n many industries, continuing education is a must in order to keep up with the latest rules and regulations and technological advancements. But finding the time and the money to send employees to these classes isn’t always a priority for businesses that are already stretched thin.

“For employers and employees, taking time out of a busy day is a burden; these days, everyone is doing more with less,” explains Anchorage Society for Human Resource Management (ASHRM) President Patty Hickok, who also serves as the membership and workforce readiness director for the Alaska SHRM State Council. “But businesses and individuals need to look at the time and cost spent on continuing education as an investment. In the human resources field, or in any field, things are changing so rapidly that employees must continue lifelong learning or get left behind. In today’s job market, the only constant is change.”

In the past, companies might have been willing to send employees outside Alaska for specialized training, but with businesses tightening their belts, it has become more common for them to look for this type of training in-state.

ASHRM offers a variety of training opportunities for human resources professionals, managers, or other employees with HR responsibilities, as well as the community at-large. These include monthly meetings and in-person trainings held by the Anchorage chapter that can last anywhere from one hour to half or full days.

“On the state level, we also offer a complimentary webinar approximately one time a month that enables us to reach out to our community who may not be able to attend in person because of geography,” says Hickok, adding that some of the presentations cover the same material, or have the same speaker, as the in-person meetings. “One of our challenges is providing education and opportunities to all of our members in Alaska, and my biggest reward, personally, is to hear from those in smaller communities outside of Fairbanks, Juneau, and Anchorage who have never before had the opportunity to participate in these classes.”

Topics cover the full cycle of human resources, including recruiting and onboarding, retention, engagement, employee relations, terminations, employee law, negotiation, metrics, earthquake preparedness, and more. “You name it, we do it,” says Hickok. “We focus on the issues that businesses deal with on a day-to-day basis.”

The trainings are open to any company or industry and are not limited to human resource professionals. “They are useful for anyone who manages people,” says Hickok, giving the example of a plant product manager who needs to be aware of HR policies as well as government regulations.

“We recently did a very targeted training for federal contractors and had about seventy people with sixty different employers represented,” she adds. “The organizations that participate in our trainings run the gamut from small businesses where the office manager is also the human resources person to an organization with 10,000 employees.”

While the University of Alaska is currently evaluating the continuation of individual professional development classes as a result of its reorganization, it still offers customized training for ongoing clients and corporations in all sectors of Alaska industry.

“What typically happens is that an organization recognizes a need and comes to us for help,” says Christi Bell, executive director of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) Business Enterprise Institute. “For example, they may have a younger supervisor or a team experiencing conflict and seek out training. Increasingly, millennials are being asked to supervise an older generation, and they don’t always feel equipped. We provide supervisory training, communications training, personality profile training, and workshops on holding challenging conversations, among other topics.”

UAA may deliver a two-to four-hour class, followed by the next phase of training a week or even a month later. “This gives participants a chance to test their new skills and have conversations outside the training room,” Bell explains.

UAA’s courses are customized and can be carried out over the course of a few weeks or months.

“Because we’re in-state, we can help businesses where they are right now; we can meet their needs today,” says Bell. “Their staff does not have to leave for a week of training and come back and get buried by their workload. Studies have also shown that retention from that type of training is very low.”

UAA is also able to help with specific issues that companies face by offering customized training.

“For example, we recently worked with an oil and gas company that used to have a whole marketing team. With the drop in the economy, that department was laid off, and now the company needs their engineers to become marketers,” Bell says. “This requires more than just engineers understanding sales; in order for them to be successful, they need to understand key conversational styles and personalities. The company can’t just say, ‘Here’s how we market and brand, now go and be productive.’”

UAA provided a ten-week class that met every Friday in a lunch-and-learn environment to help the company’s engineers adjust to their new roles.

Black Fox Strategy also offers customized training for clients to help management teams and boards rebalance their approach to mission, growth, and survival, as well as provides a strategy boot camp to help employers and employees zero in on the skills they need. In April 2020, the company is sponsoring Alaska Strategy Week, a three-day professional development conference that is the first of its kind in Alaska.

“As part of our customized training, I work with management teams and boards to help them understand and integrate risk and strategy,” says Erin Sedor, founder of Black Fox Strategy. “These concepts are often considered separately within organizations, with strategy disconnected from operational risk in particular.

“Because every organization is different, each training is different, but what stays the same and resonates is the focus on mission, growth, and survival,” she continues. “I’m not married to any specific tools; what we use must fit the organization. But we start with a balanced approach to these three concepts; otherwise, the client is sitting on a two-legged stool.”

Sedor began her company to fill a void in the market for risk strategy consulting expertise. She expanded her services to include the Essential Strategy Series & Bootcamp based on long-held frustrations that this particular type of training was not available in Alaska and knowing that employees and companies needed a more concise way to learn the concepts they needed.

“It’s epidemic in business to take people who are very good at what they do and throw them into management,” she explains. “But management requires a completely different skill set, and while some may succeed by their own wits, many others will burn out or fail. They need to have a broader sense of what it takes to function in that position; if you don’t understand how you impact the rest of the organization and how to interact, the job is so much more difficult.”

According to Sedor, the value of bootcamp is that it takes concepts out of academia and gives participants the actionable components they need.

“There are so many frameworks and theories, but we throw about 80 percent of those out the window,” she explains. “We boil it down to the 20 percent of crucial elements people need to build a foundation of strategy, risk management, and resilience. We identify their stumbling blocks and show them how to overcome them and get back on track.”

Black Fox’s last bootcamp attracted a wide range of participants from functional managers and executive assistants to general managers and CEOs of $100 million corporations. “The beauty in the way we present is that people from all industries, as well as nonprofits, for-profits, and government, can benefit,” says Sedor. “We’re all about ROI and fixing problems to create efficiencies.”

While there are many benefits to continuing education, some of them might not be so obvious. From an employer’s standpoint, it certainly makes sense to have a well-educated workforce, but it can also help keep them out of trouble.

“New regulations come and go, and if an employee is not educated and up to speed, it puts their company at risk because it could be out of compliance with new regulations,” says Hickok. “One case can break an entire company, and it doesn’t matter if mistakes were made out of ignorance or negligence.”

She adds, “Employers may think, ‘Why spend $32 to send an employee to take a class every month?’ But you have to invest in your people to keep them up to speed with current information.”

Providing continuing education can also be used as an incentive when looking for new employees or trying to keep current ones.

“The younger generation realizes that this training is critical, and they want to be a part of a firm that understands its importance,” says Bell. “So some employers use this as part of their employee benefits package trying to attract new talent or as a retention strategy to keep the employees they have.”

The information that employees gain can not only help them advance in their jobs but transfers if they want to go somewhere else. At times, it can also help to differentiate them as job candidates, as it shows their potential and willingness to advance to leadership positions.

“Another benefit that is often overlooked is the ability to build a network,” says Hickok. “In Alaska, 50 percent of the organizations represented in the state’s SHRM are small businesses, and they may only have one or two people in HR, and no legal counsel. They have to figure things out by themselves, and it helps to be able to call someone you met at these events in a similar industry and talk things out.”

All of the training classes in the world won’t make much of a difference if those who attend don’t retain the information they’re given. For this reason, it’s important for those who offer classes, and those who take them, to understand the best ways to learn.

“For participants, I think the number one most important thing to do is to be engaged; ask questions and network with others,” says Hickok. “I’ve been doing this for the last fifteen years, and it doesn’t matter how many trainings or conferences I go to, I always find a benefit. Maybe you learn that what you’re doing is right, and you can feel good that you’re not missing anything, or sometimes the facilitator may bring up points you never thought of.”

For employers, it’s also important to find the right fit when considering where to send employees.

“Sometimes, those out-of-state, intensive weeklong trainings can be difficult,” says Bell. “I don’t believe that adults learn by watching a talking head or when information is shot at them through a fire hose. Adults take in information through a variety of channels, including role playing, hearing from a variety of voices, video, social media, and pictures; so you want to use a variety of speakers and mediums to get folks involved and bounce between lectures and applied conversations.”

No matter how employees, employers, or board members learn, it’s important that they are provided with lifelong learning opportunities in order to better fill their roles.

“In this 21st-century knowledge economy, lifelong learning is not optional any longer,” says Bell. “It’s much easier to retain your talent than to attract new talent, and dynamic firms, both in Alaska and globally, must be willing and able to pivot when needed and have a team right there in line.”

“It used to be that a college degree was a ticket to success, and while it is still necessary, more and more companies are encouraging training specific to industry needs,” she adds. “It’s becoming more and more important to retool your skills, even if you have a four-year degree. You don’t want to become obsolete.”