Is your training on tracks

Training has reached a status akin to motherhood: a 100% approval rating. So, for all businesses the clarion call has gone out: if you want to be more profitable, train your staff; if you want to attract the best staff, offer training. So what´s available, how do you choose and what benefits accrue? Availability is no problem. Training is one of the growth industries of the past ten years. There is a course available for any skill you want to learn, likewise for any skill you want to improve. This then presents the first dilemma: how do you select training? The logical route is to start with the definable needs of the business. Where are we short of skills, where are we lagging behind our competitors, where are the new opportunities to be grasped? Then you need to fit this to your staff. Who needs these extra skills, who will benefit from them and in so doing benefit the business? Here you hit one of the classic dilemmas of training: can you afford to lose the person you want trained while they´re being trained? This paper discusses these issues.