Make the Most of a Limited Training Budget.

• Position: Strategies for employee training in the banking industry - Brief Article

Roxanne Emmerich remembers a panel discussion at a bankers' convention in which one panelist said he doesn't train his people for fear they might then leave.

Emmerich, who heads a training organization called The Emmerich Group Inc., Minneapolis, says she has a scarier thought than that: What if they stay?

If they leave, they're someone else's problem. If they stay, that failure to train them may come back to haunt the bank. Research sponsored by the American Society for Training and Development has demonstrated, she says, that training brings a higher return on investment than equipment, buildings or technology.

But not just any training. Because training is an investment, she says, you should use "the least-cost method of training that gets the best results."

"Often, managers choose training methods because they are 'hip' or new and later find that the results were less than spectacular," Emmerich says.

Here are Emmerich's suggestions for getting the most out of your training budget:

* Know the problem before seeking the solution. Is it primarily a skills problem or an attitude problem? Most training emphasizes one or the other. Alter your training approach accordingly.

* Use the right training...