A Delhi-based management college, which is trying to make it to the big league, says that its students always get placed. It’s true. If you don’t get a job, you are absorbed as part of the faculty. If you know your mathematics, you can calculate that it will take you several years to recover the Rs 8 lakh-plus you spent on your two years at the B-school.

Is the B-school worth it or would you rather join a company like Godrej which has set up the Godrej Sales Academy? “The Godrej Sales Academy has been launched with the objective of developing smart, talented graduates into competent sales professionals,” says the company. “This is a comprehensive learning programme spread over six months. All selected candidates will undergo rigorous training in the fundamentals of sales management through classroom and on-the-job assignments.” Godrej pays the trainees Rs 6,000 a month. More importantly, all those who complete the course get placed in one of the Godrej Group companies.

Earn-while-you-learn plans are not exactly new in India. Most companies do put their trainees through intensive programmes. And sending executives for refresher courses has always been part of corporate life. What’s different today is that many of the programmes are very structured and organised.

Another company in the FMCG area ? Dabur ? also has what it calls the Young Managers Development Programme. Like Godrej, it involves both classroom and on-the-job training. Again, if the trainees fail to measure up, they are shown the door. You’ll find some other institutes across industry, though they are not exactly omnipresent yet.

BPO companies are also whales on training. Every new entrant is sent back to school. This is largely true of the IT industry also. Infosys has its Global Education Centre in Mysore. Satyam has launched the Satyam School of Leadership in Hyderabad. TCS invests about 4 per cent of its annual revenue in training. And Hexaware has flagged off its Hexavarsity.

“Training has always existed,” says Mumbai-based HR consultant D. Singh. “What is new today is that there is an attempt to catch them younger. And there is a structured programme to make it more organised.”

There are the obvious benefits for the company. Having picked the best you can, you put them through a further screening process ? the training programme. Because of the stipend, you create loyalty.

The trainees, on the other hand, get what is most important to them at that stage ? money. The one big negative: if you don’t get through the course, you may have problems getting a job elsewhere. Secondly, some predatory companies ? unwilling to take on the bother of running such an institute ? have been known to target the products of such schools.

“It’s only loyalty and the feeling of gratitude that comes through having been paid while you were still not contributing adequately to the company that keeps you from joining someone else,” says Singh. “But there will be some people leaving for the highest bidder anyway.”

“One of the things they try and teach you at these schools is the value of corporate loyalty,” continues Singh. “So any departure is really the company’s failure. But, then, these are probably the jobhoppers. You are better off without them.”

THE BIG MAC EXPERIENCE

The Hamburger University is McDonald’s centre of training excellence

• Since its inception, training at Hamburger University has emphasised consistent restaurant operations and procedures, service, quality and cleanliness. It has become the company’s global centre of excellence for operations training and leadership development.

• In 1961, Fred Turner, McDonald’s former senior chairman and founder Ray Kroc’s first grillman, founded Hamburger University in the basement of a McDonald’s restaurant in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. The first class of 14 students graduated on February 24, 1961. Since 1961, more than 80,000 restaurant managers, mid-managers and owner operators have graduated from this facility. McDonald’s is the first restaurant company to develop a global training centre.

• Ray Kroc once said: “If we are going to go anywhere, we’ve got to have talent. And, I’m going to put my money in talent.” Hamburger University is testimony to that.

Source: McDonald’s