Times are tough in higher education. Of course, times are always tough in higher
education but many institutions are cutting expenses like never before. And, when administrators look to cut
expenses, they often discover maintenance and professional development.
Maintenance draws attention because failure to maintain only
becomes evident when the failure becomes critical. Most don’t care about bridge maintenance
until the bridge collapses. A manager’s
ability to keep up with maintenance isn’t the subject of many awards or
headlines. “Things still work” doesn’t
jump off the screen or gather many clicks.
For the manager who can find a way to make maintenance work sexy, write
the book: there are many of us waiting to read it.
But, I would like to discuss the latter topic, professional
development.
Most organizations maintain a portion of their budget to fund the
professional development of their staff.
This pays dividends both in increased employee morale and the increased
skill set of that same staff. But again,
professional development can be cut with little immediate effect. Loss of professional development dollars only
becomes evident when staff leave. Skillset
stagnation may never become evident.
Projects take a bit longer, some decisions are made poorly, and
processes may never evolve. None of
these scream for immediate attention and are well hidden.
And in the arena of professional development, nothing gets cut
faster than participation in professional associations.
Administrators, as a whole, prefer funding for training classes in
IT. Tying training dollars to a defined
skill set definitely makes for an easier management argument. Does the organization need a new skill? Pick
an employee and fund training for the new skill. Test the employee’s skill when they
return. Rinse and repeat.
An organization can measure the value of training in the contents
of the training, and the applicability of those contents to the needs of the
organization. The employee occupies a relatively
passive role in the evaluation process.
We can evaluate the effect of the training independent of the employee.
The value of participation in a professional association is harder
to define.
I participate in two separate associations: ACUTA (www.acuta.org) and BICSI (www.bicsi.org). I’ve attended events held by a few others. I’ve found them infinitely more
professionally rewarding than training.
But this truism holds.
You get out of a trade association, what you put in.
Most associations hold training events, seminars, annual
conferences and the like and a number of people (yours truly included) work
very hard to populate those events with engaging speakers and training opportunities. I’ve seen many great speeches and walked away
inspired and educated. But, the true value of those associations lie in the
membership and without becoming actively engaged, that value will never truly
be realized.
Many attend association events, eat the appetizers on the showroom
floor, attend the speakers and go home.
They have only scratched the surface of what is available for their membership
dues. Speakers and vendor interaction
make up the most documented reasons for attendance of association events. Compared to defined training events, association
events often come up short from an administrative perspective. The image of employees going off to vacation
on the company dime haunts many a manager.
But for those who engage with other members, volunteer on
committees, participate in association outreach (listserv, social media, and so
on) the association becomes a pivotal professional and personal resource.
- Considering a new product/consultant/technology, avoid sales literature and consult other association members.
- Stuck on a problem, avoid sales literature and consult other association members.
- After reading an article on what your peers are doing, reach out through the association to see how a solution performed in the field.
I’ve done all of these multiple times and the University of Florida (UF) has benefited from it. In addition, I have shared some of our pioneering efforts at UF with other schools. We all
move forward when we help each other.
Look for your trade associations.
Join them. Participate. You’ll be amazed at the benefits. Someone out there is ready to help solve your
problems, and someone out there is waiting for you..
