World of Business

In the ever-changing world of business, many vast corporations with holdings and facilities located across the globe find themselves faced with the problem of inefficient training procedures. These procedures become inefficient due to the continual segmentation of departments, who do not or are not kept abreast of the company motto, development strategies or the overall health of the company. As a result, many departments train their personnel in areas for which there is no need or call for that particular skill. Millions of dollars must be wasted each year in redundant or useless training seminars that neither furthers the goals of the corporation, or of the staff that work for it. What happens in many of these cases, then, is that a need arises for a specific skill and personnel are not ready to meet the need, so outsourcing becomes necessary. Making changes within the corporation's future goals without paying attention to how these changes might impact the infrastructure of the company itself is, in a sense, counter productive.

Other factors, which limit productivity, are a lack of cross-functionality. In other words, considerable time and expense is invested in the training of various personnel, and then when that person or persons leaves the position, for whatever reason, there is no one there that can do their particular job, leaving a hole in the overall effort of the corporate 'team'. However, if some proficiency were taught in a cross functional way, so that several employees were taught similar skills, then this 'gap' would be less likely to occur. Training is the glue that keeps the company together during this period of dramatic change (Kiss, 1994,p30).

A lack of communication between departments also lends itself to counter-productivity. In fact, information is an enabler. The trick is to teach people to analyze the information and apply it effectively in their work environment (Africa News Service 2001). Take for example the research and development division of a large company that manufactures children's personal products (items like baby lotion, oils etc...). What if they research and development department's goals changed with the discovery of a new bubble bath that didn't cause eye irritation, leave a residue on the skin, and could possibly be one of the company's biggest sellers. R&D knows about the product, but marketing hasn't heard anything about it. This sets back the whole promotional effort of the company because now marketing will have to stop and develop a plan for a product that is already to hit the market. Unfortunately, thought the product is ready...the other components that go into the packaging and selling of the product are not. Therefore, it could be argued that lack of training and inappropriate training, coupled with dissimilar goals boil down to lack of communication skills, or communication within the company is breaking down on a critical level.

Part of the problem rests within the way a corporation is structured in the first place. The growing skills gap in the technology arena will require dramatic and creative solutions (Masie 1997). Individual managers of departments are crucial intermediaries and ambassadors to the Chief Executive Officers of any company. However, in most companies that type of bureaucracy tends to foster silence. For example, there is a problem with one of the departments of a company. For whatever reason that department is holding up the rest of the departments. However, when a meeting is called no one is willing to be the one that points the finger, let alone make suggestions and make the administration unhappy with them. As one manager stated, in an article about a college's administration, "The organization's president surrounds himself with people that are completely replaceable. Because I'm replaceable, she's replaceable, everyone is constantly uncertain about the stability of his or her position. Therefore, everyone feels a lack of security about speaking out. Sometimes I want to share my thoughts, but then I stop and say to myself, 'Why risk it?'"(Contemporary Women's Issues Database 1998,p24).

A true top-to-bottom service provider requires a commitment to human capital as well as technological proficiency (Weinberg 2000). This statement was meant to deal with service providers in the telephony fields, however the mention about human capital is worth noting. If a company does not invest in human capital, by training, cross training, and by offering incentives, then a company will begin to lose it's best and it's brightest. It could be argued that money can never be good enough to make a person stay with a job that he or she hates and where he or she feels under utilized and under appreciated. The best managers, it would seem, though, would tend to have a larger turn over in their departments, not because of this factor of underutilization, but due to goals being met with the resulting factor ending in promotion of the worker. This ability to move upward is a key ingredient to a company's success and a key ingredient in the micro managing of an individual department. Turnover remains high and performance low because compensation systems are based on the going rate in the local labor market rather than on what an employee can contribute (Hertzlinger, 1988,p186). This is not possible without adequate updates on the company's goals and knowledge of future endeavors. Team meetings can fit this requirement, while others tend to have large social gatherings periodically where workers are offered an informal type of situation where they may feel more comfortable talking about their concerns. Also, customized training is increasingly important for resellers, given the ever-growing array of technologies and products in the market (Roberts, 1999).

Internet Week magazine did an informal survey of more than 300 top-level IT executives representing varied companies. Their question was a simple one. They wanted to know to what extent the Internet played a role in the day-to-day communication between departments in a large corporation and if there were any correlation between this and productivity. The results were quite interesting. Along the same lines, 63 percent of managers say their Web projects have already paid for themselves through cost savings, increased productivity and increased sales (Moisakos, 1998,p11).

It used to be that training someone meant sending him or her to a training seminar and then that training lasted for a very long time. Now, technologies and marketing schemes change on a quarterly basis, some even faster. This new millennium will surely see a need for training on a day-to-day basis for some departments and companies (Torode 1997, see also Computer World 1996).

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