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Ask Slashdot: On the Job Certification Training?
beerdini writes "There is a debate going on within my IT department about how our continued training offerings compare to others in the industry. I'm hoping other Slashdotters can help to provide comparisons. Currently, if we are implementing a new technology or updated software we will send someone from IT for training to become a specialist; in other words, they go to formal training as a part of their job where they learn their new skills. Alternatively, for someone pursuing an industry certification, employees usually take the training on their own time and dime. On passing the certification exam, they can submit the exam fee for reimbursement. This is the most common practice that I've seen in the various places that I've worked, but I have one co-worker who insists that it is our company's responsibility to pay for the materials, allow them to study and practice while on the job, and that all attempts to take the test should be paid by the company because it should be a company investment in the employee. So, my questions to the Slashdot community: what are the ongoing training practices in your organization? Are there any places that pay for someone to get an industry certificate? Are there any rules associated with it?"
If the training meets a specific need and is a must have to continue or grow the business then the company will pay for it and do it on company time. To them, it's an investment with a specific ROI. If it's a nice to have but doesn't meet specific needs tehn they may reimburse as part of a benefits package but you are on your own time and dime until you pass or complete the course.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
It's whatever your company gives you. Talk to your HR department.
Personally, I have an education benefit, that I can use for courses, if I have pre-approval from the company.
When I worked for a previous company, there was a fund that I could use for books, and they had the ame deal on courses, but did such a bad job of explaining it (telling me that I would only be reimbursed for college credit courses if I got a high enough grade, but neglected to mention that I had to get approval in advance before I even *started* the course, so I ended up getting shafted for my first two semesters).
When I wored for a university, I could take courses for a nominal fee, but due to sloppy paperwork, when the university sold off their certificate classes, they didn't have records of the fact that I was a staff member at the time, so I ended up with months of dealing with a collections agency that was sent after me.
Almost all of them had other limits on using the benefits -- for example, some companies require you to be an employee for 12 months before you can take classes; others will require you to pay back the benefit if you quit within some time frame after taking the class (12-18 months is typical, but I've heard of places that do 24 or 36 months) . One of the companies required me to explain how the course was relevant to my job.
You should also talk to your manager -- there are cases where some courses might make it more likely for you to get a promotion or a better raise when annual reviews come around. (and it'd be a good idea to get it in writing, if you're thinking about paying out of pocket for it).
As for the paying for time at the classes -- I've only had it when it was either a workshop attached to a conference, so only 1-2 days, or training that I was specifically sent to at the request of the company (typically 3-5 days, although there was one case where it was two weeks back-to-back, but it was 2 classes). I've also had them pay my time to take certification tests, when it was required as part of my job.
I have never had a company pay my time when I was taking college level classes that I elected to go to, even if it was related to my job. They did, however, let me take off in the middle of the day to go to classes at the local university, and were otherwise understanding when I shifted my schedule around.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I worked for a software consultancy which charged us out to clients. In this type of company it is usual practice to pay for and give time for various certifications. Clients frequently ask about the qualifications that consultants have and it is important to have up-to-date certifications. I have also worked for end-user companies where you are given on-the-job training for new systems, approaches etc. only as needed and with no certification. Sometimes they let you have time off to take the exam of you want to go for certification yourself, but to them the aim is getting the job done and certificates to prove you can are of little value.
I recently interviewed for a very interesting position. I had to turn it down because of conflict-of-interest, but it was for an internal corporate training department. They evidently wanted to create a streamlined, formal way of providing continued education to their employees to allow them to move around and improve themselves. I was highly honored to have even been asked for such a position, and still wish I could take it. That is the only organization that I've seen that actually thought further ahead than next fiscal statement. It's a real shame that internal training doesn't exist in more organizations. Or at least a closer partnership with local training organizations (colleges, tech centers, ect). It seems that organizations these days want to put as little into their employees as possible and expect stellar performance. When exactly is the rest of the team supposed to learn the new technology that you send your golden child to training for? I see too often where people are not sent to training, or training isn't brought in house, because it's "too expensive", yet we are still expected to know the material. When exactly is that learning supposed to take place, and on what dime? Is it the two weeks a year you give me to get out of the office? Or on the salary that is destroyed by modern student loans? More and more I support FOSS, it's the only way I can stay current in my field. Fuck the proprietary garbage with a walled off knowledge base.
Former company I worked for would pay for any certificate I got that was related to my job, however I had to study on my own time. They just considered it part of the education fund that everyone had a max amount per year.
Current company will not pay for any but will give me time off to take the test and some time to study.
Bottom line, there is no law that says an employer has to reimburse you, unless that reimbursement is covered in your employment contract.
Most employers will take a flexible approach unless they are in a cost-cutting phase (even then, if you can show that your training course will allow you to do both your job and that of the smelly antisocial guy next to you that the manager hates, the manager will probably swing to the cost of the certification materials, on-the-job training time and exam, with a contract caveat that you will be liable for those costs if you voluntarily leave the company within 2-3 years), but it is a relatively simple balancing act:
What added value will this certification provide to the company vs. what is the cost of the certification process in materials, lost work hours and financial expenditure.
Also, how easy is it to replace you with a lower/same paid person if you decide to leave should the training request be turned down; or will this training course make you more likely to stay with the employer/more likely to leave or be head-hunted.
Working as a consultant, certification in relevant and recognized skill areas helps my company open opportunities with other clients, or new areas within the same client. However, if the company does not get any more per-head revenue for those areas then I am not going to see any direct financial benefit (maybe something unofficial, that the company can write off against tax, but that is about it).
Fundamentally, the company has to earn enough from my contract to pay me and make my mandatory benefits contributions. If the contract mandates 40 man-hours per week for X, then that sets a ceiling for my remuneration. If my certification does not enable the company to renegotiate the cost of the contract, then my employer has to reduce their share of the pie (make less profit) in order to reward me. However, if that certification makes me more attractive to another potential client who is willing to cover my contract at 40 hours per week for 1.5*X, then the employer can move me to the new client, give me a pay rise, and bring in a new body to replace me. The old client may not be too happy to lose me, but the contract is not for MY services at 40 hours per week, it is for 40 man-hours.
Our organization pays for training--tons of it. I'm going through a pile of high-level Citrix stuff this year after doing about half the VMware catalog last year... We're in a position to do this because we've taken on a large new multi-year project that required us to go way beyond our existing skills. But even without that project, I was still budgeted for 1-3 outside courses every year, and would sometimes get access to online opportunities too.
What they do not ever pay for is certification exams. For those you're on your own--which is fine with me. I've taken $40k in training in the last 2 years. I don't mind ponying up a few dollars to take an exam once in a while.
Who did what now?
Training is a management box-ticking exercise, nothing more
In some branches of the DoD they use partnerships with industry, e.g. Cisco Academy, to provide initial and follow-on training. While this sounds great with 1000s of students having CCNA and CCNP training every year (without required cert test afterward), it does not translate to what the students will actually 'do'. It s a cookie-cutter approach to circumvent the lengthy 'point-of-instruction' change management process used in the military training environment. In this case I agree with the quoted sentence above as it sounds like a good news story rather than actually training the force to do their job.
For the rest of the paragraph however, my supervisor and I discussed this and he stated there are three types of education: What you learn to do your job, what you learn for your career and what he called life-long learning. How to run the new version of VMware is the first. A MCSE certification track could be the next and attending seminars related to HR and budgeting (when you are an server admin) relate to the last.
That's why IMHO industry trainings and certifications are bullshit.
Industry courses usually cost a lot, deliver few information not published somewhere obvious and are so condensed that they allow not time for reflection.
Some times the condensed nature though is exactly what is needed.
A friend of mine worked for a company that adopted the Zend Framework for their core product. They needed an entire dev team of 10 or 20 people to be up to speed and writing solid code in a few weeks so they brought trainers in and brought the entire team up to speed and paid for them all to do certification. This let them advertise the fact that all their developers were Zend certified, but more importantly it meant that inside a month the company was back to extending their core product and hence back to earning revenue from selling the new features to clients.
I spent the best part of six months learning Zend on the job. In that time I made some mistakes which ultimately resulted in code I had to go back to and change. Also, the first project I did overran considerably. I was often unable to say how much longer the project would take because I was trying to learn something I previously knew very little about and did not know how much work remained.
Sometimes investing in certification and training pays off, especially when you want to leverage new technology to enhance the services your company provides quickly to keep ahead of your competitors.
I dont read
If you're getting paid more than that, you should be expected to do more than just show up and expect them to give you a shovel, a hammer, or a keyboard and to train you to do every single task you're asked.
I'm going to give your co-worker a hint: that voluntary training is increasing your worth in the marketplace. It's not just an advantage to your current employer. Put another way - imagine you are a small employer and your employee wants you to pay for their training. Would you offer them an hour a day to study, plus costs of books? That's 12% of their total compensation package, 12% loss of revenue (or an increase in 12% effort spread over the rest of the "team") that you have no guarantee of ever recouping. Before you ask an employer for money, take a good hard look at whether that money is going to provide a guaranteed, tangible benefit to the bottom line of the business. If you can't find a way that it either saves or increases revenue by 20% of the investment*, it's going to be a hard sell.
*when counting costs, take the actual materials and course cost, then add your hourly rate x 2.0-2.5 x total work hours you'll spend. That will give you the actual cost to the business.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
My company has a very small library of books, and a decent amount of training material on a shared drive for the site, yet a lot of the books and materials are several years old. I'm studying for Server+ right now, and the most recent book they have is from 2004. I recently tried to get the site director to purchase some new training books, but was told that they'd 'maybe' be able to get the books in six months. Otherwise, I could purchase the books myself, and they'd 'maybe' be able to reimburse me in six to eight months. They do allow you to read and study during downtime, which is nice, but I've done quite a bit of studying on my own time, too. Once it comes time for the exam, they do reimburse you for the cost of the exam, provided you pass it and attain the certificate.
That said, my company uses its employee's credentials to bid on contracts, so it behooves them to encourage us to get CompTIA, GIAC, CISSP, or EC-Council certified, so that they're able to bid higher amounts with better qualified workers. They even tie certifications to our yearly performance evals, requiring that we attain one cert, yearly, to meet our professional development goal, and two to exceed it. We get a small bump in pay for the certs, as well. A Server+ cert might get us $250/year, while a CISSP could get us $1000, and Certified Ethical Hacker might be $2000, however, the pay bumps are only done every six months, and from what I hear, it can be even longer than that.
My previous company placed ZERO emphasis on professional training or certification, other than Security+, and an OS cert to meet DoD 8570 certification requirements.
My opinion on this? I shelled out a couple hundred bucks for training materials for Server+, Linux+, and CISSP, simply because their training materials are very old. They also don't send people to training classes, even for something like the CISSP, which is a fairly difficult exam. If they're going to bid on contracts and REQUIRE me to hit certain training goals, there should be money put aside, yearly, for the office to attain those certs. I don't mind putting out the money for the exams, then being reimbursed, but at least get me adequate training materials, and send me to one class per year.
Employers would likely have no issues granting you study time, even at work, if they felt secure that you were not going to take your new skills elsewhere before the ink dries on your new certificate.
And employees would probably be less likely to leave if they felt secure that they wouldn't just walk into work one day and be told "Clean out your desk, and then security will escort you from the building. You can write a letter of resignation if you like." Loyalty is a two-way street, but a lot of companies don't want that.
I am officially gone from
IT really needs a apprenticeship system that can work in real Training with jobs and NOT the college system we have now.
You're pointing out an interesting fact about the IT industry -- there are some really good places to work and some that are really awful. And that definition of good and awful depends on the individual/situation. Without going too far off topic, think about working at Google vs. a "traditional" IT employer like a bank or hospital. Google is ideal for young/single workers who kind of want to continue the college dorm atmosphere. Free meals, concierge service, funky office space, etc. all designed to extract maximum hours out of a workforce who doesn't mind working 80 or 90 hours a week because nothing else is going on in their lives ATM. A more staid IT employer can either be a soul-crushing experience, or (in my case) realize that they need to attract mature talented people. (I work for an IT company that exclusively services a very staid, established industry sector for which correctness and uptime come before speed and flashy stuff.)
Just like corporate cultures are different, training policies are different. Our product design groups basically have to take all the latest flashy tech off the shelf and get it working reliably for our industry, so we're constantly learning. Since our company also deals with a few industry-proprietary skills that aren't easy to come by off the street, long-term employment is also encouraged. (And yes, I know that's wierd and 20th Century, but I like it now that I'm married with children.) We're encouraged to do one company-paid course a year, typically one of those week-long classroom sessions. Certification exams are also reimbursed, even if you don't do them as part of your formal course. Anyone who starts out with our company (including when I started) is told up front that they'll be given all the training they need in the proprietary side of the business, but that they'll be useless for at least the first 8 months while they learn. They then get our internal training where they learn the basics of our customer's business, the fundamental concepts behind what we do, and get to work on small projects. Also, university courses are fully reimbursed once good grades are submitted if you so desire.
I realize that my situation isn't typical, and we can only do it due to our unique situation. But the reality is that this should be the norm. On the job training should be encouraged if your company wants people who are engaged and understand the business side of things. Otherwise in my experience you get a never-ending stream of generic VMWare people, generic Windows people, generic Citrix people, etc. who only get the IT side of things because that's what they need to do to keep jumping ship every 2 years. Part of the reason why our company does well is that the consulting staff knows the customer's business beyond some crash PowerPoint briefing that they read on the plane before they showed up to work.
Bottom line, IT employers should invest in their people and not expect ready made new hires. IT employees should actively seek these employers out to encourage the bad ones to change their practices.