Is it really worth having you around? It's easy for a trainer to get low self-esteem during times of economic unrest--the rumor is training and learning and development programs are the first to get cut when business starts slackening. Whether or not that's true, training is, nevertheless, not the world's most glamorous profession (shocking, isn't it?), so it's rare you're given the credit you deserve. It's not like you're the sales manager with a staff that's raking in a fortune, or the top executive whose brilliant strategy saved the company from a financial plummet. Your contribution is more of a quiet one, like the corporate equivalent of a movie set designer or sound technician. Invaluable, but usually not one to be stopped for compliments.
So is it a surprise that though your value has been proven--investment in learning and development we've all heard adds up to greater company profit and success--the investment in resources by your bosses in the programs you need to implement to deliver on their goals often is lacking? If you've already hauled in the business analytics to make your case for enhanced investment in training, what's the next step?
The best would be to already have that much-talked about seat at the corporate table so you can glare angrily across the morning conference bagels and pastries, offering a tacit reminder that you're still there. But since that's not a situation enjoyed by the majority of trainers, and even some learning executives, you have to start looking for other ways to make your case. You've given them the numbers, so now it's time for them to hear from some of the glamorous star employees. Don't be afraid to use internal company networking to nudge that "gifted" sales manager to bring up to the executive suite the helpful sales training programs you've put together for his team for the last five years. Be frank, just ask for the sale's manager's help in proving the worth of learning and development to the boss. It's a process similar to asking for references before landing a job. In this case you're asking for internal references to continue, and maybe even do better, in your current role. That new executive who wouldn't be a part of the suite you have to prove yourself to if not for the leadership development and succession plan you put together years ago? Ask him or her to put in a good word for you, too.
There's an old adage that the numbers speak for themselves, but that doesn't appear to be the case when it comes to training. Study after study gives evidence of the business-savvy of preserving learning programs, and executives say how important they think these programs are to employees, but your curriculum and job always seem to be on the line when finances tighten. Why is that? Since there's no logical answer I can come up with, I attribute it to a lack of internal boosters to offer what they call in advertising the emotional sell. Great ad men and women know the best commercials focus on tugging at emotions rather than delivering numerical evidence of worth. So maybe you should do the same.
The star managers and up-and-coming leaders your programs paved the way for may not be the most articulate orators, but they'd probably do better than that mute row of extra zeroes you've been counting on.
Your job and programs on the line again? Are you relying on something more than numbers to make your case to executives?
