What Is The Most Expensive Training In The World?

From your title I expected this to take a different tack. I thought you were going to bring up the liability factor that seems to be overlooked so often in the discussions here at CR4. I hope you won't mind if I take a slight turn here.

There's a very big liability difference from a respected, trained and approved engineer or as in possibly your photograph a licensed pilot making an error and an amateur that should not be working there in the first place. I realize that liability laws vary greatly from state to state in the USA let alone from country to country, but even when legal liability is not a risk, not keeping up with the latest engineering standards and procedures leads a company to at least obsolescence.

Thats a good addition to the discussion. Consequences of not training add to the tab! Milo

Another major, yet elusive cost of not training is downtime (especially when you look at "True Downtime Cost" TDC). Take PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) training for example. The PLC controls plane ramps, elevators, most all infrastructure in the world, most every machine in every industry. There are even PLCs in precision machining industry's CNC machines, yet most do not realize it and receive proper PLC training. Proper PLC training that focus on best practices, safety and reliability guarantees huge savings in downtime cost, and reduced safety incidences and liability risk.

Yet most in all the various industries do not realize cost they are paying because their maintenance and engineers have not received updated and proper PLC training, relying on initial training delivered on old technology 10 or more years ago. (And even most PLC training delivered today does not focus on best practices that reduce downtime and reduce safety and liability risk.) Management doesn't know their people are not properly trained, therefore do not realize the true cost and the risk they are taking. (Even some of the maintenance and engineers do not realize they have not had proper training or at least need updated training for new advances in the technologies.)

With the Iran virus on SCADA software that allowed it access to the PLC that controlled the nuclear facility, a few more are becoming aware of the cost due to lack of 'Proper' training. But most still rely on those who figured out it on their own, learned in school with outdated equipment and books, or just took a vendor's sales/'training' course.

The industry even has an unspoken reputation of not realizing the cost of not training, until after the damage to man and/or machine has occurred. And most do not even realize 'proper' PLC training is directly proportional to reduction in downtime. Or at least how significantly the training reduces downtime cost.

What Is The Most Expensive Training In The World?

The short answer: No training.

What is the most expensive training in the world?

1) Allowing gov't agencies to dictate apprenticeship protocols

2) Allowing human resources to do the hiring

Plausible, but where's the training here?

I suppose it all rests with who gets to pick the candidate.

For eg....I went through four vocational 'grads' (and two years worth of paycheques) only to painfully discover their only motivation was beer money. This courtesy of a gov't skills program I signed up for thinking it to be a good idea at the time. What concerned me afterwards was how they managed to graduate those candidates I wound up hiring.

Yes Duckinthepond, the educational culture is a lot different than the workplace culture. It defines the difference between hiring a new school graduate and an workplace experienced person. The experienced person has already learned and adapted to workplace culture. (But even then you may hire a few who just want living expenses, before the find the one who loves their work/profession.)

Even if living expenses were the motivating factor I could accomodate that. There's nothing wrong with "I need the money".....it's survival and most of us cling to that.