July 19, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item I Want Stupid Employees
July 20, 2011 at 12:57 am
However I think that both of those groups are the minorities at most jobs.
That might be true but the majority of employees in ANY company look at their employer as a stepping stone in their careers. Loyalty to the company they work for is temporary at best. Under such a scenario it is foolish to expect the company to be loyal to the employees and pay for training them when the employer knows that most if not all employees will jump ship in a few months or years. The days of any employee remaining a lifetime with a single company are dead. I think I am going to be flamed for this point of view.
July 20, 2011 at 1:22 am
I haven't worked for a company/organisation who could even _afford_ training. I've taught myself for the past 10 years or so.
July 20, 2011 at 2:18 am
I work with applications support satff who just love to rack up training, but who never apply it when they get bak to work.
What a waste...
July 20, 2011 at 3:12 am
umailedit (7/20/2011)
However I think that both of those groups are the minorities at most jobs.
That might be true but the majority of employees in ANY company look at their employer as a stepping stone in their careers. Loyalty to the company they work for is temporary at best. Under such a scenario it is foolish to expect the company to be loyal to the employees and pay for training them when the employer knows that most if not all employees will jump ship in a few months or years. The days of any employee remaining a lifetime with a single company are dead. I think I am going to be flamed for this point of view.
Umailedit,
This isnt going to exactly be a flame but... Why would an employee stay if the employer didnt show any interest in their career, goals, progression? Under those circumstances your chances of 'good will' are next to f-all.
My personal favorite was being told by an IT Director that 'You'll never get premoted or progress here. I would suggest you stay here until you find something better. I assume that if you are here its because you want to be'. So basically, we arent gonna give you a thing and put up or shut up.
We have an annual performance rating here (1-5), 1 being your fired, 3 being your good enough, 4 and 5 being we have to invest in you to keep you here (you should run the place). The DBA's and Infrastructure team have been told 'dont aim for 4 or 5, just be a 3 cause you'll never be graded higher'.
My last two reviews i have been graded as 4-4.5 but always given a 3.
Why do you think that is? Its not the always the employee at fault!
Adam Zacks-------------------------------------------Be Nice, Or Leave
July 20, 2011 at 3:13 am
I work in the banking industry and wouldn't admit to not knowing something and needing training. That would open the door to a layoff the next budget crisis. I will get my training in alternative ways instead of through the company unless it's a new system and all the other developers are getting trained on it too.
July 20, 2011 at 3:15 am
cengland0 (7/20/2011)
I work in the banking industry and wouldn't admit to not knowing something and needing training. That would open the door to a layoff the next budget crisis. I will get my training in alternative ways instead of through the company unless it's a new system and all the other developers are getting trained on it too.
You dont work for RBS do you 😉
Adam Zacks-------------------------------------------Be Nice, Or Leave
July 20, 2011 at 3:34 am
Schadenfreude-Mei (7/20/2011)
You dont work for RBS do you 😉
Not that one but one of the other top 10 banks in the world.
July 20, 2011 at 5:40 am
I have had a number of jobs that mentioned training as one of the benefits. The reality has always been quite the opposite; the IT training budget is one of the first things off the table when business is slow or the future is uncertain.
So, necessity being the mother of invention, I have had to develop new ways of learning things, this site being one of my primary sources. While I don't get the formalized classroom training and the books and the certificate, instead I get an opportunity to explore various possibilities for how to do specific tasks, and then time to think about how those possibilities could be applied in other situations.
Sure, I would love to have some more formalized training, but I guess at this point, I just no longer expect it. The eternal optimist am I.
July 20, 2011 at 6:17 am
Hey! Wait a second!!!
That's a good whine about companies that dont pay for training and I admit, I have been lucky in my career that the larger companies I have worked for REQUIRE employees take training courses! When I worked for IBM you had to complete 2 training courses (of your choice) per year!
Here is the REAL whine...
Since Microsoft and most other software vendors change their systems every 6-18 months, making any training you just took sometimes completely useless, but most of the time outdated - HOW THE HE__ DO I GET MY MONEY BACK!!!
Now, ok, companies pay for training - its their loss - but I spent over 4,000 of my own dollars (many years ago) to be an XBase (FoxPro, dBase...) expert, and now? Thats ALL gone. So is my 4,000+ dollars! And what did I get for that? A nice certificate or two - suitable for framing, or indeed, for starting the barbeque with (they burn very nicely...)
Want to know where the real "Stupid" is? Its in all of us who pay through the nose for training that will be out of date within a couple years. Now THAT is stupid!!!
July 20, 2011 at 6:41 am
There are a lot of good comments here but I have found that I can apply what I call the 20/70/10 rule to both employees and employers -
20 percent of the people are always trying to do the right thing
10 percent of the people are always trying to do the wrong thing
70 percent are looking for someone to follow
As an employee, if I try to be in the 20 percent group, whatever my performance rating may be, I get training and opportunity. I may have to partially fund it, it may be delivered in alternative ways (video conference, DVD package, etc.) but I get it.
As an employer, if I try to be in the 20 percent group, I get employees who, for the most part, are willing to work with me on training.
If on the other hand, I'm in the 10 percent group, well I get what I deserve as both an employee and employer.
If you are in the 70 percent group be very careful who you pick to follow!
July 20, 2011 at 6:59 am
At places I've worked and received training it's usually been on more of an "as needed" basis, but the employee was expected to come up with things they'd want to learn. Earlier this year we planned to upgrade from SQL Server 2005 to 2008 R2. So I found a 3 day course that went over the new features. I was excited to learn it because I enjoy my career. Ended up being one on one with the instructor so I picked her brain about specifics and other things to add value. The cost was in the ballpark of a week's salary and my employer agreed to cover the cost before I booked it. I have saved more than that much time by knowing how it all works and just being "comfortable" with it. Also saved some other people in the department some time by helping them to leverage new features as well. It's nice to be seen as the one coming up with the good ideas, but really it's just more ROI from the training (with proper application of course).
I don't know if training for training's sake so that the manager can say the training target has been reached is necessarily worth it. If people are going through the motions then it's waste and should be cut. But if you can see a clear ROI, an employer should certainly be willing to invest. If they're too nearsighted to invest when there's a quick ROI to be achieved, you can only imagine the other terrible business decisions they make. That's when it's time to move on.
July 20, 2011 at 7:05 am
Steve
I believe most technology people are interested in what they do, like to learn new skills, and more importantly, like to solve problems.
Care to expand on this what you actually consider "technology people".
July 20, 2011 at 7:34 am
Well stated Steve. I think on the whole, companies that fail to play an active role in their employees level of experience, training and professionalism will end up losing the best ones in the end.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
July 20, 2011 at 7:37 am
blandry (7/20/2011)
Since Microsoft and most other software vendors change their systems every 6-18 months
Yes but how often does your company update their software?
We just upgraded to Office 2007 after 2010 was released. We are still on SQL Server 2005. We still use XP. This is a very large company with 500,000 employees and thousands of servers. Upgrading all those computers is costly and time consuming (and in my opinion unnecessary unless the old systems are broken).
Besides, with every new version, there are issues. Will the new versions be backward compatible? Not when you're talking about Microsoft products. Our security department puts these new versions through vigorous scrutiny and usually find issues that prevent us from upgrading right away. They contact Microsoft and have them fix the problems before we deploy them.
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