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Posts from February 2015

COST CONTROL & TRAINING

February 25, 2015 Typically, employee turnover costs businesses about one-fifth of a worker’s salary to replace that worker. A big number! Further, it is well known that investments in training can often improve employee retention statistics. But, there are costs associated with the training provided and these are the costs that we, as trainers, can do a better job of controlling. It is important to understand that the trainee-labor costs associated with...

THE BASIC SKILLS MISMATCH

February 23, 2015 Estimates tell us that up to 70 million Americans cannot even read at a level that would allow them to function fully in the workplace! And, reading is not the only basic skill workers are lacking. Millions cannot perform the simple mathematical problems now required in their jobs. On the other side of this equation lies the share of U.S. manufacturing establishments requiring basic reading, writing, math, and computer...

TRAINING AS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

February 18, 2015 “Many business people think of training as something distracting or often a waste of time. And despite the fact that US business spends more than $60 billion a year in employee development (2013 Corporate Learning Factbook), many executives question its return on investment. Well our research shows that one of the most important sources of competitive advantage is your entire corporate learning strategy. . . . “ (“How Corporate...

HOW TO EFFECTIVELY RE-TRAIN AMERICA

February 16, 2015 A couple of years ago, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL summarized the federal government’s efforts to “retrain Americans”: “The Obama administration has been promoting the retraining of unemployed workers as a linchpin of its economic-recovery plan. The federal government spent about $18 billion on training and job-search programs, running 47 separate programs offering training, in the year ended September 2009, the most recent tally by the Government Accountability Office. And...

COMPETENCIES IN PROCESS & MANUFACTURING

February 11, 2015 In Wikipedia’s discussion of “competence” (human resources), we read: Competencies are also what people need to be successful in their jobs. Job competencies are not the same as job task. Competencies include all the related knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes that form a person’s job. This set of context-specific qualities is correlated with superior job performance and can be used as a standard against which to measure job performance...

ITC: A BIT OF HISTORY

February 9, 2015 This past weekend, ITC began its 38th year of doing business — something few training suppliers have ever been able to achieve. While I have tried to be conscientious in not using this blog for cheerleading, today I’m going to make an exception and mention a few of the highlights associated with this company. On February 7, 1977 ITC began business as a corporation. William J. Schmidt, Gerald H....

CUSTOMER SERVICE DEFINED

February 4, 2015 Beware of the oft-used title — “customer service.” Unfortunately, those two words can often be misleading. Kate Nassar in her “Smart SenseAbilities” blog clearly describes both what they are —- and, what they aren’t: “In Wikipedia, you will find customer service defined as: the provision of service before, during, and after a purchase. Customer service defined this way (as an operation) inspires few to the heights of service greatness....

THE FAILURE OF TEMPLATED DESIGN

February 2, 2015 Universities, with their ever-increasing emphasis on graduate degrees in Instructional Design, are having a dilatory effect on corporate training. Higher education has a place in preparing our next generation of trainers and instructional designers. Theoretical understanding is important. However, when it comes to teaching “templates of learning design,” graduate programs in instructional design seriously misdirect their students. Cookie-cutter solutions are never the answer. Every training initiative challenge undertaken has...