Topic for discussion – Should Organisations Sponsor Seminars & Higher-level Education Programmes

Dear members,

On one of the WA groups of HR, Administrator of the groups has raised the topic for discussion. Today’s topic for discussion is on *Should Organisations Sponsor Seminars & Higher-level Education Programmes*. He has asked the following questions:

Should organizations sponsor higher/professional education of employees and or reimburse the fees paid by employees?

Should the company management allow or give special concession/leave for employees to attend seminar, Conclave and events to upgrade their knowledge?

Should the organization on its own organise workshop, seminar for employees or depute employees on payment seats?

I have given the replies to the above questions and these are as below:

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Dear Rajaram,

Replies to your questions are as below:

Q. 1 Should organizations sponsor higher/professional education of employees and or reimburse the fees paid by employees?

Reply: – When organisational sponsor higher/professional education course, it is called as sabbatical. Whether to sponsor or not depends on the nature of the course. Therefore, the decision has to be taken on case-to-case basis. On completion of the course, once the employee resumes his/her duties, or even before he/she goes for sabbatical, generally company make a contract agreement with the employee to ensure that employee serves for at least ‘x’ years on completion of the course. In few cases, reimbursements are made on completion of this period.

Q. 2 Should the company management allow or give special concession/leave for employees to attend seminar, Conclave and events to upgrade their knowledge?

Reply: – The benefit of attending seminars or conclaves is that the nominated employees gets a chance to interact with the persons from his function who are working in different industries. This is important otherwise, employees continues to live in a myth that their industry is different. The second benefit is that it widens the mental and intellectual horizons of the employee. It may not be possible to measure the direct ROI on the funds spent for nominations to the seminar. Whether to give special concessions and what kind of concessions to be given has to be decided on the case-to-case basis. There cannot be general rule as such.

Q. 3 Should the organization on its own organise workshop, seminar for employees or depute employees on payment seats?

Reply: – Organising in-house workshops and nominating employee for a public workshop both have their merits. Nevertheless, measuring ROI is easy in former than latter. In-house workshops are customised to the requirements of the organisation. HR Department knows very well what needs to be increased or decreased and in-house workshop becomes means to attain that goal. In contrast, in the public workshop, individual gains the knowledge. How many HR departments do follow up of implementation of the learning by the nominated employee is a moot point.

Final Comments: – Whether the in-house workshop is conducted or employees are nominated for the public workshops, events, seminars etc, it comes with cost. Many organisations do not recover the cost because of the following reasons:

a) Many times attitude of the participants is to relax during the training/seminar because they wanted to be away from hustle-bustle of their workplace.

b) Many times, participants are not told clearly as to why they are attending the in-house the training. The goal statement is not defined. They start asking to the speaker what is the agenda.

c) Sometimes employees have some personal work in the area where seminars are conducted or the city in which the evens/workshops are conducted. They use their influence to nominate themselves. They pretend that they are interested in gaining knowledge but the real motive is to visit that city or that area.

d) Indiscipline and unpunctuality is also a huge problem. Participants continue to get constant calls on their mobile. To attend the “most urgent” or “emergency” calls, they go out of the hall but in the bargain they distract themselves and others too.

e) Sometimes disturbance by the bosses is also a huge challenge. In a country where boss is always right a dogma, can any participant dare not to take his/her call?

f) Sometimes it is wrong nomination by the company. While efficient persons are made to work in the company, not-so-efficient are told to attend seminars, training etc.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Second Anniversary of Exit of Vijay Mallya

Today while India is celebrating the colour festival of Holi, not many remember that it is also an anniversary wherein Vijay Mallya fled the country. Few also would remember that government was caught napping when Vijay Mallya fled the country as much it was when Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi fled the country.

India is no where close to getting back Vijay Mallya. Yes, the case is going on but notwithstanding bravado of BJP spokespersons on getting Mr Mallya back, outcome of the case is uncertain. Though India has extradition treaty with England, hardly it has worked in India’s favour. Economic offenders can roam scot free in England.

Modi government, if they had ounce of wisdom, could have prevented royal exit of economic offenders. All that was required for Finance Minister or even Prime Minister to give directions and find out solution on how to circumvent future exits. But hang over of 2014 clear victory even in 2016. Modi government was self-possessed, they did not see any political threat and winked at Mallya’s exit.

Once bitten twice shy goes the proverb. But Modi government become shy after second bite. But then to govern a country, what demands is wisdom. Mere having shyness is not sufficient. Has Modi government become wise? Even die-hard bhakts also do not vouch for that.

Modi government went scot free when Vijay Mallya fled the country because it enjoyed the benefit of doubt. With the fleeing of Nirav Modi and Muhul Choksi, the score with the Congress has become even. People are disappointed that this government is laid back as much the previous government was. By chance if the third such exit happens, Modi government could lose all the credibility and it might have to pay huge political price.

Mr Narendra Modi came to power with development agenda. But then Modi government failed to realise that in addition to development, the ruler should be able to create a sense of deterrence. Mr Modi had mocked opposition for not having sufficient chest measurement. The scams show that deterrence cannot be linked to the chest size. Electorate are at least assured that Mr Modi will not talk about his 56-inch chest in the 2019 election!