Firms will again turn to training and development

Jamie Millard, president of the American Society of Training and Development, Bay Colonies chapter, says the training-and-development profession has taken a hit in the recession.
As companies have reined in expenses, training – be it in workplace learning or leadership development – has been cut, as have the human resources staffers or consultants who do the work.
The society, which covers Rhode Island, southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut, has been busy attempting to find work for unemployed trainers.
But Millard, who operates leadership-consulting firm Lexington Leadership Partners LLC, in a recent interview told Providence Business News he thinks the training field is poised to make a big comeback.

PBN: How has the reduction of training and development played out in the workplace during the recession?
MILLARD: If you think about what happens in a company when you start downsizing, you’re having to do more with less. It puts tremendous stress on the people who are left in the company. Often in a recession, you have management that is cut and you hang onto the people doing the operations who are necessary, or you hang onto maybe your salespeople as you continue to try to grow the business.
One of the phenomena I see a lot is what I call the manager-doer, someone who used to be a doer but now is being asked to take on a leadership role. And they’re ill-equipped. They don’t have training for it; they don’t have the background for it. They don’t even like it. They don’t see the value of it because they’ve seen other managers get laid off. That creates a climate that is challenging.

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PBN: What do you foresee for those people as the economy makes a recovery?
MILLARD: What happens is, as the economy improves people who have been spending the last year hunkered down in their jobs, trying to keep that job, are now freed up a little bit to look around. If history is an indicator here, we can expect that companies will start to lose some of the people they don’t really want to lose – those high performers who are looking for a company that is aggressive in their hiring, who can paint a picture of a future that is exciting and vibrant. That creates a lot of churn that we can expect over the next year as the economy turns around. That’s when people in the training-and-development arena are going to be very happy. As these companies add more staff and as they realize they have neglected training and development for the last year or two, that’s going to create a new demand because they’re going have a lot of new people in jobs. There’s going to be a lot more training and development.

PBN: Has the reduction of training-and-development spending hurt the performance of companies?
MILLARD: Sure it has. In some cases, companies tend to get rid of the more expensive talent they have in a recession. By kicking out the expensive talent, they’re also kicking out the experience. You often will have people with less experience trying to run the business and that has a definite impact on the success of the organization.

PBN: How have the members of the American Society of Training and Development been affected during the recession?
MILLARD: Well, if you’re a training consultant, like I am, you find that your business dropped significantly. People who have been loyal clients for years have apologetically said, “We can’t afford you. We’re cutting back significantly on training.” So that creates a major under-employment issue for a lot of consultants. We’ve had a significant number of people show up at our meetings who are in transition; they’ve lost their job and are looking for roles in this arena.

PBN: As we emerge from the downturn, what types of changes do you foresee for the training-and-development field? MILLARD: In the past, a trainer would go onsite and do perhaps a three-day program and people from multiple locations would have to move to where the training site is and that might involve travel and hotel costs. With the use of technology for certain types of training, you can do this online and people can stay right where they are. The technology has made it quite easy for online and real-time training.

PBN: Any other trends for the future?
MILLARD: One thing I’m seeing a lot of: In the past some companies had a cookbook of multiple training programs available. Now they’re looking at the dollars that are spent on training and asking the question, “What is the true value I’m getting from the training?” The people in the training-development profession need to connect the dots between what training they’re delivering and the value that the company and the people within the company are receiving – anything that will help companies increase their bottom line through efficiencies and effectiveness, anything that will help grow revenue, help the leaders be more effective and get more done with less, that’s the kind of training we will see in the future.

PBN: Are you already seeing a resurgence in training and development?
MILLARD: Yes. From my own practice – we do leadership development, including executive coaching and training – although last year was very challenging, we’re seeing this year a resurgence of additional work coming in. I’m seeing a significant amount of executive-coaching work that I didn’t see last year. And I’m seeing a lot of companies that had tightened the belt and put a hold on training starting to open up. We’re definitely seeing signals that people are ready and willing to spend some money again on training and development. &#8226