4 reasons why your training programs are more expensive than they need to be

Slashing your training budgets during tough times is always tempting, but its a galactically bad strategic move.

This is understandable when leaders don't see impact on the metrics that matter (revenue, productivity, customer satisfaction or talent retention) and people just keep doing the same things despite the training efforts.

But workload doesn't decrease during tough times especially on the heals of layoffs.

Cutting training reduces the ability of your team to execute at the exact time you need it more than ever.

And your recovery post downturn will be slowed by having underequipped and less effective team members.

I'm not suggesting you don't review your L&D investments, but instead of sweeping reactionary cuts in training time or personnel look at the drivers of ineffective training.

In other words, explore common reasons why your training efforts are ineffective and more costly than they should be.

SUSPECT 1

✅ Not having a Chief Learning Officer 

Not connecting your learning efforts to strategy and coordinating execution throughout the org with one central person who owns all learning efforts virtually guarantees a reduced return on investment.

Your training will become compliance focused efforts (read: tick-the-box) and be fractured across various teams.

You'll duplicate efforts and push training responsibility to individuals who aren't likely to understand effective approaches leave alone the overarching training strategy of the company.

Worse yet, you'll decouple training from supporting the organization and your mission, vision and values.

You'll have a patchwork quilt of training ranging from nothing at all to maybe good. And none of it will organized, cohesive or tied to the big picture goals.

All of this leads directly to increased cost and reduced impact on metrics that matter (revene, profit, customer satisfaction, retention, etc) 

SUSPECT 2

✅ Spreading training effort across teams 

When you don't elevate training responsibility to the C-suite or central figure in the organization, you end up with the common model of small corporate training team with people who deliver training at the team, district or branch level.

Those at the local level may be trainers or, far more likely, people pressed into a training role as one of many responsibilities.

Assuming the corporate team has the oversight and direct responsibility for the remote training groups it can work. 

More often than not, the corporate team is hamstrung by task saturation and the remote teams report locally which pulls them in different directions.

You end up with 12 different teams doing 12 different things, reporting to 12 different groups and the corporate team investing massive energy into herding cats. 

Might as well light a giant pile of cash on fire. 

This is why "training doesn't work" and the budget line item is a ripe target for across the board cuts.

SUSPECT 3

✅ Denying access to strategy or futurevision sessions. 

When your learning teams finds out about your new directions along with everybody else, it ensures they will be reactive.

If your new initiative needs training to execute it properly, it will take longer for them to respond, they're less likely to understand the key elements of the new push and the new effort will likely derail projects they already had in the pipeline.

Now your trainers are playing catchup instead of organically building the training in partnership with you as the new strategy evolved.

And you've robbed yourself of their council and feedback along the way. Feedback from people most connected to your front line staff and aware of processes & systems to make the new approach work.

You'll spend more money to achieve the desired result instead of just adding one more person to your meeting in the first place.

SUSPECT 4

✅ Leadership direction changing every time a new idea pops in their head 

You will instantly crush your training impact by rapid cycling through new directions.

I'm not saying don't pivot and respond to emergent market conditions.

Strategic shifts naturally undercuts the previous training to support your last great idea.

Further it causes everybody to scrap what they're working on currently.

You'll wreck morale and I can assure you those delivering training will just go through the motions to support the flavor of the minute.

You will waste loads of time and money as you pinball to and fro.

Pick a direction, stick with it, measure the impact and course correct.

Its way more glamorous to be frantically busy accomplishing nothing but pick a direction, develop a cohesive strategy that incorporates effective learning, execute and evaluate effectiveness. 

Course correct as needed.

The ROI will compound over time instead of eroding your bottom line. 

Those are 4 common reasons are why your training budget isn't impacting the bottom line and is a tempting target for cutbacks. 

Did you think I was going to say training team headcount and travel budgets?