Professional training tends to ebb and flow with the economic environment.
Andrea Goldberg of Bedford, N.Y., recalled the reactive nature of training programs through time at Armonk-based IBM.
“Having worked for a major corporation, it goes in cycles,” she said. “When I first started, there was a rule that every manager had to get 40 hours of training. And then, the rule was disbanded and for a period of time, we received no training. They”™d see issues with turnover, poor morale and concern of losing key skills, and we”™d get training again.”
At the end of the day, she said, it was very short-sighted.
“Yes, sometimes it”™s (training) discretionary and you skip a year or so, but we live in a competitive environment where you may become ineffective by not allowing your organization to grow and change and improve,” Goldberg said.
Just months ago, she left a position as vice president of corporate market intelligence at IBM to begin HorizonView Group in Stamford.
While her primary concentration was in social media and her partner”™s was customer satisfaction and loyalty, she recognized a potential void in her service offerings.
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The company recently merged with OrgVitality in White Plains, a management consulting startup led by career veteran Jeffrey Saltzman.
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“It was interesting, because their offerings were more aligned with leadership development, selection and training while ours were a little more outwardly focused,” Goldberg said. “We realized that by merging the two offerings together, we had both sides of the coin.”
The two companies, however, had one thing in common ”“ they wanted to scientifically examine the factors leading to an organization”™s thriving.
Both industrial-organizational psychologists, they along with several other partners built a six-step model, which included such brackets as leadership development, market competitiveness, employee retention and customer retention.
“An area we”™re offering as a product is educational policies and practice development,” Saltzman said. “We”™ll develop and build social media sites for organizations both internally and externally facing.”
Vitality assessments are assigned to client firms first beginning with a CEO”™s self-assessment followed by that of the employees.
“A lot of companies have downsized ”¦ the idea of maintaining your valued employees and your skill base has become even more important,” Goldberg said. “I think companies are faced with survival decisions. They may not have the safety net or cash reserves that they did in a better economy.”
Though Saltzman said the recession is not necessarily the catalyst in companies deciding to amp up professional training programs, it certainly acts as a “magnifying glass” exposing pre-existing conditions.
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OrgVitality will not act as simply the “go to” guy for better business operations.
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The company will be involved in a number of educational seminars and training sessions in the coming months.
Goldberg will be teaching Bureau Veritas, the European human resources association, about social media through the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA).
The company just teamed up with Save the Children in Westport for management coaching and to offer executives “a global view of today”™s work force,” Saltzman said.
In addition to work with the U.S. Department of Defense, OrgVitality will be hosting a series of eight to 10 webinars on topics such as management coaching.
Webinars have been somewhat of a cost-effective means of training at a time when human-resource budgets have been cut.
“I think we”™re seeing more companies participate in the more basic ones (webinars) we run,” said David Lewis, CEO of human resources consulting firm OperationsInc in Stamford, Conn. “Some businesses run the HR function as if it”™s purely administrative and when they get to compliance and liability, they don”™t have the capabilities. I think the webinar is an area where they get a lot of their traction.”
