If You Don't Train People, You Also Cannot _________

There are all sorts of articles in the world about “Why don’t companies train anymore?” That type of article doesn’t need to be belabored: they don’t train because training represents a cost of money and a supposed cost of time away from productivity, and the theory has always been that “if we train them, they will leave for others, and thus we paid for our rivals’ employees to be trained.” That’s a stupid line of thinking, IMHO, but it’s persisted for 50+ years now in white-collar America, so it has some resonance for people.

The training thing is an interesting discussion overall. We tend to love military leaders and NFL coaches, often writing long articles or making documentary films about them. At their heart, those jobs are teachers and trainers. That’s what they do — they train others to do a job both individually and collectively in the name of some goal.

Yet at the corporate level, we don’t value training that much. We relegate it to HR, which is the department where any valuable initiative goes to die. We talk often in the last 3–4 years about inclusivity and diversity training. There was some whole culture wars issue this week about Michelle Obama getting paid $741,000 for a diversity talk/training. In short: who cares? But I digress.

We’re at this weird spot right now where supposedly “no one wants to work anymore,” and/or companies can’t keep good people. I’ve been working as a bartender recently, and I know the place I work just lost two cooks and another bartender, and 2 of those 3 people had only worked there less than six weeks.

What the hell is going on, right?

I think you first need to realize one of the narratives is fake.

People don’t necessarily “want” to work, but they need to, because right now we all feel broke as hell anyway.

If people “need” to work as a means to an end, then it’s helpful to remember what it is, exactly, that people are looking for from work:

1. This helps me meet my bills.
2. It doesn’t destroy my mental health.
3. There are some cool people around.
4. There are opportunities for growth if I want them.
5. I know what I am doing and feel competent and capable doing it.

(4) and (5) above tie into training. If you are not trained, it’s hard to feel comfortable and capable in what you’e doing. That can make you feel small, which sadly a lot of bosses enjoy — because then the power dynamic is more natural for them. But it doesn’t make you a good employee, in the eyes of anyone really (customers can always tell who is and isn’t trained), and that’s going to affect (2), and eventually you might walk from a place because it’s blowing up your brain and/or you find someone willing to pay you a bit more money.

Companies should train, especially around specific processes that mean a lot to the company (or to specific managers).

In my mind, if you decide not to train, that’s fine. That’s your prerogative. And it makes the hiring model (somewhat) easier, because you can look for people who have done the exact same stuff before and used the exact same software before and hire them, and pay them 5% more than they were making, and hope they “hit the ground running” and you can mostly ignore them and keep doing whatever makes you feel relevant and busy. Godspeed, Tom! You do you!

But if you don’t train people, here’s what you also cannot do:

1. Demean them for doing something “the wrong way”
2. Yell at them about processes
3. Generally be a dick about things they wouldn’t necessarily know
4. Expect things that weren’t taught

The word “accountability” is an interesting definition in corporate. When you talk about “accountability” within a marriage or a friendship, you have a general notion of what that means. Middle- managers inside companies often think “accountability” is “dressing someone down” or “scaring them so they stay in line,” usually about how they did something wrong that they really didn’t know how to do in the first place.

If you don’t train, you can’t use “accountability” as a hammer on your peons. If they don’t know the way you want something done, how can they be accountable to it?

White-collar America is essentially a race to the bottom, where we all serve the needs of the ownership class (who are the only people pulling any real money out of white-collar America anymore) as we’re relegated to a line-item like carpeting.

As such, I understand why most companies don’t train. I just wish managers would remember that if you don’t train, you also give up other rights and concepts that would come along with actually training.

In short: train and develop, or don’t expect much but don’t chastise when that expectation doesn’t arrive.

Related: if you ain’t raising wages, don’t complain about a skills gap.

Yes/no?