|
|
  |
 |
|
Be committed to trainingOne of the costs of implementing new systems, one that is frequently overlooked, is training. Management can spend thousands of dollars to buy new software, but when it comes to acquainting the workers with the products, and giving them the skills to get some benefit out of the purchase, suddenly all the money-spending attitude dries up. Let's look at an example. You've just decided to upgrade your entire company (say about 100 people) to FrazierSoft Office 2100. This is, by far, the premiere word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, project management, Web authoring, PIM and meat-packing software in the world today. It does everything, including slicing and dicing. The software costs $200 per node, and the new machines necessary to run this memory-hog of a package cost $2,000. The interface with Office 2100 is similar to the release you used before, version 1900. But there are a lot of neat new capabilities. In fact, your rationale in upgrading was the slicing and dicing, which was not available in the old version. Plus you really want your staff to be able to manage their complicated projects, make cool pie charts and be prepared, at a moment's notice, to do full multi-media presentations to the team. Finally, you want them to be able to contribute to the corporate intranet page with the Web authoring tool. Unfortunately, none of your employees know how to do any of this stuff (uh, what's an intranet?). So you have to train your staff. But it really sticks in your craw that you're going to pay $750 for three days of training, which is more than three times as much as the software. That can't be right. So you decide that, instead of the full course, you'll have the training company compress all of that stuff into a one day program, and, oh yeah, you'll have them include the Web authoring training from the advanced course. Because that's really cool. So your staff is shoe-horned into your conference room, with shared workstations. Heaven forbid you spend the additional money to give them their own computers. And you certainly don't want them to be off site where you can't haul them out of the training every ten minutes because you have a question. They sit through eight hours of boring, non-interactive training with no time for training exercises or questions, and no way of dealing with the fire hose of information that is coming at them. After those eight hours, the trainer tacks on the cool part about the Web authoring tool as your people stare at the screens bleary-eyed from total exhaustion, barely able to move their mice. They're sent back to your loving arms with, at best, an overview of the software functionality, and a utter sense of helplessness. Waiting for them at their desks is a memo from you advising that you'll be expecting them to begin posting their reports on the intranet using the authoring tool, and incorporating their project plans, pie charts, cost allocations, and fully-indexed reports (with tables of contents and headings) by tomorrow evening. You conclude the memo recognizing that they might not have learned everything in the class, but if they review their workbooks and training CD's tonight at home, they should be ready by tomorrow morning. Imagine the traffic load on your Internet connection when everyone goes out to www.jobs.com. If you want your people to use all those bells and whistles that the magazine ads implied would mean the salvation of your business, then you'd better start dealing with the reality of training your staff. And yes, the training IS going to cost a LOT more than the software. But making the software work like you saw in the commercial takes more than learning by osmosis or sitting through a one day seminar. It takes a thorough, comprehensive training and support program. If you're not prepared to make that investment, then you're wasted your money on the software and the high-powered computer. Your successful implementation consists of a variety of costs. Software and hardware are only a piece of it. The rest is training and support. If you don't recognize that, and commit to a significant investment in training, you're wasting everyone's time. And making it a lot easier for recruiters.
|
|
|
Copyright MMXIV The Gadwall Group,
Ltd. All Rights Reserved |
