Is he interested in getting trained???

I had an intense discussion on the recent trends in training and development last Sunday during the HR Sangam meeting at ISTD,Chennai.

A special thanks to Mr. Prem Kumar who is an accomplished corporate trainer and runs his own venture called Vibrant Consulting. He was the speaker and made a very impressive presentation on the topic.

During his presentation, I could understand how training and development has evolved over the years. Thankfully, the evolution has been for the better. However, the evolution has not been recognized by many corporates.

The most evident result of the evolution has been that corporates are considering training as an investment and not cost. But then how many corporates are doing so????

If the huge reduction in training budget of many companies during recession last year is considered then it can be lucidly understood that the evolution has not been recognized by too many companies.

But this post is not about that. It's about a simple observation which I made as Mr Prem made his presentation.

It is about the simple fact which we overlook many times. Whenever we are trained on any domain or subject or work that excites us, the training works marvelously . Similarly, if a passionate cricketer is given training on classical music. He is most likely not going to enjoy the training and neither will he learn any skills in classical music.

Hence, recruitment has a direct correlation with the success of training & development. Let's go back to our text book which says that the purpose of recruitment is to get the right person for THE RIGHT JOB in the right time. The 'right job' is the job for which the associate is passionate about and through which he can contribute in a sincere manner to the organization. Providing the training to the associate for his right job would be so much more interesting and fun.

It's not about making the job easier for the trainer. It's actually about doing the right kind of training for the right set of people so that both the trainer and the trainee can contribute to the company in the right manner.

I feel it's important for even the corporate to take some sincere lessons from the movie 'Taare zameen par'
. The logic is same for teaching as well as training as far as this particular context is concerned.

One interesting point made by Mr Prem Kumar was about giving a small assignment to the candidate during the interview process. If he shows considerable interest and passion towards doing that assignment then his interest & orientation towards the job can be considered suitable.

Training is a process that aims towards genuine learning which translates into sincere performance. We shall never be able to reap the real benefits of training if we do not impart it to the right set of people.

It's not like our school days when we have to score equally well in both history and chemistry. Let's realize that we have grown up considerably ;-) and it's fine [or rather right] to impart training to the right set of people with the interest they are passionate about. And it all starts with recruitment. It remains the first check point........ ;-)