It seems that every time I turn on the news on read a newspaper, I'm hearing gloomy news about the economy. Several companies that I have visited recently have told me that whilst they are quite confident about the next few months, they are not so sure what the future holds and therefore are going to tighten the belt. One of the first things to get slashed in these hard economic times is their training budget. Is your Company thinking on the same lines?

Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks & Spencer, Richard Lambert, director general of the CBI and Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC are among the many high profile business figures who have told employers that, while they may be tempted to cut back on training as a result of the credit crunch, this is actually the worst thing they could do. In an open letter signed by these and other leading business figures, they warned that cutting spending on staff training when times are tough is a “false economy”, adding that those firms which don't train staff are 2.5 times more likely to fail than those that do.

A stark warning indeed! But what can you do when the budget is tight and you need to reduce expenditure? In this newsletter, I will share some of my (more festive) thoughts on this issue and cover some practical tips on how to make your training budget go further.

Best wishes,

Annette

annette.handford@hja-consulting.com

Flourish Festive Thoughts

Your business has been urged not to slash staff training budgets in an effort to cut costs during the economic downturn. Looking for some positives amongst all this gloom and doom, I found the following more positive points:

• From the experience of previous downturns, it was the businesses that did invest in their staff which saw the most dynamic recovery
• Investing in new skills will put your business in the strongest position as the economy recovers
• Research from the Cranfield School of Management shows that it is cheaper and more effective to ‘grow your own' employees rather than shop around for talent
• Almost half of small and medium businesses that develop in house talent noted a cost saving, 20% recorded improved staff motivation, and 45% increased employee retention. (Source: Crimson Business Ltd. 2008)
• One of the big financial institutions that has just had a huge Government grant has just announced substantial ‘retention bonuses' to keep its most talented staff recognising that skills and experience are crucial to their current financial survival.

So, I conclude from all of this research that now is precisely the time to keep investing in the skills and talents of your people.

How Can You Make Your Training Budget go Further?

Here are five things you can think about:

• Focus on nurturing and growing home talent – it's cheaper than recruiting people with the skills that you are looking for. This means developing employees to achieve business goals and growing their potential talent to meet your growth (or survival) plans. But you can do this without spending lots of money. You can try in-house training, employee coaching, staff mentoring and job enrichment to stretch employees with new tasks.
• Concentrate more on in-house training and sharing good practice. It is amazing what your current staff know and can share with colleagues. I have been to a primary school in Oxfordshire recently that has a very limited training budget. They have used this effectively by sending just one member of staff on a crucial literacy course and then asked that teacher to share what she had learnt with her colleagues so that all of the staff were brought up to speed.
• Don't assume that someone who has some skills and knowledge will automatically be able to pass this on to another colleague. This simply isn't true. Did any of you have driving lessons with a relative (like me – sorry Dad) – my experience of this was awful. I also remember a midwife going through how to give birth in an ante-natal class who got things mixed up; it was a good job that I had taken NCT classes! It is therefore really important to make sure that those who are training others in the workplace have the skills and abilities to be able to do so effectively, and whilst this is true at anytime, in the current climate this is crucial. Read on more to get help with this!
• Know what you're getting. If you have no alternative other than to send people on external training, make sure that you and they know exactly what they will be getting from that course. Are there learning objectives for the course that tell you what you can expect as an outcome? To make sure that the course is not seen simply as a ‘jolly', make sure that you follow-up after the training to find out what your colleague has learnt and how they will put it into practice. If you would like my free guide on how to pre and de-brief staff before and after training – you can download this from the resources page of my website or contact me for guidance.
• If you haven't done so already, sign-up to working on Investors in People. It provides an excellent and proven framework to ensure that your training is linked to the achievement of business goals and pushes you to evaluate what you are doing to ensure that your investment in staff learning and development is making a return. Want to know more? Please email me at annette.handford@hja-consulting.com.

What Can You do Next?

As a minimum, make sure that you have developed the skills of people in the workplace to train others. You can book people on my ‘Train the Trainer' workshop:

Wednesday 21 January 2009 – Sudbury House Hotel, Faringdon – cost £180 + VAT per person (discounts for multiple bookings)

Click here to download an information sheet - select Train the Trainer from the list.

Go on – make your training budget go further – you know it makes sense!