In Mexico and Costa Rica employees pay for their own training - November 8, 2019
According to a study conducted by Hewitt and Larson, many supervisors feel that they lack the skills that are required for the position that they are in, and that they have been promoted purely on the basis of their direct care skills. There is also likely cause to believe that supervisors feel that the training programs being offered by their employer/s are not good enough to make them fully efficient at their supervisory jobs.
In order to dive deeper into the same, we conducted an analysis, using data collected from the WageIndicator Salary Survey for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018. We selected 10 countries from the survey (as observable in the map) and compared training given by an employer and self-paid training, depending on whether or not the employee held a supervisory position. Both the training variables were divided into six possible categories based on the duration of training, namely None, 1-2 days, 3-6 days, 1-2 weeks, 1-2 months and 2 months or more.
It can be observed from our analysis, that among the selected countries, Sri Lanka was found to rank the highest when it came to the percentage of its employees that received any form of training from an employer. 92.44% of employees in Sri Lanka who were surveyed had received some form of training from an employer, followed by Portugal with 91.10%. On the other hand, Kazakhstan was found to rank the lowest with only 62.81% of its employees receiving training from an employer.
While conducting a similar analysis for self-paid training, the data suggested that Costa Rica and Mexico were found to have the largest percentage of their employees paying for their own training, that is, 96.61% and 95.79% respectively. In contrast, Indonesia was found to have 82.17% of its employees paying for their own training, which is relatively lower when compared with the remaining countries.
With regards to the analysis on the basis of supervisory positions, a common trend can be observed from our data. It is evident that in all countries except the United Kingdom, when an employee holds a supervisory position, the employee is more likely to receive some training from the employer as compared to employees without a supervisory position.
When it comes to self-paid training, an employee having a supervisory position is more likely to train himself or herself when compared to an employee who is not. This can be observed in all countries except India, where there is a marginal difference of 0.59% between self-paid employees that have a supervisory position and those that do not. In certain countries, self-paid training is high despite a high percentage of employees being offered training from their employer. This implies that many employees who are in a supervisory position are undertaking self-paid training as well as training programs offered by their employers. One possible reason could be that employees are dissatisfied with the type or quality of the training programs being provided by their employer. Although, it is also possible that employers are refusing to pay for a particular type of training required by employees for undertaking a supervisory position.
It can be concluded from our analysis that a large proportion of supervisors in the selected countries, have not undergone any form of training. In such a scenario, it is extremely likely that supervisors consider themselves to be unequipped for their jobs and acquire training from other sources. But what about the supervisors who are unable to afford training beyond their workplace? They are trapped in a constant cycle of being dissatisfied with their work, and many will no doubt struggle to keep up with other supervisors that have received better training.
