Why take training?
by Richard on Oct.20, 2009, under Training
After all I can buy a book and learn on my own, that saves money and time.
Does it?
On the Job Training typically involves grabbing free time on a catch-as-catch-can basis. You may promise to do so to yourself, but with todays demanding work schedule and the backload of projects to complete, more important things are always there, pressing in. I’m certain that your company has plenty of IT support staff, allowing you the free time to study as needed. Besides where best to learn but on the very equipment and software that the company relies on daily. Ok, maybe that’s not such a good idea, and besides there is no time at work. That’s it! I’ll study at home! Maybe you are more disciplined than me, but I am as overworked at home as I am at work, besides I need some free time to relax and center myself. Having the book doesn’t do me any good if I read something and don’t understand it. Reading it a second or a third time isn’t going to change what I know about it. Only when I’m with an instructor in a lab can I have that Eureka moment.
Well that covers time, but what about cost? The first thing is that time taken at work to study is the same as being gone to training as far as payroll is concerned. You’re not working on business, even though you’re there. If it takes you 40 hours of class time to learn a product in an optimized learning environment with prepared live equipment, then how long will it take to learn in an unstructured, random fashion with random equipment? Most importantly…OJT training only teaches procedures, of which there are thousands. Formal training teaches the concepts of what is happening, shrinking procedures to only dozens, with a dozen variants each. Last, formal training teaches troubleshooting, which is what you are really around for at work. You need to see the error on live equipment, in real time, with an experienced guide, at least once if you are going to be fully capable of fixing it under the same conditions at work. Ask anyone who has been in a disaster about the difference preparedness makes.
It might amuse you, but I take formal training, and it costs me to go to Seattle, not earning that week, paying for trip expenses, and I get the books for free. I can set up a lab at work, but suffer the same multiple interruptions at work that you do.
