It works
If Hancock's Fike is any indication, there's a direct link between the availability of training and an IT pro's willingness to stick with a company. Before joining Hancock in 1998, Fike was frustrated in previous jobsâ€"at a small startup and at an electric utilityâ€"where IT training wasn't available. Managers at those companies, Fike said, were too focused on current projects to think about preparing IT workers for upcoming projects that would require knowledge of new technologies. That didn't sit well with Fike for a couple of reasons: Thinking ahead to the next project, he said, is crucial to an enterprise's e-business success, but it was clear his managers were not doing it; and, without training on new technologies, he was getting bored with repetitive tasks.
Fike, who develops Web security and online transaction applications for Hancock's Web sites, said that since joining the company, he's taken beginning and advanced Java classes and a course on the Netscape Communications application server environment.
"Hopefully, I'll keep learning new skills until the day I retire," he said. "I try to do training for the long haul. I like to think six months ahead of what we're working on now" when picking new courses to take.
As for Schultz, IT training has helped him stay nimble and up-to-date as his job responsibilities have expanded. After six years with Conexant, a maker of chips for cell phones and other handheld wireless devices, Schultz realised he needed more hands-on knowledge of the company's digital chip design operation. The company arranged for him to get trained on the software package that runs the chip design system, giving him the knowledge he needed to spot potential design problems faster and to find innovative solutions.
Schultz's managers, feeling the IT staff crunch, have also approved training in other areas that will make Schultz more valuable to the enterprise. "I also took a [Lotus] Notes administration course," he said, that prepared him to step in if the company's regular Notes gurus need assistance.
But, for employers like Hancock and Conexant, training to retain IT pros isn't just about spending more. It's about spending more on developing people with the right new skills and technical knowledge.
That means, experts say, that training offered should be directly linked to your company's e-business and technology strategies. Take a look at the next several e-business projects you have coming up, figure out which are the most important, then decide what skills your people need to complete those projects, experts say. If they don't have those skills now, you'll need to train for them.
"Training programs work when the people designing them have a vision of where the company's business is headed," said Bob Zawacki, an independent HR consultant and a professor emeritus in the management program at the University of Colorado, in Colorado Springs. "You can even train based on what you've learned from your failures."
Fike agreed. "Training courses work best when they are tactically related to the company's business goals," he said. "If the company constantly provides me with the tools I need to do my job effectively, then this is a place where I can grow and a place I'll stay."
Hancock's training spending, for example, has been heavily influenced by the company's e-business strategy to offer consumers new online tools to do everything from investment planning to starting savings programs. So Hancock has been focusing on HTML, Java and, soon, Extensible Markup Language training, as well as training in client/server and mainframe techniques. In addition, Hancock has been emphasising vendor-focused courses from companies such as Oracle and Sun Microsystems.
