The “new” economic environment is calling for all of us to do more with less in the form of resources, both human and financial. As we examine training’s role in HR functions, let’s first take a look at why we would need or want to get involved when we have our own departments to manage. Keep in mind that our discussion is based on the potential for training’s involvement in HR functions, and that we are taking a “voluntary” look at getting involved in those functions. In other words, some organizations may not be the right fit for a training-HR joint venture, so be sure to examine the situation closely before offering your services.
First, as we’ve mentioned, the new economic environment requires everyone to do more with fewer resources. In some industries and organizations, hiring may be moving again, but 27it may not be a priority in others. On the other hand, some industries with high turnover may have been hiring during the recession and are continuing to hire even during the slow and shaky recovery. Wherever you are, consider the fact that selecting and retaining the right employees is going to be vitally important going forward. We don’t’ want to spend too much of our organizations’ hard-earned cash on a repeat cycle of hiring and re-hiring. So it seems that it may be an economic necessity to involve training with HR functions.
Next, remember that many training personnel, especially the instructors and facilitators, are people-oriented, just like HR’s front line. In an environment where potential employees can see right through a false positive attitude, it may be necessary to use HR and training together to ensure that the “people process” is real – and not just “lip service.”
But beyond all of this, how exactly does training fit in with the overall HR picture? For starters, training departments know who succeeds – and how they do it. For example, your training department may handle new-hire training at various levels. In that role, your instructors see how the most qualified candidates survive training, react to the company’s policies and procedures, and move on to have successful careers. On the other side of that, your training staff can probably pinpoint a few good reasons why candidates fail either in training or within the first 90 days. These are built-in benchmarks, which we will discuss in detail.
Training can also take people through their career path, even before they embark upon it. If you’ve taken the time to build an effective training program, even if it has been on hold during economic uncertainty, you can use the program to help people figure out what their next move can be. And you can do this at any time during their careers. In this sense, training serves as a career counselor, especially if HR is too busy in other areas.
As we discussed, no move into assisting HR should be undertaken in a way that would offend or indicate that HR personnel are not performing. So the question here is, “How do I offer the assistance of the training department without ‘muscling in’?” First, use what you’ll learn in this series as a marketing campaign. For the most part, much of the information you can share with HR is built in to your training programs, or into the evaluation of participants after training. It may take a little work to build composite pictures of successful job candidates, but after that HR may be able to move forward with what you’ve provided. But if you can, you may want to offer a slightly more active role, in which you and your department participate in major HR functions, like recruitment and selection. Naturally the training role grows when it comes to development and retention, but why not offer help on the front end as well?
Overall, your approach can be one that focuses on the fact that economics dictates your assistance, both now and in the long run. Now that we’ve taken a broad overview of the training role in HR functions, let’s move to recruitment.
Copyright 2010-2017 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved.
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Bryant Nielson – Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.– offers 25+ years of training and talent management helping executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Being a big believer in Technology Enabled Learning, Bryant seeks to create awareness, motivate adoption and engage organizations and people in the changing business of education. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson |
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