Just in case 2020 wasn’t challenging enough for you, here’s a brilliant example of how to waste time, money, and credibility in 2021.
The HR department at a company approached me recently about teaching employees process mapping. This company recognizes the utility of process mapping in continuous improvement and decided that a class would be a good place to start.
Sounds sensible. But with all due respect to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), I can’t imagine a bigger waste of time or money than this class. Not because training has no value—of course it does, in the right circumstances—but because this class was completely disconnected from any process that needed improvement or business goal. Training done for training’s sake, without linkage to some sort of goal, is like a cattle rancher taking vegan cooking classes: intellectually interesting, but kind of pointless.
In my experience, the half-life of classroom knowledge is somewhat shorter than the time it takes employees to walk from the conference room back to their offices. Without a connection to a desired business outcome, training becomes a strictly academic exercise that will be forgotten after the next bite of a danish. And even with a connection to a business outcome, you’re in race with the danish.
Even worse, the credibility of the HR department takes a serious hit when they mandate training in this way. It’s a very short trip from a half-day in the classroom to the managerial flavor of the month and the accompanying cynicism and eyerolls.
If you’re going to ask your team to attend any kind of training, you’ve got to link it—meaningfully and immediately—to a personal or business benefit. Otherwise, you’re just wasting your money and everyone else’s time.