Training = investment? Yes or No?
I will begin this article with a provocative notion, or a call for reflection. According to Wikipedia, investment is “the application of capital with the expectation of a future benefit.” Will investing in training have future benefits?
Nowadays we often hear the term “human capital”, and many of us probably wonder what this actually means. According to the same source, Wikipedia, “it is the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that favor carrying out work in order to produce economic value”. Is human capital the most important asset for an organization? The question remains.
Betting on training means investing in competitiveness, productivity, profitability, quality and growth.
On several occasions, I’ve found that training, alongside maintenance activities, has proven to be an irritating necessity for organizations. There is taboo surrounding the advantages that could result from training, largely due to fear from some bosses that lower ranked personnel may become more knowledgeable on the topic than them. As the old saying goes – “information is power”; so how can this stop time being wasted? Several answers could be listed here, however this is not the purpose of this article. Rather, the objective of this paper is to help organizations realize the need to invest in personal and professional training, enabling them to discover its benefits and positive impacts on their company.