Article in "The Orchadist", "The Grower" and "Tree Matters" July 2010

Does Training Pay?

With the success of the All Whites continue to capture the imagination of the nation, we are riding a crest of an ‘All White’ wave. This team has proven that they are not out of their depth on what could arguably be one of the hardest and most unforgiving international sporting events in the world. The All Whites are optimising the spirit of the New Zealand nation. And we love it.

So how did this mob of “excellent athletes, but mediocre footballers” as reported by the Italian rag La Gazetta, manage to defy the odds and become the darlings of the FIFA World Cup? Well, they trained and they trained hard. Each and every individual in that team had a goal and that is; to be the best footballer they possibly could be. As a team, they didn’t just strap on their boots and stroll on to the local park and expect to perform to the highest level. Ricki Herbert, their coach, had a plan. We are now witnessing that plan paying dividens.

Horticulture New Zealand has a goal of achieving $10 billion by 2020. So how does this industry get there? Just like Riki Herbert, there is planning and good management; talent identification, working on existing talent, attracting new athletes, and also having a mix of experience and youth, just like your horticultural team

Training your talent on your home ‘turf’ is the easiest, cost effective and most targeted to your business. Ricki Herbert trains his team the way he wants them trained, he doesn’t send them off somewhere else for them to do the job for him. He wants his team to implement a plan the way he wants it implemented. Yes, he will bring in experts to help out, but they are all focused on the plan at hand, basically his experts are all singing off the same song sheet.

The All Whites budget is minimal compared to the Ferrari driving rock stars from Italy, who ‘work’ in some of the greatest stadia in the world. But a training ground is usually rectangular in shape and generally green in colour, it’s not the size of the stadia, but what happens on it. Our industry’s training ground is a orchard, a paddock, a packhouse. These grounds have cutting edge equipment with the world’s best coaches in the world. It is the man management and what is being trained is all that matters.

So lets have a look at training in a business, here’s some facts:

• Returns on training investments are nearly always positive and may be very high. Researchers found that for each dollar spent on training the return could be between $4 to $15 based on the industry sector.

• Returns can come in many forms. The returns on training investments are not always in the form of increases in profitability or productivity. Returns may be higher levels of value-added activities as a result of greater levels of skills, increased flexibility amongst employees who can perform a range of tasks, reduced overhead costs as more efficient use is made of existing facilities and greater ability to innovate in terms of adopting new technology.

·     Training acts as a support mechanism for other changes. The research showed that training does not act alone to improve the organisation’s performance. In fact training pays its highest dividend when staff are trained and can handle new ways of doing things. So along comes new technology and staff trained to use it result in productivity benefits.

·     Returns on training investment can be enhanced by other human resource policies. The research showed that encouraging staff to remain with you after training will enhance your returns on training investment. Ways of doing this include promoting staff internally, rather than recruiting externally, and the developing broad skill sets amongst employees

So does training really pay? Ask Ricki...