The following list of workforce development traps to avoid evolved out of the experience of Vince Grassi, director, global learning and knowledge management at Air Products. His latest workforce project involves standardizing training across the company's business units.
If you build it, they will come.
When times are tough, training is the first thing you should cut.
Just build Web-based (e-learning) courses. It's cheaper.
All training must be done in an instructor-based classroom setting in order to be valuable and important knowledge.
Once learners go through training, the manager never needs to find out how they are applying what they learned.
It is always better to look for your own local vendor. National, regional or global contractors involve too much internal bureaucracy, and they don't understand your special problems.
Sending people on a training course will solve all performance problems and development needs.
It will be obvious to a skilled trainer what each class participant needs so there is no need to discuss it in advance.
I've done presentations. Professional trainers make out that it is far more difficult than it really is.
We don't need a university -- we have a learning management system.
