Training & Development Mr. President,

You and I spoke prior and we had agreed that I would portray for you my vision when it comes to training and development as well as some specific recommendations about how best to implement this vision and philosophy as it relates to the same. I will also be offering some fairly specific recommendations about the subject so as to reinforce and propagate the vision that is being explained. While training and development is a bland and unimportant topic to many people, it is a vital part of improving and sustaining the workforce and it can fill many of the gaps that are left behind by high schools and colleges. This approach is necessary prepare our workers, especially the young ones, for the careers and jobs of the future.

Over the recent years and decades, there has been a seismic and major shift in the United States economy. Of course, at the inception of the United States (and well before that as well), the United States was an agrarian society. The first shift in the foundations of the United States economy and the jobs within the same was the Industrial Revolution. However, there has since been another shift whereby the manufacturing jobs that have long been the staple of the United States economy, especially the simpler goods like clothes and shoes, have gone overseas to countries like China, Taiwan and so forth. Even Mexico and a lot of countries in South America are also taking on a lot of work that was done prior by American factories and workers. Many people have bemoaned and decried this shift but it is happening and it will not stop. Indeed, there is something in it monetarily for businesses to do so because it keeps them competitive due to keeping costs down.

Indeed, the last shift is where find ourselves now and that is the knowledge/service paradigm. While manufacturing and other job types are still in the mix, the main two dimensions of the workforce fall into the service sector or the knowledge sector. Examples of the former would include food service, retail and warehouse package movement. The latter would include jobs that typically required a degree and/or certification (or more) and this would include lawyers, doctors, accountants and the like. As one might figure out, those that do not have the advanced skills necessary to lock down a well-paying and secure knowledge sector job will typically be relegated to the service sector. Further, service sector jobs are typically low-skill in nature and thus replacing people that leave a company for whatever reason is not all that hard to pull off.

A problem that is going on and has been for some time is that many workers in the economy are not keeping up. The skills needed to keep the jobs moving have become more enhanced but the schools and colleges of this country have not met that need. A lot of this is perhaps due to lack of motivation and installation of values in the people coming up in this country. They need to be made to understand that being lacking in skills leads to a much harder life with lower pay while getting education and having a marketable skill like accounting or something of that nature can lead to much more income, security and higher quality of life. The use of organization labor/unions and so forth has helped the working class out a bit. However, that is not the best of solutions even to the most pro-union people because individual merit and performance is fairly to very minimized in a collective like that. Tenure is king when it comes to union people. Meritocracies may be ridiculed and pilloried but they can do wonders for a person's income and position if used properly (Hamel, 2015).

This leads to the main assertion that I would wish to make and that is that employers need to invest in their employees. They need to do so for a number of reasons. First, the people they would be training either did not get the proper schooling and life skills they should have gotten in prior schooling and/or from their upbringing and those skills cannot be ignored or left to rot. Even basic things like attention to detail, dedication to one's job and doing things right the first time are things that mark the difference between those that are serious about expanding their horizons and those that or not. Many people want to be doomsday in nature and suggest that businesses are...

Having a robust learning and development program would be just one way to address that concern and show employees that they are valued and that business and employees can truly have a symbiotic relationship where everyone involved benefits. A second reason a robust training and development plan is so important for businesses to have is that it improves the overall performance and happiness of the employees. Employees that feel they are valued and empowered are generally going to be better, if not much better, than someone who is perceiving themselves to be just another cog in the machine (Freifeld, 2013).
The above segues into the final reason that I will cite and that is that employees who are developed are much more likely to stay loyal to the company. It is true that the days of an employee working for the same employer most if not all of their career are long gone. However, at least part of the reason for this is that employees feel that they are finding greener pastures elsewhere (even if that is not technically true) and they are much more apt to act on those feelings than the generations of the past. Of course, there are other factors that lead to loyalty or lack of it including advancement opportunities, flexible work options and so forth. Indeed, any employee compensation package and work structure should include details about things like that as well. However, training and development is a necessary piece of the puzzle and it needs to be an integral part of the approach that is taken towards employees (Freifeld, 2013).

If there is a vision that I would espouse as part of this letter, it would be that the robust training and development of employees allows for an improvement in both tangible and intangible benefits. Examples of the latter include the knowledge, innovation and experience that is in the heads of the employees. That knowledge needs to be harnessed, documented and developed so that the company in question that has a robust knowledge base and information center that will persist and self-perpetuate even if/when people come and go as employees. Employers that do not do this lose a huge asset when an experienced and/or high-level person of the firm goes away due to another job, retirement and so forth. As the company extends opportunities and training for employees, they in turn help develop processes, procedures and better outcomes overall. Enough companies doing this across the country and the world at large leads to the broader betterment of global industry and general and it helps advance the technology and cultures of the world as well.

This may seem like navel-gazing to many but companies like Apple, Google and Amazon get this and the take full advantage of it (Wagner, 2015). Companies that refused to be forward thinking end up hemorrhaging their good employees and they often end up being eviscerated due to not evolving and running their business as they should. Sears/K-Mart is on its way out the door. Blockbuster and Circuit City are gone. There is a reason for this and not being committed to the development of the company and its people is surely one of them. Proof of this can be seen when one knows that Blockbuster had a chance to buy a certain company for a scant $50 million and they balked. That company was Netflix. That was in 2005. Eight years later, Netflix had a market cap of nearly $20 billion ... with a "b" (Graser, 2013).

This message should not be construed as nationalistic or otherwise possible improper. However, the attitudes and strategies in this report can help America and Americans realize their potential. People have to know that success and prestige is out there but it has to be earned. Being self-entitled and acting like something is deserved without earning it needs to be stomped out and replaced with the narrative that people can be whatever they want to be in life, with only a few caveats and exceptions. If someone is satisfied with an average and working-class life, that is all well and good. Indeed, it is the choice of every man and woman. However, there are those that want more and those are the type of people that will be the mission-critical workers and leaders of tomorrow. However, they need to learn the proper skills and they need to learn these skills in the right way. Even a tuition reimbursement option for employees can…