You will hear an interview on small companies’ training for their staff.

You will hear an interview on small companies’ training for their staff.
For each question, 23-30, mark one letter (A, B or C)for the correct answer.
After you have listened once, replay the recording.
You have 45 seconds to read through the questions.
[pause]
Now listen, and mark A, B or C. [pause]
Woman: Today we have Karen Mitchell from Briston University. Welcome! Karen.
Man: Thank you.
Woman: So, Karen, most of your experience has been with the huge multinational Cleantex. And in fact you eventually ran their training department, didn’t you? But you recently studied training in small businesses. So what made you focus on small businesses?
Man: You see, I had been running a small business of my own for 8 years after I left Cleantex, which taught me more about training than all my years with Cleantex. And when I joined the university a year ago they wanted me to start a training programme for small businesses. But I thought I couldn’t base a training program on my experience alone. That’s why I decided to do research first.
Woman: It is thought that usually small companies do not spend as much as large ones training staff. So how much training did you find in most small companies?
Man: Although big businesses hold the belief that small businesses don’t have e-nough training, I have to say I find lots of training going on. It’s true that the government is encouraging small firms to increase their training budgets by introducing financial incentive for this. The real problem is that most small businesses don’t always know how much it’s actually costing them or how much training they’re providing.
Woman: Do small businesses have budgets and training records?
Man: Unfortunately most small companies don’t set aside a specific training budget. It’s not that they don’t want to spend the money but that they operate differently. You see, things change very quickly in small firms and it’s impossible to predict the training needs. An employee can be moved to a new project very suddenly and then training has to be organised within days. And most small businesses prefer to use their experienced staff to do any training on the job.
Woman: Did you manage to work out the costs of training?
Man: Well, most small business managers keep records of obvious costs in their calculations, such as travel expenses, external courses expenses, etc. But it is not that easy to work out the indirect costs. Most of them don’t include these costs in their calculations. Not many firms have specific training accounts and they don’t include the time managers spend on training, waste of materials, loss of productivity and so on. I spent hours with company accountants trying to see where these hidden costs were.
Woman: It is difficult to say how much small firms are spending on training, right?
Man: Yes. More than 50% of the firms I surveyed spent at least 3% of their annual salary bill on training. And some of these spent up to 5% of their pay roll. As a matter of fact smaller firms are investing on average over 10% more on training per employee than larger firms.
Woman: Are there some positive effects with the training?
Man: It’s a usual practice that small firms usually have an experienced employee show new staff how to do that job. This can be useful if the person himself is cautiously selected and well-trained. But it’s not really enough. The trainee needs to do the job with the experienced employee on hand for guidance and feedback. This gets trainees much better skills than any packaged courses.
Woman: Well, your study seems perfectly productive. But how has it helped you plan new courses for small businesses?
Man: I now appreciate what they need and how they expect it to be achieved. Small firms were only investing in training if it instantly helped their enterprise. They want direct results from training in skills they need now. They can’t plan far ahead. But most formal training focuses on long-term business needs. So new technologies and IT skills are identified as a priority by all the firms I surveyed.
Woman: And what do you think is the first course the university should offer small businesses?
Man: So far most of short courses for companies in general have dealt with helping businesses grow. These aren’t really appropriate for small companies as growth can be very risky for them. They obviously need to grow but they’re afraid of fast growth. So I’m going to start with courses on IT and software the small companies are likely to require because of the business growth to come later. And they’ll need to be changed to make them more relevant to small businesses.
Woman: OK, I wish you a great success with the course. Well, I’m afraid we’ll have to finish there. Thank you so much for talking to us today.