Employee Training: Whose job is it anyway?
Recently I spoke at the 2022 Tennessee SHRM Convention and Expo. They were an engaged group of Human Resource (HR) professionals representing many top organizations across the southeast. Speaking there reminded me that HR does so much behind the scenes for organizations. HR tasks include legal matters, maintaining forms reflecting government compliance, organizing/executing the hiring of qualified people, designing benefits packages, people development, counseling, and so much more.
Lee Cockerell, former executive vice president, operations, Walt Disney World Resorts says,
“If you think that training is the exclusive role of human resources or some other department and that you are too busy to bother with them, you might want to rethink what it means to be a leader.”
People development is vital to having a great work culture that produces equally great results. Human Resources is a great partner, but not the sole provider when it comes to training and development. Consider the typical HR department’s responsibilities listed above. As leaders, we fill the gap when it comes to mentoring and developing people for success. Our role is to provide training that leads to a mastery of their work, while helping them develop a commitment to getting better—and better.
It is the leaders who are pro-active, working on their own personal growth, while growing those around them that have this figured out. The opposite of this is being passive and ignoring the need for personal growth much less leading the employees to a growth mindset. So many “people issues” can be resolved if we will invest in personal growth for ourselves and our team.
Too often, leaders attempt to change the way people act without changing the way they think. As a result, they get compliance, but not commitment. As leaders, we want to go beyond just being interested and get to being invested.
Training/development is not a one-and-done process. Starting out, I failed so often because I didn’t have a plan, and I didn’t understand how to grow intrinsic motivation. When I shifted away from technical training only, and began developing leaders, our culture shifted in a positive direction. The more consistent I got, the better our team got. My only regret is I didn’t start leadership development sooner. To grow a positive growth culture, I had to learn to focus on growing people and let them grow the results.
HR is a partner for training and development—not the sole provider.
Begin cultivating your leaders today!
Jeff
