Have a rant: The price of training

I need to rant about an HR manager who ranted about the price of training (Personnel Today, 24 January) and HR managers who (embarrassingly) lack any commercial know-how.

Your Ranter moaned about extortionate training quotes, but then said they’d obtained quotes from ‘about’ six executive coaches. Well? Was it six or wasn’t it? Did all six trainers charge travelling and/or preparation expenses? Did all six charge for drawing up a proposal or following it up several times by e-mail and phone? Perhaps some companies ought to take a little more responsibility for wasting so many people’s time, which, ultimately, has to be paid for by someone.

Self-employed trainers are not guaranteed work and, therefore, do not have employment security. Neither do they get paid holidays, maternity/paternity leave, paid sickness absence or any other benefits. They also have to pay for marketing, advertising, PR, websites, management accountants, IT hardware, software, and professional insurance.

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And they also have to allow in their budgeting for clients who quibble their bills after training has been delivered, cancel the training at short notice and keep changing the dates. And, most of all, they have to accommodate the inconvenience of dealing with HR managers who call them out just because they fancy six quotes instead of three.

So now what’s left of the easy-peasy £50K your Ranter said trainers earn for a lazy three-day week? Get real – and get commercial.