In some companies, training is actually used to help achieve the company's goals. In others, it's a to-do item to be fullfilled, and nothing more.
At one company, training was mandatory, but apparently only if it was useless.
We were developing embedded, real time, safety critical software. HR sent out the list of available courses, which all had titles like "How to optimize Excel worksheets", "Improving business communication", "How to make more effective presentations", and "Challenges every leader will face". We just ignored them. HR then complained to executive management that "engineering is refusing to take training".
We pointed out that we were software developers, and there was no software training offered. HR countered that there was, in fact, a software course. There was "Introduction to Visual Basic". HR had found it *very* useful in their team, so why didn't we want to take it?
Executives said we *had* to take training. So we looked online, and found things like Plurasight and Coursera, which offered unlimited online training in things like git, python, perl, and ruby. While not exactly what we did, those would at least be *some* benefit, and at something like $300 for a year of training as opposed to $2000 for that full-day Visual Basic course, it would be significantly cheaper *and* more useful.
Naturally, it was rejected. So a group of C++ and assembler coders spent a day playing on their phones sitting in a course on a language they'd never use. Even the trainer asked "Why are you people even here? This course is for non-programmers". The answer was "HR made us".
At the second company, I'll just quote the phone conversation I overheard my boss having with HR:
Okay, you want my people to train on this real time kernel course.
How much does the course cost?
Uh huh. And how many of these kernels will we be getting afterwards?
None? Do we buy them separately then?
No? Then how do we get them?
Well if we're not going to get them, what's the point of the training?
I don't care if we have training budget we have to spend, I need my people to be working on their projects...
Some jobs require a certain amount of paid extra education, it's part of the job description. Which sounds good, but then ofc it's more like corporate indoctrination classes you don't pick 🤣
(not that I'm speaking from actual experience, just talking shit)
Oh god, training.
In some companies, training is actually used to help achieve the company's goals. In others, it's a to-do item to be fullfilled, and nothing more.
At one company, training was mandatory, but apparently only if it was useless.
We were developing embedded, real time, safety critical software. HR sent out the list of available courses, which all had titles like "How to optimize Excel worksheets", "Improving business communication", "How to make more effective presentations", and "Challenges every leader will face". We just ignored them. HR then complained to executive management that "engineering is refusing to take training".
We pointed out that we were software developers, and there was no software training offered. HR countered that there was, in fact, a software course. There was "Introduction to Visual Basic". HR had found it *very* useful in their team, so why didn't we want to take it?
Executives said we *had* to take training. So we looked online, and found things like Plurasight and Coursera, which offered unlimited online training in things like git, python, perl, and ruby. While not exactly what we did, those would at least be *some* benefit, and at something like $300 for a year of training as opposed to $2000 for that full-day Visual Basic course, it would be significantly cheaper *and* more useful.
Naturally, it was rejected. So a group of C++ and assembler coders spent a day playing on their phones sitting in a course on a language they'd never use. Even the trainer asked "Why are you people even here? This course is for non-programmers". The answer was "HR made us".
At the second company, I'll just quote the phone conversation I overheard my boss having with HR:
Okay, you want my people to train on this real time kernel course.
How much does the course cost?
Uh huh. And how many of these kernels will we be getting afterwards?
None? Do we buy them separately then?
No? Then how do we get them?
Well if we're not going to get them, what's the point of the training?
I don't care if we have training budget we have to spend, I need my people to be working on their projects...
Some jobs require a certain amount of paid extra education, it's part of the job description. Which sounds good, but then ofc it's more like corporate indoctrination classes you don't pick 🤣
(not that I'm speaking from actual experience, just talking shit)