The Hindu Business Line : Be warned, employee training can cause attrition

Engage adequately with the employee before and after training and you and the employee are sure reap the benefits. Miss this and the training investment can become a potential risk, especially in today's vibrant labour market. The organisation needs to go beyond merely "empowering the employee"

TRAINING CAN at times lead to unintended consequences.

Can a good thing ever hurt? Consider this: An organisation sponsors its Human Resource managers for one of the most prestigious HR programmes in the country with the fond hope that "something good will come out of it". The only good that comes of it is for some of the HR managers — they find more attractive jobs.

Another organisation sponsors its employees to a prestigious MBA programme with the hope of greater "retention" only to realise that quite a few of these participants leave after the programme ends. A third organisation invests on a very expensive quality certification programme for some of its employees with the hope that they will make a difference to company quality. They do, but for another company!

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Can training ever have such unintended consequences? Most of all, how can it ever lead to attrition. To top it all, it may seem blasphemous for an HR consultant to suggest this!

I must start by clarifying that this is not about trainer or training effectiveness, per se. The focus of this article is on what does or does not happen "before" and "after" the training input and not so much "during" the training input. I am using the term "training" to refer to formal classroom-based inputs focusing on awareness, knowledge, skills, perspectives and behaviours including in-house efforts as well as external educational or professional courses. To understand my hypothesis, it would be important to first describe what "training" does to people.

Training gets people thinking.

It gives them new capabilities.

It enhances their self-awareness and self worth.

It makes them more choiceful in the way they will now deal with work situations or even their career.

In summary, any training input "empowers" and "adds value" to people.

This brings us to the point I am making: The organisation needs to go beyond merely "empowering the employee" if it needs to reap the benefit of its investment. In other words, if the organisation merely "empowers" its employees through training without investing in adequate preparatory and follow-up efforts, it is certainly likely to lead to unintended consequences.

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN BEFORE?

All theories of adult learning point to the fact that the learners should know why something is important to learn before undertaking to learn it.

This means the employee's supervising manager must engage with him and help him see the context clearly before sending him for the training input. In fact, well before any training decision is taken, the supervising manager needs to have a comprehensive discussion with the employee on his overall development needs and priorities and jointly decide how these needs would be met.

This is where most organisations go terribly wrong. Employees get to know of their nomination only a few days in advance. They do not know the objectives and the larger context. While many have Individual Development Plan (IDP) documents, most supervising managers seldom have the competence to do it and do it well.

When development plans are clear and discussions happen, employees feel challenged and motivated about the ensuing training input.

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN AFTER?

Managers typically have a "tick-in-the-box" interaction with employees when they get back from a programme. A cursory, "How was it? Did you have fun?" conversation is seen as adequate.

Here is where the maximum damage is done. The employee gets back with all the empowerment and he does not see his manager either acknowledging it or doing anything tangible to harness it.

Adult learning theories indicate that adults are motivated to learn when they feel they can apply the new learning in their life/work situations. These theories also indicate that workplace challenges and problems are the greatest vehicles for learning.

It is important for the supervising manager to be conscious of the new insights that the employee has acquired and work closely with him to point him to the workplace challenges that he can now solve using his new skills.

This "mediation" and bridging can have a great motivating effect on the employee to stay on and make a difference.

In the absence of this effort, the employee experiences a widening gap between what he is capable of doing and what the current role offers and makes every effort to bridge the gap, even if it means moving out.

THE ROLE OF THE SUPERVISING MANAGER

This brings me to the crucial but least understood role of the supervising manager in ensuring that the training investment actually works to the organisation's benefit.

In reality, most supervising managers are not fully involved in the design of the training intervention. They are not given detailed visibility into the actual contents and methodology. No one contracts with them on their role before and after the programme. In fact, the programme is seen as the end in itself.

To borrow a phrase from Prof Feuerstein, the supervising manager has the crucial role of "mediating the learning" by placing himself between the learner and the workplace realities and guiding appropriate application.

The supervising manager should do the following before and after the training to enhance effectiveness:

Provide feedback to the participant

Help the participant see the big picture in the learning areas

Inspire and guide practice

Review progress

Have regular coaching conversations that give the participant a gentle nudge and also instil the sense of belonging and commitment to make a difference thereafter.

This may even call for training the supervising manager to "champion the development process".

It is also important that we do not subject the employee to a large battery of training programmes and defocus him. And increase the length of his resume.

One training programme, well planned and well assimilated on the job is better than ten "tick in the box" endeavours.

(The author is founder and CEO of totus consulting, a strategic HR consulting firm that designs and implements HR systems and process for organisations across diverse industries. He can be reached at ganesh@totusconsulting.com)

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