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Do employers offer professional development for techs? Take the poll

In this week's blog, I recount the results of my efforts to obtain some professional development support from one of my employers.

One could make the argument that it's a tech's responsibility to grow--and his alone. Otherwise, he'll quickly find himself unmarketable.

Have you found yourself on your own as you've tried to learn new skills? Is it unreasonable for me to expect an employer to help me grow?

Most jobs I have had talked up profession development (mostly certifications) in the interview, but never followed up, despite repeated nagging by me.

The credit crunch has become the de facto excuse now.

I took it into my own hands, and spend my downtime in work studying, setting up Virtual machines on my test PC, etc etc.

Have got my MCSA so far, on to MCSE then CCNA.

I pay what I needs and sends me to whatever has anything to do with edge.

It is my understanding that many employers and /or managers share the fear of providing training which will make an employee more likely to leave for some other better paying job. However, in the current economic climate it may be easier to convince employers to subsidize "Professional Development" to a degree by showing them that it can be cheaper to them to help you learn the skills they will need in the future than to have to hire new talent or consultants.

My boss has told me that if I want training I have to take night classes and pay for them myself.
Or use my vacation time and pay for them myself.

(I'm not supposed to take vacations longer than 1 week).

On the plus side I DO enjoy my job and the atmosphere is really laid back. It's just frustrating to know I am falling further and further behind.

I'm stuck here because my certs are obsolete (MSCE 4.0) and the job market sucks.

Also since I am the only draftsman (Until 2 mo.s ago) I actually spen 99% of my time drafting and my IT skills are atrophying. I try to read and keep up but by the time I get out of work I don't even want to LOOK at a computer!

Just recently I have started taking a night course here and there but there are no certification courses offered locally.

(I tried a correspondance course once but just couldn't keep up with it.)

SKDTech, I agree with ypu 100%.You are correct in stating in the future need's of
their development,and yours also.Plus this gives you the edge against a new hire for you will already have the knowledge and experience of their system to enhance.

People don't quit the workplace or the job. They quit people.

If you can't get any kind of help with keeping your skills up to par or bettering your skill set because you're boss keeps telling you "No" for one reason or another. When you hand in your pink slip, you're not quitting the company really, you're quitting the person who wasn't willing to help you stay.

Nobody stays on at a school district to get rich (trust me on this one), they stay on because they have a passion for what they do. It's that passion that employers, no matter the job, need to enrich and allow to grow. If an employer doesn't realize this, then even the best and brightest he can get will leave after a while because they're not being allowed to grow.

The idea of professional development was tossed about in companies in the early 90's when "all this tech stuff" was starting to really make itself felt in the workplace. Management at that time, being the non-tech people they were, saw it as an advantage in keeping the few true techie types that were on the market. As more and more of the technically oriented came into the workforce, the idea of in-house support of further education began to wane. It came to be seen by the employee as a bargaining tool AGAINST the employer for more money or longer vacations. After all if you didn't appreciate my new skills, someone else would and for more money. Professional Development became its own worst enemy. The companies began to tell us that we could pay for it ourselves, do it own our own time, and if we proved to them that the new skills we had acquired were an advantage to the company, they might reimburse us for part of the out of pocket costs. That was the death of professional development in the technology field in my local area at that time and it remains a dead point to this day.

I just saw a piece where they were saying how it wasn't right to require companies receiving government aid to let foreign workers go first. That the only reason these foreign workers were here was that there were no Americans who could do the job.

Whatever happened to training on of your own employees?

No. It's easier and cheaper to discard them and hire foreign workers whose salaries are often partially subsidized by the federal government.

I was unable to take a class because it was filled with foreign students who were receiving aid from their government AND our government. When I asked how they could refuse a tax paying citizen a seat they told me "We're only required to reserve a small number of seats for residents."

So they take my job, they get paid with tax money government took from me and then fill up the classes that would train me for the career I want.

I have never been against immigration but I am sick and tired of hearing how American workers are lazy, stupid and no good.

If I pay for it and it's on my own time.

They did in the Company that I last worked in. I believe it depends on how progressive the company is.

Umm... No..