The Hindu Business Line : Flowering on the job

No amount of technology or products can replace the best asset an organisation can have — its people. And that's why companies are constantly training their employees every step of the way.

Imagine this: The manager of our cricket team John Wright says, "Our boys are professionals and highly experienced, therefore we are going to skip the training camp for this tour." How do you think that team would stand up against the English attack?

There is no difference between the corporate employee and the cricket player (apart from the fact that the remuneration is far from similar!!)

All the reasons that make the employee successful up till a point in their career need not necessarily continue to help them the rest of their working career. The employee has to constantly evolve — learning, unlearning and re-learning, so that he/she may remain employable and continue to contribute to the organisation.

For this to happen, mid-career training and development are essential. Many organisations and individuals are appreciating the fact that they have to constantly reinvent themselves to retain good people. When mid-career training and development needs are drawn up, the focus should be not only on technical training and development but also behavioural.

I've found that while people do not hesitate to educate themselves technically, they sometimes feel behavioural training is not so important. Peter Drucker says, "As you go up the corporate ladder, your product knowledge and functional skills contribute to only 20 per cent of your success, 80 per cent of your success depends on your behavioural or interpersonal skills."

There is also the myth that you should always learn something new all the time. When Tiger Woods starts his practice everyday, he starts with the basic strokes, not the most complicated ones! While it is important to learn new things, it is equally important to revisit what we already know.

Another very important need for mid-career training and development is that today the thought of `womb to the tomb in one employment' is outdated. Every individual goes through at least four to five organisations in his/her lifetime and during these changes, sometimes, it is also a career shift.

There have been managers who have moved from Human Resources to Operations and from Marketing to Human Resources development. In such cases, they have a whole lot of learning to do in order to be successful in their new functions and positions.

In fact, one management guru suggests that every individual should prepare his/her resume not from the perspective of shifting jobs but from the perspective of adding a few items under the heading: What I have learnt to function better in my job.

Mid-career training and education is very much like what exercise is to the body. If you haven't done it for a while, then the muscles become creaky and rusty and lose their flexibility. Learning and development is a continuous process and it should be approached as a process and not an event.

Here's what happens if you approach learning and development as an event.

A management Guru recently remarked, "Learning is what most individuals will do for a living in the 21st century."

The importance of mid-career training and development can best be explained with what happened to the employees of PSUs. They had to suddenly learn to operate computers, be friendly with the customers, respond quickly to queries and become accountable — things that were alien to them. Those who could not cope had to leave and many who were exceptional found better avenues and greener pastures and are doing exceptionally well for themselves. The rest have now understood that they have to keep improving to retain their jobs.

Today, as we are becoming global players, even our customers want to know that they are dealing with professionals. In many industries, they are forcing their alliance partners to practice global initiatives relating to quality and productivity. So, mid-career training and development is no longer a choice: it is the norm, not only for the organisation but also the individual.

Mid-career training and development consists of both academic qualification as well as certification by various institutions and organisations. Many organisations encourage their employees to qualify themselves academically by sponsoring them to universities, while ensuring that they continue to receive their pay cheques.

Some organisations have standard norms of at least 60 to 75 hours of training and development — a part of that may be identified by the employee himself/herself. There are also elaborate performance appraisal systems that throw up the job requirements and the shortfall of the individual's capacity vis-a-vis the job. These needs are identified and then addressed jointly by the individual and the appraiser.

Organisations have realised that people are the most important asset they have. So much so that they have been brought into the balance sheet as well. You could have the best products, processes, procedures, plant and machinery, equipment and office space, but ultimately, it is the people, who are going to work on them, who make the difference. Therefore, corporates are today interested in offering mid-career development to their employees.

Corporates and individuals have also understood that it is not enough to provide only technical or technological training, acquisition of soft skills is also important. This helps the corporate to retain its employees.

Today, one of the questions that the prospective employee asks is, "What kind of learning and development will I be exposed to and how much of it?"

To conclude, let me relate a small example given by our chairman Hal Krause to highlight the difference between experience and competence.

A small town doctor lamented to a friend, "You know I can't believe how many people have switched over to this young upstart who just moved into town. Why, he just finished medical school, and I've been practicing medicine for 25 years."

The friend threw his arm around the doctor's shoulder and said, "Doc, I don't quite know how to break this to you, but more than a few people in town are wondering if you, perhaps, have one year of experience with which you've been getting by for the last 25 years."

Years ago, an executive asked Zig Ziglar, the world renowned motivational speaker, "How long must I train my people?"

Ziglar replied, "As long as you want your people to keep improving improve."

The writer is Director, CrestCom India.

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