Delivering The Training Employees Need At Prices Executives Want

(Published February 16, 2009)

 

Reprinted from PERSONNEL LEGAL ALERT, a widely read employment law newsletter that keeps HR executives up-to-date on the latest court cases, legal trends, government regulations, and federal legislation that affect the policies you write and procedures you administer. 

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When companies need to cut corners, one of the first things executives slash is the training budget.  When that happens, it's time for HR to get creative.

 

The Benefits

Start by determining which training is must-have and which is nice-to-have.  Must-have training is that which is mandated by federal, state, and/or industry regulations, such as sexual harassment or safety.  Other must-have training can include training that is not legally mandated, but is beneficial in preventing or defending against legal claims.

 

To assess the importance of continuing to provide training programs that aren't mandatory, consider:

• the risks of not providing the program; 
  
  
• how quickly the skill set being taught will become dated; 
  
  
• how essential the program is to the company's success; and 
  
  
• the impact on employee morale and retention. 

You can use these same factors to determine whether there is a training program that the company should be adding.

 

The Costs

Once decisions are made as to which training programs will be continuing, next determine ways of cutting the costs of those programs. 

• Be selective in who gets trained.  Instead of training the whole company or a whole department, it might be enough to just train managers, supervisors, and maybe a few key employees who could then, in turn, pass on what they've learned.  Tip: If training a large number of individuals is unavoidable, look for volume discounts.  
  
  
• Prepare the material in-house.  Instead of purchasing a canned training session, put one together internally.  The Internet is packed with free resources.  For example, some universities place free training courses online.  Microsoft offers free online tutorials for its software.    
  
  
• Present the material yourself, instead of contracting with an outside trainer.  If no one in HR is qualified to present the material, look elsewhere in-house before looking outside.  An IT manager, for example, might have the skills needed to teach a new computer program.
  
  
• Reduce the frequency of training sessions.  Instead of conducting training twice a year, do it once a year, and provide written materials that participants can refer to as needed.
  
  
• Forgo travel in favor of online web conferences and seminars, which allow you to cut out transportation, hotel, and meal costs.
  
  
• Adopt a no-frills approach.  Skip the catered lunches, and treat mid-training lunch breaks as a regular lunch break — employees are on their own.  
  
  You probably also can do without the glossy handouts, the graphics-filled slides, etc.  Keep it simple.   
      
• Explore alternative training methods, such as mentoring or job shadowing.

Personal Pause

Whenever you make changes to a legally mandated training program, check that the changes do not render the program non-compliant.  California, for instance, mandates that sexual harassment training be conducted by a "subject matter expert" (SME); you may have no choice but to hire an outside trainer if none of your staff qualifies as an SME.

 

Related Topic(s): Training