Why You Should Invest in Training – Part 2 – Enabling Your Team as a Network Engineering Manager

In part 1 of this series, we covered why you should invest in training from the perspective of a Network Engineer. In part 2, we will discuss the benefits of investing in training for your team as a Network Engineering Manager.

As a Network Engineering Manager during the age of the great resignation, are you finding it difficult to retain your employees (not to mention also trying to find ways to gain greater insight and network control and stay innovative all at the same time)? The industry is growing, and there are more and more demands on managers to keep the company ship steering toward its goal.

One way to check several of these management boxes is to invest in your employees’ career development. Since the pandemic began in 2020, research has shown that companies can combat the effects of this resignation movement with a culture of learning. This decision will, in turn, ensure success for your other management goals. This is not only a move that will benefit the employees, but it’s also a way to achieve the business goals of the company, by training for improved job performance.

With network automation and other new technologies changing the network industry, there is an impending need to train top talent with the skills they need to meet the future of the workforce. And research also shows that employers that invest in their employees’ career development keep their employees longer. Those employees see their company’s dedication to their own upward mobility and will choose to stay at that company rather than search for other positions at other companies (that ultimately WILL invest in them). According to performance-management platform 15Five’s 2022 Workplace Report, nearly half of American workers say clear career growth is one of the most important factors for them to remain at a company. More than three-quarters (76%) of employees say they work harder for an employer that shows it cares about their growth as a professional than one that doesn’t.

Now that you are ready to start investing in your employees with training, _where does one start with team training and enablement these days in the network engineering/automation space? _In an industry that is constantly evolving, with the myriad of offerings available, from completely online and self-paced, to onsite, in-person options, it is hard to know which will be the most effective for your team. We have established that employers need to focus on upskilling their company’s talent, but they must also do this in ways that are manageable and fiscally feasible, while also making sure that the training program supports the company’s goals. Strategic alignment is key to developing training that will improve job performance (which, in turn, will benefit the employees).

Here are a few pieces of advice to get started:

1. Have a plan and set measurable goals.

What does “done” look like after the training is over? Have a plan and set measurable, attainable goals for your engineers. Ask yourself what specific job tasks related to network automation will each engineer do on a daily/weekly basis following the training program? Then, before the start of training, make sure those engineers know what they need to do in their jobs once they are done with the training. When employees know the bigger picture, and they see how the training will directly relate to their own job performance, they will be more invested in the learning opportunities provided.

2. Administer thorough diagnostics and assessments to truly understand where your engineers rank before and after training.

Before any training is delivered, the organization should administer an assessment that provides leaders with an understanding of where their employees rank in network automation technologies, knowledge, and skills. This will help uncover additional knowledge gaps, better evaluate student comprehension of the course material, and track engineers’ skills progress over time. At NTC, we start our diagnostics with a self-ranked assessment by the engineers, ranking their knowledge and skills from 1 (No knowledge) to 4 (Advanced- Subject Matter Expert). The organization should do an assessment before and after the training to better understand and track progress in job performance. The assessment not only provides meaningful data for you as a manager but also provides valuable information to the training entity or company to better understand which training programs (which technologies and skills) each of your engineers should start with and which training type or medium would best fit the needs of those teams (live, self-paced, or a hybrid approach).

In addition to the self-ranked assessment, it is important to include an evaluation of the training from the engineers where they have to apply their knowledge and skills, like an exam, a graded lab challenge, or if it fits with the program, a culminating hackathon—where they can apply their training in practical application. Not only does this give the managers additional data, but it allows for greater knowledge retention with the employees, especially if there are supplementary resources available for them to refer back to, like short on-demand videos, or a knowledge base, to cement the learned concepts. Practice makes perfect.

3. Allow time for learning during work hours.

Managers must ensure there is time during the workday for training, learning, and practicing skills. It is not feasible to set the precedent that your employees learn and practice network automation while also managing their regular network engineering workload—at least not at the start of their automation journey. How can you as a manager ensure there are dedicated times where they can attend a virtual workshop, complete a challenge assignment, watch self-paced modules, or attend a five-day training and also complete their job tasks? Remember, with network automation training specifically, this training investment will result in more workplace efficiency and less human error, along with other gains, so the benefits of scheduling this time in the short term will pay off in the long run.

At NTC, our Network Automation Academy provides a hybrid approach to learning for the busy network engineer in a delivery format that allows for greater retention of skills—skills that will improve job performance.

We take the time to strategically align the training program to your team’s needs. We will hold interviews with your team(s) and uncover gaps in knowledge that the right type of enablement will rectify. For example, in our Strategic Architecture and Design Analysis process with our Professional Services offering, we evaluate where enablement would support and reinforce the use of new technologies and workflows and use that enablement to increase the adoption of network automation at your company.

We offer flexible/remote learning; our experienced instructors can go onsite to one location to teach our formal training, or stay virtual if your employees are scattered across the globe. Either way, students will receive our signature 50% lecture/50% lab format. With self-paced learning options and graded challenge assignments, the engineers won’t quickly forget what they learned in that formal course. We also started a Training Credits program in 2022, allowing managers to send their engineers to our public training courses in waves so they aren’t all away from their job tasks at the same time.

Lastly, for the busy engineering team that is unable to attend even a three- to five-day network automation course, NTC Academy will build custom self-paced learning modules diving deep into your company’s unique automation environment to educate all levels of automation users (users, contributors, developers) on the specific information they need to know to succeed in your organization. Complete with knowledge quizzes and challenge assignments to measure learning and comprehension success, these modules provide that sought-after flexibility to fit into the days of busy engineer workloads. With a live guided discussion held every other week, your employees will still have the opportunity for those instructor touchpoints to keep them moving forward on their automation journey.