Procurement training has obvious benefits. In our ongoing skills benchmarking program, we\u2019ve found that procurement professionals with high levels of skills in seven skill dimensions save their organizations over $1,000,000 per person per year more than procurement professionals with low levels of skills in those same skill dimensions.<\/p>\n
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The return on investment is huge.<\/p>\n
Of course, there are some non-strategic thinkers that see training as an expense rather than an investment. That\u2019s natural \u2013 we don\u2019t come out of the womb understanding that ROI is a key driver of business success. So we have our \u201cProcurement Skills & Profit: The Correlation\u201d whitepaper to help those individuals mature in their thinking.<\/p>\n
In my line of work, I hear all kinds of excuses not to engage in training. But probably the dumbest one is this:<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to pay for employees to be trained, because then they\u2019ll leave for a better job and we\u2019ll lose the money we spent on it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Yep. There really are people in decision-making positions that think like this.<\/p>\n What does this mean?<\/p>\n It\u2019s like saying: \u201cYeah, we have a group of idiots that work here. But we like them like that. They may not help the company, but at least they are loyal and show up every day. And that saves poor old me from the hassle of having to interview people for an open position. \u2018Cause those people might expect high compensation and perks like training.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I have to say.<\/p>\n First, your #1 goal as a manager is not to have loyal employees. It is to maximize your department\u2019s contribution to the company. If you are not facilitating your employees\u2019 ability to reach their potential and contribute better results for the company, you are failing as a manager. Third, procurement is changing so rapidly that anyone who hasn\u2019t trained their employees in two or more years is simply not keeping pace with the rest of the procurement world. Avoiding training is a public indicator that management is simply so out-of-touch that they have no clue how out-of-touch they are!<\/p>\n Whew. That\u2019s my rant for the day.<\/p>\n Whitepaper Wednesday returns tomorrow!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Procurement training has obvious benefits. In our ongoing skills benchmarking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nSecond, training is actually good for retention, not bad. Particularly in this recessionary environment in which you cannot give out raises at all (or, in some cases, even keep employees at last year\u2019s salary levels), investing in training (which benefits both the employee and the organization) is a reward for employees which will make them more loyal and better equipped to contribute to the organization\u2019s success.<\/p>\n