Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You at Business School

Q: When does your staff find time to pursue further training? Do you allow them to do this during normal office hours, or must they do it over the weekend? At our business, we struggle to find time for education during office hours.

—Hans Cahling, Sweden

A: Ensuring that your team has the tools needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive and challenging marketplace is key for start-ups and emerging companies, as is developing and retaining a strong, stable workforce – this often makes the difference between success and failure.

But it can be a challenge, since businesses fighting to gain a foothold in their markets can rarely afford for their staff to take time off for training purposes – many do not have enough people to cover for missing workers. Starving your team of training is, however, a false economy. As you build your business, you’ll make investments in many different areas so that it can improve and develop; investments in your staff should be at the top of the list.

Finding a good solution will help you to establish your reputation in your industry. It is almost always best to be known as a progressive company, with a strong focus on training, the flexibility to accommodate employees’ needs and the guts to stick by them through thick and thin. While doing this might not be easy in today’s economic environment, it may be worth any short-term hardship because your company will attract some of the best people in the business, and they will help you to stay ahead of the competition.

At all the Virgin companies we encourage our people to take training days and to develop their skills during business hours. This is not really something that you can expect people to undertake just in the evenings or on weekends. A simple way to tackle the problem of managing on-the-job training is for you to challenge conventions about where and when work is done – legacies of the days when limitations on communications technology required that all employees work in the same place at the same time. I have never believed that the best work is done in a certain building between nine and five and you may find that this is true for your staff as well.

These days, many people can work from home, which permits them to spend more time with their families. Someone who would like to pursue extra training may benefit from the flexibility you have established; more employees may be available to fill in if your office hours are more flexible. Another option start-ups might consider is intra-company training, or internal internships, which can improve skills while keeping staff levels the same.

In Virgin’s early days, we were similarly challenged in terms of resources, but I was keen to allow people to maintain a good work-life balance. I led the way by working from my home on a houseboat, then from my house in London. Over time, I invited others to come and work at my home. That home was damaged by fire in 2001, but I like to think that the family-style environment helped to sustain the brand’s image among its employees and to reassure them that it was okay to work from home, if that is what they needed to do.

If an employee needs more advanced training that will require them to leave for longer periods of time, do everything you can to make sure it happens, perhaps by looking at options for part-time work. Most simply cannot afford to take time off, but this is nevertheless an area in which you should offer your staff further options and flexibility. Another is offering phased ‘retirement’ to allow older staff members to gradually wind down their input whilst they stay involved, training the next generation to pick up the baton.

Once that element of the employee’s training is complete, you’ll need to help that person find ways to hone their new skills. At Virgin, we encourage transfers to other businesses within the group. If this isn’t an option, offer your employees temporary assignments that will allow them to show everyone what they can do.

So, when you are worried about further training, don’t panic! Take a deep breath, and start working on solutions. Because that ambition is an opportunity: for you to increase your staff’s skills, loyalty, motivation and experience, and to establish your company as the best in the business – the best employer, and a market leader: not a bad deal!

Oh, and don’t forget. Training is not a one-off thing. To stay on top of market developments, recurrent training and refresher courses should be an ongoing part of company life – and budgets.