% split of training

To Each According to His/Her Needs
Gail

I think I’d have to go along with Russell and ask if there really is a “norm” in this context.

Some time ago I worked with an IT company where the MD’s attitude was “we’ll get going on the soft skills when the crisis is over”. When I checked around it turned out this had been the official line on “sof skills” for at least ten years. Not surprisingly, with a serious lack (“lack”, NOT “absence”) of soft skills at all levels of management the company continuously lurched from crisis to crisis. Not least because the lack of soft skills *inside* the company was naturally reflected in the way they dealt with their customers.

Last year the company started down-sizing. It was decided to close one of its offices – about 60-70 people – but offer positions at other offices to people who wanted to stay with the company. Out of the 60-70, THREE elected to stay on voluntarily. The company was forced to pay thousands of pounds extra to retain key staff until they had completed their current projects.

So, of course it is important to train people in the technical skills. But is there much point in having a group of people who are incredibly skilled technically, but don’t function too well as a group?

Perhaps the only way to get an accurate answer to this question – for *your* company – is to do a training needs analysis of both hard *and* soft skills.

Anything else cannot be anything more than a guestimate (especially since the worse a person’s soft skills are, the more they are likely to overestimate their skill level).

2 Responses

User deleted says:

April 3, 2003 at 5:44 am

Is there a norm?
My experience is that technical training is nearly always present because:
-techies like technical training
-there are points for being an “early adopter”
-it is easier to justify eg Office 2000 training if you are about to role out office 2000
Soft Skills Training is often not present/less common/less popular because:
-managers can’t really get a handle on the needs unless they are obvious
-“soft skills are for sales people not techies”
-admitting that you need training in something that has been around for years eg assertiveness shows that you are a dinosaur and “hey, it’s hard enough to keep up to date with the new technology!”

None of the above answers your question
Sorry
TrainingZone says:

April 4, 2003 at 12:57 pm

To Each According to His/Her Needs
Gail

I think I’d have to go along with Russell and ask if there really is a “norm” in this context.

Some time ago I worked with an IT company where the MD’s attitude was “we’ll get going on the soft skills when the crisis is over”. When I checked around it turned out this had been the official line on “sof skills” for at least ten years. Not surprisingly, with a serious lack (“lack”, NOT “absence”) of soft skills at all levels of management the company continuously lurched from crisis to crisis. Not least because the lack of soft skills *inside* the company was naturally reflected in the way they dealt with their customers.

Last year the company started down-sizing. It was decided to close one of its offices – about 60-70 people – but offer positions at other offices to people who wanted to stay with the company. Out of the 60-70, THREE elected to stay on voluntarily. The company was forced to pay thousands of pounds extra to retain key staff until they had completed their current projects.

So, of course it is important to train people in the technical skills. But is there much point in having a group of people who are incredibly skilled technically, but don’t function too well as a group?

Perhaps the only way to get an accurate answer to this question – for *your* company – is to do a training needs analysis of both hard *and* soft skills.

Anything else cannot be anything more than a guestimate (especially since the worse a person’s soft skills are, the more they are likely to overestimate their skill level).