The success of a company can be determined by how well your employees are trained. According to the Training Industry Report 2016, on average, a training budget for a small company with approximately 200 employees amounts to AU$235,000 annually. This means that the average cost per employee is AU$1,175. Overall, that’s not a lot to invest in the growth and compliance of your team.
Well-trained workers make less mistakes, and training improves their dedication and personal trust because they feel respected and appreciated in the workplace. By having engaged employees, you can increase productivity and retention, decrease the need for supervision, reduce absenteeism, minimise staff turnover, and boost sales.
Unfortunately, in a bad economy, a lot of businesses consider employee development to be an unnecessary expense. But while cutting your training budget can seem like the logical thing to do, stop and think about its long-term implications, as they can far outweigh the immediate costs saved.
However, there are many ways to reduce the costs involved with training programs whilst still delivering your employees with the training they need to do their jobs efficiently.
Online learning can be the most significant factor in managing the balance between training quality and training cost. Online training is a scalable way of making training materials accessible to many workers in different locations. They will get the most up-to-date information and training in an interactive way, whenever they need it, to suit their schedules. With minimal effort from training administrators, online learning can be streamlined which means, each unit of training is delivered in less time with less costs involved. Moving to an online learning format, time and effort are saved, and the return-on-investment is significant.
Any training that isn’t linked to strategic priorities, employee competencies, or can show strong value should be the first to go. We’re not suggesting that such training isn’t valuable; however, when training budgets are limited, decisions must be taken. Compliance training and training specifically related to strategic objectives – such as sales to drive revenue, service to attract customers or processes to increase performance and minimise errors – must be protected. Prioritising training for the benefit of your employees as well as the company ensures that you are spending your training budget efficiently.
While looking at lowering training costs, another way to combat training budget cuts is to further demonstrate the benefits. Higher returns aid in the preservation of higher investments. As much of the training programmes as possible should be able to monitor on-the-job results and show the importance of new skills or behaviours.
Learning management systems can provide your employees with the training they need to be compliant in their jobs. At INX, we are dedicated to ensuring you have complete visibility over your training programs to manage your people skills in a cost-effective manner.
Find out more about our INX Training Solution here.
