Australia and the World Past and Present

To what extent should companies provide training opportunities to their staff?

There are all kinds of companies – small, medium and large. There are companies that operate only within one country and there are multinationals too. There is a spectrum when it comes to companies investing in training for their staff. Some companies invest a lot while others provide little or even nothing.

There can be differences between business cultures too.

Here I will be discussing an ‘Australian’ model and a ‘Japanese’ one. Of course these models are generalisations. Within any country there will be a plethora of differences between individual companies. Not withstanding this, there can be notable differences in business culture across borders.

Australia is a developed country with an advanced economy. Much of it’s business laws, company structures and business practices can be traced back to Western European influences (particularly England) and, in the last 70 years, the influence of the United States.

Australian culture tends to be rather individualistic. The individual is often championed over the collective.

In the main, Australian companies expect their future employees to be trained for work by specialised training institutions before they start with the company. The obvious example are universities. In preparing for professional industries students pay 100% of their tuition themselves. This may be delayed through the HECS scheme (a government deferred-loan program) but it is repaid by the students and not their future employers.

Therefore, most Australian companies expect to hire their staff ‘off the shelf’. It is expected that they will be able to perform their roles from the first day without the company having paid anything to develop them to that stage.

Many Australian companies hire people for very specialised functions. They are less likely to hire a ‘generalist’ and up-skill them in different areas over time. They want staff who are ready to go.

Not all jobs require a university education.

Tradespeople often do an apprenticeship. This requires students joining a company that already has skilled and registered tradespeople. The apprentice’s education is a mix of real-world situational learning supplemented with classroom theory. An important point is that they start working right away unlike university students who usually have to complete years of theory work before the can start ‘practicing’ in the field.

Apprentices start earning a salary right away, albeit a fraction of the salary of a fully-licensed tradesperson. The pay increases gradually over the term of the apprenticeship.

University students usually need to complete high school before embarking on university studies while many apprentices begin before they have finished high school.

Once companies have hired employees, to what extent do they invest in ongoing training?

That depends very much on the company.

In Australia, many companies do not invest in any training for the staff. Their perspective is that their staff are there to work for the company. The company pays them to work – the company does not exist for the benefit of staff training. Some company owners or managers may ask ‘if I pay to further train staff, what is to keep them from resigning and simply moving with their new skills to another company?’

While many firms do not provide further training to their staff, others do. What are the positive features of this approach? Further training may help staff to consider new ways of working, find improvements in efficiencies and it may help staff to explore other things that they can do in the company outside of their regular role. Training can help staff and the firm to keep up with technological changes or the latest practices. It may help to retain staff and keep a lid on recurring recruitment costs.

The larger the company, the more likely it is that it will have a specialised human resources department and specific ‘learning and development’ programs.

The ‘Japanese’ model

Again, the model about to be discussed is a generalised one.

Japan is well-known for its ‘lifetime employment’ system. This is where an individual stays with the same company for most of their career – from university graduation until retirement.

This system has never been applicable to all workers in Japan and there has been a decrease in recent decades.

But it is true to say that for a long time, many Japanese have stuck with the one company for most of their lives and the company has stuck with them.

At the end of high school, students sit the very stressful university entrance examinations. These examinations determine which university students will be able to attend. Companies do not care so much about the grades a student gets while at university. But they do care about which university their staff come from. If a student has managed to get into an elite university, it is thought that the student has shown that they will have the the ‘right stuff’ to succeed in the future.

Japanese companies are less interested in specialists. They prefer generalists. As staff and employees understand that they will be together for decades to come, the management of a Japanese company will want to see that an employee can move between different departments and learn in different areas of the company. Probably more important than technical skills are communication skills. Management looks for people who can get along with everybody – someone who can reach consensus and not alienate others.

It seems that where there is greater certainty that an employee is going to stay with a company for an long time, the company will be more willing to invest in upskilling their staff. In Australia, there is often no guarantee that staff will stay for many years. By the same token, employees often feel job insecurity as many roles are for fixed-term contracts and consequently, many employees won’t feel a lot of loyalty in such situations. But companies can stand out from the crowd if they have an decent training policy. These companies will be more attractive to those looking for work and will inspire greater staff loyalty and motivation.