> I know everyone is pressed for time and resources, but I recommend doing a > little training along the way.
Heresy! It is a Well-Known Fact that if you give someone training they will immediately jump ship to a higher-paying company because said company is foolish enough to think that a person, trained, is more valuable than a person, untrained... don't they know that Gratitude Is Enough?
> [snippage] > The result is new and revised programs being written in the style and spirit of > COBOL 74, or even COBOL '68.
Now, repeat after me: 'The responsibility for the allocation, co-ordination and motivation of personnel and resources towards the accomplishment of a stated Executive goal is that of Management.' Repeat again.
Let's look at it another way... assume that an organisation has invested a great deal of money in the upgrading of the physical plant. If sufficient investment has been made then it is likely that serious consideration will be given to upgrading the security system (new locks, etc.) to prevent these improvement from 'walking off'. Also consider the common term of 'golden handcuffs', a recognised metaphor for increasing salary/benefits to prevent human capital from *physically* walking away. Now, consider the investment of money in humans to upgrade skills in order to make them more valuable to the company. Consider how many times you have seen a corporate policy stating that an increase in salary/benefits accompanies the successful completion of such an upgrade (courses).
Years ago the Wall Street Journal did a story on one of the major NY houses... I think it was Morgan Stanley or Morgan Guaranty or the like. They hired *only* the 'unhireable'... kids with BAs in Library Science, Art History, etc... they put these kids through two years of hell, 60 - 70 hr weeks, and turned them into *crackerjack* programmers... and then saw said kids being hired away by the competition at double or triple the salary. When asked why a raise did not accompany the completion of the course the HR representative replied 'Oh, we cannot do that... all the money has been taken up by training.' (compare this with 'Oh, we cannot upgrade the door-locks... all the money went into oil-paintings to hang on the walls.')
After a few years of seeing themselves serve as Wall Street's unofficial programming school the company finally 'wised up'... and cancelled the program entirely.
|
