them. It’s important to scrutinize their technical know-how and demand that they are experts in your field of business. Always demand their qualifications and don’t be shy about evaluating some of their past work. Finally, be sure to shop around. There are plenty of competitive companies out there.
Showing posts with label hard-skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hard-skills. Show all posts
June 3, 2009
May 7, 2009
Soft Skills in Hard Times? NO WAY!
This is an article written by Roman Battan, a co-worker of mine at Convergence Training. If you would like to contact Roman directly, he can be emailed at: rbattan@capstonetechnology.com or give him a call at 360-834-0991 x241.
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Over the past few months, I’ve read numerous articles about the importance of soft-skills training for leadership and interpersonal relationships. Not surprising, almost all of these so-called ‘articles’ have been written by soft-skills training companies and consultants bragging about how they trained office workers on listening, become better leaders, and blah blah blah… After a while, I began to realize that they’re all just a bunch of sales pitches disguised behind good feelings.
So…let’s get this part out of the way now then shall we?
Soft-skills = Emotional intelligence to handle interpersonal relationships
Hard-skills = Technical knowledge and ability to perform specific tasks
Here are some real questions to think about:
• What the heck happened to the emphasis on Hard-skills training?!
• What happened to training people to do a job?
• Who handles transferring technical knowledge from older employees to new employees as the national workforce continues to turn over?
Keep reading and I’ll tell you.
Out with the Old in with the New
In today’s economic downturn, manufacturing companies are hemorrhaging money and it is not because office employees aren’t motivating their teams well enough. The problem is that an increasing number of experienced machine operators are leaving the workforce and new employees don’t know how to make products and/or keep their machines running consistently. You can forget about Swine Flu because this is the real pandemic!!
Manufacturing firms are working vigorously to reduce their expenses in an effort to offset slumping sales revenues. Many are making major cost cutting efforts by offering older ‘baby boomer’ employees incentive packages and signing bonuses to retire early. On the surface, this approach seems like a logical step to reduce costs but this is usually where the baby goes out with the bathwater.
Precipitously shedding older employees and replacing them with new workers offers a temporary reprieve on the balance sheet, but almost always comes back to bite companies in the proverbial backside. Younger workers seem appealing because they are new and highly motivated, but they also have less experience which contributes directly to increased downtimes, poor or inconsistent product quality, and increased workplace injuries.
The short-term benefit of replacing aging employees with new or inexperienced employees typically turns into a zero or negative net gain if not managed properly. This is not to say that new employees are bad for business. However, it does indicate that a plan to transition new workers in and older workers out of the workforce plays an essential role in minimizing short-term losses and maximizing long-term gains. In fact, if new employees are well trained and given the right knowledge and skills they are likely to be more motivated and effective over time than retiring workers.
This is where the challenge shifts from reducing wage expenses to committing the right amount of internal or external resources to train your new workforce.
Soft-Skills vs. Hard-Skills
Soft-skills will not solve the problem of rapid knowledge loss and the lack of knowledge transfer to the incoming workforce. If you’re relying on interpersonal relationship skills to build, warehouse, and ship your products, then my friends, it’s time to do yourselves a favor and close the doors now. Aside from making your employees feel better about losing their jobs, you will only be prolonging the financial losses your company will incur.
The fact is your workforce needs technical knowledge and that can only be gained through hard-skills training. This means learning how to handle raw materials, operate machines, and convert various components into saleable goods. It seems pretty straight forward doesn’t it? Just grab Joe or Jane supervisor and have them throw together a quick classroom activity with a few PowerPoint presentations right? Wrong! Unfortunately it’s just not that easy.
Hard-skills are more involved than soft-skills training because they are based on real actions and real outcomes and less on theory and feelings. Training employees on a company’s specific process not only requires a true knowledge of the work at hand, but also good instructional design to be effective. Without those two critical components you may as well continue teaching employees Soft-skills to be friendly instead of Hard-skills to build your goods and services.
Next month, Roman will be discussing the decision on allocating internal vs. external resources to build training.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the past few months, I’ve read numerous articles about the importance of soft-skills training for leadership and interpersonal relationships. Not surprising, almost all of these so-called ‘articles’ have been written by soft-skills training companies and consultants bragging about how they trained office workers on listening, become better leaders, and blah blah blah… After a while, I began to realize that they’re all just a bunch of sales pitches disguised behind good feelings.
So…let’s get this part out of the way now then shall we?
Soft-skills = Emotional intelligence to handle interpersonal relationships
Hard-skills = Technical knowledge and ability to perform specific tasks
Here are some real questions to think about:
• What the heck happened to the emphasis on Hard-skills training?!
• What happened to training people to do a job?
• Who handles transferring technical knowledge from older employees to new employees as the national workforce continues to turn over?
Keep reading and I’ll tell you.
Out with the Old in with the New
In today’s economic downturn, manufacturing companies are hemorrhaging money and it is not because office employees aren’t motivating their teams well enough. The problem is that an increasing number of experienced machine operators are leaving the workforce and new employees don’t know how to make products and/or keep their machines running consistently. You can forget about Swine Flu because this is the real pandemic!!
Manufacturing firms are working vigorously to reduce their expenses in an effort to offset slumping sales revenues. Many are making major cost cutting efforts by offering older ‘baby boomer’ employees incentive packages and signing bonuses to retire early. On the surface, this approach seems like a logical step to reduce costs but this is usually where the baby goes out with the bathwater.
Precipitously shedding older employees and replacing them with new workers offers a temporary reprieve on the balance sheet, but almost always comes back to bite companies in the proverbial backside. Younger workers seem appealing because they are new and highly motivated, but they also have less experience which contributes directly to increased downtimes, poor or inconsistent product quality, and increased workplace injuries.
The short-term benefit of replacing aging employees with new or inexperienced employees typically turns into a zero or negative net gain if not managed properly. This is not to say that new employees are bad for business. However, it does indicate that a plan to transition new workers in and older workers out of the workforce plays an essential role in minimizing short-term losses and maximizing long-term gains. In fact, if new employees are well trained and given the right knowledge and skills they are likely to be more motivated and effective over time than retiring workers.
This is where the challenge shifts from reducing wage expenses to committing the right amount of internal or external resources to train your new workforce.
Soft-Skills vs. Hard-Skills
Soft-skills will not solve the problem of rapid knowledge loss and the lack of knowledge transfer to the incoming workforce. If you’re relying on interpersonal relationship skills to build, warehouse, and ship your products, then my friends, it’s time to do yourselves a favor and close the doors now. Aside from making your employees feel better about losing their jobs, you will only be prolonging the financial losses your company will incur.
The fact is your workforce needs technical knowledge and that can only be gained through hard-skills training. This means learning how to handle raw materials, operate machines, and convert various components into saleable goods. It seems pretty straight forward doesn’t it? Just grab Joe or Jane supervisor and have them throw together a quick classroom activity with a few PowerPoint presentations right? Wrong! Unfortunately it’s just not that easy.
Hard-skills are more involved than soft-skills training because they are based on real actions and real outcomes and less on theory and feelings. Training employees on a company’s specific process not only requires a true knowledge of the work at hand, but also good instructional design to be effective. Without those two critical components you may as well continue teaching employees Soft-skills to be friendly instead of Hard-skills to build your goods and services.
Next month, Roman will be discussing the decision on allocating internal vs. external resources to build training.
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