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Investing in its people is every company’s priority — until, suddenly, it is not. When margins are squeezed, the “leadership and development” budget often gets the chop.
That tripped Mind Gym up this week. The corporate training business, listed on the UK’s junior market Aim, warned that customers were delaying spending. Some are in the throes of restructurings, others are spooked by economic uncertainties.
The stock lost more than a third of its value and is now down 80 per cent since it listed in 2018.
Mind Gym’s plight highlights a key problem in the $370bn global market for corporate leadership and development courses. It is very hard to see what, if anything, much of this training accomplishes.
The issue lies not with “upskilling” programmes — teaching employees to use Excel or service a new model of jet engine. The problem lies with training intended to change how people behave, especially when they are managers.
Good bosses matter — a lot. A study by Stanford University suggests that a good manager can increase team productivity by 13 per cent.
But can you turn bad bosses into good ones by sending them on courses? That seems unlikely. Anecdotally what happens is this: they apply the “insights” gained on the course to long-suffering subordinates for a few days. Then everything reverts to normal.
Another concern is that — despite billions spent — corporate training is powerless to hold back a tide of work-related disillusionment. Employees’ trust in their leaders has declined 30 per cent over the past 25 years, says a 2020 study by consultancy Boston Consulting Group. Two-thirds of bosses wish they did not have to manage anyone at all.
The future for companies active in this sphere will be to focus on what is achievable. Encouraging smaller behavioural tweaks is a better idea.
One of Mind Gym’s more relatable projects was aimed at making meetings productive. Instigators had to say what decisions were supposed to result and exactly why specific participants had been asked to attend.
This should strike a chord with anyone who has ever been dragged into a time-wasting meeting on the pretext “we’d really value your input”.
In the flabby world of corporate training, only hard-nosed initiatives have much chance of delivering muscular returns.
The Lex team is interested in hearing more from readers. Please tell us what you think of corporate training courses in the comments section below.
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