We’re So Busy. We MUST Stop and Train Our Team

Sound counter-intuitive? I agree. Typically, when organizations are really busy, product and application training falls to a lower priority because our belief is that we just don’t have time; everyone is booked. I think this connects with all of us at some level. After all, if our teams are booked on projects and pressed to meet project schedules, pulling them off for training seems counter-intuitive.

Maybe. Experts point to training having its highest impact at the point of need. You can send an employee to training when they have idle time and get one level of knowledge transfer. However, if you send them to training when they are in the midst of the project storm (the need), you get a whole different level of knowledge transfer. We learn best when we have the need and desire to accomplish specific goals.

It’s been estimated that employees devote 1% of their time to training; that’s roughly 5 minutes a day. One of the biggest challenges is getting employees trained at the right time, i.e. when they can utilize the newly acquired training immediately. You don’t have to worry whether they will retain the knowledge at that point, retention is built in if they can apply the newly acquired knowledge on an active project when they have highest motivation to succeed.

Training people when they are idle is not a bad thing; it’s a good way to bolster the employee experience. We are demonstrating our commitment to them and simultaneously increasing the overall knowledge base of our organizations. This is a win-win for the employee and employer. A question for us to consider is how effective is one method versus the other and can we talk ourselves into sacrificing those training days from our project schedule?

And of course, the biggest question:  will the right class be available when I need it? After all, most specialty training classes like SCADA programming or Industrial Networks Maintenance are scheduled in advance throughout the year and there’s no way those schedules will align with that right time thinking all the time.

At InSource, we offer a high level of flexibility to provide “right time knowledge transfer”. This includes custom classes on-site, off-site, and instructor led online training which can be tailored to a client’s specific need (content and timing). We can also pair one of our engineers for specific point-solution training (for a day or longer) to help get clients started or through a particularly difficult task. We’re here to assist in any way we can; whether the need is during low utilization times or right time training.

Click here to learn about the many training classes available from InSource…right now!