Training Budgets Have a Big Impact

Just recently I have met several trainers who are struggling to cope with a shrinking training budget. Fair enough, you might think. Everyone is having to trim the budget across all areas of any company. But have senior managers thought through the consequences of reducing the training budget?

As a training resources developer, I have to admit to some self-interest in this, because when budgets shrink we aren't called in to help. There are, however, more critical issues to the slash and burn across the board when it reaches the training budget. Short term consequences from chopping a training budget:

• The trainer has more training to do with fewer tools
• Trainers become stretched, stressed and perform less efficiently
  
• Fewer qualified trainers are brought in to raise the skill base of employees
• Normal regular training is done less often
• The trainer is left making value-decisions between competing, equally-valuable training needs

The long term consequences have a greater impact:

• Their commitment to training wanes and the malaise spreads to other staff
• The general skill level of employees starts to sink
• Employees begin making errors of judgment because they don't remember 'how'
• When work picks up there is a huge and expensive backlog to catch-up and become competitive
  

By comparison to the rest of a company's budget training is a small percentage, yet in times of retrenchment the value of training increases the likelihood of survival for the company (and sometimes the employees). The brave and future-focused company seizes the downturn to train, train train.

Edutech KM was recently involved in developing a new training program to increase productivity on manufacturing sites. The project aimed to give supervisory employees an increased understanding of what makes a company profitable, and of course, to apply that understanding at work. It was a radical departure from the usual training undertaken in the industry. Part of the course required trainees to address a production issue on their work site. The potential savings estimated from solving these issues was staggering.

Naturally the ITO that sponsored the program wanted to find out if the training program worked. The ITO undertook to investigate some of the results from solving the issues. It was an easy demonstration of ROI for training investment. You can read a three-screen summary of the course design and link to the three case studies where a definite ROI was established.

I'm probably preaching to the converted if you're a trainer, but these case studies, courtesy of FITEC, could give power to your arm if you're trying to make a case to restore your training budget. We can certainly talk to you about ways to maximise what you do have.