It’s almost impossible to attend a training conference, read a training magazine, participate in a training-based discussion thread, or even have a lunchtime meeting with a training professional without the topic of what it will take for training to get a “seat” at the table coming up. Well, there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned catastrophe to put the role of training in perspective, and to illustrate why training will never sit at the table that too many of these professionals are trying to get a seat at.
When companies in the Northeast were affected by Hurricane Sandy, organizational functions mobilized to keep those companies solvent. Human resources started reaching out to employees to ensure that they were safe. Members of the technology teams worked feverishly to make certain that employees and customers had access to critical systems. The telecommunications groups are likely to have been working to get telephone and video lines up and running. Corporate communications departments were likely to have been crafting messages for both employees and customers. The heads of businesses were reaching out to their customer base and assessing the state of their business infrastructure. Building service teams mobilized to establish that the facilities under their watch had the resources required for employees to do their work. Internal security departments went the extra mile to make sure that both the facilities and the employees were safe. The mail room is likely to have been bustling to retrieve lost packages and to deliver ones that needed to go out. Business continuity teams would be working to make sure that the alternative operational sites were up and running.
What were training departments doing during this time of crisis? Chances are they weren’t performing their core function. At best, training teams were lending support to the other functional areas of the company by leveraging their business acumen to help with the daily business operation or by simply providing support in the form of extra sets of hands to the other areas. There is little chance, however, that in the middle of Hurricane Sandy companies found it important to keep training classes running. Thus, unless the core function of the company that learning professionals work for is to provide training, the training function will never sit at the operational table.
Truth be told, however, during Sandy the employees that make up the teams of corporate communication professionals, internal security, business managers, and telecommunication experts were able to perform their jobs at a high level largely as a result of the training that they received. The investment in training as a strategic imperative for the purpose of either creating a high-performing workforce in the case of employee training, or ensuring customer loyalty and satisfaction in a customer training scenario is what helps companies make it through disasters like Sandy.
The problem is that too many training leaders attempt to get a seat at the operational table of the company. That will never happen. So if you’re a training professional and you want to get a seat, play your position and try to get a seat at the right table: The strategic table.
