IT Training

More of a management level way of thinking here, but how do you and your companies keep your teams fully trained?

Do you have a training model in place? Expectations? How is it financed and justified?

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HeroPsycho

What's "training"?

RTmarc

HeroPsycho wrote: »

What's "training"?

Is that English? Seems like I used to know that word.

Tin_Man

Training? What is this word you speak of?

blargoe

I hear "Google" is real popular.

Slowhand

Training is done when I have time for it, period. No company I've worked with thus far has had any real requirements for what certs to get, what classes to take, what material needs to be learned and kept up to date on. The assumption is, "if we decide to implement it, IT'll know how to administrate it," or, "IT gives recommendations, so they must know what they're doing."

In the past, I've bought my own books and had my tests paid for. Currently, my company is willing to shell out the money for books, videos, classes, etc., but I have to pay for my own exams. In the past, I worked for a company that provided no time for training, but expected me to be taking exams every quarter, docking our bonus pay if we didn't take any tests. (Basically, demanding we use our own time to study for exams, then punishing us for not spending that free time cramming and testing.) Fortunately, my current company encourages me not only to study for certs, but is also letting me switch up my schedule for school. There's still no particular policy in place on what needs to happen and what we need to train on.

Vogon Poet

Good question. It seems that small to mid-size organizations will blame the individual for screw-ups and not take the time to critique the system, where lack of consistent training and reinforcement of training is a serious issue. Usually it's not thought of until something goes wrong.
Large corporate entities seem to usually have some training system in place, but all of that goes down the drain when the economy gets tight.
I know there are some government agencies that pay for individual training if you can prove it's relevant to your job. Most departments have a mandated number of hours of required training time (ours was 40 hours per year). Mainly they want to ensure that you get safety training (boring!). Unfortunately when managers fill out the paperwork, they include any ol' thing as training and write it up to make it sound official. Unfortunately, most departments don't have the manpower to pull people away from their jobs to train them to do their jobs better.
But everybody pays lip service to the value of training, don't they?

UnixGuy

Daniel333 wrote: »

More of a management level way of thinking here, but how do you and your companies keep your teams fully trained?

Do you have a training model in place? Expectations? How is it financed and justified?

If you work for partners, such Cisco partners, you will be expected to get certifications, attend hands-on classes (which are sponsored by Cisco). It's justified because it's needed for partnership status, allows the company to sell certain products when they have trained personnel and they also get discount when they achieve certain level of partnership.

Also, for multinational companies (such as Nokia or Motorola), they ideally train the employees regularly on different technologies.

But as slowhand said, when you work in the IT department of a small to mid size company, then you will be expected to get certified and study in your own time, they might pay for the exams sometimes.

Claymoore

Here is a post about the ROI of the Microsoft Master Training:
You, too, can Master Exchange

As a consultant you can weigh the cost of training vs the projected increase in revenue due to addtional sales at higher bill rates. Depending on the partner, you may be required to have a certain number of certified people on staff.

As an internal shop you can weigh training vs reduced support costs. I know of companies that don't train their people and will just hire someone with the skillset when they need it. This means someone will have to be let go, so the people currently employed make sure the new skillset is never needed and thus the company remains tied to legacy technology. But the beancounters are happy with reduced training costs and the management gets a bonus.

There was a quote on the MS Born to Learn blog a while back that went something like this:
A CEO asks the manager "What happens if they train people and they all leave?" The manager responds by asking the CEO, "What happens if we don't train them and they all stay?"

Kasor

You are on your own budget and also depending on the supervisor.

jibbajabba

I think the translation of "training" is "shadowing" - at least this is how the training was in most of my companies .. You look over the shoulder of someone else doing the same job ... My current company is very generous when it comes to exams, he pays for them, gives raises etc., but the training / studying is still up to every individual ..

So no, never had any training in any company ...

evanderburg

My company pays for the exams and books. We do not use ILT because of the cost. Free CBTs are always encouraged but everyone has different learning styles and some prefer books over CBTs. I did get to go to Hitachi training but it ended up being free because I did some PR work for Hitachi.

What I really hate is the way VMWare certifications work. I know they are not the only one but it is the one that bugs me the most. You have to go to the training to get the cert. We use ESX but do not have the budget for the class. Our ESX guy has read tons of books on the product and he does just about everything but he cannot be certified because he can't go to the class.