The outlook today is very dynamic. Information is growing at a rapid pace. Some studies show that the amount of technical information available is doubling every 7 days. The amount of information available in week’s newspaper is equal to what was available to someone in their entire life in the 18th century. Internet is speeding things up. This is the information age. In the industrial age success was dependent on how hard and long you could work, because the work was mainly physical in nature and was connected to turning things out physically – like producing a certain number of goods by a certain date. Contrast that to today, it is all about how intelligently you can think through and sift through information. It is the age of the intellect.
Trends have become extremely difficult to predict as they are changing far too quickly and fast. Every year there are major technological advancements. In fact it is said that for someone who is doing a four year technical degree most of what they learn in their first year would have become obsolete by the time they graduate from the course. The gap between what is being taught in schools and universities and what is required to be successful at jobs is ever growing. On one side the need to stay on top of all that is new is priority for the corporates as that is what gives them the edge, on the other side, our education system is not adapting as quickly. This leads in shrinking of the talent pool. On one side the demand for good employees is ever growing on the other side the readiness of a student to become a productive, result-producing employee is a big question mark?
Most organizations have woken up to this fact that it will be difficult to find job-ready employees and if they are available the costs to hire them and then retain them is extremely high. Most companies now hire for the attitude. They then use training to up-skill the employees. If they hire people with the right attitude and help them skill up with training, it pays them two fold. One the cost of hiring and training combined is cheaper than hiring more experienced candidates. Training also helps in retention. When employees experience growth in their skill sets in an organization, they are prone to be more loyal to that organization. Hence training plays a crucial role of one covering the competency gap and two retention of the right employees.
Add the dynamics of the business competition to this mix. Today technology can be duplicated fairly quickly. First mover’s advantage on basis of technology is short-lived. Pricing war is real. Prices can be matched very quickly. The only differentiators for organizations then are people. It becomes important for organizations to invest in their people. Investments in training people will ensure that people are always on their top game. They are always abreast of what’s happening around. They are taking advantage of and using the new and latest to their advantage. Training can be used as a very effective tool to keep the workforce sharp and adapting to the changing environment. It is like keeping the axe sharpened all the time so that it maintain the advantage of being sharp and produces top notch results.
Like every other field that is developing, training as field of specialisation has grown too. There are a lot of consultancies that are now an expert at providing laser-focused, very precise training inputs that address the heart of the business problem. Identifying the right training needs and designing a training that will address the problem bang on and will be age, gender, culture and nationality appropriate is now an absolute science and can be achieved with a fair amount of certainty.
So to summarize, the widening talent gap in the employee pool, the every changing dynamic business environment. The competition and our dependence on the right people in this knowledge economy brings training centre stage as a tool that enables the business to solve the talent issue and maintain it’s competitive advantage. The developments in the field of training make it a cost-effective and a wise investment to make and any organization that thinks that they can tide this wave without the support of right training for it’s employees, needs to rethink it’s strategy. I guess the question to really ponder is – which came first a change-ready company or a change-ready employee?