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Training a good investment for UB
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“We’re not creating training classes so people can be better workers. We’re investing in training because it helps people to be better people.”
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As an administrator in the School of Management, Katherine G. Ferguson wants to improve the quality of the work life of her employees. She says it’s important to the school to retain quality workers and to make sure staff members know that their contributions are valued.
“I want them to know that we believe in fostering an environment that values different ways of looking at things and different ways of approaching problems so we can achieve the best outcomes with student recruitment and service,” says Ferguson, associate dean for academic programs. “Valuing a variety of perspectives can lead to communication gaps and even conflict, so we need to make sure they have the tools to work well in that kind of environment.”
So Ferguson turned to the Organizational Development and Training (OD&T) unit of University Human Resources. Working with OD&T staff, she has developed customized training programs for all of the staff members who work in the academic programs offices in the School of Management. The group started with a basic session on communication skills, and last week went through a session on managing conflict.
She says she thinks her staff appreciated the opportunity “to step away from the daily grind and talk candidly about how soft skills affect the way we do business.” The session on managing conflict, in particular, “generated several excellent ideas for next steps about how we can assess our services and for the need to forge closer ties with other areas in the school that are providing companion services,” she says.
UB’s investment in employee training is a good one, Ferguson adds.
Her employees agree.
Loreta M. Genco, associate director for undergraduate programs, says she wanted to participate in the training sessions in order to sharpen skills she already has and to learn some new strategies.
“It’s easy to think that you don’t have time, that it’s not important,” says Genco. The training, she adds, served to remind her of all of the skills she does possess and offer some new suggestions as to how to apply those skills.
Jill Phinney, assistant director of student services, is another fan of training. New to UB—she just started her job in July—Phinney says the sessions provided her with tools and resources that she could immediately use on the job.
“I believe it's very important to stay engaged and participate in training programs,” she says. “In the few months that I've worked at UB, I definitely have experienced a supportive environment for continuing education. There are a great many opportunities to get involved and hone in on personal and professional development across all three campuses.”
Personal, as well as professional development, is the objective of training initiatives at UB. The goal of OD&T, which was created as part of the HR Transformation initiative of UB 2020, is to help people to be better people, according to M. Scott Morris, associate vice president for human resources who is leading OD&T. Morris says the welfare of faculty and staff members is the prime concern.
“We’re not creating training classes so people can be better workers. We’re investing in training because it helps people to be better people,” Morris says. “One of the nice consequences of having better people is that you have better workers. The goal here is to build people—that builds a great place to work and it builds a workforce that is capable of more.”
Morris stressed that he does not mean having people necessarily do more work.
“If people are better trained, they are more expansive in their thinking; they are more capable in terms of their range of ability and they solve problems more effectively. They do more because they have the capacity to do more and they reach out for the things they want to do,” he says.
“That makes their jobs more enjoyable, it makes their relationships at work more enjoyable and hopefully their personal relationships more enjoyable as well.”
Why is UB investing in training on such a large scale at this particular time?
“A better skilled, well-trained workforce means only good things for UB,” Morris says.
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