I often hear companies bragging about how may days training they give their employees and it makes my blood boil!!!

Let me explain! This implies training is about courses and it is not. This implies training can be measured in days and it can't. This does not account for training carried out by great line managers and mentors.

Training often gets a bad reputation in companies & is also often the first area to be cut in difficult times. To stop this happening the following should be the guiding principles in training:

1. Do not confuse training & performance management. do not confuse "Deficient in Knowledge" (DK) with "Deficient in Execution" (DE). If they are DK, training is absolutly vital but if they are DE, training is a waste of time and good line management must be carried out so they apply the learning.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
2. Make sure people take the training and apply it in action. there are many people who are "overtrained" - i.e. they know everything about everything but do not deliver in practice. This means a great deal of money has been wasted.                                                                         
3. Make sure Managers always take accountability for training their own people. They may use other people to help deliver the training, and courses have a role to play here, but the line manager never loses accountability.