The Training Platform: Experience or training – which is more important?

Some people would argue that training is of minimal value unless it’s combined with experience. Others would argue experience is all fair and well but that it cannot replace good quality training.

At the risk of sounding like we’re on the fence, we would argue that you need both to maximise your chances of success.

There’s a growing gap between the skills employees have and the skills that are actually required in the workplace. Although people are constantly and actively training (often in preparation for a new or improved job), a lot of training focuses on general industry knowledge and skills and isn’t necessarily specific to an individual position within the business. In some cases, people select training that’s not really appropriate for their role, while in others the business fails to offer adequate training. This might be due to expense factors but also to a lack of understanding about what training is actually required.

Lessons learned in the NHS

Sometimes, a whole sector gets it wrong. Take, for example, the drive to recruit students to physiotherapy courses in response to a shortage of physiotherapists and long waiting lists for treatment just a few years ago. The National Health Service paid tuition fees for thousands of young people to train to be physiotherapists and then failed (due to cost saving measures) to provide entry level jobs and/or opportunities for them to gain work experience once they’d graduated.

The end result? Hundreds of young and qualified people entering the job market with nowhere to go. In fact, The Chartered Society of Physiotherapists reported that 1,800 physiotherapists who graduated between 2005 and 2007 were unable to find work, potentially wasting the GB pound 53 million it cost to train them in the first place.

There are also problems when emphasis is placed on building knowledge without any links to practical application. This would perhaps explain the recent trend for employer complaints about university graduates entering the jobs market ill-prepared for work in ‘the real world’. Although steps are being taken in some institutions to change this situation (for example the University of Leicester sets out criteria for transferable skills development for its postgraduates), practical skills remain an area for future development in the workplace. This is where experience comes in.

Thrown in at the deep end

It’s often argued that the best way to prepare someone for a given job is for them to do it. While there is value to be gained from ‘learning on the job’, this can present problems of its own.

First, while it might be reasonable to be ‘thrown into the deep end’ for some roles, this isn’t always an advisable approach. You wouldn’t want someone operating heavy machinery without the appropriate training, for example.

Some jobs require basic training before they even start. Even jobs that don’t have such a requirement would benefit from some induction training, if for no other reason than it will save time (who wants to spend an hour figuring out how the e-mail system works when you could just attend a short training session?).

“Ah, but this is the argument for basic entry level jobs…” we hear you cry. Our responsee? Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples where training increases efficiency and so it should never be dismissed as irrelevant regardless of the amount of experience an individual possesses.

For instance, you can have years of experience in security through working with the police or the military but you might need some training to convert this knowledge into useful skills for the commercial sector.

Constantly evolving business environments

It’s also wise to remember that there’s a massive difference between having 100 experiences and having one experience a hundred times. If we constantly deal with the same problem it’s easy to refine the response. However, in a constantly evolving business environment this is not a likely scenario.

More often, you will be faced with a range of problems and, at the point when you have figured out the solution to one, a more challenging problem will emerge.

While it’s true that experience may help you deal with these increasingly difficult tasks, it may not. It really depends on the experience you have and whether this equips you with the right skills set to solve the current problem. This is where good quality and focused training can enhance experience by using good practice to give individuals a framework for problem solving in their field and the appropriate skills to form and implement a solution.

Structured experience that allows learning to happen

This is not to say we cannot learn from experience. However, we can only learn from experience when this experience is structured in a way that allows learning to happen. Simply being in the situation does not mean we learn from it (we’ve all likely worked with someone who makes the same mistakes over and over again and hasn’t learned from their experiences).

Learning only happens when we reflect on our experiences in an informed and structured way. This allows us to consider the effectiveness of our actions and how we can adapt our behaviour the next time.

The process is flawed if there’s little or no opportunity to reflect, no skilled feedback and no plan to adjust behaviour. Training can provide us with the mindset to ensure we learn from our experiences.

Some people are not open to the idea of training, instead preferring to think that they ‘know it all’ as they have years of experience. We would argue that there’s always room for learning and that we should all strive to be lifelong learners.

It doesn’t matter how much experience we have or how intelligent we are – we all need training sometimes (even if it’s just how to re-tune the television!).

Identifying that you need training is not admitting defeat. Rat’s her, itrecognising the value of continuing personal development. Let’s face it, things change and we all need to remain up-to-date in order to stay competitive.

The bottom line

Experience is an essential ingredient to learning but it should never be seen as the only ingredient. People need to be able to benchmark their experience against good practice and, on that basis, it’s hugely important to teach them good practice.

Once formal training has been undertaken, the framework for developing competence is in place and the potential for development of effectiveness and learning from experience becomes powerful rather than arbitrary.

However, a note of caution… Training is no good if it’s the wrong kind of training and so it’s absolutely imperative to consider the content and scope of training carefully such that success may be maximised.

Ken Livingstone (managing director) and Amy Burrell (training consultant) are with Perpetuity Training

Further information about… Perpetuity Training

Perpetuity Training offers a range of short courses, including Level 4 professional awards in Managing Security Surveys and Security Management.

All of the company’s short courses can be adapted to meet the needs of individual businesses. Bespoke training services are also available.

Perpetuity Training is proud to be associated with The Security Institute and to be the provider of the Institute’s two membership qualifications: the Certificate in Security Management (Level 3 Advanced Certificate) and the Diploma in Security Management (Level 5 Professional Diploma).

For more details telephone 0116-222 5550 or e-mail: training@perpetuitygroup.com