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“As the economy soured and auto sales plummeted, GM closed plants and sent workers home to collect unemployment benefits. Toyota closed plants and sent workers into training programs to hone their skills…for a time when demand returns. Who will survive?”
This was a quote from Learn.com CEO Jim Riley in the June 8th 2009 issue of Business week. The quote was in response to an article/excerpt from Jim Collins’s new book, “Why the Mighty Fall”. I was struck by how Mr. Riley’s quote is a perfect example of how many companies devalue the ongoing training and development of their employees.
In my experience when times get tough, or even worse, when things are going well, businesses look first to cutting training and development of employees as a way to save costs. They look at continued training and development as a “non-essential expenditure”, but then are dumbfounded when their company’s performance begins to slow or fall behind.
In my opinion, this is very short sighted.
Today employees are asked to handle more responsibilities due to consolidation and downsizing but are given minimal training to accomplish these tasks.
In this new economy companies need to continually find ways to develop their employees. Failing to do this guarantees that at some point they will fall behind their competition. The effect may not be felt immediately and this can foster a false sense of security. But as I have seen time and time again, not investing in your team equals not investing in the long term success of your business.
Let me know your thoughts.
Till our paths cross again.