Value of targeted training

Closer relationships between businesses and their training providers are on the cards as businesses seek to get the best bang for their buck from training spends during the recession.

The promise of closer relationships leading to training more closely tailored to the needs of individuals and their employers is one of several trends being seen in the sector as the recession begins to bite.

While there's the temptation to slash training budgets until the economy improves, Phil O'Reilly, Business New Zealand chief executive, says businesses that don't continue investing in training will lose momentum coming out of the recession and be eaten up by their competitors.

"You can never give away basic training - the customer services and technical skills, for example. Never give up on that because your competitors won't and you will suffer in the long run," he says.

He says businesses under financial pressure still need to invest in their best and brightest - and ensure they're thinking about the skills the company will need in five years' time.

"If you're going to cut training spending, don't cut it to zero. Instead, think very carefully about who should be trained and in what."

O'Reilly says once the recession is over, New Zealand will again face a skills shortage, leaving companies which abandoned training scrambling - and paying more - for skilled labour. "There are still skills shortages in some industries and in the next 10 years there will not be enough workers because we're not having enough kids. We have to move up the skills pathway or we will fall behind."

However, he says there is room for change when it comes to training, and already he's seen some training organisations modifying their offerings.

"There is certainly room to look at things like timing, length, the way courses are structured, online learning and so on."

But developing closer relationships between the training providers and businesses may reap the greatest benefits, O'Reilly and others in the training sector believe.

Says O'Reilly: "Right now is the best possible time for training establishments of all types to be absolutely clear with employers about what their staff want, and really clear on how to deliver that."

Professor Susan Geertshuis, University of Auckland director of Continuing Education and professor of Lifelong Learning, says trainers and organisations need to start focusing on "deeply understanding the issues the learners and their organisations need to address and to tailor learning accordingly".

"It's quite possible to send an employee off to training and see few benefits. A much better return on investment is to be had if organisations do two things. Firstly, spend time with their staff and agree exactly what they need to do and secondly, engage actively with their trainers to make sure that they are going to get what they want."

She says businesses should be demanding demonstrable results from training. "They should be asking, 'What will the employee do differently when they come back to work and how will it help our business?' Good training providers will design learning well and will share techniques in maximising the impact of even short periods of training."

She says while more companies are evaluating the success of training programmes, they're doing so in terms of what the employee says about the training rather than its effect on work performance.

"If they've done a course on creativity and when they get back you ask, 'Did it help your creativity?', they'll say yes. But what you really need to do is look at the number of patents submitted over the following year, for example."

Mike Waddell, general manager of marketing for Otago Polytechnic, which has created tailored programmes for organisations such as meat company Silver Fern Farms and the Royal New Zealand Air Force, says people want to be reassured that the training given is applicable to their organisation.

He says he's also expecting to see more demand for flexibility in training hours and online options as businesses and individuals seek to up-skill. In a first for Otago Polytechnic, Waddell says he expects various career-focused programmes to be offered in weekend courses, rather than throughout the week.

"It's about servicing the customer. It may well be that people are working five days a week, their partner has lost their job and they are down to one income and can't take time off work to train so they're looking at how else they can get some study."

In recent years Otago Polytechnic has developed regional learning centres where people can "drop in". Rather than set courses at set times, much of the learning is self-paced or online, allowing people to come and go at times that suit them, with facilitators on hand to assist if needed.

Virtual programmes such as Virtual Kitchen allow students to learn food safety through an online pack. After learning the theory, users can test themselves in a virtual kitchen - washing their hands, checking temperatures of pies and so on.

"Regardless of whether we're in a recession or in boom times, flexibility is key," Waddell says.

"During the good times, there's a high level of employment and it's hard for many to leave their job to study, so we have had to find alternative ways of delivering training.

"Now some people may be dropping from full-time to part-time or have to fit training around their work."

That drop from full-time work to part-time may also mean less money to spend on childcare, prompting some people to seek training which can be done from the comfort of their home, while minding the children, notes O'Reilly.

Jeremy Baker, executive director of the Industry Training Federation which represents New Zealand's 39 industry training organisations, says there has been a call from industry and trainees alike for quicker, smaller bites of training.

"They're looking to get value more quickly because of the state of the economy."

Baker says learning large amounts of information at one time is not necessarily best. "If you don't use it, you lose it. So when you learn a lot at once, you often lose it before you get to put it into practice."

Ironically, full-time tertiary courses are booming according to Dave Guerin, executive director of ITP (Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics) New Zealand. "We're seeing increases in long-term students mainly because people have not got work opportunities. So they may choose to stay at school, or at university or put off returning to the workforce. Or maybe retrain rather than seek a new job immediately after being made redundant."

But whether you're an employer trying to keep your business going in tough times, or an employee wanting to hold on to your job or build a strong base for your career, all agree: ongoing training, no matter what the economy, remains crucial.

"It's even more important now to maintain a competitive advantage and skilled people," says Simon Taylor, national president of the New Zealand Association of Training and Development, a professional association for people involved in adult learning.

"I always remember a bumper sticker I once saw. It said: 'If you think training is expensive, don't train two people and see what happens.' And it's true. A lack of training can result in errors, health and safety fines and so on. Invariably it is more expensive."