Thirty-three years ago today, I was lucky to find a job as a civil engineer on the Boston Central Artery/Tunnel project (commonly known as the Big Dig). I say lucky because of the sluggish economy, following the crash of the stock market in 1987, marked the end of the decade. Sluggish is probably a mild word, but time heals, and we’ve all moved on.
The year prior, I had just graduated with an engineering degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and I found the subsequent job hunt particularly hard, to say the least. After a short stint at a small firm in Worcester, I joined the Big Dig, which changed everything for me. Not because it was the largest public works project in the U.S at the time, though that didn’t hurt. But because of the people I worked with every day.
And it is with gratitude that I think of a few of my supervisors from my learning years on this work anniversary.
We rarely realize the impact someone has on our lives when we’re in the middle of that experience. Take, for instance, in my first few years working on the Big Dig when my then supervisors consistently put me forward for new opportunities…in their words, “to be ready to take on additional responsibility.” I didn’t think much of it.
But they knew a secret that good managers know (whether inherently or taught), that getting your junior employees ready for some future unknown challenge benefits the manager, the company, and the employee. It’s not often we get to claim a win-win-win, but there you have it.
So, it was disappointing to me to see that expenditures on training are down 20% this year in the U.S. according to Training Magazine in their annual industry report. And while small companies spent the most per employee (averaging $1,420 in 2023), midsize and large companies aren’t keeping up with just $751 and $481, respectively.
Training leads to opportunities.
I once had a manager who told me, if you’re not learning something new in your current job, change it. He also had a rule to never stay longer than six years in any one role. He assured me that didn’t mean I needed to change companies, just jump to a new position within that company.
In my experiment of one, my managers entrusted me with more responsibility and opportunities with each passing year and each job change. Having started out in one of the design offices, I quickly moved into project management as an assistant manager, and then a more senior role of running a major project. All of these came because of both supervisor recognition and the training they provided. The picture at the top of this article was part of my project!
According to Indeed.com, training has a multitude of benefits, including:
Prepares employees for higher responsibilities, which may help a company grow.
Shows employees they are valued, which may reduce turnover.
Improves skills, which may lead to efficiency and higher productivity.
Someone to recognize the need.
For results like these, someone needs to recognize the need and take charge. And the supervisors most closely associated with their staff are the best ones to assess the needs of the individual, like the ones I had. And let’s face it, without people skills (another training opportunity), it’s not going to happen.
So maybe this is a good place to start. It’s easy for a company to pay for training that will improve productivity. Quantifying the ROI makes it clear that spending on this kind of training is a no-brainer decision. The softer skills are less so.
The need to prepare the next generation for the jobs of the future has always been a thing, but with the pace of technology and a changing global economy, it seems more critical than ever. Training opportunities are not just an investment in an employee’s development but a strategic move that ensures economic growth and competitiveness for the very companies for which they work.
Which brings me back to why I’m writing today. I personally want to thank several people for believing in me and pointing me in the right direction. From the start there was Phil Eastes who liked to say, “I just point you at the fence and you jump it.” I never got the chance to tell Phil how much he meant to me. And then there are Mike Bertoulin and Tony Lancellotti who entrusted a junior-ish engineer on one of the largest design sections of the program. To them I say thank you.
I have tons of memories and lifelong friends from the Big Dig, many of whom I see from time to time, though not often enough. But it was the forward thinking of my managers and supervisors who helped propel me and many colleagues like me to long and successful careers. You did good!
Back when I was working for an architecture firm in Alaska, I remember hearing an argument/discussion between the partners about employee training. A senior partner said something like, “What if we spend all that money training the employees and they leave?” To which a junior partner replied, “What if we don’t train them and they stay?”
Your observation that additional training contributes to the value of the employees and the company was spot on. Not to mention that engineering and architectural license maintenance requires continuing education. It’s an investment which will pay dividends, not a cost to be borne.
Fortunately for me, the junior partner won the argument.
The point also could have been, “if we don’t train them they’ll leave anyway.”