11 Beach St. Manchester, MA 01944 P:978.526.1996 F:978.526.1976
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Training on a Shoestring
Ideas for Enriching IT Staff without Breaking the Bank
"To train or not to train?"
That is not the question when it comes to IT. To remain competitive, ongoing education for your tech workers is absolutely essential for many reasons:
- It keeps them on the cutting edge;
- It keeps them motivated, interested and innovative;
- It helps them work more efficiently, with fewer errors and delays;
- It boosts IT workers' morale, confidence and collaboration.
So when it comes to your IT staff (or any type of knowledge worker), the question isn't so much, "Do we need to train," it's, "How are we going to afford it?" This article may provide some of the answers you need. It contains several effective (and cheap) ways to enrich your IT staff--without breaking the bank.
- Investigate online training options. Instead of automatically sending your team to an outside training course (and incurring high travel expenses), search the Internet for alternative online options. You may find an equally effective, and less expensive, solution for your training needs.
- Cross train. To keep IT workers from feeling isolated or stagnant when budgets are tight, consider rotating them through different technologies and/or projects. Their new skills will make them more versatile assets to your organization, and encourage collaboration among work groups.
- Use inside trainers. Does anyone within your organization already have the expertise you're trying to teach to other employees? If so, consider developing that individual as an in-house trainer. You can easily go online and access a "train the trainer" program, then use your new inside trainer to educate other IT staff.
- Leverage your training resources. Building on the last point, your inside trainer can create a PowerPoint presentation which covers the training material. You can then use a software sharing program (such as NetMeeting or WebEx) to conduct the training with small groups at other locations.
- Barter training services with other companies. Collaborate with other organizations to share your knowledge. If a company is in the midst of a systems upgrade you're considering, send a representative from your staff to observe, learn and share his findings with his colleagues. Likewise, if your workers are well-versed in a specific programming language, invite team members from another organization in for a training seminar. Not surprisingly, collaborative efforts like these work best when participating companies are not in direct competition.
- Create in-house learning forums. Once a month, invite a colleague to conduct an educational seminar during lunch. The speaker may be an IT professional, or a key manager from another department. For the cost of a few pizzas, you can teach your IT staff about anything from emerging technologies to how IT's contributions impact other areas of your business.
- Hire a trainer on contract. If you have several IT training initiatives to develop, an outsourced training company's charges can be a big hit to an already small budget. As an alternative, consider hiring a trainer on a short-term contract. Give him access to existing materials and the tech workers he will be training, so he can quickly and more cost-effectively customize the training to your company's culture, values and logistics.
- Use the buddy system. Undoubtedly, informal one-on-one training happens regularly within your IT organization. But are you capitalizing on this opportunity? Consider formalizing the process to enhance workers' skills, by requiring each IT employee to pair-up with another whose skills are complementary. Twice a week, they can spend lunch sharing knowledge. To ensure the program's value--and keep it from turning into "social hour"--each side should develop learning goals.
- Be a smart shopper. Sometimes, your company may have to "bite the bullet" and pay for IT professionals to travel to training seminars. When this is the case, you can still look for ways to save money:
- Search for a central training location. If you have participants coming from around the country (or around the globe), pick a central meeting place in an airline hub city to keep fares as low as possible.
- Shop training tools, programs and conferences online. With a little investigating, you may uncover a less-expensive option that will yield the same benefits.
- Check out "boutique" hotels. If you have a relatively small group, you may be able to take advantage of boutique hotel deals. Many of these hotels offer excellent service, as well as lower room rates (so they can compete with the big guys).
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