When budgets get tight, it can be difficult to provide adequate training for your staff. Over the last couple of years, I’ve found some ways to provide some training even in the face of a shrinking (or non-existent) budget.
Regional conferences If you still have some budget, but maybe just not as much as you are accustomed to, look to smaller regional conferences as an alternative to the larger national ones that are in major cities.
One of my “must-read” blogs, Rands in Repose has a post seeking advice on keeping employees who work from home (or any other remote location) in the loop.
I’m ready to learn and that’s today’s question, “How do you, as a remote employee, stay in the loop?” The converse, if you prefer, is, “How do you, as a co-worker or manager of a remote employee, keep everyone on the same page?
5 years ago, I went from being a “doer” (ie, a programmer), to being a manager. This was not an easy transition. I suspect some people find this transition easier than others, but I think most everyone who makes the leap struggles in some way. If you’ve recently (or maybe not so recently) made this move, you may find an article by Dave Gray helpful. It’s entitled “The craftsman-to-manager paradox”. Dave defines the paradox as this: