Employees should train on their own time.

Should you pay employees to train on the clock or should they learn on their own time?

Last week, a business owner made a pretty good case to my as to why learners should train on their own time.

He said "I'm looking for employees that have the drive and willingness to take initiative and grow themselves. If I train them on the clock, that is just another "entitlement" that they will take advantage of."

This business owners perspective has been rolling around in my head for a week so I decided its time to write this article about it.

Ultimately, his perspectives are valid. Having a team full of self-motivated "A" players that build their skills on their own time would be best case scenario.

And also, I've met plenty of entitled employees first hand.

After staring into the snow covered mountains here in Durango, the answer hit me like a ton of bricks. Lets get to today's lesson.

How fast do you want your training results?

This is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself as you implement a new training initiative.

Here are just a few of the potential results of a great in-house training program:

• Employees become more self-confident
• Employees increase efficiencies and outputs
• Employees can be promoted internally (less recruitment costs)
• Employees will earn more 5-star public reviews
• Employees feel valued and will stay loyal (less turnover)
• Builds a culture of growth and expansion

So now the follow up question- How quick do you want these results? Months? Years?

There are three problems of relying on our teams to learn and grow on their own time. #1. Few will. #2 The ones who do most likely are not focused on the right skills. #3. It will be inconsistent and random. This drastically extends the time that we will get the training results we desire. We as leaders need to guide and coach on the best practices in order to get results fast.

ACTION TIME:

1. Write down all the results that you could potentially get by implementing a best in class in-house training program (using my above list as a starter). Make it personalized to you and your business.
2. Ask yourself, how fast do you want those results? Do you really want to depend on your employees personal schedule and initiative?

Super appreciative that you read to the end of the article- as I will continue to serve leaders like yourself that care about the growth, learning, and development of our peers. No sales pitches... just pure actionable ideas.

Your Friend,

Dan