Lost Training

Lost Training
A friend of mine use to work at a very famous restraunt that sat on top of the hills over Hollywood. The restaurant had been there since the early 40's and was modeled after a Japanese castle complete with Koi ponds and gardens.

My friend worked security and had plenty of time to poke around. From talking to some of the staff he found out about "lost" rooms at the restaurant. It seems that when the restraunt was built several basement rooms were constructed and hidden. The rooms were hidden behind sliding walls and were really hard to find. At the time when the building was opened, that wasn't a problem since everyone knew where they were. However the old staff began to retire, fewer and fewer knew about the locations of the rooms. Finally the last person retired and didn't think (or forgot) to tell anyone where the rooms were. The current management couldn't find the rooms then. The company ended up paying thousands of dollars to "rediscover" rooms that it already owned.

This is a pretty good description of what happens to many companies and training departments. They feel that they don't need a training department since they only hire once or twice a year and a training department is a "luxury" they can't afford. What many companies don't realize is that a training department is a corporate memory bank. It not only instructs but it remembers how things are done. However, when a company is looking to cut costs one of the first things they do is axe the training department. This is akin to smacking yourself in the head with an ice pick and wondering why you’re getting stupider as your brain leaks out of the holes. It comes down to, if a company is
unwilling to pay to keep corporate memory alive, then they will pay to rediscover the information at a later time. And remember prices always go up....

David