Training & Development

How relevant are traditional methods of teaching to today's technology-obsessed youngsters? And what – if anything – are schools and universities doing to help 'design the future'?

Most companies claim that employees are their most valued asset. But few seem to believe it and even fewer act on it. One sure sign is the attitude towards training. While some firms see training as an expense, others realize it is an investment.

When you tell someone something, they might intellectually understand what you want, but there's no guarantee they can perform the skill involved. That takes real training.

If there's one thing that is certain about work, it is that what you know now is good for now, but might be completely outdated by tomorrow. This means there's a constant need to learn new things - both formally and - increasingly - informally.

It's that time of year again and Wayne Turmel has a hot-off-the press preview of the latest catalogue of business and personal development learning programs from the Prince of Darkness himself...

Employers who invest in professional development but don't also offer their staff opportunities for advancement could be wasting their money and increasing their turnover rates, new research suggests.

The key to having a quality training program of any kind isn't the talent of the trainer or the comprehensiveness of the training. It's the desire within everyone concerned – especially those participating - that the training be a success.

The US education system is broken, says James Kerr, and it doesn't look like it will fix itself. In fact, if fundamental reform isn't undertaken soon, it is very likely that American businesses will find themselves grossly short-handed in the coming years.

I may be shooting myself in the foot here, but while I place great value on education, I'm not convinced one-off training events do a whole lot to change the way we work across borders - at home or abroad.

Over the years I've observed that business leaders pay scant attention to aligning their training efforts with their strategic vision. After all, the ROI from organizational learning does not have a line in the budget, so it is easily overlooked. Big mistake.

According to research written up on the British Psychological Society's Research Digest blog, making learning materials more difficult to read can actually improve students' performance.

If you're going to invest in training managers (and every company should), senior executives need to go through at least a condensed version to make them aware of what's being taught. If they're not, any training will fall way short of its potential.

Trends in business, especially in HR, tend to come, go and then come back again. Sometimes, though, the change is more permanent. Here's an example: the role of training coordinator has become less about training and more about coordination.

It seems like forever since I received one of the Lord of Darkness' training catalogues. This actually makes sense since it has been a long time since any big organization (and they don't come much bigger than Global Evil Inc. LLC) did any training at all.

Are far as most mature workers are concerned, formal training programmes are a big turn-off. So how can organisations overcome training fatigue and offer staff in their mid-forties and beyond training and development that meets their real needs?

Many large businesses have built their workforce development plans on the creation of a corporate elite who are fast-tracked into becoming the leaders of the future. But could this model of talent management be seriously flawed?

To those who might question the value of a college degree, please let me encourage you to "go for it." If you still don't think it's worth it, perhaps a few figures might persuade you otherwise.

It's a sad fact that many of those in managerial roles are just not suited to being in charge of other people. And even those who do have the managerial knack can be undermined by a lack of training and support from their employer.

Organizations need to take a balanced approach to learning and development. So have you really thought how much more effective your employees could be if you put more effort into aligning more of their learning with your company's vision and mission?

If senior managers think their years of experience have given them the skills they need to ride out the recession, they need to think again. Too often when the chips are down, they simply fail to give clear leadership.

With budgets for formal training getting slashed, managers are going to have to start spending much more time mentoring and coaching their teams themselves.

Before you promote someone to a supervisory or managerial role, ask yourself these questions. Is the person you're promoting ready for the position? And are you willing to do what it takes to equip that person for the job? If you answer "no", you're asking for trouble.

Most managers are a bundle of nerves who would prefer to be back in the ranks rather than leading their teams through the worst recession in a generation.

When times are tough, it's often the training budget that suffers first. But that's a big mistake, because organisations that invest in their employees in a downturn have a better chance of surviving.

Barely a quarter of new managers get the training they need to do their job properly - leaving organizations full of people with no confidence in their management abilities.

A recent study from UK insurance company, Norwich Union, suggests that a quarter of transport accidents could be avoided through proper training.

In this modern world focused on the self, is it any surprise that self-improvement courses would eventually hit the workplace?

It is widely acknowledged that effective training programs make it much easier for organisations to achieve their strategic goals. But strategically-aligned training is still missing from most companies.

As with any educational endeavor, workplace training is most effective when it engages learners in ways that appeal to them. So if using old, canned presentations have resulted in stale training, perhaps it's time to try a different brand of instruction.

Most American businesses don't understand the difference between management training and leadership development.

For the ambitious manager it's no longer who you know that is important. It's not even what you know. It's "can you prove it?" that counts, new British research has suggested.

To Taiwan, now, where it seems that a working knowledge of the English language may be your ticket to getting ahead.

Yes, it's that time of year again. The Unholy One has sent out his training schedule for the rest of this year and looks like another busy fall season.

Just a fifth of businesses measure whether their training and development delivers an effective return on investment, despite six out of 10 HR directors believing they could do so.

Let's be honest here. Organisations have little, if any, intrinsic interest in providing learning for their employees. So why are they suddenly trying to present themselves as advocates of learning and development?

To remain competitive, organizations need to learn faster than the competition. But knowing that and doing that are two different things – and far too many leaders seem to think that they don't need to learn anything more to succeed.

Getting promoted, especially into that first management job, can be a nightmare, one that is made all the worse by a lack of support and training. Which could be why so many people just don't want to be managers.

Investing in your workforce means more than just paying them well. It means equipping people with skills and enabling them with authority. Because without opportunities to learn and grow, people quickly become bored and disengaged.

Senior managers in many organisations appear to have an ambivalent attitude towards their own training and development needs as a new survey reveals that the most senior are the least likely to get training.

Senior managers want their HR teams to stop spending so much time on employee development and put more effort into improving how their workforce deals with and attracts customers.

Why do so many organisations appoint new managers, push them in the deepe end, give them no training and still expect them to to swim?

Corporate trainers are under growing pressure to minimise the time staff spend undergoing training "off the job", resulting in a decline in classroom training and a greater emphasis on e-learning.

More than half of workers believe that the U.S. is unprepared to compete in the global economy, feeling let down both by schools and colleges and by a lack of interest in training and development from big employers.

Despite the importance of an effective sales team to the bottom line, many companies in the U.S. are not adequately investing in the recruiting, hiring or training of this most vital of assets.

Two out of five American companies are burning cash as up to half of their training budgets disappear into a black hole labelled "administration costs".

China may be churning out graduates by the thousands, but serious questions are being raised about whether they have the skills to turn the nation into an economic world-beater.

The appetite for corporate learning in America is growing rapidly, with employers now spending on average more than a $1,000 a year on each employee.

Leadership training is the current corporate fad. Everybody says they're offering it, but most of it is hooey and it won't change a thing. So does all this lip service about leadership stem from corporate schizophrenia, hypocrisy, or just outright lies?

Everyone accepts it takes a bit of time to get your feet under the table, but a quarter of managers are disappointed at the length of time it takes recruits to adapt to their new corporate culture.

British bosses are undermining their own training programmes by being overly-fixated on creating leaders while proving reluctant to learn new skills themselves.

The cult of 'leadership' has hooked executives to such an extent that they almost always opt for 'leadership development' when asked what kind of training they would prefer, even though they seldom know what it is they are asking for.

More Britons are thinking about leaving their job than in any other major European economy, new research has revealed, with poor staff development and inadequate retention strategies largely to blame.

More Britons are thinking about leaving their job than in any other major European economy, new research has revealed, with poor staff development and inadequate retention strategies largely to blame.

The vast majority of big U.S companies now train workers across the world. Yet most of their training dollars remain focused on delivering education at home.

European workers are unlikely to see big increases in take-home pay next year but will be given more training and development opportunities instead.

Workers who complete an apprenticeship earn more money than their peers and are more likely to end up as managers, a British study has found.

U.S. competitiveness is under threat because its future workforce is ill-prepared and lacking in both basic academic aptitude and critical workplace skills, a new report has warned.

UK businesses are stuck in a time warp in terms of language and seem determined to remain monolingual when it comes to embracing European business opportunities.

The secret is out. Satan has his own training company and a more mercenary (and more successful) man than I would buy stock - because it's having a heck of a year.

What's the latest wonder-tool in the never-ending hunt for increased motivation and productivity? According to a story in today's Daily Telegraph, the answer is singing.